savory delight!

that's not what I was craving for.

Seeing fresh squids from glass display at oriental supermarket, I imagined having stir-fried ultimate black squid on a plate. That's what grandma used to cook. She didn't remove the ink sac intentionally, make the food turned strikingly jet-black. For me, that pungent ink makes the food more palatable.

Living in the non-seafood-eater country, I have to be careful having my 'usual' diet. Some (or most) people can't stand fishy smell, and I have to change my fishy level because what they call fishy is mostly not fishy for me. Thus, to avoid from getting un-friended, I never bring fishy food for lunch to school So, school break like now is the best time to indulge myself for my seafood hunger.

There were two choices of squid on that supermarket's seafood section. One tray contained white, skinless and cleaned squids; one still had dotted skin and attached arms. I picked the latter. Nonetheless, what came out on my cutting board was disappointing. I guess the inks were removed by the store then the tentacles were plugged back in to make it look like a whole. Unless...there's inkless variety.

Stir Fried Squid with Sweet Soy Sauce
Ingreditents:
1 pound squid, cut
5 cloves garlic, minced
5 chili pepper, chopped
Cooking wine
Sweet soy sauce
Salt
Pepper
3 stalks green onion, chopped

Sautee garlic until soft. Mic in squids then add in wine, soy cause, salt and pepper. Simmer until squids are tender and soak the spice well. Turn off the heat, mix in green onion.

I was blessed with the closest-knit church young group I've ever experienced when I was in college. The main reason is all of us were college students lived far away from home (now I can say that it wasn't far at all ). Every Saturday evening, we had a fellowship that's usually followed by eating out together or doing some fun activities. Oh... how I miss that time. One day, my friend and I initiated to cook a snack for our friends as a fellowship refreshment. We'd decided to make fried rice noodle, or we call it misoa or mee-sua. That day, we were busy in the kitchen preparing our surprise to our friends. I had never cooked that food before, and I don't remember if my friend, ECY had experience before that very day. Grandma liked to cook fried misoa for us and it sounded easy. So there we were spending our time on the open kitchen of our boarding house, crushing garlic, chopping shrimps and carrots. Then...the cooking finally was done, we poured out the mixture to a rectangle metal pan. All we needed to do was waiting until the misoa mixture got set, become a big firm rectangle so it could be cut easily into small rectangle cakes, dipped to egg mixture then got fried.

It wasn't the only time ECY and I cooked together. Until years after, sometimes we cooked and shared meal in our boarding house. One Chinese new year day, when most of our housemates went home, both of us got stuck in the boarding house couldn't go home because we had to work the day after. Get bored, both of us cooked tempe penyet, although a ready-made one was sold inexpensively at a shop next door. We had a great time. But for our misoa story, we were still living in our old boarding house owned by some insane ladies. I have a vivid memory of the ugly atmosphere of the place. I can describe the usual scenery of my life with those cruella devils. Such as:
while waiting on the misoa that hot Saturday, we watched television in dining room. That hoar television that laid on a green shelf was the only television we could access. To be able to see the screen, we had to fight with the glare of mid-afternoon sun came directly through an almost-untouched inner court. Suddenly but not unusually, we heard scolding from one lady followed by the other members of the clan. That means, we had a bad day.
Many horrible things had happened in that boarding house. I knew I was stressed out with all of the place's insanity caused by the owners, but moving out meant got separated with my good friends. ECY was wiser than I was since she moved more than a year before I did.

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People at church can always guess which one is my cooking. They said mine is different that the others. Looking back to my first year in this country, I feel that now I have more confident in sharing my cooking. Back then I got hurt when not many people tried my food. Now I just do the best to share my love and care through my cooking. On the other hand, I can see my friends are more open in trying something 'new'. I hope my 'difference' paints more colors to people around me.

For today's potluck, I baked green tea layer cake. I used my usual green tea chiffon cake for the base. I used dried adzuki bean that I bought from co-op, then cooked it for an hour. Canned bean is available for practicality, but I think it's too sweet, and who knows what's been added in there.

Green Tea - Adzuki Bean Layer Cake
For the bean
1/2 cup adzuki or red bean
1 1/2 cup water
Sugar as desired

Boil water and bean until water is boiling. Simmer covered until beans are soft. Add sugar, continue simmering until water dissolves.

