Photos galore!

I'm guessing that followers of this blog, if there are any left—you stalkers (I kid! I kid!)—will probably have noticed these pictures in the photostream page applet on top. Still, the object of this blog is not just to show pictures, that's what the flickr page is for. This blog is for telling stories, and while there is no neatly packaged story to tell here today, I suppose this can count as the latest instalment of the stories of our lives.

First bit of news is that we have been feeding him solids quite regularly already, as mentioned earlier. He has tasted apple, pear, carrot, rice, oats, banana, sweet potato, and now, his favourite: avocado. We mash the food portions up in a marble mortar and pestle, and sometimes we add a bit of pear nectar to sweeten and water the paste. Mealtimes are his favourite—he gets to sit up on his high chair, and get to taste all sorts of interesting foods. He'd start out all clean and enthused, arms outstretched and sitting up, like this:

And after a few mouthfuls, he gets animated, tries to tell us how much he likes the food and about the time when he went out and had a lot of fun, his hands will wave about:

As the meal progresses, he gets messier and messier, with food all over his mouth as he mumbles, and plays with his food, blows bubbles, and starts leaning forward and generally making it hard for food to enter and remain in his mouth. Eventually, he winds up like this:

And then we get the pleasure of cleaning up after him. While the plastic bib works very well in catching food and preventing him from folding it up to taste the drippings, he is also very adept at spewing food away from the bib. So we have to clean the high chair, the floor, and of course, his mouth, chin, and neck. Not surprisingly, this whole process takes the better part of twenty or so minutes, which is amazing given the amount he consumes.

You'd probably notice in the pictures that his cheeks are still badly rashed. It's been months already, and we're not exactly sure what to do. We've gotten steroids, topical antibiotics, moisturiser, and now hydrogen peroxide (to clean the open wounds), but they don't seem to get rid of the condition. It gets a small reduction, but it seems like his skin adapts to the help and gets worse before stabilising at a bad level. We'll be seeing his paediatrician next week for his scheduled vaccinations, and we'd ask if he can do something about it, but we're not enthusiastic. Seems like Western medicine is not too good at treating chronic conditions, so we'll see what happens.

---

This last weekend, the confluence of conditions finally made it that we could go to the park to take pictures. Unfortunately, we were a little late, the peak autumn colours had faded and mostly fallen off. Still, we did what we could, and here are some of the results.

This first picture we took looking along a wooded path, the kind where it is all shaded, forming something resembling a tunnel, with light at the end of it. We walked past it, and realised we had to take a picture there:

Another picture, this one you can see that the leaves in the background are quite brown by now. They are supposed to turn red, yellow and that's the time when it is ideal for viewing. Ah well, there will be next year...

We moved on to another site, and took this picture. Somehow, Ryan was in a ticklish mood, and laughed every time Serene patted the mat that he was seated on. Laughter being the contagious thing that it is, she also started laughing as I tried to hold the camera still and quickly fire off the pictures, resulting in this:

Babies. Infuriating sometimes (like right now as I type—he is having difficulty sleeping), but it's times like these that make it all worthwhile.

ReNe: starting solids

For a while now, we've been involving Ryan more during our mealtimes, showing him (in exaggerated motions) how we chew, letting him see what we're eating, and so on. Once in a while we would bring the spoon to him to see if he's interested. Initially, he wasn't.

Then a couple of weeks back, he started to exhibit a greater interest in our foods -- looking intently at our food and opening his mouth. So we stopped offering him our spoon (no sense in frustrating him because we're clearly not going to feed him what WE are eating) and started to prepare some foods that he can eat. So far we've let him try prune juice, white grape juice, banana, apple, pear, sweet potato (all mashed) and oatmeal. Thinking about it now, that sequence may not have been the best -- some say we should start with bland foods and work up to the sweeter fruits. Some websites also say we should cook the fruits and not offer raw fruits until later. Oops.

