Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 10

Yes, is FRIDAY! Any how, I was still preparating my lunch box, mainly reason is, this month i extremely overspent >USD100. Damn!
Yesterday evening was cool, was raining. Here different than motherland, we cheers when it rains especially during summer time. We all looking forward for the monsoon. Friday, prefer something easy, so I just made claypot chicken. :D
Meal 10- Chicken rice + steam brocoli
Ingredients:
1 Full Chicken Drumstick
few slides of butter mushroom
3 pieces garlic
3 chili padi
few slides of ginger
few brunch brocolli
1 cup brown rice

Direction:
1. Marinated the chicken with oyster source, dark source, little sugar, salt, rice wine, sesame oil, corn starch, and the stuffs (garlic, chili padi, ginger and butter mushroom) overnight.
2. This morning, cook the brown rice with the marinated items, it will take longer time like 45 mins. But, just leave it with rice cooker, i can do other things within this 45 mins.
3. Boil the water to boil brocolli.
4. When the time i plan to leave the apartment, just put the rice in my new container. :D

I always looking for a glass container than plastic, even though it stated microwave safe, but, i still worry. Last Sat, I found the glass bowl with lid in Ernest house, this will be cool to replace my plastic container. Thus, i got it yesterday. :)

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 9

Today was very happening, but not really in good way nor all in bad way! First, as usual original plan was just cook one meal, boil one meal and cook brown rice. However, when half way cooking the brown rice, I noticed something not right, because the light indication was not functioning. OMG, the rice cooker looks like already EOL. SHIT! Lucky, I was St. John cooking team, we used to cook rice with fire. Thus, I have to change my plan. Transferred the rice from rice cooker to pot. The use stove to cook it. Then, i just left one pan, my original boil choi sam, also hv to change plan become fried. Ended up, i need to fry 2 dishes.

Meal 9- Fried cincaluk pork, Fried choi san with eggs and brown rice

Ingredients:
1 piece pork chop
2 tbs cincaluk
6 chilis padi
5 pieces garlic
few slides butter mushroom
half Onion
1 egg
Few bunches Choi San

Directions:
1. Transferred the rice to pot, use medium fire to cook it. Have to pay attention and time to time need to open the lid to avoid overflow.
2. Heat up pan and oil, started with veggie which still can reuse the pan for second dish without washing (time constraint).
3. Fried garlic and mean time, scrumbble the egg besides the garlic. Once both ready, mixed them together follow by put in the choi sam. Added some salt will do. It should be done between 5 mins.
4. Continue the pan and add in new oil. Put in garlic and fried it a while only add in the onion. After that, follow by butter mushroom and chili padi.
5. Once the stuffs in 4 ready, put in the pork and cincaluk. Added some water, corn stach, pepper and little sugar. Make sure the pork meat mixed well with earlier item.

As a result, this morning the preparation took more than 30 mins, i guess almost 40 mins. Later after work, have to go walmart and get new rice cooker!

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 8

When doing a stuffs too frequent or become a routine life, then will start to feel boring. That's what happen to me now. I love cooking, but if cook everyday for single person, that's bored! But, to achieve my year end goal, have to do so, dining out too expensive and quite heavy for those tempted food! Today lady fingers again, but if steam again, will make my life more grey! haha... BUT, if cook 2 dishes in early morning, unless i wake up early or plan go to work late. Hmm... so today let's make it all in one style!
Meal 8- Tomyam Fried Lady Fingers with Ground meat + brown rice.
Ingredients:
1 box lady fingers
1/4 lbs ground meat
6 chili padi
half Onion
3 pieces Garlic
Few slides butter mushroom
half carrot
1 tomato
1 tbs tomyam paste

Directions:
1. Heat up the pan, then follow by little cooking oil.
2. Started with garlic, then follow by Onion, carrot and tomato. The reason i cooked tomato in pretty early step, because i like it fully cook till all the juice came out. It will make the dish little sour and sweet.
3. Put in chili padi and butter mushroom. Fried a while, then put in the lady finger.
4. Last follow by group meat. At the same time, add in the tomyam paste, corn stach and black pepper. Salt and sugar are excepted, because the tomyam paste already has enough taste, further more, the earlier veggie like onion, tomato and carrot already add in the sweetness to the dish.
5. Continue to fried and make sure the ground meat make friends with them.

