Today was spent recovering from yesterday. Not that a lot of drinking went on. But melon vodka cruiser does look a little radioactive. So today was really quiet, I just stayed at home watching episodes of Gilmore Girls and shopping for ingredients for my Japanese cooking . Shopping for ingredients proved to be a bit difficult.I spent an hour looking for hondashi and dried fish stock. I thought they were the same thing. So I pick up this little powdered box that tells me that it is bonito dried fish stock. I though cool now all I need is hondashi. So I rush home to google it to see what it actually was and then I see a picture of the exact box that I had bought. So I was confused. Were they the same thing? Then I flick through the book and find a recipe for dried fish stock which is made from water, kombu seaweed and bonito fish. This wasn't my only shopping confuson either. There were so many different types of soy sauce. How does soy sauce differ from soybean sauce or Japanese soy sauce? In the end I gave up and purchased some this bottle of sauce that said shoyu on it but when I went to open it smelt sort of alcoholic and I didn't want to stomach it. So my day turned out a little more eventful then I thought it did.

I often miss my time in Japan, I want to go back to Japan. I miss the atmosphere and the buzz I got from it. Mostly I miss the food. So I decided to do some Japanese cooking in order to calm my food cravings. The thing I love about this easy Japanese cooking book (despite its typos) is that the contents page consists of photos of all the dishes. So if one was really lazy they would not have to flick through all the pages to see which one looked the most appetising. First on the list was tofu udon. The last time I made udon noodles I overcooked them until they become bloated. But this time they were perfect. All the effort it took to make my own dried fish stock was worth it. And I added my mum's red peppers to it so it was the perfect mix of spicy and salty. It made the tofu taste fantastic. I can't wait to have it again tomorrow. It was pretty yummy. And the tofu can be replaced with tempura or fish cakes. So I will definitely try that next time.

I did have a nasty surprise though, I had the stock boiling away and then I added the hondashi and I was pouring it out onto the tbsp over the stock and I lost control of the pouring out and the hondashi fell into the pot and the water just boiled straight over the sides bubbling away. Like a catalyst experiment gone wrong. I think now that all the hard work is over, eating leftovers will be so much more fun!

I had not planned on eating anything healthy today, but today was pizza day at work. I think if you go to the gym, you should be able to go home and eat unhealthy food. But the line at the Thai restaurant was too long. So I get home from the gym to find my cupboard empty. Faced with the choice of going back to the supermarket for some food, standing in line or eating canned tuna. At the time, canned tuna seemed to be the right answer. I think canned tuna with mayo and crackers would have tasted so much better. It's not that this tasted terrible. To be specific it was the beans. I bought canned butter beans. It sounds nice but they don't taste like butter and they have a weird texture. Luckily, I will not have to cook tomorrow. The challenge of cooking is starting to wear on me. It's not very spontaneous. I don't come home and go "ohhh I feel like chicken tonight". Instead on Sunday I've usually planned to eat chicken. Just seems like a chore.

My candles are fantastic. One moment my house smelled like chopped garlic and parsley (which does not smell that nice). The next it smells like green tea and cucumber. Works better than those air freshner sprays.

When I saw the word chimichurri I thought it sounded spicy and possibly even with some tomatoes. But it was not what I expected. Instead it tasted like garlic and lemon (even though there was no lemon in it) and parsley. So I googled it, and chimichurri is an Argentinian sauce for grilled meat. A bit of garlic, pepper, onion and parsley. Not the sort of ingredients I would usually think to eat together. Especially since I didn't think people actually ATE parsley. It has a very strong flavour. I have no idea wheather I liked it or not. I'm confused. Which is great because I spent all of today confused. Not a great look for work.

Finally! It has rained in Brisbane. It's been cloudy for 2 days now with the promises of showers. Twice I've carried an umbrella and twice I have been denied. It rained heavily for about 5 minutes and now it has subsided to a drizzle or a drip. One of the things I do not like about Brisbane is the lack of rain which sort of explains the drought. Also the fact that it doesn't storm with the lightning and thunder. Everytime it has rained the rain lasts about 5 minutes. I've never actually timed it, but I think that's a fair guess. I miss rain. I miss falling asleep to the sound of rain tapping on your window.

