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Link to our homecooking food photos on Flickr

I'm still going through our photo archives so I might dig up more photos but basically this is what we've been cooking and eating for the past 2.5 years.

Photo of Cantonese Style Steamed Ling Cod

Charlie liked the recipe so much that he made it for dinner again after I had first made it. Here's a photo of how his dish turned out.

*The focus is on the greens so it's hard to see the fish but the meat was very tender and fresh (not fishy).

We omitted the salt from the sauce this time (instead, only sprinkled salt on the fish before steaming) and it was better although it can go either way.

A typical day of cooking and eating...

Charlie and I love food but we're also lazy. Charlie might sometimes be willing to put in hours of work into one recipe (i.e. his pizza) but me, I just want to be able to eat yummy food when I want it.

So our strategy is to stock our pantry and fridge with lots of read to be made ingredients. That way, we can easily whip up something that strikes our fancy.

The only problem with cooking for two this way though is that there's always more leftovers than we can finish...and some food we only want to eat once. So we're constantly throwing away old foods that are perfectly fine just because on one will eat it (and we don't feed any human food to our dog, Polly) or expired ingredients that seemed essential at the store but didn't end up getting used.

Of course, it would help if we tend to want to eat the same foods but unfortunately, we're both spoiled and want what we want when we want it.

So some day, I will have to figure out how to work out a system for our kitchen to function not su much like a small restaurant/cafe but more like a bed and breakfast inn that only provides an occasional meal.

Anyway, so I thought that it might be interesting to post a sample of what we typically consume in a span of 24 to 36 hours. This is from yesterday, Friday, June 29.

Breakfast - Ratatouille with Fried Egg and Hot Dog "Takos" (Octopus)

*According to Charlie, the round headed one is him and the flat headed one is me...it's a private joke.

Lunch - Mabo Tofu and Rice (me), Charlie (company cafeteria) *Not pictured

Dinner - Yakisoba *We were supposed to have Yakiniku but I was too lazy to do all the prep

Midnight snack - Hand tossed pizza with homemade sauce

Note: this is actually one of our "easiest" food days because the Ratatouille for breakfast was made several days ago, the ingredients for the Yakisoba were leftover from our Okonomiyaki night on Monday, and the pizza sauce was made last week.

But two night before we made My Korean Kitchen's Hoddeok (Korean Sweet Pancakes) for our midnight snack (and ended up sleeping around 2 AM!). This morning's brunch was Chinese Pickled Cabbage Lamb Soup (in order to use up the pickled cabbage I made weeks ago).

So yes, our sink is full of dirty dishes and pots and pans...and our waistlines are increasing by the day.

But there will come a day when we won't be able to eat whatever we want and whenever we want. So until then...

Ice cream...you scream...

Charlie and I aren't big ice cream or frozen treats people - it's not that we don't like them, we're just average ice cream eaters. But at one point, we managed to "accumulate" 9 mini tubs of ice creams in our freezer, mostly from Ben & Jerry's or Hagan Daaz.

Of these, we probably purchased two. The rest were brought to our home by friends...and the soy ones were bought for our friend Crystal when she house and dog sat for us. Still, this is crazy, no?

Ling cod Cantonese style

First, I don't have a photo of the dish I'm going to talk about. Sorry. We forgot to take one before eating. It's rare, but it happens.

Second, I'm not going to post the recipe here but anyone interested should be able to figure out how to make the dish without any details.

Basically, tonight, I tried a new fish recipe (something I've been conscientiously trying to do), which was a Cantonese-style steamed ling cod dish using one of the cookbooks I got from Taiwan.

The chef/author is a foodie who used to work in mass media and ended up switching to cookbook writing because of the popularity of his recipes and simple style of cooking. We've tried some of his other recipes in the past but they weren't all hits. His "Three Cup Chicken," for instance, tasted a little diluted. Tonight's fish dish, though, turned out to be a winner. I guess maybe we should stick to his "light" dishes from now on.

Anyway, so back to the steamed ling cod.

I actually bought the fish 3 days ago. I was at Ranch 99 for something else (squid for our famous "grilled squid" for a potluck BBQ on Saturday) and the ling cod caught my eye. Unlike the other lifeless fishes on beds of ice the ling cod was still "twitching" even though its head had already been chopped off. Having never seen this in a Chinese supermarket before, I stood there fixated.

Yup, there it was, the fish torso was definitely pulsating. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed it. Nope, just me, the fish aisle newbie. So I asked the fish monger if it was still alive. "Yeah it's still alive, it's still moving, isn't it?" he said. Even though I had no idea what kind of fish it was, how to prepare it, or when we were actually going to cook and eat it, I asked for a slice of the moving fish, as if that's the respectful thing to do.

