Humidity and Korean Winter

Weather: Sunny, supposedly warmer at -1 degrees C high temps but with the wind chill factor in, it still feels colder than usual. There's even steam whenever I breathe outside. 

The air is drier today with 47% percent of humidity. I was finally able to run one of our thick winter blankets in the machine with hopes that it will dry out by tonight. It's been a while since I have planned on doing so but I cannot afford to go blanket-less for a night with the colder temps these past few weeks. When it got warmer, the humidity is pretty high also so there is less tendency for the clothes to dry. We do have an extra blanket but these are thinner that the super winter ones we have.

I'm so looking forward to spring soon when I can move about the house more freely. 
There is the spring cleaning to plan out and getting back to school for my son and my offline Korean language classes too. Those I need to prepare for the following months. 

Then, there is also the Korean New Year and our possible move again. Oh, boy! I'm starting to like spring!

Banana Bread in a Mug and Rice Cooker

There were 5 bananas turning brown on the counter so I thought about baking some banana bread. I had to google again for some recipes for that and here's what I managed to find.

For the mug recipe:
Mug Banana Cakes (originally from this blog) but I tweaked it a bit since I know that bananas do tend be sweet. 
(The original post)
Ingredients
1 T butter, melted (or flavourless oil)
1 tbsp milk
1 ripe banana (mashed)
3 tbsp plain flour
3 tbsp brown sugar
½ tsp baking powder
1 egg (lightly beaten)

My Version:
3 T flour
2 T brown sugar
1/2  t b.powder
3 T mashed banana
1 T oil
2 T milk
cinnamon

I omitted the egg for an eggless version trial as reference for the future. 
I nuked it in 2+2 minutes. I am not sure what level though since our latest MW is in Korean. 
It turned out a bit paler than what I had done before. Maybe because I usually mixed in whole wheat flour mixed before. 

As for the banana bread in the rice cooker, I referred to evanandrachel blog which I also tweaked a bit again because of the sweetness level. 

RECIPE:
3 C                  ---> 1 cup of wheat flour (or 1 1/2 cups of white flour)
1/2 C or 6 - 7 T ---> 3/4 cups brown sugar (or the same amount of white sugar)
3 t                --->   1 1/2 tsp baking soda
dashes  ---> 1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2-3 med./lg bananas)
1/2 C ---> 1/3 cups softened butter
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
cinnamon to taste

January 2015 in the Kitchen!

Christmas and New Year has come and gone but I wasn't able to really cook what I wanted for the season. Why? It was just so cold in the kitchen that I would only venture out there for quick survival cooking. Meaning, I just cook anything so we can eat something. Sometimes, my husband is the one who takes over and manages better than me. 

Pasta has been what I had been thinking of making. I was only thinking of Carbonara but I cooked more pasta than what I needed. I found some more other ingredients to be able to make chicken macaroni since we also had some leftover chicken meat. I found almost everything that I needed like apple, raisin, mayo, carrots, garlic, etc. Most of these were like the last ones so I basically finished up my supply. I just had to buy a can of pineapple but what I ended up buying a fruit cocktail can coz it was selling at the same prize as the other one. I figured that I can also get the pineapples from the fruit cocktail plus I can still have the other fruits. 

So I still have the macaroni salad and leftover fruit cocktail sitting in the fridge waiting for me. I already finished up the raisins originally for my oats, I will be using those fruit cocktail instead. I just hope I get to finish them before they spoil. 

Another one that I have waiting for me to make is the banana that we bought last week and has been sitting on the counter with its skin turning brown soon. I just had to make it into a bread because nobody seems to be interested in eating them anymore. It's a different brand from what we are used to (Del Monte, or Dole). The label has a sticker that says, "Manna." It doesn't taste that good I think, although it's a bit smaller which is just about the right serving for me. 