I'm in a bit of a funk. Hence the confusion of my taste buds (I think I'm coming down with a cold). Right now all I can taste is chimichurri sauce. That stuff is leathal. So here is a tip: never eat chimichurri sauce if you have a romantic evening planned. Hahaha. But I like the fact that it had a flavour and it was nice to try steak with something other than gravy. I think I'm starting to appreciate the taste of garlic more and more. Although I really should learn to halve all portions of garlic in future recipes so that I don't have to go to bed with breath that smells like what I had for dinner. I will most likely have to brush my teeth three times to get rid of the taste.

Looks boring I know. Everything is of the yellow-white variety. I was supposed go and buy some salad but after walking down 35 flights of stairs for a fire drill I was not that keen on walking an extra 10 metres to buy some leafy green stuff to add to the burger. But since I felt like it needed something other than meat I added some corn sautéed in garlic and butter. Plus I had 2 V8 juice things, so I think that counts as my servings of veg and fruit anyway. And then I served the chicken cutlet with some mustard and cheese on the bun.

Although it looks quite boring I think that meat or fish can taste really nice and all that it needs is lemon, butter and garlic. So a tip, for when you're broke and want to eat something other than instant noodles but still require something with taste.

I was sent this link today: man drought. I found the statistic at the end the most scientific. It has to be true! Hahaha. How many 15 year olds do you know currently earning more than $70,000? And if you read the comments, more than half are by men (supposedly very nice men) who think that women are too picky and have Cinderella complexes demanding men who earn $70,000 a year and look like Brad Pitt. Which I thought was really funny. So ladies, better start looking for a single man because apparently they're becoming a dying breed.

P.S. note my mulberry candle.

[edit] I think I was too harsh on this yesterday, so I have re-rated the taste. I think it must taste nicer after it has marinated in the lemon and butter sauce for a little longer. So it tasted amazing today. I mopped up the rest of the sauce with the remainder of the bread.

This weekend has been very uneventful for me. But I am happy with my purchase of these candles. This one is a cucumber and green tea. It smelt amazing, really gets rid of the smell of chicken, and it lingers even after you blow the candle out. I've also got a mulberry candle too, which I can't wait to light up now. Also as a treat I bought myself some cookies from Mrs Fields. I really like the butter toffee cookie.

My previous attempts at frying chicken have always involved those southern-fried chicken shake mix things. This was the first time that I made the mix myself (some flour, salt, paprika and pepper). I had planned on making this yesterday but it wasn't until I had taken all the ingredients out that I read the recipe which said to marinate the chicken in the buttermilk mixture for 12 to 24 hours. So that turned out to be a bit of bummer.

I was a bit worried about how the chicken would turn out because this morning as I was making buttermilk pancakes I licked some buttermilk off my fingers and it doesn't taste anything like it sounds. I thought it would taste like really sweet milk. Instead it tasted like sour milk with a thick consistency. Not that the pancakes tasted sour. So maybe once it's cooked the composition of buttermilk changes, and that is why it doesn't taste sour.

I don't think I've ever had really bad fried chicken, how can anything fried be wrong? Marinating the chicken in buttermilk though made it really moist and juicy compared to unmarinated chicken. The only problem is that I never seem to be able to coat the chicken in enough flour. Not like KFC coats their chicken anyway. I squeezed a little lemon on the chicken and had the fried chicken with some pasta. But fried chicken also tastes great on its own. At home, my mum makes fried chicken with pasta. So that's my reasoning.

I don't think I've ever eaten lentils before. Since Ruth can't eat gluten she has been eating these gluten-free snacks with lentils in them, and they smelt really good so I thought I would try lentils to see what they tasted like. The recipe says "French green lentils" but I just bought "lentils" and I'm not quite sure what the difference is. They did not smell like the ones in Ruth's snack.

Although I allowed it to simmer for the amount of time, but it still had way too much liquid in compared to the photo in the book. Also the photo looks less tomato-y then mine, so I think I may have added too many tomatoes. This would also explain with it was so sour and salty tasting. So this really did not suit my taste buds at all. So mostly I tried to swallow it down with a lot of bread. And lentils don't have a taste at all. I definitely prefer beans or chickpeas to lentils.

Cooking time: 1 hour (way too long to wait for something that I will unfortunately still be eating tomorrow)

When I was flicking through this book this recipe probably appealed to me the least and I probably would not have cooked it if Nigella did not suggest serving the scallops and chorizo with this recipe. I've never eaten chickpeas before, at least no knowingly, so I was a little dubious about how they would taste (understatement). I've also never had sherry before so again I had no idea what that would taste like.

