I hope there are actually some people following my blog.
If that's the case- you will know about FIFI- I dearest baby.
Who is always there for me when I am cooking away in the kitchen.
This is for him!
My Best boy in the whole world!
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Stir-up Sunday! Part 2. Mincemeat!
So that on Saturday I went out and did some shoppings- a purple postcard, some orange peels, a dark cherry yogurt and of course a bottle of BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU.
We are, after all- 2 days after the third Thursday in November. And this blog's name is: A glass of wine and many thoughts. While documenting my many thoughts, I must remember to have a glass of wine. This very one that I am drinking now is perfect for this time of the year!
Mincemeat has always made me feel so English Christmasy! I am participating to becoming one and I thought what else could be more fitting to cook for this time of the year.
500g dry mixed fruits (I use raisins, cranberries and apricot)
200g orange peels (I bought them from waitrose)
1 large cooking apple, grated
1 orange, zested
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp cardamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground clove
175g sugar
2 tbsp strong liquor (rum, brandy or vsop, depends on what you have at home.)
How to make it:
1. Easy! Just prep everything and mix them all in a large bowl.
2. All you have to do is stirring!
How you will make it: (if you want to make your very own delicious sour dough!) I will just skip the ingredients part because they are just too few...
1. Weight 100g bread flour.
2. Add enough Warm water to it to make a thick paint consistency thing.
3. Cover it with a piece of cling film. Let's wait for it to develop!
4. Feed the Starter baby everyday 100g flour. (if it gets too much, you will have to get rid of half of it by day... we will see... I never could do that- only just change them to a bigger home.)
5. You are ready to use them after 10 days!
I cannot wait to make the good old Sour dough bread with my surname in the oriental writing: YU on it! (haha, this is how I used to style them!)
Anyways, as I was getting hungry, I also made a soup:
You will need:
Some left over roasting bones ( I have 6 roasted lamb shank bones)
3 sticks of celery, chopped
1 handful goji berry
1 green mango, peeled and cut up the meaty parts
1 tbsp chilli
250g shitake mushrooms
some cooked meat (sausages, mince, ham, steaks... whatever that's left over... I use 8 merguez sausages.)
Salt and pepper to season
Method:
1. Bring 3 litres of water to boil with the bones in it.
2. Stir in the chopped celery, goji berry, green mango, chilli and shitake mushrooms. Cook for 5 minutes.
3. Stir in the cooked meat options. (you can always keep it vegetarian style- with some tofu additon.) Cook for 3 minutes. Season the soup before enjoying it!
Easy supper!
We are, after all- 2 days after the third Thursday in November. And this blog's name is: A glass of wine and many thoughts. While documenting my many thoughts, I must remember to have a glass of wine. This very one that I am drinking now is perfect for this time of the year!
Mincemeat has always made me feel so English Christmasy! I am participating to becoming one and I thought what else could be more fitting to cook for this time of the year.
BOBO's Fantasy Mincemeat:
Ingredients:500g dry mixed fruits (I use raisins, cranberries and apricot)
200g orange peels (I bought them from waitrose)
1 large cooking apple, grated
1 orange, zested
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp cardamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground clove
175g sugar
2 tbsp strong liquor (rum, brandy or vsop, depends on what you have at home.)
How to make it:
1. Easy! Just prep everything and mix them all in a large bowl.
2. All you have to do is stirring!
3. Alright. You will have to wash and sterilise your good old jar. But it is EASY! You only have to wash or rinse it before putting it in the preheated oven at 180c for 20 minutes. Leave it to cool down in the oven while you busy away with everything else. It's that DEAD easy! ( I feel like a hairy bikers when I said this...hahaha)
So my good mincemeat baby is ready to sit in the dark place and I will feed it every week with a bit a rum or vsop or whatever I can lay my hands on. Until a week before X'mas that I shall be making mincemeat pie (most likely MINI ones!) I will start to use it.
Simple! No?
While I was AT it, I also had a crazy (not that crazy actually. I was a Fake FRENCH baker before...) idea- to make my very own Sour Dough Starter.
This is how it looks like:
1. Weight 100g bread flour.
2. Add enough Warm water to it to make a thick paint consistency thing.
3. Cover it with a piece of cling film. Let's wait for it to develop!
4. Feed the Starter baby everyday 100g flour. (if it gets too much, you will have to get rid of half of it by day... we will see... I never could do that- only just change them to a bigger home.)
5. You are ready to use them after 10 days!
I cannot wait to make the good old Sour dough bread with my surname in the oriental writing: YU on it! (haha, this is how I used to style them!)
