sigelphoenix

I have, as I mentioned, been cooking a lot of new recipes lately, and I thought I'd share some of the things I've tried. I am very solidly a novice cook - I am well-versed in one-pot dishes like soups and stews, for instance, but not things like searing meat or knowing intuitively what spices to add to a dish - and I figure I'm not alone in that. So I want to share out of a feeling of "Look! I could do this without too much trouble. And it's even tasty! Try it!"

I do want to mention that I've been learning to stir-fry (more or less), in that I'm learning the process of letting the wok and oil get really hot, then tossing the food around so it cooks quickly but doesn't burn. That's how you're supposed to stir-fry, but I'm usually a conservative cook who keeps the heat down so I don't burn things even when I don't use much oil. The problem with that is that food will end up steaming more than frying. I don't know if anyone else has that issue when cooking, but it's important to note that these dishes will turn out much better (i.e. not soggy) if you really stir-fry them. I've had some minor scorching of food, but if you have a faster arm than me (or if you're willing to add a touch more oil) I think you can avoid that problem.

( food food food )

My camera is just a regular camera, which means I don't get really beautiful images, just good ones. And I'm usually fine with that, since I'm no photographer. But sometimes, I really wish I could go back and beautify a really great shot:



I highly recommend clicking and seeing the large version, just so you can see the look of kitty bliss on Kershach's face as Drannor grooms him.

Drannor is a friendly cat, but I don't feel he's given his heart over to me and ratzeo yet (no surprise, since we've only had him for just over 3 weeks, and he was surrendered by his owners of 4 years just a month ago). But Kershach - Kershach, I feel, has wormed his way into his "older brother"'s heart. ♥

I spent the night covered in cats. Drannor curled up on top of me for the first time (he's slept with us since day 1, but always next to us, never on us). When Kershach got onto the bed, I was afraid he'd be upset that his spot was taken, but he settled on my legs and then he and Drannor groomed each other on top of me. ♥ I woke up at various points in the night, unable to turn over because I was weighed down by fuzzbutts, but it was worth it.

This morning they were being kind of butts - Kershach did his usual "wake up and feed me" routine, and Drannor ... I'm not sure what Drannor wants, honestly. He purrs and walks on the pillows and sticks his nose in your ear and paws at the covers to be let underneath (and then comes right out again). Which is all very sweet, but completely prevents any attempts to catch those last few minutes of sleep. Oh well.

And then I fed them their breakfast kibble and watched two fuzzy lumps hunched over with their heads stuck in their bowls. I'm still excited to see Drannor eating. :D

ratzeo saw me off to work in the morning. ♥ Normally he's still asleep when I leave, because he goes to bed many hours after me, but this morning he stayed up until I would be awake. So I got good morning kisses. Also, much as I love the cats, human conversation in the morning just can't be beat.

1. I found a kibble that Drannor will eat!!! \o/ The poor boy has clearly been interested in food, but would always sniff hopefully and then walk away from whatever I put down for him. (And, okay, a cat can easily not eat for a week if it's finicky about food, and for the most part I was only mildly concerned; but I'm also a paranoid cat mama and we just had a cat at the shelter put down for fatty liver disease caused by not eating, so.) Finally, the fourth kibble I attempted (facilitated via samples provided by the fine folks at Mud Bay) was a smash hit. He gobbled it instantly, and happily set into a bowl of it.

As an added bonus, Kershach wasn't at all interested in it, which means I can set out their separate bowls of kibble and they won't eat each other's. Accidental win?

No idea, yet, what magic ingredient(s) turned Drannor on to this food. Perhaps I can figure it out and use that to find a canned food he'll eat ...

2. I made coffee with handmade milk foam. SUPER easy, and it's almost as good as the machine-made stuff.

3. Last night I re-watched Mamma Mia! with kyonkun and lunapome, as a silly and relaxing finish to a day of grocery shopping, eating, and happy hour-ing.

4. Adam Lambert's debut CD. I feel kind of silly for liking it, but he flings himself head-first into his performance, and I do love me some earnest, well-performed pop music.

5. I get to play ratzeo's game in 3 hours! \o/

I've been on something of an Asian food kick lately. I'm not sure why, exactly. Part of it is nostalgia for my mom's cooking, though my mom (an ethnic Chinese born and raised in Burma) cooks a [DELICIOUS] fusion of Chinese, Burmese, and Indian food - while the food I've been making lately is Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. I think I've just been missing my yellow-girl food in general. Seattle does, of course, have a good variety of restaurants that aren't just standard "American" fare, but the area I live in/can conveniently get to is pretty whitebread.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not learning how to cook from my mom as I was growing up. So any cooking skill I have, I developed as an adult by looking up recipes online (and occasionally calling my mom for advice). It's harder to find good recipes for Asian foods on English websites, though, so I haven't been going to my usual All recipes or Food Network. Instead, I'm poking around online and trying to match that info to what I remember, then to what I find in the aisles of Uwajimaya.

The first instance of this was when I bought a package of iriko (dried anchovies) on a whim, without the slightest clue how to use them. I did remember, from living with shadawyn, that there's a tasty Korean side dish of spicy dried anchovies ... except I don't know Korean, and so ended up just Googling "Korean anchovy side dish" to see what I got. Luckily, that got me to Maangchi's myulchi bokkeum (variations according to how you romanize) recipe, and it was not only easy to make but easy to make well.

I highly recommend it, even to people who aren't too fond of fish - the dried anchovies only taste a little fishy, and when you add in the other ingredients it really ends up tasting like "crunchy." I also made sigumchi namul (spinach side dish) and kong namul (soy bean sprouts side dish) from the recipes here, and made it all into a meal by adding onigiri. Since the side dishes are so flavorful, I made simple onigiri, like using furikake (dried seaweed and sesame seeds, and some flavors have dried fish) instead of a strong-tasting filling.

For anyone else who's interested, here are the food blogs I've been frequenting lately:

Maangchi - I really like her site because she has photographs and videos of the cooking process, and she also has a super-helpful ingredient guide with pictures and descriptions of Korean/Asian ingredients. This is helpful because I'm so new to Korean food.

Use Real Butter - I found this site through lunapome. She has a lot of Chinese dishes, plus super nice photographs of her recipes.

NoobCook - Her site slogan is "Any Noob Can Cook," which works for me. XD Mostly Chinese recipes.

My Asian Kitchen - I haven't tried any of the recipes here yet, but they look delicious.

Wandering Chopsticks - Another place I haven't tried, this site has mostly Vietnamese but also Chinese and other types of cuisine.

ratzeo took this video of me playing with Drannor on Sunday. Maybe I'm misjudging older cats, but I find Drannor's play energy pretty darn impressive.

... Kershach, on the other hand, is Pouty McPouterson. Poor guy. He's still working on remembering/being reminded that his humans still love him just as much.

ratzeo and I were cuddling Drannor on the bed, and I brought Kershach into the room so he wouldn't feel left out. He came over to Drannor, they touched noses, and then Kershach started grooming Drannor's face and Drannor started grooming Kershach's face back.

aaaaah ♥

Well, to be sure, Valentine's Day does not suffer a lack of reasons to laugh at it. But.

My coworker called me over, because he was enjoying some post-Valentine's Sweethearts. Some of the sayings were pretty entertaining - like "TWEET ME," which is sort of ... not particularly useful, seeing as a Tweet goes out to everyone who reads your Twitter.

But my favorite, I have to say, was a misprint where part of the saying didn't make it onto the candy. So printed off-center on the little heart is the word "YOU," and beneath it, truncated on the left side, "OCK."

(As my coworker said, the possibilities are endless.)