Most current literature advises waiting until the baby is 6 months old (he's 4.5 months now) before introducing solids. Mostly because his digestive system isn't ready for solids yet. However, about the same time he started to exhibit an interest in our food, his diapers also started to stink, so I figured some enzymes must have woken up.

I had also let him lick a couple of Ricola sweets, which he liked very much. In fact, when I offered him the second sweet to lick, he *lunged* forward. I think I shouldn't do such things any more.

Initially, he would spit up everything we gave him, whether or not he likes it. He would go through the chewing motions he learned from us, but he hadn't figured out how to swallow. After a few times, he's now much better at it. His current favorite is sweet potato, followed by apple and pear. He likes these foods so much he would lunge for the spoon after tasting the first mouthful, and cry out angrily when (once he has finished) we remove his utensils and bib. And he does finish all of his food. We were feeding him about 2 teaspoons and today we increased it to 4 teaspoons; he finished everything eagerly.

mmm. tastes like chicken

mmm. tastes like chicken, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

So, Ryan's been eating solids. More like he's sampling food that we've been feeding him. We realised recently that he was ready to try new foods when he started to lose the tongue thrust reflex, the reflexive urge to spit out anything that comes into his mouth. Also, he was quickly becoming extremely curious with regards to the food we eat - he'd stare intently as we ate, and almost had that "gimme some of that!" look on his face. And it was nearly time anyway - one gauge that paediatricians go by is the doubling of birth weight, and yes, he's doubled.

So we started preparing foods for him. Apples, pears, sweet potatoes, boiled, steamed, and then macerated with a mortar and pestle. He loves it!

This one time, I was preparing dinner for ourselves, and as usual, we'd like to plop him up on his high chair as he watches us cook and potter around the kitchen. In what seems like a pattern now, we'd turn our heads away for a minute to attend to something, and then we'd turn back, only to notice surprise us. This time, he was slumped over and tasting the high chair. I wonder if he was feeling hungry, or he's at the stage where he's exploring his world with the new sense that has woken up - his sense of taste...

ReNe: 'private patio'

The current temperatures in Toronto are still nice, as cool as Singapore during the monsoon months at the end of the year, but without the cloying humidity. But that's outside; it gets pretty warm and stifling in our apartment. An advantage, I'm sure, during winter, but right now in summer, it's irritating. So when the weather outside is nice (it tends to rain these days), we'd dine al fresco.


Look -- our private patio. Well, actually, it's the fire escape. And that's chicken rice.

ReNe: making yogurt

Ahahaha!! I just tried my first batch of homemade yogurt and I haven't poisoned myself (yet). In fact, it tastes really nice and creamy. And it's really very easy and much cheaper so no more store-bought yogurt for me!

The How-To
First, inoculate the milk: bring 4 cups of milk to a boil, and then cool till about 35-40C.
Meanwhile, prepare the starter: leave about 2 tablespoons of yogurt (plain) to warm to room temperature.
Next, combine: add the milk to the yogurt and stir well.
Finally, incubate: this step is highly variable. I left mine to incubate for about 5 hours. The online recipe I got it from says at least 4 hours, more if you want a sharper taste. Since Toronto is undergoing a heat wave right now (temperatures > 30C), I just lidded the bowl with a saucepan lid and left it in the corner of the kitchen. Otherwise, other ideas include the oven or a vacuum flask.

Funnily enough, I only thought about making my own yogurt because food prices have been going up lately, especially dairy. So by making my own, very approximately, the savings is 200%. Meaning, the cost of home-made yogurt is a quarter of store-bought yogurt. I hope I got that right...

MiKE: Best. Rolls. Ever.

So, i've been experimenting with cinnamon roll recipes. They've not turned out particularly good. That is, until the previous iteration, but unfortunately I baked them at too high a temperature and they kinda burnt. And I had placed them too close, and they all stuck together.

