Calamari Massacre

These pictures were sent to me from my uncle who lives in San Diego. He's a camera enthusiast which is really a relief. My dad is into the electronics but is entranced by extravagancy. My uncle is actually KNOWLEDGABLE about cameras instead of the price tag lol. When he does come over, he'll teach me how to use my Canon, which is pretty pointless because everything just go in one ear and out the other. I don't think I'll ever learn. What I do is take a shot in every setting and see which one comes out the best haha.

Anyway, these squid pictures are actually quite old. It was on the news probably 4 years ago because all of the sudden, masses and masses of dead squid washing up along the San Diego shore and no one knew why. Just think of how much fried calamari you could make with all those squid!! OMG... just thinking about it makes me go @____@. But of course, not knowing the reason why they're all dead kinda dissipates my appetite. -__-

What a waste.

Perfect Sunday

Gourmet BLT Made Easy

Mmm... BLT. It was just one of those lazy days where I didn't feel bored at all. Actually, I did about 9pm and wanted to go to Barnes and Nobles, but I realized that they close at 10, so there'd be no point in going. The Borders in Santana Row closes at midnight. I'd go if it weren't so far!Ingredients
Costco garlic bread (diagonally sliced)
Fresh mozzerella (paper towel dried)
Lettice
Tomato
2 pieces of bacon

I used my George Foreman grill and you wouldn't BELIEVE how much fat came out of two pieces of bacon! I even trimmed some of the fat off before grilling them! After grilling the bacon, paper towel dry them to get more excess fat off. Take two pieces of the sliced bread, put the cheese on, and the bacon. Grill the sandwich in the Foreman Grill until cheese is melted and when you see grill marks. Take out the sandwich and put in the remaining ingredients inside (tomato, lettice) and enjoy :D

Delicate Hands

I'll just be honest and say that my hands are NOT delicate in the slightest bit. They're fat with some callousness here and there. Even my pinky has rolls, but I've manage to mimick the art of a sake nigiri sushi. Isn't it a beaut?

Not only did I attempt the nigiri style, but the modern roll style too. I would've had pictures but I gobbled them down before I could snap a shot. Basically the rice was on the outside, with the seaweed, avocado, green onion and salmon inside, topped and broiled with slices of salmon and the secret orange sauce the Japanese restaurants like to put on their oysters and special sushi. Well, it's not so secret. It's just basically sriracha hot sauce and mayo.

So here's my workplace or more like my experiment lab. I didn't have any fresh salmon on me, just frozen ones, so I was careful not to defrost it artificially in the microwave. Instead, I let it sit on the kitchen counter by the stove to warm it up. That way, it'll taste almost like fresh sake sashimi instead of the gross ones left out all day by incompetent Japanese restaurants.

Ingredients
rice
vinegar
sugar
salmon
avocado
green onion
nori (seaweed)
mayo
sriracha hot sauce
soy sauce
wasabi

Soy Sauce
mix a dab of wasabi into soy sauce (haha easy)

Mayo Sauce
Mix sriracha with mayo (good sushi is so simple)
Recipe
Begin by cooking the rice. When it is done, DO NOT PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE. Lightly sprinkle in some of the sugar vinegar solution and mix in with the rice. It was cold today so I just left it outside to cool for half an hour.

Once the salmon is defrosted, cut into desired size strips and make sure the stripes of the salmon crosses horizontally along your pieces of sashimi. Prepare slicing the onions and avocado.

When the rice is cooled, scoop some onto some plastic wrap on top of a bamboo mat. The mat helps you roll the sushi and if you don't have one... well, good luck. Flatten your scoop of rice into a rectangular shape (Advice: to prevent rice sticking on your hands, dampen your hands with water). On top of your rice, put your seaweed (you can use scissors to adjust the size of the seaweed sheets). After that, just assemble your avocado, onion and salmon (make sure they are cut into strips). Once rolled, put thin slices of salmon on top and top it off with the spicy mayo and bake at 350 degrees for 2 and half minutes.

Lunardi's courtyard. At the right time, it can be really really pretty. Today wasn't that great, but decent.

A Hot Cup of...