This salad probably tasted a little more filling them most salads. Chickpeas taste a bit like beans but a little nutty or buttery. I can't really describe it. I thought they would be quite hard, but they were actually very soft and easy to eat. I wasn't sure about the cream sherry and I did not want more ingredients I'll never use again sitting around I bought red wine vinegar instead. All I know about sherry is that it's a sweet wine. But now I will never know what it tastes like. I read a few forums which suggested it would be okay to substitute it with anything from red wine to red wine vinegar. So I don't think it would have tasted too differently with sherry.

I don't know if the two recipes really went together. But then again I'm pretty clueless as to what really goes with what. If it hadn't been for Nigella's suggestion I would have probably tried to eat the scallops and chorizo with pasta. Probably without tomato sauce because that would overpower the taste of the chorizo. (I have learned something from the previous recipe).

But here's to not judging a recipe by it's picture (or it's name). Because chickpeas and rocket taste a lot better than I would have expected just by looking at the picture. And I'm sure vegetarians would like it.

Currently listening to "Simple man" by Graham Nash. Just finished watching "Reign over me" with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle and this was the song in the opening credits. So I downloaded the album and I really like it. A nice break from watching the Olympics.

I've never eaten scallops outside of a restaurant before, let alone cook them. I should have probably read TNBR first, because they mention that scallops cook really quickly and you want them to have a nice crust while still being tender (translucent) on the inside. Although the recipe said to fry for about 1 minute on each side I think the heat was too high so the scallops were a little tough on the inside (i.e. I once again overcooked).

I really like the taste of chorizo. The garlic, salt and hot paprika make the sausage so tasty. The scallops were cooked in the chorizo-oil, but I wish there had been more oil so that it would be tastier. Sounds gross now that I've said it like that.

As you can see I have stopped bothering to garnish my meals with parsley. Parsley does have a taste and I'm sure it's supposed to do more than decorate but every single recipe says to garnish with parsley. Parsley is sold in a huge bundle and in order to use it all before its use by date I'd have to cover the entire plate in parsley, which seems sort of pointless because then it wouldn't be a garnish anymore.

This will be the last of the tuna recipes for a while I think. My favourite tuna recipe was definitely the sesame-crusted tuna steaks since it had the most flavour. I think I should have served the grilled tuna with something with a more subtle taste than pasta with a strong tomato flavour. The tomato sauce overpowered the tuna so that I could barely taste the herbs (thyme, lemon, garlic and peppers). This just made the tuna seem very bland in comparison. This could be because I am getting tired of eating fish!

Maybe this fish wasn't meant to be served with pasta. I think the problem with a lot of these recipes is that they are probably meant to be eaten alone but I don't like eating food that way unless all the food groups are all mixed together. For me a meal is not complete without bread/pasta/rice. I will rarely eat meat on it's own unless I'm at a BBQ and the only time I'm going to eat vegetables on their own (of my own free will) is if I'm flat broke and that's the only thing left in my fridge.

Even my photo looks so uninspired. It just left me with very little enjoyment or self-satisfaction in a job well done. Maybe I'm being too hard on it. Since it was not exactly inedible and I have eaten my share of things I consider to be inedible. I just did not feel motivated to continue eating. Good thing I took some leftover Chinese food home so I will have something different to eat tomorrow and not have to worry about cooking for a while.

This meal pretty much sums up my day. It was uninspired and did not leave me wanting more. *sighs* Maybe I have hit a wall.

One of the things I remember about food technology in high school was carrying place mats, figurines, napkins, candles and/or vases of fake flowers to school so that we could be marked on our table setting as well as our cooking. So I decided to add a little something to my photo today. The other thing I remember was the time spent washing up (i.e. rinsing in soapy water and then clean water). If I ever washed the dishes like that at home, my dad would rewash the dishes.

Today was a public holiday for the Brisbane metropolitan area so I decided to eat something healthy today since I spent some time this morning at the gym (quite a few people there actually) and then watched our Australian athletes win a few more medals in the pool. It motivated me to be a little kinder to my body.

I don't usually eat salads but this salad was very nice. Tuna and avocado complement each other very well (I heart avocado and tuna sushi), the sesame seeds and lime-soy-tabasco sauce combination add a little zing to the salad to stop it from being boring. I ate this with some bread but it would have also tasted nice on its own but I'm really not used to eating salad on its own. I just was not raised that way. Salad is a side dish not a main course!