This time, I think I've got the recipe right. Made a batch to bring to class. We had an end of course pot luck kind of thing, and I brought about 7 of the 12 rolls. Besides not having enough container space to fit all 12, I knew a certain someone who would probably, erm... punish me for not leaving any behind. They even looked good before they were baked, so I sort of knew they would turn out good. All who tasted it liked it, and a couple of them even asked me for the recipe.

Well, here's some pictures, just before baking:

and fresh out of the oven:

MiKE: Spending Money

So, Serene moved here. She's got a job offer and will have the details worked out soon. Which meant that she and all her stuff needed to be accommodated here. Which meant we needed more horizontal surfaces upon which to put stuff on. Which meant that we needed to get to a cheap-ish furniture shop to get stuff. Which meant Ikea, especially since I had in mind the Ivar shelving unit, being pretty wide, tall, sturdy, deep enough to be useful, but not so deep that it gets in the way. But more of that later.

Her flight was actually cancelled the day it was supposed to fly due to the heavy snowstorm here. She arrived the next day, on a Monday, when snow was still piled really high at the traffic junctions, so there was an interesting obstacle course of sorts to clear. Other pedestrians before us had somewhat cleared a small footpath by stomping down the snow, but that was not wide enough for the suitcase, so we had to carry the bags up and above the snow. Fortunately, it was only across one or two crossings that we had to do this. Even after only a day, the snow was getting quite filthy at some areas, especially those that were highly trafficked. Which made me wonder - where does all this dirt go to normally?

You can see the high contrast between the snow that was just ploughed off the street overnight, and the stuff that the vehicles drive over. Not pretty:

A shot of Serene, 'for scale'... :

Seems like this guy is not about to get his bike out from the snow anytime soon...

I found the little mounds of snow on the steps of the sculpture pretty interesting:

This were the kinds of pavements we had to walk on to get around. This day, we were on our way to the Whole Foods Market, to get coffee (they roast their coffees there daily!) and some other stuff.

Serene came with one large suitcase, one large duffel bag, one laptop bag, and one small duffel bag. At St. Louis, she had a friend help her bring the stuff to the airport; she could not have coped without the help; and then, all that stuff was to be incorporated into the bachelor apartment that I was renting. Amazingly, among the stuff she managed to bring across were a 'memory foam' pillow, and a body pillow; the body pillow as large as two ordinary pillows end-to-end. These were compressed with the aid of gigantic ziploc bags and a vacuum cleaner. Most impressive and voluminous was the comforter that she somehow also managed to squeeze into the suitcase. We spent much of the first day and a half unpacking and arranging stuff in the apartment, straining the limits of whatever storage space that was available in the apartment, watching and hoping that the weak looking shelf in the wardrobe could hold the suitcases that we filled loosely with stuff like the backpacks and some other summer clothing that we would not be using for a while. After managing to squeeze all that stuff into the place, the image that became stuck in my head was that of a anaconda, swallowing a baby hippo whole, and then slowly digesting the hippo till it was no more. We both felt somewhat nostalgic/romantic; the situation reminded us of hostel living again, everything in one room, prompting us to nickname the place hostel room on steroids.

So, on the third day after she came, after a failed second attempt to open a bank account for her (first, we wanted a joint account, and initially wanted to modify mine, but the avenue road branch said we could only do it at the spadina avenue branch where I opened my account; second time, I forgot to bring two acceptable forms of ID), we decided to go to Ikea, which involved taking a long ride to the outskirts of downtown Toronto (Kipling station from Spadina, which is like Jurong West from City Hall), and then taking a free shuttle service to Ikea. When we got there, it was dark (the sun had set at 5), so we were looking around, trying to find the location of the free shuttle pickup location. Kipling station is designed as a bus/train interchange, with the subway tracks at the basement level, and the buses on the ground level. We were thinking at first that the Ikea bus could be at the same bus bays as the other buses, and then realized that it was unlikely, as the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) would probably not share facilities like this, and we could not find any bus bay labelled for the Ikea bus. We tried our luck with the staff at the variety store (which sold sweets, drinks, snacks, magazines, and was stereotypically, run by an Indian family), and got a curt response to 'go down two floors', thought they were joking, as we could not imagine a level below the subway level for buses, but went there anyway, found an exit to a carpark, no sign of a waiting area, went back to the station master, and got a more courteous response to wait at the carpark for the bus.

