Sunday Night Steaks

Today I decided to have some steak (chili would have taken too long). I kept changing my mind throughout the day by putting the steaks from the freezer to the fridge and back to the freezer. So when I decided to actually do it, they were semi-frozen. So, I defrosted them by placing them in room-temperature water for about 20 min.

To season it, I used some sherry wine, soy sauce, steak seasoning and some oil. I let it sit for 5 minutes as the frying pans heated up.

I decided to cook the steaks on medium heat so that the outside wouldn't be all burned while the inside would be raw. 

As for veggies, I stir-fried some asparagus with salt and ginger, adding water after to fully cook them.

Here's the steak after flipping...

And being held on its side to cook the fatty part..

And voila! Plated with the asparagus and a piece of olive bread at the back :)

It was more red than it looks like here, but I don't mind because it wasn't chewy. Perfectly seasoned, cooked in less than 10 minutes. Best part is the 2nd steak saved for tomorrow's meals :)

Of Steaks and Candy Apples

Trying to fix my sleep schedule is not easy. Especially when you nap from 4-6pm. When I woke up, I knew I wouldn't have enough time to cook the steaks I defrosted overnight and get to class by 7pm, so I grabbed a candy apple that a friend got for me earlier today (thanks dude!). I'll just present the following photos in succession. 

And done.

Nothing like waking up and enjoying a candy apple :P

After starving throughout class (granola bars are a poor excuse of sustenance...especially in place of dinner), I decided to marinate two steaks with oyster sauce and some cooking wine. For veggies, I chopped up a red, orange, and yellow bell pepper, an onion, garlic, and sautéed them together, finally adding chicken broth to reduce. To keep with the steak flavor profile, I added some oyster sauce to the veggies as well. I pan-seared the steaks, toasted some bread, puréed some of the bell pepper reduction as a fun sauce, and dug in :)

A nice medium steak in the middle.

Best part is, the 2nd steak and the remaining veggies are packed for lunch tomorrow.

How I Did It:

Veggies:

1. On medium-high heat, sauté onions, add salt. Once browned, throw in bell peppers, garlic, stir occasionally for 5 min.

2. Add about 1/3 can of chicken broth and some oyster sauce

3. Let it reduce.

4. I actually threw this mixture into the steak pan after taking the steaks out so the veggies would pick up some caramelized steak flavor.

Steak:

1. Marinade steaks and bring them to room temperature (just leave them out, ~10 min).

2. On high heat, sear steaks for 4 min, I leave the lid on so they cook inside

3. Flip and cook for 4 min

4. Take them out of the pan and let them rest for a little.

One of my Quick, 10 min, Automatic Dinners

So I worked out earlier and had a salad that wasn't too much of a showcase to post. It was simply shredded Sobey's roast chicken, a fried egg, greens, chocolate milk (separately). However for dinner, I made it almost completely from freezer-stored food and within 10 minutes. I have frozen corn, peas, diced beets, and diced sweet potato (thanks mom). I threw them all into a pot with half chicken broth, half water, and brought it to a boil for 10 min. At the 8th minute or so, I threw in frozen scallops so they wouldn't overcook. You'll know when the ingredients are done by stabbing them with a fork (specifically scallops and sweet potatoes). This meal is super easy to make and clean up, you just have to have some bite size frozen stuff to make it that's prepared by your parents :)
WARNING: It's kinda healthy.

It was still steaming when I took this shot. Now I'm wondering why I put it into a plate when I could've eaten out of the pot....

Dinner's Served!

Alright we're back for some more food! Yesterday night I marinated a chicken breast with some vinegar, soya sauce, paprika, spice salt, pepper, and cooking wine. Sauteed it in a pan and served it on top of a stir-fried mix of broccoli, mushrooms and a pearl onion. Garnished with cilantro and voila!

The colour scheme on this thing isn't great, but it'll be something to think about for the next one.