Well, I just had to chop them well, mix 'em up with other stuff and hopefully make a decent banana "BRAKE" again. (BRAKE= bread/cake) I'll use the rice cooker this time but once I get a decent microwavable dish to cook in the microwave which we got this week, I will definitely try a bread in there by adding a glass of water while nuking just like what I saw in another website making a whole wheat flour loaf. But then again, the 5-minute choc cup cake was a favorite when we had our old microwave and my favorite Luminarc mug which was broken just last month. ㅠㅠ 

Good days are still up ahead anyway. It's time to get started on that banana brake. 

 

Microwave at last!

We got a second-hand Samsung microwave today from another expat in the nearby city. It was roughly 40 minutes drive to get there but it wasn't so bad I guess. We took a different route from the usual which the "Navi"/GPS Navigation in the car gives out. We mapped out our possible route going through Samsung area in Tanjeung to get to Cheonan. It turned out well, with less traffic light involve on the way. The car GPS usually takes us through the downtown of cities so it's getting totally annoying for me to see all those stop lights.

The nuke was a bit dirty, but works well. I just had to clean it up a bit before trying it out to reheat some food. I can now try the five-minute-cup cake again, and other things. I just have to figure out how to work it as it has all the buttons in Korean. The manual online is also available only in Korean.

And another thing is to get myself a microwavable dish soon so I can cook other things there. I am also eyeing a two-sided pan for the frozen fish in the fridge. It's very tricky (read: stinky) to do a lot of frying with all the doors and windows closed during winter.

Problem is we have no decent spot for the nuke in the kitchen now. Oh well, I just hope that things will continue to look up and we'll be able to move to a more spacious place this year.

Hello 2015 Health

First weekend of 2015 didn't come well for me as I feel pain in my lower back. I wanted to soak it in a hot tub since yesterday but it was just too inconvenient. I may use a hot water bottle today and other hot packs around. The water bottle worked a bit to ease the pain last week when I used it on the way to the Ski Resort.

Is it just the cold, or is there something wrong with my innards? ^^, I sure don't want a worse bout of UTI now. Drink more water, keep clean and get enough rest. I should not really ever take for granted health.

I also had to endure my right hand hurt while we were parking upon arrival there. It got caught when P accidentally tried to close the car door while I still holding on to the door latch to keep the car from moving. It's like a nail was driven into my palm and it's been sore up until today, 5th day. Hopefully it will all be gone before a week. It's just harder to move around and do even simple things when a part of your body is "out of order".

My body screams for something warm or hot. It needs something to alleviate the lower back pain. I just hope it isn't because of anything worse. I do have some muscle pain pills I got from the hospital last time. Next time that I get a chance for a check up, my order list will be urinalysis, and possibly MRI. I'm pretty curious now how much would these cost of I actually just show up and pay for these since there is medical insurance anyway.

Well, that's something I will have to check on next time. It's time to google for lower back pain remedy for now.

Forevermore, Philippine Teleserye

This is top billed by Enrique Gil and Liza Soberana, the girl who played Daniel Padilla's girlfriend from Singapore in "Got to Believe in Magic." Such a pretty face this girl but she still has a lot to prove in her acting skills. This is one such good break though. She had us at her stint in G2B so it would be interesting to see her in a new series, her own at that. There's just something how she speaks though. Her Tagalog sounds odd at times. They also got the twins from "the Voice Philippines" in these series as they provide, or try to that is, the comic relief. 

After I watched the pilot episode, it does seem interesting. The thing is when I moved on to the second episode, I finally realized that it is exactly on the same vein as the G2B since they were made by the same people behind that. The main line is rich boy, poor girl from a close knit community. The community is a small group in the uplands in Benguet this time, compared to the circus family in G2B. The rich boy's backdrop is changed into a the father and the heir-seeking grandma from the mom and granddad in G2B. They just added a little twist to the mom role here. It's just funny that the demanding mom in G2B was played by Carmina Villaroel and the dad here is played by Zoren Legaspi, both real couples off-screen. 

Well, I'm into 3rd episode now so let's see how long I can hang on to this by-the-book predictable storyline. The only fun part here is Liza's lovable face and the unique Baguio setting. I am currently watching in the middle of winter and I can only guess if it is as cold as it looks there. Though I am sure it is colder here at less than 0 degrees Celsius. 

Brr..lunchtime.