Fusion Power

Have you tried Korean barbeque, pasta, and cucumber & pear salad? All for one meal? I have. It was a quite of an odd and interesting combination but it was quite tasty. It wasn't just me, my honey liked it too. He's such a good sport for trying my experimental dishes. I felt the need to exercise my creative fusion power the other day. One, I had marinated Korean barbeque in the freezer that I've been wanting to eat. It's my mom's. :) Two, I had a bunch of parsley that I didn't know what to do with. Three, I felt like having cucumber in some sort of salad form. So I decided to make a fusion meal.

For the barbeque, just pan-fried it. Excellent!


With parsley, I made parsley pesto. Followed a recipe. Never made pesto so I was excited to make it. But I think I like the traditional version with basil better. I incorporated into cooked spaghetti. Turned out pretty good.


Now the cucumber salad. I diced the Korean cucumbers. I think they may be called Persian cucumbers too. Whichever you prefer to call them, they're the smaller ones. Mixed with diced Korean/Asian pear. Okay here we go again with the regional thing...you know these, these are the round ones with brown skin. Tossed with some sesame dressing and a tiny bit of red pepper flakes. It looked pretty and it tasted refreshing.


Oddly enough, everything went well together and we both enjoyed the meal with some sake. Now that's what you call a culinary adventure! Bon appetit!

Oh my gravy!

I'm a newby at cooking pork chop or any pork for that matter. So far pork is not my culinary friend. The taste may or may not be there but definitely texture is a disaster. I attempted to make a pork chop dish yet another time past weekend. This time I followed a recipe pretty exactly.

It's pork chop with gravy. I browned the two pieces of thick pork chop in a pan then took it out, set it aside. Next I cooked the diced carrots, onions, and celery. Made gravy with flour, chicken stock, and bit of butter. Then returned the pork to the pan and cooked it for an hour. Appetizer in the meantime was Brie cheese, apple, grapes and strawberries. Yummy! I figured after an hour swimming in the gravy the meat should be tender and juicy...ready to be devoured... NOT! Not all all. In fact, the worst so far. The meat was hard and tough, made my jaw hurt chewing on it. What am I doing wrong here?

But oh my gravy! The gravy was soooo good. I could just have the gravy with rice and I'll be a happy camper. I can definitely use the gravy over chicken. I'm feeling hopeless of pork chop journey. There is one more recipe I'd like to try though. Amber recommends brining. It may take some time to get over this pork failure but I'm willing to try one more time.

Friday Night Home Cooking

This week's Friday night meal was home cooked Baked Panko Sea Bass and Fusilli with Pan-fried Asparagus. Sounds fancy heh...it's not, it's all about how you name them, right? I generally don't follow recipes when I cook for different reasons (baking, on the other hand, is different). Mainly because I'm too lazy to complete the ingredient list so I often substitute. Besides, I'm not inclined to buy an atypical ingredient to make one dish. I'm too cheap and lazy for that. So I usually get inspired by recipes instead and just let my creativity take its role. :) This time was no different but closer to following them than other times.

For the main dish, Baked Panko Sea Bass-- I was inspired to use breadcrumbs for a fish fillet. I didn't have the type of breadcrumbs nor the fish the recipe called for but close enough. I had Panko breadcrumbs and sea bass. My first time using the Panko. In fact, I have limited experience with breading anything. Somehow it makes me nervous. I baked the fish in the 450 degree oven. I also made the yogurt sauce for it which was also included in the recipe. I didn't have lemon yogurt so well...I just added some lemon juice. Both fish and the sauce turned out good. The fish was nicely browned outside and flaky, juicy inside. The sauce accompanied it quite nicely, gave a good balance of crunchy, creamy and slight tangy.

The side dish was Fusilli with Pan-fried Asparagus. The inspiration here was to use the asparagus, Parmesan cheese, and my pasta-craving. So thumbing through the recipe book...voila! I found a recipe that had all three. The recipe called for evaporated milk but I didn't have it, so I just used regular low-fat milk. This was actually my first time dressing up the pasta with milk and cheese so I was quite excited. It turned out very good. Thanks to my honey who grated the Parmesan. He's my favorite (and only) sous chef... :)

We accompanied the meal with 2008 Chateau de Sancerre. We really liked this French white wine. It was still crisp and tasty even after it was not cold.

All in all, I thought it was a great meal. A pretty good success for "almost" following the recipes.

Running anyone?

"Running? Me? No thanks!" This would've been my answer up until a couple of years ago. I took up a tennis class over regular PE class in school because the teacher made the regular PE
students run on the track/field. I'd rather chase after tennis balls than running. I despised running--made my head hurt, felt like all my internal organs were shaking out of place, and felt like puking after a couple of minutes. I've always been into exercises in some form or another like aerobics and step classes. But never running. I was not made to be a runner.

After 20 some odd years later, something happened... I was going through an unhappy phase of my life. I started just taking walks, about three miles each time. I enjoyed the peace and quiet time for myself to think and decompress. After a while, walking became a bit monotonous so I started trotting, then trotting turned to jogging, and before I knew it I was running. Eventually running became not-so-bad! After a few months of enjoying my new discovery, I ran my first 5K, then 10K, and trained for a half-marathon. Unfortunately the half-marathon was canceled but I was still able to run the distance at the end of my training. It was an exuberance that I have not felt for a long while. I could not believe that I was running. Me? Running? Who would've thought? At first it was a physical challenge but it became a mental challenge. There were many moments I had to tell myself "I can do this", "I've gone more than half", or "only a mile to go". I joined a local running group which was so helpful and valuable for me in order to stay focused and motivated. It was exciting to discover a whole new world of runners! Never bought a pair of socks that costed me $10 until now...but very much worth it.

Since then I have been off-track here and there but I still have the love for running. I try to get my running several times a week. I will re-start my races. My first goal is another 5K next month, then I'll work my way up to a half-marathon. A full marathon at this point scares me but...never say never. :) Marathon or not, I think running will be part of my life for a long time. I hope to share my journey of running time to time.

Ready, set, go!

I am so excited to start my own blog! I hope to share my journeys of many things...like running, hiking, traveling, cooking, eating, and crafting. :)
Yes I do have two spoiled kitties, I will definitely share some pictures of them soon.