And we did. In 0ºC weather. With occasional breezes that really got us freezing, and making up our minds to buy more competent gear. There was still no signpost of any sort to indicate that we were at the right place, just 5 or 6 other people waiting at the same place. In my mind I pictured a bright cheery yellow and contrasting blue bus, but when it came, it was a nondescript shuttle that did not even bother to put up a sign to say "Ikea" or something. We boarded, asked the driver if he was indeed driving us to Ikea, got an affirmative, then sat down to defrost.

Ikea Etobicoke, the closest Ikea to downtown Toronto, was surprisingly similar to the one at Alexandra Road, Singapore. Huge blue building, with attached warehouse, two floors, and parking in the basement, the restaurant on the left of the entrance which is, as in Singapore, on the second floor, right next to the kids room department, and the staircase downstairs to the kitchen department. I don't know how much of it is coincidence, but it sure seemed like this was the default template for Ikeas around the world. And on the menu? Meatballs, Salmon, Gravad Lax, and some local food (which in Toronto means stuff like quiche). The food trays were even similar, if not identical, and also the food ordering and payment queue layout. Perhaps the only major difference was that of space. Looking out of Ikea Alexandra's restaurant, one sees Anchorpoint a short distance away. At Etobicoke, one sees the huge parking lot, and beyond it, a very major highway. At the ground floor, where in sg you'd have a small warehouse section where you pick your own boxed furniture, here the warehouse sprawled out at least 3-5 times in floorspace, and had a ceiling about 4 stories tall, and shelving racks meant for forklifts.

We got our stuff, paid up, then lugged the Ivar shelf frame and 5 shelves up the shuttle bus, and through the TTC subway all the way back to our apartment. Setting it up, I had it all almost complete when I realizd that the cross brace was the wrong size; we had to go back and get it changed. The next day, we went there again, and this time, we remembered to bring a camera. Pictures:

A shot of Ikea from within the bus. The front façade looks remarkably clean of snow.

... because it had been shoveled and piled onto a huge mound at the back of the building:

Us having lunch, at the restaurant which cannot help but invoke deja vu:

The landscape outside the station is quite ugly, with electricity pylons and overhead cables everywhere. Still, the colors of the setting sun do manage to rescue the scenery somewhat:

Phew. Long post. This is a result of procrastinating, I guess.

MiKE: Sushi, or, what to do when you're lazy and hungry

So I've been lazy. My groceries ran out on Friday, so I could not really cook 'proper' meals; at least, I am out of vegetables. But it's not as if I've not left the apartment at all; I have been to the AC on Friday and this morning. But, I did not feel like tasting my cooking for some time, at least, not the same stuff I've been preparing.

So I've been having Papa Ceo's Pizza, which comes in slices so large, they are enough for 1.5 meals. And at $4, they are quite decently priced too. I've written about their pizzas in a previous post.

Anyway, after the second half of the slice today, I still felt hungry. I had two more bags of chips in my cabinet, but I did not want to have that as I did not want that salty taste in the mouth for the rest of the evening. So I procrastinated, and got more hungry, and then got a brainwave. I still had rice, and nori, and eggs.

So I prepared Tamago rolls! And I stuffed myself on them. Pretty hearty meal, if a bit boring. I think I might buy some fresh salmon or tuna the next time I get to the Whole Foods Market... Here they look:

MiKE: Shopping at Sanko

Sanko Supermarket is a Japanese grocer with pretty decent Japanese stuff that one would expect to find in any Japanese city (Having seen a few in Hokkaido and Tohoku, I'd think my judgment's right on this). Nothing particularly special, I guess, if one were to be in Japan. Sanko is located at 730 Queen Street West. It is along a semi busy street together with a motorcycle leather specialty shop (think Harley Davidson), and a place called Miss Demeanor, where, on my way back, I was about to comment to myself that the lingerie clad mannequins in the window looked surprisingly real. Until they started to move..

