Kitchen Today

Cooking mode in the kitchen today starting with a Baesuk (steamed Korean pear) after lunch and Deok Guk (Rice Cake Soup) for dinner, both from Maangchi's site. 

P's cough had been more than a week already so I let him choose which one he would go for, the pear or the doctor. He chose the pear and we had a couple left still and most of the ingredients so I thought to give a try. 

what's left of the pear...

While the pear was steaming, I started the stock for the deokk guk in the slow cooker. Five hours on high should be enough to get the anchovy, leeks, and seaweed stock going. 

After that, I moved on to the bread. It's my first time to do this recipe from Laura Vitale's youtube and web site. The video mentioned of AP flour but the website has bread flour. I went for the bread flour. I used 1 1/4 C liquid milk instead of powder and water. Most of it was alright except that the dough a bit too dry when I was mixing. I ended up using only 3.5 C of flour since it it seems to be too dry and it was hard to knead it. Probably because the air is pretty dry in my area today? 

Since I don't have a big loaf pan, I used my 4 mini-pans so I divided the dough into four. Two of which, I added raisin while the other two has only cinnamon and sugar. My son doesn't like raisin, among a hundred other things. (Come to think of it, I should make a list of those things.)  From the top of my head: raisin, mushrooms, beans, peas, squash and it's family, ginger, pine nuts, sweet potato...and more. I'll have to have that list up somewhere so that he'll realize how ridiculous to have a long list of this.

Going back to the bread, I let the dough rise twice and it was pretty fluffy and soft. Too soft for my taste. I like my bread with more bite. I should try to do a grain mix next time. I don't like the texture of pure flour anymore.

I still have to try a cinnamon roll in the future once I get a decent pan that can hold the dough and not stick to the wall of my tiny oven like how it does in my pandesal.

Baked it for 30 mins. at 175 C but had to tent it with foil after the top turned brown in just 10 minutes. I then lowered it to 150 for the remaining 20 minutes, and left it another 5 inside after the oven turned off.

Notes for the cinnamon loaf:
a. mix grain next time.
b. use more butter, sugar and cinnamon inside
c. watch out for the flour and liquid mixture
d. brush the top with milk n egg AFTER it has risen for the final one

Now for the rice cake soup, I made an effort to put some egg strips and green onion/leeks for toppings and it upped the dish. Not only that, I also used a homemade fish sauce from my SIL and the stock turned out good.

I can totally have more confidence in making that soup more next time. It's a very simple dish but quite filling specially with regular rice.

Notes for the soup:
(good for 3)
2 heaping C of deokk
1 L of stock
1 T of homemade fish sauce
4 inches of leeks, diagonally chopped
<1 nbsp="" of="" p="" salt="" t="">n pepper

Time for a final clean up now since I still have to put away the roasted chicken I picked up last night.

Hmm! An idea just hit me now! I can make the bread dough, shape it in the pan and freeze it there in advance. Then, I can just do the final rise next time before popping it in the oven. I think I tried this one before but it lost it's shape because I didn't freeze it in the loaf to start with. I should try the quick freeze to shape before long-term freeze in a zippy. I want to do baguettes next time. Missing baguettes since I've been doing a lot of pandesal lately and some pizza dough as well. I just love working with yeast better than quick breads.

Real sign off this time!

Re-activating Online Banking in the Philippines from Abroad (Part 2)

Followed up the application via the toll free international hotline of BDO and I was to told to log in and check the info after.

Printed the stuff, photocopied the passport and atm card (front panel) and mailed them all today. Regular mail so it's all up to the Philpost. I just hope it gets there soon, knowing the system. Totally cannot trust it. 

Update 1/28: Still haven't heard anything from BDO. Waiting til this weekend. Will do some emailing by next week if nothing comes up yet. 

