Rendang Padang, and My Rant...

I feel so lucky sometimes, to find out what I want to do with my life. People ask me, why do I love to cook, and to be honest, I can't answer that. Do I cook stuff so I can post it on the blog? Not necessarily. My reason to cook goes way beyond that. My blog is just one of so many ways to kill boredom. Do I cook because I have to? Not really. I'm at the point where what I cook at home, doesn't satisfy my passion anymore. I want to do something more. Something beyond my knowledge. Something totally new. If I get to choose what I want to do with my life, I want to be in the kitchen 24/7, with several potty breaks when needed. (Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point) I cook, simply because I like it. Strange, I know. But I'm the kind of person who does shit just because. I wish the question "what inspires you to cook?" could stay unanswered. If you want something that resembles an answer, how about this, I'm blinded by love.

I've been talking about going back to school a lot, up to the time it feels like I'm just bluffing. Well, it's quite hard for middle-class family like us who are still improving our life. It's just sad that we're too poor to afford childcare, but yet we make too much to get childcare benefit. This has been worrying me for the past couple years, I've decided to stop overthinking shit and make a move. So I applied to culinary school and applied for the financial aid. Just wish me luck.

With so many instant spices available, what I could've done was bought the rendang instant spice package and cook it. But I hate shortcut. Not because, "Ooh, shortcut is for loser blahblah. I'm fancy. I'm cool, that's why I make things from scratch. Shortcut doesn't taste as good as homemade." Nope. It's just because I like making things from scratch, it's for personal satisfaction. I just love the act of cooking. It makes me feel good. This is my vice.

Lemon Bars

 

The weather has been lovely. The kiddie pool is out, actually used as a pool with "real water" instead of a makeshift tent with blankets and pillows. Time to ditch the jackets and the boy is so happy he can finally wear sleeveless shirts. Somehow, summer days make me think of lemon bars. Perhaps it's the lemon, with its yellow, sunshine-y color, resembles an oval sun. Or it's just me trying to find an excuse to share this lemon bars with you through my blog...

I'd never thought I would love fruity baked goods. But lemon bars are different. To me, it's like eating sour brownies with shortbread base. Darn it, you know what? I'll just be honest with you. I love the shortbread base so much, sometimes I scrape off the lemon curd, save it for later, and just eat the cookie part. Not that the curd isn't tasty, I'm just that kind of a weirdo. I will also say, that the curd is so chewy, I wanna marry it.

Rhubarb Curry

I've seen rhubarb in both farmer's market and grocery store but honestly, I wouldn't know what to do with this red, celery-lookalike vegetable. The first time I tasted it, it was at the rhubarb potluck Brook from Learn to Preserve invited me to (thanks, Brook!). While I'd had never cooked with rhubarb before, I offered to bring some pandan cake. They had this spread of all rhubarb goodies, and my favorite were the rhubarb ketchup and rhubarb jelly. Enjoying rhubarb with some of the nicest people in Seattle was a blast. I went as a rhubarb virgin and came home as a rhubarb lover.

Then out of nowhere, I started to imagine how good it would be to have strips of rhubarb in red curry, instead of bamboo shoots. Went home with one mission, to try this brilliant idea of mine (most ideas are brilliant until proven silly). Well, lucky for me, I liked it. The tartness of the rhubarb, spicy curry and cubed chicken complements each other so well.

Fun with Pho

When we used to live in Beacon Hill, we went out for pho at least once every 2 weeks. One of the perks of living in south Seattle is the abundance of Asian grocery stores and eateries. Actually, I still shop for groceries there. I don't know what stop us from going out for pho, but we haven't been out for pho in the longest time. The joy of eating pho at home is we get to choose whatever we want. While I like less noodles and more herbs, my husband is the otherwise. I think that could be the reason why we haven't been going to pho restaurant.

  

Most people associate chicken soup with being sick and needing nourishment. That's how we look at pho. When Seattle's weather isn't being kind to us, we like to have a bowl of pho. The cinnamon scented broth and the noodles cooked just right, with slightly cooked beef slices and crunchy beansprouts, that must be better than medicine, yes?

 We love pho so much, we even made this pho cake, made out of cake and fondant.

Baked Pork Buns, My BUNdle of Joy

I have a confession to make. My favorite meat to cook with is pork. As boring as it sounds, I make pork stewed in soy sauce at least once every 2 weeks. For variation, sometimes pork belly is used or pork feet for that gelatinous texture. I don't know why, the first day of pork stew, it's still good just eaten with steamed rice. The second day, I started to get the itching to make something else out of it. And most of the time, I relented and make pork buns using the leftovers.

Instead of steaming them as usual, I baked them.

Updated Corn Fritters, Crispier and Better

Is there any food that you loathe as a child, but grow to love? I have a lot. One of them is corn fritter. Growing up, corn fritter made by my mom's helper wasn't the best. While she is a great cook (she's still working for my mom until today, that makes it 16 years!), her corn fritter is always soggy, oily and whenever you eat them, it leaves this unpleasant oily film inside your mouth. Being the most loyal member of clean-your-plate club, it always perturbed when I had to leave this lumpy disk of doughy corn on my plate.

A decade later, I'm so far away from home. Yet, I crave the food that I used to hate. Sometimes, the homesickness is so strong, I even miss food that I've never had. Last year, the corn fritter came to me in my dream. No, I'm not being funny, it sure did. After calling my mom for the recipe, she just told me the ingredients, with no details of the measurement at all. So there I was in the kitchen, guessing how much each ingredient I need to make this corn fritter. The first try came out too familiar, soggy and oily. So I decide to put more corn in the mixture. While most people looooove the doughy fritter, I adore crispy fritter. And the fact that I cheated and used frozen corn paid off. The corn kernels stay crunchy, while the fresh corn kernels turn mushy.

Simple Sambal, but It Will Burn Your Mouth

My love of spicy food can be dated back to when I was a 2-yr-old. I'm not talking about Sriracha-spicy. I'm talking about real, fiery, burn-your-mouth kind of spicy. My mom used to joke, it's because I'm a tiger, to maintain my fierceness, I have to consume copious amount of spicy chilies. She also said that is why I'm so impatient, bold, crude and barbaric yet ambitious. And she thinks all that qualities, if I polish myself quite nicely, it will actually help me to get further in life (yeah, hopefully..)

My son also loves spicy food. He can handle his chilies better than most adults I know. We make sambal once a month, and it'll last us exactly that long. While he likes sambal oelek, nothing compares to the homemade one. We can tinker with it, make it as spicy as we like. I don't know how he gets this way. All I remember was he wanted to try some sambal when he was 1.5 years old. Let him try a dab, since then, he's hooked. Of course I make sure to throw away the chili seeds. That's the culprit to the burning sensation in your mouth. After awhile, no-seeds sambal is too weak for him. So I leave just enough seeds in our sambal.

Sambal to us is like pesto to most people. You can slather it on any protein you have. Or slow cooked eggplants in it. We do lots of things with it. Very versatile. Sometimes I just want to bathe in it (uh, not a good idea, of course, it will sting you like no other!) The neat thing about homemade sambal is, you can control the heat.

It makes me miss home, where you can just fold your legs up, with a plate of hot steaming rice in front of you. At this point, who needs eating utensils? As barbaric as it sounds, it does taste better that way. You can feel each grain of rice between your fingertips. The burning sensation of the chili seeds against your skin. You're using all five senses to eat. Just don't rub your eyes.......