Well, back to my story. So, I am now convinced that I must go out everyday and brave the cold and get some exercise; even if it is to the conventional grocers just round the corner on Bloor West. And I had been noticing that my soy sauce was diminishing quite quickly. So I thought to go and get some, from Sanko, because I tried one particular soy sauce in sg (this one from Meidi-Ya, Liang Court) - some Usukuchi Soy Sauce, and I liked it. Very light and versatile. The interesting digression I have here is that we found out about Meidi-Ya onboard the CX flight back to singapore from Tokyo - there was a Japanese program informing visitors of places to visit; and it was mentioned).

But then, I had just paid my credit card bill, and it would take at least a couple of days before the credit line was reinstated. So I thought to sleep on it. After the nap, I awoke to see the last rays of the sun setting, and I resolved to go out before the sun fully set. Donning on the layers, I looked forward to a walking workout to keep the blood flowing and to help the sore muscles from yesterday's workout, and of course, mentally created my shopping list, and worked out that I probably could pay a bit of cash and the rest by Visa, calculating that I could spend about $40.

On the way there, I was struck by just how cold it was, and how useless plain old wool was against cold and wind. It seemed like the cold air just passed through the fibers as if it were a sieve. I guess the button down front did not help. By the time I got to Sanko, my nose was dripping (anybody know why it does that?) and my cheeks were numb. Went in, was glad to defrost but was apprehensive about going back, laden with stuff. For the moment, I ignored the cold, reveled in the goods laid out before me, and found the bottle of sauce that I was looking for - the exact same one that I got in sg! I must have gotten a bit carried away; between two sizes, it was cheaper to get the larger size; in many cases it was a dollar more (out of base price $3-4 for double the amount). Picked up what I thought I could carry in the bag alone (No way was I going to be carrying plastic bags even with gloved hands), and then went to the counter to pay. The bill came up to $55.17

I tried $20 cash + Visa; the transaction was not approved. $40 + visa, not approved. Sighing, and sheepish that I was holding back the queue, I handed over my last $20 bill, got change and then left. Walked home, at as fast a pace as I could, reached back in about 35 minutes, and was tired and glad that I made it, once more with a cold, dripping nose, and numb cheeks. Just for the record, Google maps counts the distance as about 3km one way, so I got in about 6km of a pretty fast walk today, all in 0˚C weather. I am so pleased with myself. And to top it off; here is my haul:

Back row: Japanese mayonnaise, Wasabe, Bulldog sauce, Usukuchi soy sauce, Japanese rice toppings, seaweed mat (*50 sheets!*)
Front: Yaki soba noodles, frozen edamame, shelled and in pod, and gummy sweets.

Ahhh, life's little luxuries.

MiKE: I eat vegetables...

Bought kale recently. I don't like it. Bitter tasting. Dont know what to cook it with. Ended up slicing it finely like this, and stir frying it with oyster sauce, tomato, and a bit of shrimp:


I guess the portion size was also a bit much.

MiKE: Guess what's in my lunch?

This is what i cooked for lunch today. Guess what's in it, and if it is tasty... :P

ReNe: tar-pow

Unless I can arrange a free meal (and that subject on free meals is near and dear to every graduate student's heart, right down there at the stomach, something I should write about later), everyday I pack my lunch to school.

That is because (1) I haven't found any cafeteria on the medical campus yet, and (2) even if I did, it's probably tastier, healthier and cheaper to pack. Observation (1) is probably not true; I did hear that there was a cheap canteen in the Barnes and Jewish Hospital. Observation (2) is based on the one cafeteria I tried on the Danforth campus; the chinese food was rather expensive and not too good, and everything else (the western food) seemed the same. The local students think that paying $5 for a lunch is rather cheap...

