Shepherd's Pie for 1

Nom Nom Nom.

Here's a shot of my second helping of my delicious homemade shepherd's pie with a glimpse of part of my 5head. so really, its' a shot of a 2head?

Super!

I know i have totally been MIA. mainly cause i'm super lazy. I mean i made super amazing slow cooked ribs yesterday that turned out amazing and i just ate them. the whole rack. myself. without blogging about it. maybe it's laziness? or maybe i am ashamed that i ate a whole rack by myself?..... NAH. it's laziness.

Anyway, today i got the urge to make some shepherd's pie, i had a bunch of little yukon golds sitting and probably rotting away, and i'm feeling for some comfort food, and this hit the spot.

Here's a quick recipe for people who dont follow recipes (IE ME), basically

1. cooked the potatoes til tender, mashed with grated cheese, butter and milk, and more cheese

2. sauteed ground beef, i like adding paprika to everything, salt and peppered it, onion and garlic seasoned it.

3. added chopped shallots to beef. layered in casserole when done
4. sauteed chopped carrots, layered
5. sauteed peas and layered
6.sauteed corn and layered
7. poured gravy over everything
8. layered the potato mash and baked at 400 til i thought it was ready for me to eat.

9. Eat. for dinner. for lunch. for dinner. til done.

haha. i am the worst at instructions. but it was sooo good. i used packaged gravy, i am not above packaged gravy.

Value Buy: Costco $7 dollar roasted chicken

My first grocery shopping trip back to toronto was at the local Costco! $250 bucks after!!!! hahaha. You'd think i was shopping for me and my child army.... but fortunately no! just for 1 (sometimes 2!).

I want to give a shout out to Costco Roast Chicken.  AT $6.99. You are the ultimate super buy! I can do everything with you! Put you in my salads, make a sandwich, make a casserole, use the bones and meat for congee, make fried rice! the combinations are limitless!!!! Today, is my 2nd flatbread pizza (I used the legs + thigh for a salad for 2, and the left breast for a flatbread pizza yesterday, that fed THREE), today I'm using the right breast! What a way to stretch a chicken! (In Vancouver, me and my family bought a costco chicken and stretched it out for 3 meals, feeding 4 people each meal!)

Such an quick and easy way to get some veggies in my diet too! hehe. if you are interested, my flatbread pizza (from costco) hosted a bunch of items i procured at Costco. including: mushrooms, zuchinnis, shallots, spinach, little tiny tomatoes, montery jack and swiss cheese, and of course Costco Roast Chicken. and just used ragu as pizza sauce! So quick! So easy! So cheap!

Test Kitchen: Dong Po Pork Belly...

FREAKING SUCCESS!!!!! 7 hours later....

[ed note: i started this at like 7PM~]

making some sort of Dong Po Pork Belly, i had no idea what that even meant, im like what? long duck dong pork belly? But thanks to my father (not actual father hahaha) Jowett Yu, he informed me that Dong Po is some famous poet who loves him some pork belly.

I saw this recipe off this blog i saw on tastespotting.com, called Kitchen of Friends, and tried my best to follow the recipe, though i'm not known to ever follow anything. Their site is super awesome, im excited to try to follow more.

So here i've gathered all the ingredients for this Dong Po Pork Belly

•pork belly

•green onion (it called for a spring?)

•ginger (it called for a thumb)

•garlic (it called for 2)

•brown sugar (i actually have normal brown sugar, but decided to azn it up with the hard stuff)

•soy (dark and light)

•cooking wine (as you please!)

i hate writing instructions, cause i am so bad at following them, but you can see the full step by step details over at Kitchen of Friends. but if you want a shortcut. throw everything together with some water to a boil, throw in the pork belly (after a light blanch according to that website), and cook at low heat for 3-4 hours.

im its like 11:30 now. and my pork looks nothing like the pics over at kitchen of friends... or anything like what google images says its suppose to look like.....

...

12:59 AM

i.. am so tired... SIX FRIGGIN HOURS LATER... while the recipe said 3-4 hours...

i realized that i didnt turn on the heat enough.... but i nudged it over slightly more... and and... i think... i can go to sleep now. i am so tired... but i think i'm pretty much done

And the day after... to make the sauce... and to finally have a meal:

Calamari in white wine tomato sauce

I've been waiting for my stupid pork belly to turn into an amazing melt in your mouth experience (you'll probably read about it later!)... but since it takes forever to slow cook things (who woulda thunk!) i got hungry and decided to try out some of that frozen calamari my roommate got.