This time I seared my tuna steak so it was more medium than well done. However it is still not as rare as the barefoot contessa makes it. But I don't think I would like my tuna any rarer than that. My avocado was very ripe still so I should have waited a few days before eating this I think. What I don't understand is how she managed to cut her tuna up into such nice little cubes. Mine started to flake as I was cutting it up. Maybe my knife was not sharp enough to slice nicely into the fish.

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Currently reading: "Hokkaido Highway Blues" by Will Ferguson

This sounds like such a boring recipe title. Like it lacks description or flair. I've heard of chilli con carne before but I've never tried it because until recently I didn't really eat beans and something about the way it looks does not appeal to me. I decided to eat my chilli with rice as pictured. But it can also be eaten by itself, on hotdogs, baked potato or with some macaroni. All these options sound so nice they make rice sound boring.

Despite it's rather lacklustre appearance and the fact that something about it looks so uncivilised or unrefined it actually tastes really good. A really nice mix of beans, chorizo, mince and spices. It sounds so simple! Not only did it taste good, this meal was very satisfying. Probably not the healthiest dinner I could have eaten after all my hard work at the gym but it was hearty. Definitely something I would consider a winter food and considering it will probably get down to 5 degrees tonight I could use the extra insulation.

This was so simple to make I can't understand why anyone would buy this stuff in a can! I keep remembering the microwaveable chunky chilli ad where you see this girl scratching her butt while she's waiting for the chilli to heat up and she farts. Yeah when I think of chilli I think "that's one classy meal!". I'm not sure if making it fresh makes it a classier meal. It's not its fault that it has such a bad reputation.

Cooking time: 30 mins (requires simmering time of 20 mins so it was a painless 30 mins)

Currently reading: "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks

This weekend I was not motivated to do any cooking. I really just wanted to laze around. That is why I put off grocery shopping, did not go to the gym and did not clean up my apartment. Instead I lazed around reading "Chasing Harry Winston" by the author of "The devil wears Prada". In between I did plan this weeks menu. Good thing this recipe did not require too much effort.

I struggle with anything that is "seared" because in my mind this word does not equate to "cooked". I cooked my tuna rather than searing it because I don't like raw meat that much. I will try it less cooked next time and see how it goes. But it's a very difficult habit to break. I'm more likely to overcook than to undercook.

Even overcooked this tasted really nice. The sesame crust made the tuna crunchy and with a hint of sesame but didn't overpower the tuna taste, just like TNBR said it would taste. It was as simple to make as it sounds. Although it sounded simple, it was not tasteless and this wasn't just because of the sauce although for me the ginger-soy sauce was the best part. There was just so much more flavour than in your average soy sauce. This was a very non-flashy dish, something I would eat on a regular day.

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Potato cakes sound so much fancier than potato pancakes for some reason. Although these are probably considered appetisers, after several of them I was quite full. Not quite as a colourful as Nigella's.

I like salmon, but I'm not a huge fan of smoked salmon so I decided to substitute smoked salmon for another fish, orange roughy (deep sea perch). I had a bit of a disaster in the kitchen yesterday which involved me throwing out an entire fillet in frustration and cooking instant noodles. So today I wanted something really simple. Hence more pancakes. I will probably get sick of them soon.

These potato cakes were made using instant mash. I actually quite like instant mash, sure it tastes different from real mash. But when you can't be bothered to make the real thing and then clean up after yourself instant mash is a godsend. I was surprised by how soft and fluffy these turned out to be.

This was another quick and simple recipe, although it probably was not meant to be the main meal.

It's not really a good thing to cook something when you have no idea what it's supposed to taste like. Not because it might taste horrible, but because you have no real idea of how it was supposed to turn out. I've seen pictures of gnocchi but I have never tried it before. The recipe seemed easy enough. My first mistake was I did not have a large enough bowl for mixing so it got pretty messy and because it got really messy I got really lazy with the mixing. So my gnocchi did not stick together as much as I would have liked and bit started to fall off when I boiled it. But I did some research (google-ing) and discovered that gnocchi is not supposed to taste too floury (some of them did, some of them didn't) and light and puffy (that they were). They sort of that the same texture as moistened bread or and a lot fluffier than mashed potatoes.

This recipe was made with ricotta but gnocchi is often also made with potato or spinach. I had some steak in the fridge so I decided to make the pot-roasted steak again. It held together a lot better this time because I've mastered the art of tying up rolled up steak. The gnocchi tasted really nice with sauce used with the pot-roast. However my gnocchi looks a whole lot fluffier than the ones in the photo. I think I will have to try this recipe again with some more mixing to see if I can get this right. I did find some advice online that suggested frying the gnocchi which I will definitely try next time.