So, the whole cooking can be done within 30 mins. :) it smells good! :D

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 7

Yesterday was my rest day, because the lunch box was the left over food from the Sat dinner in Ernest place. Today have to back to routine life again. Hmm... am I enjoying? Haha... we need save $$ and food for living, so no second option! :D
Today, kind of lazy to cook rice.. haha.. dunno why, just not keen with the brown rice that I bought. The brown rice taste here not good at all! May be is more healthier..
Meal 7- Potato Chicken and boil Choi San
Ingredients:
1 chicken breast (boneless, keep the bones for soup later)
Few slides butter mushroom
3 pieces Garlic
Few slides Ginger
1 Potato
Few bunches Choi Sam
Direction:
1. Boil the water and heat up the pan together. Is pretty easy to handle 2 dishes at the same time.
2. Put in the oil once the pan hot, started with Potato, because Potato will take times to cook; after potato changing colours, then put in garlic and ginger. After a while only put in the butter mushroom.
3. Once the water boils, put in the choi sam. Just boil for a while will do, because later will heat up again with microwave.
4. Put in the chicken, add oyster source, dark soy source, little salt, sugar, rice wine and sesame oil. Add some water, so it won't be that dry.
So, minus the preparation time that done yesterday evening, the overall cooking time less than 30 mins. :)

Fruitful wkend

Time always flies very fast, it was my 4th wkend here! Most of the wkend was quite reasonable boring, which has plenty of time to rest and stayed back at home! Last wkend was full of with few plans!
Mikey was here last wk till sat morning. Then, 4 'batangs' planned to hang out in Kona Grill for happy hour. That's place was cool, but food just 'ok', i prefer BJ more! Before we called it off for that night, we went to have yogurt in Yogurt Land at ASU area. I love the yogurt there.. they are plenty till ran out of idea what to choose! I wish my mom here with me, she loves this type of stuffs, because it taste like ice cream!
Sat morning, we woke up quite early, because planned to meet up with Mikey again breakfast prior his departure to airport! As usual, Spring Hill breakfast always same. But, nothing to complain because we ate free there! haha.... Since we had early breakfast, we were able to catch the early movie- Inception!

Watching movie in AMC cheaper than Harkins ($5.25 VS. $7). I wanted to watch this movie for some times, timing yet right. I read number of friends who already watched gave good comments. Hmm... for me, this movie consider creative which mixture of 'matrix' style that need times to digest only can understand. I expect something more.... so, it just cool movie to me ONLY. :)
After lunch, we did shopping because at night we gonna have a 'batangs' gathering in Ernest's house. We spent > hours in Mekong Plaza, asian market because we planned to cook 4 dishes + 1 soup + 1 dessert! It was tiring when reach Ern's house, because we woke up quite early, so i took a short nap before I can start preparing tonight dinner.
We started with dessert preparing, because it took time to defroze the durian and times to cook green beans. It was fun to open frozen durian and eat it. It taste like ice cream durian. :) The interesting part was, we did it in US.

Then, we started to cook the soup, the longer we boiled it, we believe will make the soup taste nicer! After we boiled the soup, we started to prepare the dish 1 by 1; marinated the assam prawn, belacan chicken, stir the ground meat with cincaluk, sambal asparagus. The whole preparation took around 2.5 hours, but the cooking part less than 1 hour. :) So, I still met my timeline to deliver the dinner at 7pm :D

Let's me go through every single dish, so won't wasted my efforts that putting in. haha.... (show off time!)

Dish 1- Belacan Chicken
Ingredients:
1 lb chicken wings (drumstick)
Few Belacan + flour
Directions:
1. Clean the small drumsticks, then marinated them with belacan and flour. Salt is excepted because belacan itself kinda salty. It took sometimes during the marination part, because the belacan was in pieces, need to press it became smaller or melt, so that the it can mix well with drumstick.
2. Heat the oil 1st, make sure the oil was really HOT. Once the temp reach there, put in the drumstick and fried it till golden colour.

Dish 2- Assam Prawn
Ingredients:
1 lb Jumbo Prawn
Few assam
Direction:
1. Peel off the shell till left the shrimp tail (just for presentation purposes).
2. After clean it, marinate with oyster source, assam, soy source, sugar (little bit more), black pepper and corn stach. NOTE: Don't use too much of assam, it will make it too sour and salty.
3. Heat up the pan and fried it. BUT, we redo it again because we put too much assam and eded up it too salty.
4. