Summer delights

woooohooo I loooove my life right now because I can do whatever I want all day long without worrying about reports or what to eat for lunch at school!

Today I borrowed DVDs from a friend of mine and watched 7episodes non-stop, and cooked a nice meal for iftar. I love Ramadhan cuz I only have to cook 1 time a day. If it's a normal day, I have to cook for breakfast, and prepare a lunch to bring to school, and after all the exhausting day I have to cook a healthy meal for dinner. huh memang penat beb but what can I do, I want to save money for my sprint vacation next year, France and Italy maybe, and cooking my own food can save a lot.

So this is what I cooked. Teryaki-like burger with cheese. I always see ads on TV and unfortunately I can't have McD's burgers here because they are not halal, so I made it myself. :)

My own version of Teriyaki-burger!

Masalanya the burger was quite big, and I couldn't not eat it without separating top parts and second part. :( I will try with thinner bun next time. 

Usually I don't eat chicken/beef much here because I am too lazy to order it through internet or to go to a halal shop at Shinjuku (well, the nearest halal shop is just a couple of stations away but I'm too lazy to find where's it the exact location), so I usually have salmons or eggs or tofu or shrimps for my proteins. But since summer here is so severe(at least for me and other Japanese here who haven't been to Sahara yet, lol) , people here will have more protein in order to give them more stamina! I know I don't really know about relation between stamina and protein but yeah, people here eat meats to survive summer! Tak puas hati then you can ask a Japanese. ;)

One of their favorite sources of protein is Unagi, or belut, or an eel. Another friend of mine happened to work at a restaurant specialized for serving eel dishes so he asked us to go there.

This is the picture.

Unagi-don or grilled eel with rice

Maybe you will think that "ish geli gellll makan belut????eeeeey tak masuk akal" but hey, kite org melayu makan keli kan? ape beza ikan keli dgn belut, lebih kurang je for me, ikan panjang, licin2 and wane hitam!!hehe

It's a fish, and whatever meat and blood in sea are halal. well, eel is in livers or ponds but whatever, it's a fish so it's halal! And it is quite good, really soft and tasty. All of us had a really good time enjoying a real, good Unagi-don.

Actually I cooked beef curry too, and it was fantasticly yummmmm! I ran out of coconut milk so I use some ordinary powdered milk. Tak sangka jadi sesedap tu fuhhh masuk bakul angkat sendiri betul. ;p but I don't wanto to post it because I realized that my blog is turning into a cooking blog or a blog about foods only.haha Maybe next time if I have no idea to blog.

salmon n kebab

It's summer already and really hot here, sometimes it can over 32 celsius degree here. So lately I didn't cook proper meal much. However, I had a guest this sunday so I cooked to serve my guest.

(from left clockwise) kebab, steamed sweet cones, tomyam flavor spicy soup, and steamed salmon with a lot of vegs!

I tried to boil the cones according to a recipe I found on internet, it said that cones will taste sweeter if you do not peel it completely. But if you want to grill it during BBQ, you should remove the hair to avoid from burnt. I put little water it it turned out to be steamed cones, not boiled.lol

Kebab is bought in Shinjuku, this is my first time, it costed 350yen which is quite cheap, and it tasted good for me. How I wish they have halal kebab near my town. :(

I put potato in steamed salmon because i thought it will be a good combination since potato goes nice with butter and since there's no carb so it can help to fill my stomach but I couldn't finish the potatoes so I end up put them back in left over of the soup. I ate it as my dinner!

As a conclusion, I love kebab.

new malaysian dish

Macaroni Bandung

hari tu, I was soooo hungry and can't cook a proper dish. So I looked for a perencah or prepared spices to cook some food and I found instant soup for Mee bandung. Unfortunately, I was too hungry to go to shop and buy noodle (mee) so I just boiled some macaroni and poured them into bandung soup with spinach and egg.

the taste? it was nice, surprisingly!

scones

Hari ni ada masa ckit sebab dapat balik awal dari university. Meeting for my club was cancelled so I baked chunky chocolate scones and make fried rice stock.

This is my first time to try this recipe so it doesn't look as nice as starbuck's scones. hehe

It looks messy but hey, I made it myself.:p

Then I made fried rice. Tak dapat jumpa perencah yang bes so try men campak perencah mee bandung. Hasilnya... jadi!! bau macam mee bandung tapi rasa tak la pelik sangat.