Cooking time: 7 mins (Should have mixed it for a long longer, but once the water boils the gnocchi cooks really quickly!)
Ease: 3.5 stars (messy messy)
Taste: 3.5 stars (anything can taste good with that sauce!)

This morning when I woke up, I decided that I would make the sweet pancakes as well as the savoury pancakes. Perhaps I was slightly ambitious. All I can say is, that I will definitely be getting the most out of my gym membership with all the eating I've been doing. Since I managed to successfully finish 10 savoury pancakes with a diameter of 3 cm and 3 sweet pancakes with a diameter of 13 cm.

Nigella's recipe is about making the pancake mix, and saving it for instances for when you want to make pancakes and then adding the rest of the ingredients. Since I didn't want 600 + grams of pancake mix lying around I roughly divided the recipe a bit to get the right amount for one batch of pancakes.

Nigella's recipe:
600g plain flour
3 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 tsp salt
40g sugar

My recipe:
142g flour (1 cup)
0.75 tbsp baking powder + 0.5 tsp baking powder (since I didn't have bicarbonate soda)
0.25 tsp salt
10g sugar

So my recipe wasn't exactly correct, but I needed approximately 150g of pancake mix since Nigella's recipe continues with "For each 150g of pancake mix add 1 egg, 250ml milk, 1 tbsp melted butter". I think I managed to get pretty close to 150g with my proportions of the ingredients.

The zucchini pancake mix was not as runny as this mix so it was a lot easier to cook evenly. My first two attempts at making a normal pancake turned out pretty abysmal, half burnt and a little undercooked at the same time. The above picture is a photo of my last 3 pancakes from bottom to top. So I got a lot better at managing to cook them evenly so that they turned golden brown and although the photo just makes them look burnt (they didn't taste burnt, but I will probably lower the heat next time).

I will be attempting the recipe for pancakes from TNBR next week, although I found the ingredients to be very similar to Nigella's recipe except for the addition of some lemon. Both books also suggest serving with blueberry syrup but I don't know how I feel about frozen blueberries so I just served mine with some ice cream and maple syrup.

Sorry to disappoint but I didn't attempt any fancy pancake flipping (not that easy to do with a wok because if I do it wrong my wrist might snap). Hahaha.

I went shopping yesterday and saw this 7 day meal planner. I was going to buy it on a whim before it occurred to me that its only purpose would be to look pretty since I don't cook breakfast/lunch. The only meal I worry about is dinner, so it would be such a waste of paper.

The only time I get to cook brunch is on the weekends, and I usually only do it on Sunday. These savoury pancakes seemed like the perfect thing to make for brunch. After yesterday's disappointment I was really impressed with these pancakes. They were so tasty and the pancakes were a little crisp on the outside and spongy on the inside. Zucchinis are one of my favourite vegetables and these pancakes were perfect.

This would be first time making pancakes. For breakfast I usually make eggs and bacon. I always figured pancakes would be too much of a hassle to make. The mixing part is usually fine but pouring the batter and then flipping the pancakes worried me. But these pancakes were very tiny, so required very little effort to flip. Unfortunately they are not as perfectly round as I would have liked, but neither is the photo.

The recipe was large enough to make 10 little pancakes which turned out to be enough for one person, more if it were to be eaten as an entrée. For once it was a recipe that worked out to be the perfect recipe size leaving no leftovers. This may also have been because it was so delicious that I managed to gobble them down really quickly.

Cooking time: 10 minutes (Eating time: 5 minutes)
Ease: 5 stars (a bit messy though)
Taste: 6 stars (overcompensating for last nights disaster)

This was a very disappointing recipe/result. Tessa Kiros describes this recipe as "nutritious and tasty soup". I do think it's nutritious, but for me there just was not enough taste. It tasted mostly of broth with vegies and meat in it. Although I added the salt and pepper, I felt the blandness is more to do with the simplicity of the flavour than the actual taste. I found it very uninspiring and struggled to finish it. The best part of the meal was the bread, I think this says a lot about a meal.

It took 2 hours to complete and you'd think after waiting so long to eat I'd be less picky, but apparently not. So far this has been my least favourite recipe. I think it needed more spices to give it some variety in the flavour. Nigella's minestrone soup was way better in comparison.