Some days I pack leftovers. That picture above showed enough fried rice for 2-3 days worth of lunches -- I normally bring in the smaller purple-topped container. Sometimes I also bother to chop up a salad as well (left a bottle of salad dressing at the lab).

Some days I'm too lazy to prepare something and just throw whatever I find in the fridge into a bag. In this particular bag, there is a yoghurt cup, a packet of korean soy milk (black sesame flavored), a doriyaki and a peach.

And probably one of the best ways to save money -- iced coffee. I make my own cold-brewed coffee on Sundays, enough for the week, and then leave a bottle in the lab's bar fridge. There is a coffee pot in the lab pantry, but it's not coffee; it's sludge that's been sitting there for the past few hours. There's Starbucks but it's $3.10 a cup and I don't even need that much. I really should work out how much a cup of home-brew costs, but I should think the ballpark figure is around $0.70. Maybe $0.80.

All this tar-powing of lunch reminds me of school days, and I mean like secondary and primary school... I haven't eaten packed lunch in years and years... But I guess, monetary issues aside, it is healthier to pack. The chinese food I tried here? It's one-third rice, one-third overly seasoned meat and one-third overly sauced vegetables. At the biochem happy hour last week, where the menu was chinese takeaway, one local student was commenting to me, "Wow, I guess there's a lot of fried food in chinese cuisine." I pointed out that, no, dumplings, wantons and spring rolls back home aren't normally deep fried.

MiKE: view from my window (more)

So, as I wrote in the previous post, the view directly out of my window is not very attractive; it sorta reminds me of the side of people's park complex or something in Chinatown singapore, which is not well maintained. Anyway, here is a couple of shots:

Me, reading and then getting distracted, taking a shot of my feet propped up on the generous window bay area.

If you see carefully, you can observe in the lower right corner, the building that was featured in the previous post. Now you understand what I mean when I said that the building was off to one side of the view.

And of yeah, the windows are quite dirty. The upper pane is not open-able, and the lower ones I did my best to clean, even removing the sliding panes and bringing them to the bathroom to wash with Krud Kutter®. But a recent shower managed to wash a lot of dirt onto them, negating a lot of my effort.

Totally unrelated to these images, here is a shot of what I had for lunch today: Stir fried Kale with green bell peppers and pork with oyster sauce, Tamago - Japanese styled omelette, brown rice, on a seaweed mat. Nice?

ReNe: forays into baking

Further food preparation adventures.

One of the biggest difference between this kitchen and the one I had back in Singapore is the oven. Wow. I haven't used one in over 8 years...

I don't have 'proper' baking equipment or ingredients -- mostly I make do with a serving bowl, wooden spoon, measuring spoons and a lot of pre-mixes. You know, the kind that goes, "Just add water/eggs/milk!"

Some of the stuff I baked was an attempt to get rid of the overly ripe fruits. I tend to buy like, 3 peaches or 4 bananas only at a time, but occasionally their ripening gets ahead of me.

A first attempt at peach pie. It sucked, mostly because I tried to 'cheat' and use biscuit pastry (which I already had in the fridge) instead of pie pastry.

Speaking of biscuit pastry, I was pretty obsessed with biscuit pastry for a while because I loved the crispy ones McDonalds in Singapore used to serve for breakfast when I was a kid (now they don't), and I kept thinking the next (frozen) roll I buy from the supermarket will be it! I gave up after a few attempts and now there are a few tins still sitting in the back of my fridge...

Banana nut muffin. This was better. I won't say it's excellent, but it was decent for a second attempt at muffins. The first attempt was corn muffins, which sucked cuz I didn't have a proper measuring cup and had to guesstimate. I bought a spindle(?) measuring spoons after that.