So this is my first time cooking it, and since i had an open bottle of white in the fridge, it was a no brainer! and it was SO YUMMY!!!! i chopped up some garlic, tomatos, and olives, fried it up in oil for a few minutes, salt and chilli flakes, deglazed with some white wine, cooked it down, added the squid and yum yum yum! it was super good! i was afraid i was going to overcook it, cause nothing is worse than eating rubber band calamari (ok there are worse things...).. but it was perfect! 

now if only my stupid pork belly would finish cooking......

Test Kitchen: Gyutang ... tasty cow tongue by me!

TA DA!!!!. ok here is a disclaimer. below i am going to show pictures of a cow tongue. if you find that gross. i totally understand. i thought it was super gross, but since i love the cow as an animal that keeps on giving, i have today, learned to embrace all the seemingly yucky parts on a wholly delicious animal.

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raw beef tongue alert!!!!

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     So if you know me, i am a completely random bizarre person.  I was eating my frozen grapes at work today, and offering some to my coworker, and somehow ended up comparing defrosted grapes as something soft and slimy and asked her if she ever had beef tongue... and then the seed was planted... and i had to have it.  Went to Sunny Supermarket @ Finch and Leslie for some azn meats, and picked the smallest and "normal" coloured one i could find.  The other ones were HUGE and spotted with black and blue... i was horrified. This tongue cost a lil over $5.00 bucks. which is a STEAL since when i go out to izakayas in Toronto, a measly 8-10 slices set me back over $5.00. JACKPOT.

     I honestly had no idea what to do with it once i got it, but luckily my FATHER (not my actual father), Jowett Yu, HEAD CHEF OF SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA'S MS. G's (ha ha name dropper), dropped me some hints on how to cook this sucker.

TIPS FROM CHEF JOWETT: how to make gyutang/cow tongue

where do i even start?

braise it for hour. or blanch quickly, peel the skin off, thinly slice, then grill

how do i make gyutang?

bring a pot of water to boil, lower the tongue, blanch for 30 sec, then take out. peel the skin back on where the palate used to be. chill in the frige till cool, then thinly slice. the best part to eat is where it was once attached to the back of the throat at the base.... more fatty

what do i do? just salt it?

yes. grilled with just salt. dipping sauce is like ponzu soy, or if u likle korean style, salt sesame oil b pepper

So i followed the instructions. the fast one cause i really wanted to try it. Blanched it for 30 seconds. it totally changed the colour right away to white. hmmmm i wonder if that would happen if i boiled my own tongue.... anyway,  the tongue skin didnt rip. tried another 30 seconds. tongue skin totally stuck on. I guess i gotsa chop it off the old fashion way...

halfway through slowly and painstakingly sawing the thick skin off. i was like. this thing's got ankle socks on! or more accurately, white wedges? this photo cracks me up.

omg so i finally get all the outter tongue off... and stuck it in the freezer so it would be easier to cut. I would have liked to have kept it in longer, and will next time, cause it was a bitch to cut. 

Here's a few slices i managed to cut up. I eventually cut up everything, super hard to cut it thinly.  My roommate, who is russian, preferred to have hers thicker.

And here it is! my first batch of Gyutang, complete with lemon and ponzu dipping sauce.  There was waaayyy more from where that came from.  it was so easy too!  seriously, if i were to sell my beef tongue, the street value would be like.... 50 bucks! i swear! what a rip off. from now on, i'm cooking my own tongue.

Eat your veggies! ... in bacon fat

I was feeling a bit peckish tonight and looked around for something to snack on.  After throwing out a box of perfectly once perfect ginormous strawberries cause i let them sit and mold, i remembered i bought some baby carrots a while ago.  I had also leftover bacon fat grease all over the pan that i hadn't tossed out yet, mainly cause i can never bare to throw out perfectly good bacon fat grease.  So i rolled the carrots all over the fat and roasted it for 25-30 minutes @ 350 degrees.  S & P if you please, and i also rolled it in this dill mix i have. MMMMM this will pass for "healthy" for now... at least its good for my eyes!

proscuitto & mozza roll sandwich

Had a quick snack the other day at work, you know those proscuitto and mozzerella rolls? sometimes with basil wrapped in as well.  Unrolled it out on a section of ciabatta that i sliced up at home, took a packet of mustard i stole from the movie theatres. put it thru the toaster oven and instant sandwhich. mmm.  Those rolls are awesome! meat and cheese and herb all in one. toast. eat. done. easy.

Ricotta Stuffed Chicken + Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Yesterday my dreams came true and I acquired  myself a housewife/husband. And it was awesome. Came home after work, the place was cleaned and tidied up, there was a home cooked meal sizzling in the (stupid) toaster oven, ready to be consumed after a hard day's work. I can get use to a wife.