The day before yesterday, I bought a pork tenderloin. I decided to throw it in the slow cooker with whole tomatoes, carrots, corn, and mushroom. I seasoned the tenderloin with paprika, spice salt, pepper, chicken cubes, and cooking wine again (yes...there's a pattern to the seasoning. I really need to diversify). HOWEVER, pork always goes well with something sweet, so I poured in some apple cider. I did some homework, played some tennis (before getting rained on), worked out, and three hours later I was enjoying this:

                        

I think I was a little heavy on the seasoning, or maybe it was the apple cider that added a 'bite'. Either way, it was a good meal which I have two more servings of for this week :)

The New Nutrition Program

During a long absence out of town and watching the World Cup, I picked up a nutrition program that I'm semi-following right now. It's basically the 5 meals a day, protein every meal, 2 servings of veggies every meal, carbs for breakfast and after exercise only, etc, etc. I've become even more health conscious now that I've been doing this exercise training course. I also bought protein powder! But, it tastes kinda like fish so it might not the best one out there.

So this morning, I had Vector cereal with milk before my workout, and made myself a smoothie (with my new protein powder) for a meal. Cooked up salmon and deglazed it with balsamic vinegar, which is it looks so dark in the picture below.

It was kinda underdone but I don't actually mind it (thank you Japan). Threw some spinach and cucumbers underneath and ate it at work (which is why its in a handy box).

For dinner, I stir-fried some bok choy with a smashed garlic clove and ginger, deglazed with chicken broth and a little salt. Boiled some pork dumplings and voila!

The dumpling that's open was my tester. I like to know I'm eating something fully cooked...and since no one's marking me on presentation I frequently do it. But if you think about it, good chefs always taste their food before serving it to their clients, and since I'm my own chef and client, this would be justified :)

On Mangoes, Steak, and Fried Rice

So I grabbed a mango the other day and decided to just skin out and eat it like an apple. I think it's much more amazing when you sink your teeth into an entire mango (don't bite too hard on the pit) and chew. Wouldn't you agree? Either way it doesn't matter if you agree because I'll keep peeling my fruits and bite them   (and yes, I've done it to an orange :D )

The unlucky mango.

Before I left for my soccer game last night, I defrosted a steak and let the rice cooker go until I got back. Got back and stir-fried some bok choy (see http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/health/food-guide/bok-choy/~default) with a mashed clove of garlic and some ginger. De-glazed pan with 1/2 cup chicken broth, 1/2 cup water. Rubbed some Montreal Steak Sauce on the red meat and seared each side for 2 min. 

                  

I'm still getting used to my new stove which is super powerful, so I'm gonna have to adjust next time by turning it down and cooking it longer. It was nice and tender on the inside, but a little too red because I felt my stomach mad at me today haha...

                  

Saved 1/3 of it for a sandwich the next day. Sandwich didn't happen. I just ate the leftovers out of the bowl with a salad haha.

And so we come to tonight's dinner: Fried Rice. You'd think Chinese people eat this stuff everyday because that's what you see at our restaurants. Well surprise surprise, it takes a lot of oil to make and since I don't want to acquire heart disease at age 25, fried rice doesn't happen too often.

I first fried an omelette and saved it on a plate. Fried what we call "lap cheung" which is technically a Chinese sausage but that just sounds weird to me. It's kinda sweet and also oily and bad for you (but soo good...it's like bacon to me). So I fried that, added chopped shallots, some more oil (there wasn't any oil when frying the lap cheung because....they fry in their own fat just like bacon...see how bad this is for you??), added chopped cucumber, corn, mushrooms, and whole scallops. Added some chicken broth for flavour and let it cook for a minute or so. Then added in the rice from last night (this is important: you can't add rice you just made because it's too gloopy. It has to be a little drier and you can do that by saving it in the fridge overnight). Drizzled in sesame seed oil, soya sauce, and added the eggs in at the end (so they wouldn't dry up). And voila:

                        

Heaven in my mouth.

Sad news: as I got the bowl of rice from my fridge, my hand hit the freezer door and I dropped the bowl. The rice wasn't touching too much of the floor but it had a bunch of shards on one side. Had to throw out half of it D:

                    

On a happy note I still have enough fried rice leftovers for another meal :) And omg I need to get to class now.

So Much Food, So Little Time...

So it's really hard to keep up a blog, especially one about food (which you eat EVERYDAY - hand down again anorexic guy). Since blogger.com has a new, annoying way to upload pictures, and the fact that it takes forever to upload them, I'll try my best to fight the urge to yell at Rogers (which would take me 2 hrs just to get in touch with a real human being). That being said, here we go:

Just cooked dinner, pulled the dumplings from the freezer and they took quite a long time to boil before being done. After cutting open the first tester, I found it was still cold inside...and pinky. Had to test a few more before I could tell they were cooked (better safe than sorry!). It was still delicious, with Taiwanese cabbage stir-fried in garlic and chicken broth underneath.

