Saved Bread

Salvage day on a very hot summer day.

My first attempt on baguette failed last time. I am now stuck with the undercooked but hard bread which I had already tried to break again into pieces and make into a bread pudding. I made it late last week, and I had been brainstorming how to reuse it so the 5-6 C of flour that I used will not totally go to waste. There were other sites that inspired me like this one for saving stale bread challenge, and this for the general leftover ideas. Eureka moment when I found this site today.  

At first, I thought about making it into a soup but there was a lot of just for that. Then I thought maybe I can experiment with a bread pudding. The thing is my bread has already some herbs and I didn't feel like eating a sweet bread at the moment. I'd have to go for the non-sweet one like garlic or vegie filled bread.

Taking a little gamble on my very limited kitchen skills, I imagined soaking the hard bread in milk and adding some frozen vegies and more herbs and spices. And here is how it all turned out. Edible. 

It would have been better if I had added some tomatoes which we happen to have. I also forgot to add garlic and more vegies. Or maybe I just didn't want to take a bigger risk or using up a lot of my vegies for something that I might actually have to throw if all things didn't turn out well.

As usual, I'll try to write down what I did for my future reference. 

• 2 C of underbaked and hardened bread
• 1 C milk

Other things I just added roughly.

• 2 T margarine, melted
• 2 T bell pepper, diced
• 2 T onion, diced
• 1/2-1 t pasta sprinkle
• dash of salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes

And here's how.

1. Tore the bread into small pieces.
2. Soaked the bread in milk for at least 30 minutes. 
3. Mixed in the rest. 
4. Baked at 250 degrees C for the first 10 minutes. (I didn't pre-heat the oven.)
5. The lowered it to 150 for the remaining 30 minutes. 

When I finally got to taste it, I tried to put some ketchup and even hot sauce on it and it did improve the taste. I'm just relieved that my almost-ready-to-be-thrown out bread is still useful. 

Until my next baking adventure. 

Delivered!

The oven was delivered today.

I made cookies, roasted the cashews and dried/baked the slices of ginger. I have just discovered my ginger crispers as spoil-free-and-handy thing to chew for my motion sickness.

I still have to get to know the temperature setting of this thing, since it's a bit small so I think it can cook pretty fast. I almost burned most of my stuff today with a the highest 250 C setting of only 10-20 mins. I should just set it to lower temp next time.

An Oven at Last!

It's been more than a year that I had been dreaming of getting myself an oven. One year and five months to be exact. I finally risked my 100K to get a 26L Wishwell oven yesterday. 

I had been eyeing that brand for a few months but I wasn't sure how it will fare until another member from the facebook group Expat Cooking in Korea recommended it. She had been posting food photos which she usually makes using her oven from bread to meals. I just had to finally ask her what oven she was using only to find out that it was the same brand that I had been eyeing. And she also mentioned that another group member was also using an exact brand and model. The thing is, theirs were pretty big. My baking/cooking with oven skills is only good for a smaller-sized one. 

Now, I am thinking what kind of stuff can I make with very limited baking utensils on hand coz I really didn't bring my old ones from my hometown. I now have a chance to start anew with the basic things that I might need. I am still contemplating on whether to get the non-stick ones, or silicon material. I am a bit wary of the latter coz it's pretty new for me. 

So what will I try to make to try out the oven when it gets here? Or better question should what can I make with only an oven pan and paper foil that I can use? The best option would be cookies, or simple morning bread that doesn't require any mold. I've got baking powder, baking soda, and yeast anyway. Simple yeast bread won't be bad. Oh, dear! I suddenly missed my photocopied bread-making book. I have to do the trial and error thing from recipes online or maybe ask around from the expat group again. I think I've seen a simple recipe for bread over there recently. 

That's it! A cookie and simple bread. Cookie for Pilip as snack and bread for breakfast. Would it be a lofty idea if I will try baguettes again and not end up with a stone bread this time? I still got a dough in the freezer which was originally for a pita bread on the stove top. I can probably make one now oin the oven soon. Hurray!

Good luck to my budget for cooking/baking equipment: a microwavable and oven-safe glassware or ceramic pot, a muffin pan/cups/ bread pan/mold, pizza pan (?) and maybe a mixer.  

Googling time for the first recipe so I can find the ingredients in my cupboard tomorrow. The challenge is to use whatever is available in my pantry. I'm pretty sure I can make something to try out the new oven. 