It really tasted as delicious as it looked, and it was awesome too because this was a first ever attempt.  The filling, if I remember correctly, is ricotta, fresh parmesan, bacon, garlic, salt and fresh ground pepper, chilli flakes and hot cayenne pepper. The chicken breast was cut in half and pounded out, and topped with a rose sauce with pancetta, more parmesan and bacon.  And baked, I would go for 350 @ 30-35 mins probably. While turning up the heat at the last throws of baking it to crisp up the top.  The side salad is a basic balsamic + olive oil dressing.

Had some fresh strawberries in the fridge and decided a good way to end dinner for my wonderful housewife/husband was to make some chocolate covered strawberries.  My first attempt and it was easy peasy.  Makeshift double boiler to melt some 75% dark chocolate, put in some butter, dipped, froze, eat.  

I also made some whipped cream, with vanilla extract cause we're over the top that way. All in all. A really delicious dinner :)

AAA grade Roast gets AAA+ grade

So Sunday I went to Costco and decided to pick up a nice roast since my roommate finally got a replacement... well, toaster oven for the oven that never was at the apartment... and it`s been a while since i`d had the pleasure of oven cooking so how else to celebrate than to cook a nice, juicy, fat ass piece of cow.   

picked up a nice 3 pound roast, AAA canadian grade umm, something, it was the tier right after prime rib, sirloin perhaps, not sure, but it was tender.  i did it my mom`s way, sticking lil cloves of garlic all over it after piercing a slit through, and made a rub of freshly ground pepper (LOVE my mortar), salt, paprika, onion powder, and italian seasoning... basically the only seasonings i have right now.. haha. gave it a nice oil massage and slapped on that rub on that baby, and threw it in the STUPID ASS TOASTER OVEN.

and after many button pushings (i should show you the horror that is this toaster oven, there is no temp, just `fav temps for fav foods` and you go up and down in time and temp from that.... but out came my hellraiser roast! haha. dont you see it? 

Ah and it was time to cut the cow. my friend jimmy came over to help me eat this 3 pounder, which we worked out to be 48 ounces of meat... though looks like a quarter of that is pure fat. it was pretty delicious though i must say, parts of it were rare, since the TOASTER OVEN IS A PIECE OF SHIT, and i dont have a proper roasting pan, and some bits were kinda rare, but, it was super fresh, so... beef tataki! I am so stuffed right now....

I also put in some potatoes but since the toaster oven cooked at the speed of a rock race.... stupid. TOASTER OVEN.

and there you go. 3 measly slices of leftovers for lunch tomorrow. haha. 

Jessica's Famous Seafood Chowder

hehe this is totally in my arsenal of jessica's go to dishes cause it's sooooo easy, and soooo tasty, and soooo satisfying and a crowd pleasure for sure.  the only pain is chopping up all those dang veggies, but otherwise, its a completely painless process.

it all started one day when I was in the gym catching up with my food network (cause i only get basic cable now :( ) and  it wasThrowdown with Bobby Flay: Salmon Chowder challenge with these guys at Seattle's Pike Place, and i was like, this is so easy! Im gonna make it.  Bobby used crab stock and crab meat, and the pike place guys used a shrimp/prawn based stock, but i chose to use lobster, cause I wanted to eat lobster meat.  This is actually my second go at making this, so this time this was a 3 lb lobster (my first one was 3.5).

So step 1: Cook and eat a delicious lobster and save the shells, brains, goo, everything. 

While i was cooking the lobster, i was simultaneously cooking a shit load of bacon for the chowder. Funny useless fact, we ate the lobster with a lemon bacon butter.... how awesome is that! haha.  

Threw the lobster shells in with water, 1 lemon cut in half, onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves, fresh thyme, celery, corn husks, couple peppercorns, salt, and.... i think that's it. Cooked it for an hour and a half.

And here it is, an hour and a half after, check out all its guts against the pot... mmmmm. lobster flavoured water.

At the same time i was making the stock, i was chopping up all the veggies... its a tiresome activity, and no a slap chop would not help. I used 1 large carrot, 1 large onion, 4 stalks of celery, 3 yukon gold, and 3 baking potatoes (they used yukon gold on the show, and i know why, it retains its shape and bite), kernal from 4 corn cobs, I "sweated" it in my roux (butter + flour, is that what you're even suppose to do? who cares). and then my bacon!