Today's dinner

bento

Left: boiled broccoli and sweet corn salads.
on rice: egg and spinach, tofu carrot and mushrooms cooked with soy sause.

Cooking in the morning before go to class became my new habits since this new semester.
Since I don't have 1st period class, I have more time in morning. I used to go to gym and then cook for my breakfast and lunch, but I changed my schedule a little bit and now I go to gym in the evening. It takes some time to see the result, so hopefully I can stick to this healthy life style. :)

dinner

spicy tomato with chicken, handmade toast, tomato, veggie soup.

Actually I wanted to make Ayam Masak Merah. Kat label mmg tulis cmtu. But when I pour it to pan, it smelled like coconut milk, and I thought ayam mesak merah should be like sambalish, not milky. Tu yang cakap tu ayam masak tomato yang spicy tu.

Making Nabe ~Hot Pot~

haha sebenarnya dah lama gila I buat Nabe dengan kawan2 Jepun, tapi saje je nak wat satu entry jugak. Actually it was my first time to make a Nabe myself with my friends. Nabe is a popular dish served during winter because it is easy to prepare, can eat a lot of vegs, and can make your body warm! Nabe means "pot" in Japanese. Senang cite, you can make a Nabe by pouring cut vegs, some protein like lean meat, or fish slices, fish cakes or tofu, or everything! into your favourite soup. This time I tried Kimchi flavoured nabe. We bought a packet of soup, then threw almost everything that we love! If you cannot get soup yang dah siap2 atau tak dapat cari soup2 yg halal, you can make it yourself by simple steps!

This is how to make a kimchi nabe:
You only need kimchi, sesame oil, water, a cube of chicken stock for flavour if you want, vegetables (cabbage is really nice to make a nabe), tofu and any protein I mentioned above.

I used seafoods, tofu, cabbage, eggs and mushrooms, to my kimchi nabe.

1. Put some sesami oil, then kimchi into apot. Stir them until they are warm. Macam tumis sikit la, tapi you have to put kimchi a lot, so it's not like making sambals. lol

2. Pour water into the pot. You can use some seasoning or chicken cube/stock to add some flavour. I added a small amount of soya paste and kocchujan(korean chili paste that I don't know how to spell it) this time.

3. Cook hard vegetables and proteins.

I love muchrooms!

It's not cooked yet, but nabe is nice prepared it together with your family or friends. ^^

4. When the soup is boiling, slow down the heat, and throw tofu or onion or other vegetables. You can add eggs too!

This is how it looks. You can topup soup, kimchi or other ingredient while you eat it. Just add anything you like. It's fun!

The last part is kind of important too. When you finish eating all or almost all ingredient in your nabe, you can add some rice into it to make porridge! Some people add noodles like udon, and I think you can add beehun or mee kuning if you like.

Nabe has a lot of variation, like curry flavour, soya milk flavour, tomato flavour and so on. So just try it who knows you can find a great new taste for nabe? ;)

red, yellow and green

One of my current hobbies is making lunch-in-the-lunch-box or a.k.a a bento!

This is help me a lot because cafeteria in my uni doesn't really have menus that I can eat, only 3 or 4 are seafoods. Plus I can save 400yen(about RM14, I think) a day, it's 2000yen a week for total. Yeay!

This is picture of last week's bento.

chicken meatball with sambal, japanese style egg, tomato and spinach with chikuwa!

best buat bekal ni sebab nanti time makan lunch, leh tengok-tengok kawan2 punya, lps tu puji sesama sendiri lawa ke tak. lol

time kat supermarket, looking aroung vege area and think what tomorrow's bento gonna looks like is one of the fun time to, jadi ke tak jadi tu lain cite la, bukan terrer pun masak..hehe

ada jugak zaman2 yang addicted dengan coop's fresh baked buns for lunch, cuz they are so nice and cheap! tapi rasa macam bersalah tak guna kotak bento ni yang agak mahal.

masa mula-mula sampai sini mana tau harga barang camne kan. yela selama ni sume benda mak yah belikan kecuali majalah CLEO dan buku nota sekolah. so dengan blur2 nye beli je lah bekas ni dekat kedai yang ada barang2 hot hiasan rumah. George's namanya.

It looks so simple, tapi quite expensive for a poor student like me. patutnya cari kt kedai 300yen je.hehe

However, like what malay peribahasa says, alah membeli menang memakai so I gonna use it until lusuh sampai grad, beb!hehe

I will post more bento picture in future.;)