                               

Hmm so I guess this blogger won't center portrait-style pictures either...wait I can use the space bar to push it over....haha silly me, anyways, I woke up super early today (7am...after sleeping at 10:30pm) and went to the gym (I had some Vector cereal with milk and a banana). When I came back I made an omelette with peas and corn that turned into a scrambled egg...because I couldn't flip it all in one go. Better safe to have it cooked through though, runny eggs gross me out. Added an orange, plum, and apple juice to finish it off.

                      

Watching Toy Story 3 is a pretty good way to kill time as pictures load :P
I always wanted an excuse to use balsamic vinegar in a savoury dish and I got my chance. Made a salad yesterday for lunch, using arugula, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers. Topped it off with a pan-seared salmon to which I added balsamic vinegar to the pan at the end, and a little on top of the salad as well. Delicious.

Toy Story 3 cut out on me, time to study for a midterm this Saturday :S I had a pita with the salmon salad to fill me up, and used some good 'ol salsa. I was chowing down on a tub of hummus every week and I felt it was a bit unhealthy, so I switched over to a healthier option (although I think it does have more sodium...)

Alright time to backtrack a bit. Went home for the weekend, my brother made ribs using a dry spice rub, apple wood to smoke it, indirect heat, probably 3 hours in the barbecue, and this picture does NOT give the size of this dish justice. It was piled a good foot above the dinner table (there are 3 racks in there). Good stuff bro.

                     

Alright last one for now. The day after the barbecue we went to 168 Sushi Japan Buffet on Dundas St., west of Erin Mills. I was SO stuffed afterwards. But then again I worked out once we got home, to my surprise. Their food is pretty good for a buffet. Try it out! (It will put you back about $23.00 with tax and tip on top for dinner).

Kay gotta study now, thanks for reading if you got this far! I would like to do shorter blogs so that my labels don't become super long (so I can reference what I ate/build ideas of what to cook in the future). Ciao!

My First Beef Roast

So today I went grocery shopping and picked up a pre-marinated $12 beef roast from Wal-Mart. I decided to test it out on the new oven. Instructions said that a medium beef roast would take 2 1/4 hours at 375 F.

Lies.

I cooked it for 1.5 hours and it was medium-well :( I don't like my beef rare and bleeding all over the place, but a nice, tender medium makes me happy.

I watched Alton Brown's Good Eats while waiting for the roast beef to finish, so maybe I put my expectations of a melt-in-your mouth roast too high...

While letting the beef roast rest and reabsorb its juices, I scraped off the drippings and made a gravy from it. Turned out pretty well, but could've used some red wine.

There were some really nice pieces of beef like the end cuts and the very centre pieces, but the rest was a little tougher to chew. I added it to the scallop/veggie stir-fry I made yesterday with some leftover rice as well. Decent combo.

On a sweeter note, I bought dark chocolate at Wal-Mart as well, but it melted inside the wrapper while inside the hot car. Here's how it unwrapped hahaha.

Time to clean all the dishes now. There are SO MANY D: And for the rest of the week I will be eating many variations of the roast beef as I only had two slices out of twelve. Potluck anyone?

Grand Opening

Welcome!

If you are a malnourished student in university like I am, fending for yourself from textbooks, extracurriculars, and all of life's time-consuming things, then we have a lot in common.

This blog will be all about food, because it is delicious (most of the time). Who doesn't like eating? Ok hand down anorexic guy. I'll be posting trips to the supermarket, prepping, cooking, and most wonderfully of all, EATING :D I am horribly sorry if it makes you hungry when you read this at 2am in the morning, but if it inspires you to cook as well, three thumbs up to you.

For my first blogged meal, I stir-fried some scallops, broccoli, mushrooms, and red bell peppers. I made rice with a few veggies the night before so I heated it up and topped it off with the stir-fry. Made it simple with garlic, ginger, and salt, topped with green onions. Could've used a little sauce, as it was kind of dry with all the rice. Still tasty though! (I love scallops).