Today Victoria and I wandered downtown San Jose after a study session in the Martin Luther King Library. We came upon an Indian restaurant (I'm guessing a modernized and Americanized place) and had a nice, decent priced dinner with generous portions. The picture here is the Chicken Tikka which included five pieces of marinated chicken, cucumbers, red onion, rice and two pieces of naan. Extremely filling. I could barely finish it (but I did haha)




We both also ordered chai which was bottemless at .99 cents. With about 2 packs of splenda, it was oh so good and smooth! It was served HOT which complimented the unusually cold weather.









After I got home, I opted for a cold cup of soy milk. Here's my cow.

Rainy Day

I love the rain, but not ankle-deep puddles.

Victory for You and Me

My Olympic night ends very well.

Baking in the Sun

Today was such a nice sunny day. Perfect for sleeping in until noon (which I did). The Olympics started so I spent my day at home, catching some snowboarding, and then deciding to cook lasagna. It was a mess to make because my mom came home and said to me, "What happened to my kitchen?!" Hehe... well...

Cheers for Healthy Eating!

Fresh grilled salmon and veggies
After stocking up from Costco, I felt my cooking abilities overflow. I just had to do something with the huge piece of salmon I had purchased. The entire dish was made using the George Foreman grill. It's the best invention ever!

Ingredients
Salmon (it was probably the size of my palm, 1/2 inch thick)
Broccoli (about 4 or 5 florets)
Button Mushroom (1 big one)
Red Onion (1/2 inch slice)
Salt
Pepper
Monterey Steak Seasoning
Olive Oil

1. Take your salmon filet and season it with the monterey steak seasoning, cover with plastic and let it sit in the fridge for 20 minutes.

2. Brush the onion, broccoli, and mushroom with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Start grilling it on the Foreman grill for about 5 minutes.

3. Plate your vegetables. Take out the salmon and start grilling on the high heat for 7 minutes to get a nice crust, unplug the grill, and let the heat cook the fish for another 10 minutes.

Voila! A healthy meal.

San Francisco My Heart

I love how the vines look like a star waterfall down the tree trunk.

















Again the vines down the trees are beautiful. The greens in the original picture was just as vibrant, but I had to lighten up the background.












Golden Gate Bridge. I must add that the Golden Gate Bakery in Chinatown is out of this world.
















Good night, good night

Mistakenly Delcious!

For the past two months, my mom's been extremely busy with work, so my sister and I don't get our usual after school snacks anymore =[. Today I made my usual pasta with basic ingredients. Like fried rice, you would throw in old rice and whatever you have lying around. For this pasta, I did the same thing. Nothing fancy, but I did mess up on the meat. While I was defrosted the chunk of ground beef, I forgot about it in the microwave and it was almost well done and tough -_-. That meant that I could not season it well. However in the end, I managed to throw in all sorts of spices and it came out more than decent due to the pasta. My linguine was AL DENTE to the boot! It was the perfect texture.



Recipe:
Barilla Linguine (I would say 1/4 of the box)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
1 quarter red onion
4 LARGE white button mushrooms (after it had cooked, I could find the mushrooms anywhere! They shrink so much)
1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
1 1/3 cup Vodka sauce
1/2 lbs ground beef

Begin by boiling your water and while the water is heating, dice the onion, chop the garlic, slice mushrooms, and set aside. Get another saute pan and add olive oil on medium-high heat. When it's hot enough, add onion and garlic, and cook enough so that onion is translucent and garlic is fragrant but not brown. Add beef and bread crumbs. Cook until beef is 60% done and add mushrooms.

By this time the water must be boiling (hopefully). Add about 1 tbs of salt to the water and add the pasta. This should take about 10 minutes. While the pasta is cooking, add in the vodka sauce in the saute pan, and let it simmer with the beef and mushroom mix on low-medium heat. Once the pasta is al dente, add it to the saute pan and combine it with the sauce until each strand is coated. If the sauce is too thick, add a little bit of pasta water.

Finally

If I were as freespirited as I think I am, this is what I'd do all day; eat, drink, travel, and take pictures of me doing it. This is only the first step.