Then when I got home, I looked up ling cod to see what we could do with it and found that the nearby ABC Seafood restaurant serves it steamed. I've been wanting to try the steamed fish recipe in the book for a while so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

After marinating the fish in some sake overnight, I sprinkled some salt, covered it with ginger slices, and steamed the dish on on high heat for about 12 - 15 minutes. After it's been cooked, the ginger slices were replaced with fresh green onion, ginger, and bell pepper (the recipe calls for red hot pepper but we didn't have any) and covered with a soy sauce, salt, and sugar sauce. The last step was to pour hot oil over the whole thing, lightly searing the herbs (is that what people call things like ginger/green onion/hot pepper? The Japanese call this kind of stuff "yakumi" but I don't know what the English translation would be).

That's it. It's that simple. (Again, I wish I have a photo to show you.)

The taste is fresh. The fish is not fishy at all even though it had been sitting the fridge over the weekend. The sauce is a little salty on its own but perfectly seasons the white meat. The texture and taste of the fish reminded us of sea bass, although people seem to compare ling cod more often to halibut.

In any case, at $6.99 a pound, we're happy to discover a new way to enjoy fresh seafood.

So I guess this makes one more dish we're going to stop ordering at restaurants ... I don't know if this is good or bad. Eventually, we might not be able to eat out anymore. Hmmm...

Getting ready for winter?

Not sure what's going on but I've been in the mood to pickle all week. It seems that most people only get this way when they visit a farmer's market (and see irresistible produce) or with the approach of winter (to stock up on vegetables for times of need).

Me, I think I'm just in a bit of a domestic/homemaking kick.

On Tuesday, I first made Chinese pickled (napa) cabbage (sometimes called "Sour Cabbage" on restaurant menus). It's a Northeastern Chinese delicacy that can be enjoyed many ways - straight, in pork and lamb hot pots, dumplings, or stir-fried with various meats. Not one for waiting, I'm using a recipe that requires only 3 days of fermentation. Since I reduced the recipe by quite a bit (the original called for 2 large heads of cabbage), C thinks that my batch is under salted/seasoned but I'm hopeful that it will turn out well. It's now day 2 so we will see how it tastes tomorrow night. (Hopefully C will be willing to have the first bite...but I will be nice and cook it first before having him taste it. LOL~) If successful, I'll probably proceed with the next step and make some lamb hot pot this weekend.

Today, I made Korean yul mul (water) kimchi or "pickled white radish (daikon)." Again, the fermentation process will be short, only 2 days this time. C isn't a big fan of this dish but I love how it tastes with Naeng Myeon (Korean cold noodle). Again, something to be had this weekend.

Later tonight, I'm going to try a Japanese* recipe for homemade ginger ale. Supposedly, cafes and bars in Japan often serve a ginger ale cocktail with something made by Asahi called "Wilkinson Ginger Ale" but since the syrup is hard to obtain (even in Japan), people try to make their own versions at home. As with the other two recipes, this one won't take too much time - only one night (mainly for the syrup to chill).

All this plus C's homemade Magarita pizza for brunch on Saturday...I guess you can say it's going to be another food-filled weekend. Which means that spring time is here in our household. Yay! Let the food play begin!

*Notice the use of CJK recipes? I'm such a freak.

[Photo credit: Metroblogging/Tokyo]

Fun design/interior idea site

I'm kind of slow at discovering cool things but it's not a race and I'm just as happy to be the first or the last to find interesting ideas.

Today's happy design find is apartmenttherapy This week's news email from DWR mentioned that they're running a contest for the "Smallest Coolest Apartment" in conjunction with Apartment Therapy so I followed the link to see more info and photos from the various entries.

To my delight, they have this feature called House Tours where you get to see slideshows of real people's homes [the one linked here goes to the San Francisco collection]. Not only do you get to read tibits about the space residents - their design aim and recommendations - but also photos of all of the design elements that are mentioned. One, in particular, contained links to flickr albums that had the before/after photos of a project in Bernal Heights.

Just seeing the photos gives you a sense of what the couple had to go through to create their dream home. C and I would probably never be willing to go through all that hardwork and waiting but I can imagine what it would be like to live in such a home where every nook and cranny reminds you of the dedication and passion you put into the place.

If ever we actually find a house that we'd like to settle in for a "long" time (which would be > 10 years?) then it might be fun to take on a project like this. But then again, we're having trouble just keeping our place neat and clean right now so maybe getting there would be a first step.

[Photo source: apartmenttherapy.com]

Things that make me smile...

My happy photo find of the day from Mondo Gelato...(so sad that they closed in Berkeley)