Porkchops! And Coconut Milkless Curry

Bad day. I'll be going away for college, which means .. no cooking. Well, less cooking. More like a weekend thing which saddens me. Then again, I can always cook in the dorm's kitchen. But aside from that, dinner was good.


Weird mix of food, but hey, I liked it (that doesn't say much). Seared slightly pink pork chop with onion, coriander, cumin, spring onion - a couscous with cherry tomatoes, garlic, and feta - and a little spicy Korean cucumber salad (pickles!). I know it sounds really bizarre but it was quite good, could have had a little less coriander but not bad for my first time cooking with coriander.

Well, last night, while watching The F Word, I saw saw curry, and I thought to myself, why not try it? I had never made curry before, I was missing coconut milk and like 2 other ingredients but like the person I am, I got up and made it anyway. So, I whipped up some shrimp-curry-without-coconut-milk (I will be damned by the curry gods one day) and threw in shrimp instead of chicken and some potatoes. Turned out quite good. Instead of coconut milk, I added heavy cream. I just don't know what to do with that tiny pint of heavy cream, it has been in the fridge for like 2 weeks already. Maybe I'll make a cheesecake or a potato gratin or something. Hmm, cheesecake cupcakes. Innovative? Or plain ol' crazy?


Not the most appetizing looking thing due to my camera-phone.

The Dragon Roll

So, I made a dragon roll, scratch that, a horrible downgraded version of a dragon roll. (crap basically) Originally, it's supposed to be sushi rice on the outside, nori on the inside, with unagi (eel), shrimp, cucumber (I think), and with avacado thinly sliced and fanned on the top drizzled with teriyaki sauce and roe.

Here is what a dragon roll should look taken from BBC's 4Food Channel.

I love Gordon Ramsay, by the way. So, here's what I made.(excuse the paper work)


Here's what it should more-or-less look like.


'nuff said, I'm going to go crawl under a rock. But with that said, it didn't taste too bad. It tasted good actually. Something about the creamy texture of avocados balances out with the taste of nori. I absolutely adore it. I'm going to appreciate my sushi a tad bit more.

I'm looking for arugula but for some reason, the farmer's market is always out of them. Nonetheless, I can still make a basil, mozzarella, grilled chicken and cherry tomato panini. And store-bought crisps are so overrated, so I'll make my own. I'm sticking with plantain crisps. Crisps are just so easy to make, take your peeler or a mandolin if you're fancy, and start shaving away. Canola oil, drop the strips in and you have freshly fried chips (I'm going to start baking them with olive oil). Lot cheaper and you know what's basically in it. So why do I use plantains? My boyfriend is Dominican and during the time when we first met, I went to his house and I saw a green plantain. I thought to myself, why would you eat a green plantain? How do they even look like? Well I think of it like a potato, its starchy, easily cut and you can do basically anything with it. I love em.

And .. a healthy snack, thats my goal each day. To squeeze in some horse food. Blueberry yogurt, with some bitter sweet chocolate and some bran on top (surprisingly good).

Meat and Potatoes at Night, Horse Food in the Morning

So, I felt guilty for eating meat and potatoes last night (no I don't) and I saw an episode of "You Are What You Eat" and felt like I lacked a bit of fruit in my life. So I decided to start off the day healthy with a bit of horse food. Well not technically horse food, but bran. Ech, bran. Tasteless, brown little turdlets. I just want to grind em up and make a breadcrumb out of them. Okay, well it's not that bad but turns out, if you just add a little color to it, it doesn't look so bad.


Horse food never looked or tasted so good. And for those of you who are wondering what I had last night.


You're wondering what that white stuff on the beef is. Its feta cheese. I saw some lovely corn in the farmer's market and decided, why not? A little someone in the house took them and boiled them (how dare you boil corn). So I said to myself, why not roast them on an open fire? So I made a little corn salad, paired up with some cherry tomatoes (I love cherry tomatoes) with cilantro and a squirt of lime juice (I wonder what else I threw in there). On the side was just a potato thingy sauteed with curry. And lastly a piece of seared cheap beef (I don't even know what part of the cow) with feta cheese. I wish I lived near a butcher, a nice filet would have tasted good.

I ended the afternoon with a nice hummus. Its the first time I tried hummus and my god it was amazing (sprinkled a little feta on top). I had no pita bread so I just thinly sliced some bread I had lying around and toasted it (I know, disgraceful aren't I?). But hopefully, next time I make hummus I'll pair it up with some roasted bell peppers, basil and some feta cheese. Mmm.

Edit: How to make hummus (as if I'm an expert, but here's how I made it)

1 can of chickpeas
1 squirt of lemon juice
a couple tablespoons of olive oil (till its smooth)
1 teaspoon of cumin
Crumbled feta cheese on the side

I tried to blend it all together with my blender (I have no food processor here), but that didn't work out, so I just ground it up with a big bowl and spoon. Incorporated the olive oil slowly, added the lemon juice and cumin. Spread it pretty and there ya go.

The Pressure's On.

7:00am, the alarm calls and at 5:00pm, I find out that I have a newspaper to finish within 3-5 days. The pressure is on isn't it? I think I whine about Calculus AP enough in school, so I'll whine about other things here; like cold lunch food in the cafeteria and people that don't say excuse me when they bump into you(by the way, isnt that irritating?). I'd love for this to be a total food blog but quite frankly, I have no camera and the majority of the foods that I eat are ... disgusting and processed (but I secretly love it to an extent). Well, a friend of mine is taking the SATs this Saturday (its like a standardized test on steroids) and I volunteered to cook breakfast. She requested a "bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich," you know, those crappy ones at the corner stores filled with grease, and I almost vomited on my paper. Why would you want to eat that for a test? It's gross. So! I was thinking of something that fills the soul but won't clog all of one's arteries. BACON IT IS! So eat well, sleep good, and we shall meet again, probably with a more interesting story.