The next question is when will it be delivered? Payment and packing was cleared today. Hopefully, it will arrive by tomorrow but I'm afraid that it not be until Wednesday. And Wednesday is also a bit busy day for me. Oh boy! Think positive. If not, I will have to make do with Thursday. 

Well, gotta grab some sleep now. I still have preps to do tomorrow.

Home Cooking on a Cloudy Day

We have a couple of corns in the freezer since we ordered them this week. I longed to cooked some fresh corn, not the corn in can, so I finally got around to it on this cloudy day.

This past few days had been pretty hot and sunny so I welcome this cloudy afternoon to be able to cook some porridge. I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it at first so I googled for some recipe to get an idea. I found a couple here, here and here which got me enough courage to take out my ingredients.

I already soaked about half-cup of regular Korean rice a few days ago so I had to use it. I should have used glutinous rice but that was what I had ready plus I think Korean rice is a bit sticky anyway. I have more faith for that. It turned out okay, although not as sticky as it should be if I had used glutinous rice. 

So for future reference, here is what I did today.

2 C coconut powder mixed with 3-4 C of water

1 C soaked rice (should have been 1/2 cup before soaking, I guess)

1.5 C fresh corn kernels

1/2- 3/4 C sugar

a dash of salt

Soaked rice lessened the cooking time for the rice so this was ready in about 30 minutes. 

Next time, I will try to really use glutinous rice, a little less sugar and probably cook the corn along with the rice from the start. Why? If I like my corn really soft, I should do that specially if I'll be using fresh corn and not canned one. But I think it will take a while for me to do this again coz I was the only one who enjoyed this at home coz my boys are not a big fan of coconut. It's just funny that this coconut cream powder got from my Mom in PH is originally from Indonesia. 

Yiruma's Kiss the Rain

Music can definitely transcend any language, any thought, any feeling. This music has something that draws me to it, without any lyrics. It makes me feel something deep inside that I wouldn't really want to express into words for words will just ruin the feeling evoked by this music.

This one has that quality. I just heard it and kept listening to it. It sounded very familiar, yet  I cannot pinpoint where I heard it before. When I looked it up, I found that it was used in a Kdrama "A Millionaire's First Love." This got me confused because I initially thought that Yiruma is Japanese. And I finally searched for more Yiruma music and found out that he is Korean after all. Korean-born but British-educated concert pianist. Interestingly enough, his other music are also good. There's even a Korean lyrics which I might just try to learn one of these days. I had indeed become an official fan.

Thankful: Looking on the Brighter Side

This is how much hair I usually find after I combed my hair in the morning everyday. My husband complains about it and it's also getting to me. BUT, I just have to remember to be thankful that even though I am losing hair like this everyday, I'm still thankful that my hair sill keeps on growing new ones and I am not losing this because of worse reasons like chemotherapy side-effects. Mine seem just regular hair loss. That I am and should be thankful for instead of complaining about how much hair I leave everywhere.

Delightful Old Books by Agatha Christie

I have just finished listening to an audio book of Agatha Christie via youtube called  The Man in the Brown Suit. It is surprisingly a mix of mystery romantic story set in South Africa long time ago. I started listening to it a couple of days ago and thought that it would be a straight forward mystery story but it has unfolded to be more than that. I thoroughly enjoyed the narration and twist of how the story went. It reads like a modern tale except for the undeniably old technology employed. The plot itself could have been easily made into a more modern setting.

There were a lot of interestingly created character. I like the lead adventuress, and even the main villain. It's a light read that doesn't leave a bad taste in the mouth after all the misdeeds that has happened in the book. It wasn't written that way.

There's this part of me wanting to dive into another AC book right away but I'll try to hold it off for a whle. I'm thinking of looking up another old favorite writer from Canada this time, a bit different genre but older setting nonetheless. I'll check now if I can find her audiobooks in youtube now.

AC audio books has just been recently available online, this year actually, and I had been looking for it on youtube for a while. Sure, I can find it somewhere, ready to download, but there is this undeniable ease of simply streaming it through youtube and being able to listen to it on the fly. Power to youtube for this little delights. :D

8 Habits that Makes u Unhappy..

Interesting list from elitereaders.com. I'm pretty sure nos. 1 and 8 are so not me. :) As for the remaining ones, I may have moments like those at some point.

1. Being perfectionist.
2. Comparing your life with others.
3. You're only happy when all of your dreams come true.
4. Living in the past.
5. You worry.
6. You believe that everyone should play by your rules.
7. You are a materialistic person
8. You care too much about what others think.