Anyways, as I was getting hungry, I also made a soup:
Left over lamb shank bone stock with celery, goji berry, green mango, and chilli soup
Some left over roasting bones ( I have 6 roasted lamb shank bones)
3 sticks of celery, chopped
1 handful goji berry
1 green mango, peeled and cut up the meaty parts
1 tbsp chilli
250g shitake mushrooms
some cooked meat (sausages, mince, ham, steaks... whatever that's left over... I use 8 merguez sausages.)
Salt and pepper to season
Method:
1. Bring 3 litres of water to boil with the bones in it.
2. Stir in the chopped celery, goji berry, green mango, chilli and shitake mushrooms. Cook for 5 minutes.
3. Stir in the cooked meat options. (you can always keep it vegetarian style- with some tofu additon.) Cook for 3 minutes. Season the soup before enjoying it!
Easy supper!
Yummy!
RCA Secret adventure!
Well... well...well...
It has been a relaxing and constructive weekend in my household. Now that I even manage to write my 2nd posting for the blog. I am turly pleased with myself.
I went to the RCA Secret 2010 yesterday aftyernoon. Arrived at around 2pm- I left the place with my "surprise" purchase at 5 minutes to 4pm. As the actually buying process took about 1 minute (I am a very quick shopper!). Let's say: I have queued almost 2 hours for a little postcard.
Most of the people probably went for the Master pieces from those famous artists. The fun thing about it is you don't know whose postcard that you are buying. The official description is like this:
I suppose there must be some specialists on the usual creative styles of those famous artists. They would, I suppose again, to queue from the night before to buy those post cards (4 limited for each person!) at £45 than to re-sell them at the open market.
My motivation was not as such.
Though I would pretty much like to buy a postcard creation from THE Mr. Manolo Blahnik (Yes, he IS on this year! No, I DID check- there isn't any high heel drawings there. I wonder what he made for this occassion?), the reason that I went was purely IDIOTIC! Naivety was the better word for it. I went to support those art students- fine art strudent award fund is where all the money go.
I, myself, was not a very artistic person. I do my small crazily complicated things in the kitchen at times and go to see art exhibitions when I am invited. However, the time that was well spent at the Goldsmiths college only made me aware of the true life style of those fabulously arty people.
If I cannot feed them all. Let's go and buy a postcard from them!
When I came out after 2 hours moving about in the motionless queue. It was freezing! I couldn't even look at my newly acquired postcard for more than 5 seconds before stuffing it back to my bag.
5 minutes after walking down the RCA, there is Natural history Museum with ice rink. Very romantic!
You want to know whose postcard I got?
Well, let me explain how I decided on this very one that I bought.
As it was already 2pm when I started queuing. Most of those more interesting items must have been bought. (They opened the door at 8am...) After one and half hours later in the RCA standing around listening to my music (God bless Ipod!) I finally arrived in the basement and got to look at those 2 big tv sets of what was left for purchasing.
Of course, as I crossed off the numbers on my notes (all postcards are numbered, did I mentioned that there are 2800 of them?)- I realised that it was not possible to get one that I liked in the first place. But then I have queued for 1.5 hours- surely the time mustn't be wasted.
I just went with the colour in the end. Purple is the one that I have in mind. When it was finally my turn to go to the casher- I went for 410. As it was the only one that I could see clearly with my not very good eyes That it is very purple.
The artist's name is Kevin Gaffney. The name of the creation is: Canary.
It is kind of a print or a picture, I am not sure... ( I already say that I am not very arty! I am merely a supporter!)
On his website, there is this story about : a tiger, a canary & a heartless heartbeat.
I must say I quite like this story and how my decision to go to the RCA this afternoon had lead me to it.
Ok..ok...- the canary lookes like a purple chicken or a Chinese dragon with many teeth. I thought.
It has been a relaxing and constructive weekend in my household. Now that I even manage to write my 2nd posting for the blog. I am turly pleased with myself.
I went to the RCA Secret 2010 yesterday aftyernoon. Arrived at around 2pm- I left the place with my "surprise" purchase at 5 minutes to 4pm. As the actually buying process took about 1 minute (I am a very quick shopper!). Let's say: I have queued almost 2 hours for a little postcard.
Most of the people probably went for the Master pieces from those famous artists. The fun thing about it is you don't know whose postcard that you are buying. The official description is like this:
RCA Secret is a unique annual exhibition and sale of original postcard-sized art, made by professional artists, designers and illustrators, plus current postgraduate students at the Royal College of Art.
I suppose there must be some specialists on the usual creative styles of those famous artists. They would, I suppose again, to queue from the night before to buy those post cards (4 limited for each person!) at £45 than to re-sell them at the open market.