A
6 egg whites
75 gr sugar
1/4 cream of tartar
B
6 egg yolks
55 gr sugar
150 gr all-purpose flour
3 Tbs green tea powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
5 Tbs oil (I used olive)
1/4 tsp salt
8 Tbs water

Preheat oven to 325°.

To prepare cake, line bottoms and sides of four-20x20cm pans with wax paper. Grease the pans to glue the paper, but do not grease inside of the papers.
From B ingredients, mix and sift the dry ones except sugar.

Place A ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until soft peaks form. Side aside.

In a separate bowl, cream egg yolks with sugar until smooth and pale (make sure sugar dissolves completely), then beat in the oil and water until well combined. Gradually add flour mixture and mix well.

Gently stir one-third of egg white mixture into egg-yolk mixture; gently fold in remaining egg white mixture.

Divide cake batter equally among prepared pans, spreading evenly. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove the cakes from pans and cool on a wire rack. Remove wax paper from cake layers.

For frosting, mixed
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
4-1/2 Tbs sugar

Mix 3/4 cream with beans. Set aside the 1/4 part.

To assemble cake, place 1 cake layer, spread one third of bean cream over cake layer. Top with second layer, spread 1/3 part bean cream. Do the same thing with the rest. Spread the plain cream for after the fourth cake layer. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Sprinkle the very top with green tea powder.

Hubby and I are fond of Thai food. We would drive far west of our city to get to a great Thai restaurant. I can't decide which one I like the best from their menu, since all are good and (I think) authentic. I've never been to Thailand to compare the authenticity, but most other Thai restaurants I find in my city mix Thai and Chinese taste. Recently, some of my FB friends mentioned about pad Thai on their wall. Since then pad Thai had been on my cooking list.

Today is a very nice day, The first Saturday when I wasn't worried about homeworks, reading, nor studying. Great time to cook pad Thai for lunch and dinner. Soon will be followed by baking for tomorrow's potluck. I still need to learn how to cook pad Thai, since mine was pale and sticky, although the taste was good.

Pad Thai
Ingredients:
1 package Thai rice noodles soak in hot water for 20 minutes

6 cloves garlic, minced
3 shallot, minced
1/2-1/4 lb shrimp
1/2 cup cubed chicken
1/2 lime
2 eggs
4 teaspoons fish sauce
4 tablespoon tamarind
4 tablespoons roasted peanuts
1 cup extra firm tofu, julienned
1 cup Chinese chives, chopped
2 cup bean sprouts
1 teaspoon ground dried chili pepper
vegetable oil
ground pepper
sugar

Place a wok over high heat, add 1 tablespoon of the peanut oil. Heat until it shimmers, then stir fry shallot, garlic, shrimp, chicken and tofu until they start to brown. Add noodle to the wok. Stir quickly to keep things from sticking. Add tamarind, sugar, fish sauce, chili pepper. Stir. The heat should remain high. Make room for the egg by pushing all noodles to the side of the wok. Crack the egg onto the wok and scramble it until it is almost all cooked. Fold the egg into the noodles. Add half bean sprouts, half peanut and half chives. Toss everything until heated through, but no longer than 1 to 2 minutes total. Transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with the remaining chive, bean sprouts, and peanuts. Serve immediately with the ground chile peppers and lime wedges.

I made this simple appetizer for church's Talent Show night couple weeks ago. The original recipe calls for bacon, yet considering my dear vegetarian friends, I omitted the meat and added more vegies to it. For a simple and quick yet deletable appetizer, this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Ranch Onion Roll-Up
Ingredients:
8 of 8-inch tortillas
8 ounces cream cheese
8 ounces ranch dip
3/4 cup finely chopped brocoli
3/4 cup carrot, shredded
1 cup onion, chopped
1 tsp garlic powder

Combine the cream cheese and ranch dip in a small bowl and mix until smooth. Mix the the rest of ingredients except tortilla. Spread a thin layer over each tortilla. Starting at one edge, roll each tortilla in a tight spiral log. Slice into 8 pieces. For better serve, cut both end of the rolls then cut before cutting them into 8 pieces.