COL on the other hand, they emailed last week Monday. Skyped this Monday and had the the account number within the day. I just have to fund it now but I have yet to figure out how. Hopefully, BDO thing will work out soon, or I'll just have to wire it straight to my COL account. Target date: Februar26. As for BDO, Feb. 5 for it not to become dormant. 

IHerb Haul for the Year

Been running out of shampoo since the end of December last year but I held off ordering until this week.

I finalized my order last Monday (that means Sun in US) and the expected delivery was between 18-22 next week. Boy, I was surprised to find it waiting for me today, just about 4 days!

Toiletries and food stuff

my lot for the year...

whole wheat flour, taco seasoning,
onion powder, cilantro, and nutritional yeast

This lot costs just about 52K krw so free shipping. One of these days, I'll be able to figure out why I bought the nutritional yeast in the first place. I can't recall exactly what I wanted it for right now. As for the cilantro, I really like this one so even if it's waay different from the fresh one, it's still better to have one in handy. 

As for the shampoo, I will be using these for the whole year. A bottle has lasted me for 6 months last year. Hopefully, it will last for a year if I'll alternate the two bottles. I have just to see how it goes! 

Local Library Revisited

Re-activating Online Banking in the Philippines from Abroad (Part 1)

Philippine banking system can really be frustrating after I've already experienced the South Korean one. I won't get started on the list but here is the latest thing I'll be going through as I restart my Ph online banking.

Brief background: I already have an account and an internet banking set up before I left almost two years ago. Well, it's mostly my husband who does the online banking at that time so I'm not that familiar with the details except for other part of actually opening the account, getting the card, and activating it on the atms. It's a little bit roundabout still.

As far as I can remember, the steps we had to do went like this:
1. Apply for the online banking on the website. I think we still have to print something to take to the branch at that time.
2. Wait for the email for activation code.
3. Then activate the online banking using the code with the card on any atm.

This time, I'll be doing it all on my own, remotely. Meaning, I don't have to visit any branch or atms at all since there's really no official branch in ROK. They do have a representative office of sorts since 2010 based from what I found on their website.

So for my future reference or anyone who might stumble into this, I'll try to write what I'll be doing to accomplish re-activating my internet banking.

(Note: No transaction for 23 months, still less than 2 years before the account to be dormant so I have to hurry up.)

Jan. 4 - Inquired online thru the customer service email about reactivating online banking when I forgot my username and password.
Jan. 5 - Got an email reply to jump thru the hoops online to recover (username and password recovery buttons) to no avail. No mail from the website that got thru any of my inboxes.

Last resort, I had to call the Int'l Toll Free no. 001 (for Korea, KT users only) - 800- 8631 - 8000. The agent asked for some other account details like address, last registered contact no., and transaction but I can't recall much so she recommended to delete the previous online banking account and just apply for a new one. The catch is, I can do so after two days! What gives!

So I had to ask how will the procedure be like after she submitted the application to delete the previous internet account.
1. Apply on the website after two days. (She's pretty vague why it would take two days. Beats the heck out of me, really!)
2. Wait another two working days to receive a confirmation call (since I'm overseas).
3. Then, wait for another email withing 5 w. days for the final confirmation to be able to access the online banking.

With this initial info, I'm looking at at least a week before I get to log in the online-banking.

Now, I don't want to compare much with the Korean online banking but the time it takes is sure loong. When I opened an online banking feature here, it was already an option when I applied for the offline account first time, along with the phone banking features. I had to do extra paper work onsite, then took home a sheet with my initial log in details to use online. The thing is they still got an extra downloading stuff needed for the online bank certificate to be installed on my pc or mobile phone for that matter. But I think they will do away with that soon. Anyway, all of it were just one time in-person at the branch, a few more minutes online (and maybe extra customer service via phone to walk me through the system as mostly can be in Korean and can be really frustrating as well) and I get to log in my bank account within a day. No waiting games, no calling and confirming whatnots.

This has been another pretty long entry, I guess.
Now, I'm back to waiting.