My motivation was not as such.
Though I would pretty much like to buy a postcard creation from THE Mr. Manolo Blahnik (Yes, he IS on this year! No, I DID check- there isn't any high heel drawings there. I wonder what he made for this occassion?), the reason that I went was purely IDIOTIC! Naivety was the better word for it. I went to support those art students- fine art strudent award fund is where all the money go.
I, myself, was not a very artistic person. I do my small crazily complicated things in the kitchen at times and go to see art exhibitions when I am invited. However, the time that was well spent at the Goldsmiths college only made me aware of the true life style of those fabulously arty people.
If I cannot feed them all. Let's go and buy a postcard from them!
When I came out after 2 hours moving about in the motionless queue. It was freezing! I couldn't even look at my newly acquired postcard for more than 5 seconds before stuffing it back to my bag.
You want to know whose postcard I got?
Well, let me explain how I decided on this very one that I bought.
As it was already 2pm when I started queuing. Most of those more interesting items must have been bought. (They opened the door at 8am...) After one and half hours later in the RCA standing around listening to my music (God bless Ipod!) I finally arrived in the basement and got to look at those 2 big tv sets of what was left for purchasing.
Of course, as I crossed off the numbers on my notes (all postcards are numbered, did I mentioned that there are 2800 of them?)- I realised that it was not possible to get one that I liked in the first place. But then I have queued for 1.5 hours- surely the time mustn't be wasted.
I just went with the colour in the end. Purple is the one that I have in mind. When it was finally my turn to go to the casher- I went for 410. As it was the only one that I could see clearly with my not very good eyes That it is very purple.
The artist's name is Kevin Gaffney. The name of the creation is: Canary.
It is kind of a print or a picture, I am not sure... ( I already say that I am not very arty! I am merely a supporter!)
On his website, there is this story about : a tiger, a canary & a heartless heartbeat.
I must say I quite like this story and how my decision to go to the RCA this afternoon had lead me to it.
Ok..ok...- the canary lookes like a purple chicken or a Chinese dragon with many teeth. I thought.
Friday, 19 November 2010
Stir-up Sunday!
And it has been about 1 month since I last posted anything on this blog. As usual, lots have happened (when doesn't it? It's my real life after all) and I, I am still here.
I walked home on this lovely casual Friday afternoon. Lovely decorative windows with all that temptations calling out to the seasonal shoppers. St. James was dark already when I passed by it.
Last night's party was great! I loved being at the Wallace Collection. Beautiful location and they had even better music this year- A jazz band going on! The food was more than expected- from "Rocket". I love the fact that they have this pretty and little blond chef stirring away at a pot of rice with a lovely smile in front of you. The wild mushroom risotto of course was spiked with lots of Truffle oil. Totally delicious!
However; due to my last year's INDISCRETION- I have decided to cut down on my intakes of glasses of champagne. I was home by 22:00 to my lovely straw playing darling.
The party would not be completed- without a party trick! Ours this year was Caricature painters.
This is mine:
I walked home on this lovely casual Friday afternoon. Lovely decorative windows with all that temptations calling out to the seasonal shoppers. St. James was dark already when I passed by it.
Beautiful! Wasn't it?
I came back home to my sweet FiFi, was feeling calm and ready to achieve something.
So here I am!
Last night's party was great! I loved being at the Wallace Collection. Beautiful location and they had even better music this year- A jazz band going on! The food was more than expected- from "Rocket". I love the fact that they have this pretty and little blond chef stirring away at a pot of rice with a lovely smile in front of you. The wild mushroom risotto of course was spiked with lots of Truffle oil. Totally delicious!
However; due to my last year's INDISCRETION- I have decided to cut down on my intakes of glasses of champagne. I was home by 22:00 to my lovely straw playing darling.
The party would not be completed- without a party trick! Ours this year was Caricature painters.
This is mine:
Amazing how a short space of time they can paint you in the flesh! I totally love the experience!
Came home in a taxi with a pregger lady who is due in 2 weeks- my good deed of the week!
This morning I was happily woke up with my sweet- to clean the non- functioning dish washer! At 04:10!
So no matter what- my stirring away weekend is going to be like this:
Homemade mince meat!
Porter plum pudding!
Perhaps some fruity jam.
I have been here for so so long- let's do it properly the English way! Now that our beloved cancerian Prince William is marrying the good old Capricorn Princess! I feel that I have something great to celebrate!
I shall be cooking all of those things from tomorrow and will take some pictures while I will be at it!
About work.
I might or might not be the true master of my own faliure soon.
Exciting but everything is not settled yet. I will update on this soon.
X
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Get a life!