Meat pies. In the first attempt, made when Mike was still here, we followed some online recipes but they turn out too wet. Also, at that time, since the only pastry I had was biscuit pastry. Like the attempt for pie pastry, biscuit pastry does not work for pies. After that, I bought a small packet of pie crust mix (it's about 49 cents a box and it makes a huge pie or 6-8 of these small pies). This time round, the filling was much better though the crust was too flaky and dry.

But pies and muffins were hard, especially pies. The pie crust, in particularly, was impossible to shape. I mean, I cut out this circle and very quickly, I realize it's impossible to move from a 2D circle to a 3D bowl without having excess dough folding up in creases. Even resorting to curry-puff styled pies didn't work because the crust was not pliable enough to shape properly.

What was pretty easy, though, were cookies. I had tasty cookies on my first try, and since then, I've never bought another box from the supermarket. Probably because it's 'freshly baked', but the home-baked cookies always tastes like though from the boutique shops like Mrs Fields or Famous Amos, i.e. damn good. At least I've one success story.


I buy them as cookie dough from the supermarket, more expensive than making from scratch I'm sure, but cheaper than buying a box of of ready-made, and definitely much easier as it comes ready to bake. I usually mix in nuts, seed and/or oats before popping it in the oven.

The reason behind the colorful cookies above was because while triple-choc cookie dough sounds decadent, I realized it was quite impossible to tell when it was done baking -- my first batch was a bit too burnt. I thought of including regular cookies on the pan so I'd know when it's done (going by time alone isn't enough because the thickness and size of the cookies vary from batch to batch), and then I got the brilliant idea of mixing them.

ReNe: forays into cooking

Friends who knew me back in Singapore knew I don't cook. Or that I didn't cook. Whether it's because chemistry skills do not readily transfer to the kitchen or because it's just so easy and cheap to eat out in Singapore or because it's a feminist issue (Mike's opinion) or because it's bad for my skin (drying on the hands)....

People have expressed worry about whether I could feed myself once I'm in the US.

So far, no smoke alarm has been set off, no case of the runs. (The former is actually a valid concern; a classmate of mine who stays in an apartment just down the hallway from me actually did set off the alarm before.) The menu has been a little monotonous but simple is also good. Can't afford the time or money to make elaborate multi-course meals...

Some early attempts:
Fried rice. Possibly one of the simplest things to cook.


Yaki soba. Er. It tastes as appetizing as it looks... In fact, it tastes like yaki 'instant noodles'.


An attempt one night to finish the stuff in the fridge, hence the odd combination of bread and dishes that normally go with rice. I actually like this; it's rather 'creative'. The bread was the kind that I bought half-baked, that is to say all the yeast rising had been done, and all I had to do was pop it in the oven. Even though it was 2 weeks past expiry (and THAT problem deserved a blog post all on its own, about how half the stuff I have is past expiry), it was pretty tasty still. Very tasty in fact. Probably because it was 'freshly' baked. The asparagus was also withered but unlike the bread, it was beyond recovery. It tasted terrible. The pork and mushroom dish, to be honest, wasn't too good either.


Pasta. Another simple dish.

Salad. What I usually have for lunch. This was taken before classes started. These days, I pack the same thing in... doesn't look quite as nice.

What I had one night when I got back past 9 and was too tired to contemplate cooking. So I simply popped a biscuit (at least what they call a biscuit here in the US; it's a puffy pastry-like thing) into the oven, peeled off a couple of lettuce leaves and turkey ham.

Later attempts at cooking:


Fried rice, a few attempts later. Looking and tasting better now. The reason it seems like a lot is because I was making enough for lunch the next day. Turned out I made so much I had enough for lunch the next day... and the day after that... and the day after that as well.

Pasta. Also improving.

And now, my dinner tonight: rice; beef and peppers; and brussell sprouts, broccoli and carrots. I'm trying to finish the beef, brussell sprouts and broccoli (1 week old) and bell pepper (2 weeks old). The rice is fresh though. But though the ingredients were a little old, I rate tonight's dinner as more than decent.