Strained the sock and added it to my pile of veggies and let it boil for a while... then i added half and half cream and all my seafood which were: Salmon Chunks, Seabass chunks, and scallops. What i should have done, was fried the scallops in the bacon fat... next time.

And there you go, seafood chowder for your family and your neighbours. which i did feed as well. haha.

Ta da! I ate this for like...6 straight meals.... if it wasnt THAT GOOD, it would be down the toilet. .. yeah i ended up giving it away to my neighbour... hahaha. but still... its THAT GOOD.

Make shift meal: Salmon Potato Cakes

So last night, I was hungry and had barely nothing in the fridge...sure i had a bunch of frozen stuff, but i was really craving FRESH, and really not feeling like leaving the house (it was snowing?) so i pulled together what I had to make my makeshift Salmon Cakes.

ingredients i used:

-2 cans of canned salmon (i'll probably try with fresh and other types of fish)

-2 potates (whatever i had leftover from my salmon chowder)

-1 onion

-fresh thyme (leftover from my salmon chowder)

-6 quail eggs (i had NO EGGS, my roommate had quail eggs, haha i would probably use more quail eggs to bind it, maybe 8? 10? whats the equivalent in normal eggs?)

-Bread crumbs - i used panko bread crumbs i had bought when i wanted to fry japanese style shrimp... love these impulse buys that i do nothing with

-salt, pepper, montreal salmon steak seasoning, paprika

damn quail eggs equate to nothing!!!!

I scooped out lil ... im trying to figure out what kinda sports balls they were the size of... baseball? no... not softball... bacci ball? no.. Pool Ball. yeah, size of a pool ball.  cubbed the potatoes, boiled and mashed and threw everything in. breaded it with more panko

Fried it up on low-medium heat in some butter... yeah you can see it was kinda falling apart, maybe cause i only used 6 quail eggs, or maybe i shoulda let it sit, cause the leftover ones i had today were perfectly held together.  As you can see, the salmon  cans (super tasty and juicy) were courtesy of jenice from her awesome fish store in Burnaby, FISH.

With no tarter sauce, I tried to make my own with some lemon yogurt, relish packets i stole from the movie theatre, and dill in a tube.  The flavours were all there, plus its fresh and the least fattening tarter sauce ever!  I ran out of relish this morning, so i chopped up dill pickles and threw it in with the yogurt, worked just as well, more tart. 

Here's the mid nom nom noming dish... hehe. 

 And here is my attempt at a plating pic. haha. 

In conclusion.  A super quick and cheap eat at home, will in the future attempt to add other stuff in the cakes (like leeks! never used leeks before, but saw it on TV), as this is my FIRST TIME ever making a potato cake of any variety, i am indeed a fan as they are cheap, delicious, and i get to pretend im fancy. 

Kimchi Roe Udon

omg in the last 24 hours i have made 8 frozen udon units worth of this kimchi roe udon. it is sooooo yummy that i actually made it THIS MORNING so i could bring it for lunch. so this is a super quick meal, cause as i'm chop chop chopping up the garlic and kimchi, i turn the kettle on to boil the water cause i basically just pour hot water over the noodles to unstick them in a vat. Fry everything else in a pan, and then just mix the noodles til they're all smothered in delicious spicy butter roe goodness.  And the ingredients are so simple too. udon (i like the frozen udon the best), garlic, kimchi, roe, dashi, and butter.  So to recap, the last 3 meals i've had were kimchi roe udon. haha.  not to disgust anyone tho, i was also feeding other people each time... so 7 meals, 8 udon packets, not too bad! ... so to recap again... 8 portions of kimchi roe udon. 8 udons, 1 stick of butter, 1 container of kimchi, 2/3 roe container and bulb of garlic... as amazing as it tastes, i am totally u'done for the day.  

Not my Swedish dish...

I've been hanging out at Ikea like twice a week for the last month, trying to find a dresser, but always getting distracted by everything else.  So instead of picking up a dresser one day (which i have now! thanks for asking), i picked this lil piece up (not referring to the blonde boy... that's just wrong). 

Sounds promising! Kalles Kaviar Creamed Smoked Fish Roe w/ Dill... love roe, love dill should be a happy marriage!

First clue:  food that looks like industrial strength glue =

BLEUGH! says me. who knows, you might like it. but looking at the ingredients it goes: Fish Roe, RAPESEED oil (apparently that's real), Sugar... ew sugar roe? sugar smoked roe?

I'll put it in my mouth right now, its got that fishy flavour, the first punch in your mouth is this sweet salty sting and only after that do you kinda taste this smokyness in your throat. it is so not good. i'm going to rinse my mouth in lemon juice and ajax now.