So that my boss has told me to get a life.
No. That's not quite right. She had only told me to take some time off for myself- but as any good employee would know her/his employer-you learn to READ between the lines.
To cut the long story short- hence the time that I have been away from this- quite a lot had happened at work.
Funny though I had thought about 3 years ago: it couldn't be simpler than being a chef. You just deal with the vegetables and dead animals. What could happen in a peaceful kitchen?
Now that I know better- mine was never going to be an easy ride.
I am not saying that it isn't fun or exciting for me. I am not saying that I haven't enjoyed every moment of it. This job has offered so much to me, only that I have not expected so much to happen in such a short space of time.
Enough about the moaning. And everything is yet rolling into a bigger snow ball. While I am waiting for it to happen. Like my boss said: you need to take some time off and just do nothing and relax.
This is mine: "Doing Nothing".
I have been travelling in my kitchen with all different styles of cuisine everyday. This week- I have a Munich day.
I am extremely fond of Munich. For the memories and everything else. Was thinking to make a LEBERKASE for the occasion but for the timing reason, I had decided against it in the end. Apart from the usual sausage salad, apple + potato salad and grilled mackerel Isar river style from my good old time. I have also made Schweinshaxe. I was very pleased with it. It wasn't hard and it is very similar to our Taiwanese special porky dish. The only difference is the addition of oriental ingredients: soy sauce, ginger, garlic and star anise.
For this special day, I have also made an extremely simple and Germanic dessert: some sort of Apfelstrudel.
125g butter, melted
3 apples, peeled-cored and cut into small pieces
juice of 1/2 lemon
50g sugar
5g ground cinnamon
for the topping:
60g softened butter
60g sugar
150g flour
1. Cut the filo pastry to fit a small baking dish. Line the baking dish with layers of filo pastry with melted butter brushed onto each sheet.
2. Sprinkle chopped apple+ sugar+ cinnamon+ lemon juice onto the filo pastry lined baking dish.
3. Mix the softened butter with sugar before mix in the flour- spread this over the apple layer.
4. Bake in the oven 180 degree for 30-40 minutes. sprinkle some more icing sugar on top before serving.
This dessert is so easy. I almost feel embarrassed when guys at work asking me for the recipe. Necessity is the mother of most of my recipe creations. I had half pack of filo left from the Greek day and some old apples to use. Butter and sugar are readily available in my kitchen. Everything fell into places. Simple!
Changing the topic. This is the Poutine that I have tried for my Canadian day preparation.
I don't know if there will be some Canadian people reading this when I post this blog. If there is any- please be kind enough to let me know about any authentic Canadian place in London. I had this Poutine in a Canadian pub near Charing Cross. Although I have enjoyed it very much while being extremely sick and doing research for work. I don't think this is the real thing. 1st of all: Cheese curd! It's not something that I know exist in the UK. I have read that the closest thing to it is Mozzarella. 2nd: turkey or beef gravy. This one tasted like Bisto. Nothing is wrong with Bisto. I just want to try the real thing. Anyways, I have now a pretty good idea what this is like- so I will post pictures when I have done one.
No. That's not quite right. She had only told me to take some time off for myself- but as any good employee would know her/his employer-you learn to READ between the lines.
To cut the long story short- hence the time that I have been away from this- quite a lot had happened at work.
Funny though I had thought about 3 years ago: it couldn't be simpler than being a chef. You just deal with the vegetables and dead animals. What could happen in a peaceful kitchen?
Now that I know better- mine was never going to be an easy ride.
I am not saying that it isn't fun or exciting for me. I am not saying that I haven't enjoyed every moment of it. This job has offered so much to me, only that I have not expected so much to happen in such a short space of time.
Enough about the moaning. And everything is yet rolling into a bigger snow ball. While I am waiting for it to happen. Like my boss said: you need to take some time off and just do nothing and relax.
This is mine: "Doing Nothing".
I have been travelling in my kitchen with all different styles of cuisine everyday. This week- I have a Munich day.
I am extremely fond of Munich. For the memories and everything else. Was thinking to make a LEBERKASE for the occasion but for the timing reason, I had decided against it in the end. Apart from the usual sausage salad, apple + potato salad and grilled mackerel Isar river style from my good old time. I have also made Schweinshaxe. I was very pleased with it. It wasn't hard and it is very similar to our Taiwanese special porky dish. The only difference is the addition of oriental ingredients: soy sauce, ginger, garlic and star anise.
For this special day, I have also made an extremely simple and Germanic dessert: some sort of Apfelstrudel.
Kind of Apfelstrudel
ingredients:
1/2 pack of filo pastry (from supermarket)125g butter, melted
3 apples, peeled-cored and cut into small pieces
juice of 1/2 lemon
50g sugar
5g ground cinnamon
for the topping:
60g softened butter
60g sugar
150g flour
Method:
1. Cut the filo pastry to fit a small baking dish. Line the baking dish with layers of filo pastry with melted butter brushed onto each sheet.
2. Sprinkle chopped apple+ sugar+ cinnamon+ lemon juice onto the filo pastry lined baking dish.
3. Mix the softened butter with sugar before mix in the flour- spread this over the apple layer.
4. Bake in the oven 180 degree for 30-40 minutes. sprinkle some more icing sugar on top before serving.
This dessert is so easy. I almost feel embarrassed when guys at work asking me for the recipe. Necessity is the mother of most of my recipe creations. I had half pack of filo left from the Greek day and some old apples to use. Butter and sugar are readily available in my kitchen. Everything fell into places. Simple!
Changing the topic. This is the Poutine that I have tried for my Canadian day preparation.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Monday, Blue Monday.
So that I was extremely late on my serving for lunch. I had spent too long on cooking the Hot and sour chicken and squid soup. While many recipes that I came across are fine, I was actually looking to make the perfect chicken stock for the base of my soup. Cleaning the squid is a nightmare. You don't usually think about CLEANING the squid like a mindless cleaner. There are just too many fibres to take off, once you start with it. You cannot stop yourself. Same as for many things in life.
I had a lovely conversation with this very Cancerian girlie today. She had certain doubts about someone in regards to the matters of her heart. As I was EXTREMELY late on my thing, I replied even without thinking: Well, it's like shopping. If you don't even like it in the shop, how on earth will you even manage putting it on once you get home?
She was very impressed. I, on the other hand, was in a hurry to get back to my dining area to post my lunch menu. Thinking about it later on; while my hands are occupied with putting things away. I thought it was very funny. True enough, we always think too much. Many decisions are made after many sleepless nights and this is just not the way to do it. We always know what we want and perhaps they are not always the best choices for us. But for desires-simple things- your heart knows best. You might be at fault no matter what. That's a fine thing to learn.
I had a lovely conversation with this very Cancerian girlie today. She had certain doubts about someone in regards to the matters of her heart. As I was EXTREMELY late on my thing, I replied even without thinking: Well, it's like shopping. If you don't even like it in the shop, how on earth will you even manage putting it on once you get home?
She was very impressed. I, on the other hand, was in a hurry to get back to my dining area to post my lunch menu. Thinking about it later on; while my hands are occupied with putting things away. I thought it was very funny. True enough, we always think too much. Many decisions are made after many sleepless nights and this is just not the way to do it. We always know what we want and perhaps they are not always the best choices for us. But for desires-simple things- your heart knows best. You might be at fault no matter what. That's a fine thing to learn.
Friday, 20 August 2010
Breakfast wraps! Friday is here!
Just I am often wondering What on this earth that they put into those cat treats? I am going to get some of that and make a new kitty perfum for all of us long suffering cat owners. Maybe it will finally improve human and cat relationships. Until then, I am going to continue giving the excess amount of love and patiences and cat treats to my one and only darling-FIFI.
Really he is a very sweet cat. Like all my previous relationships; I am trying to convince myself that he will one day come around and just be calm and offers me his love- consistently. It is there and I can feel it sometimes. It's just that when he is hurting (scratching!) me, I think I have a very good reason to have some reservations. We have our moments and we have our frosty days, often straight after he draws some blood of mine. I cannot help feeling that it's a lot like a real love relationship. We are still learning about each other. For my sake (and his) I hope this is going to develop itself to become a better one.
I enjoy very much walking home after a long day at work. Partly it is because of my lovely i pod music selections and partly it is because of the wonderful parts of London that I must walked through.
Not that I don't enjoy shopping on the New Bond St. So many shops that You could possibly spent the whole day there and still have to come back for another 1/2 day just to finish it off. My favourite part of my journey is straight after that and through St. James park. I have some pictures to prove just how wonderful it is.
I love walking down Horse Guards Rd and crossing the Birdcage walk. So very pleasant!
My street. What a lovely place- I enjoy living in Westminster! Just like how I was( or rather my parents are), living in the central of the city. I am just around the corner of the Random House- where I always watch their milk delivery man dropping off their dairy supply while trying to catching the morning bus to work almost every morning (unless and this is becoming "too often" that I had to take a taxi at Iron Lung!).
I am so very inspired by my area and Barbra's music- we will have some hearty food recipes tomorrow!
I am so very inspired by my area and Barbra's music- we will have some hearty food recipes tomorrow!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)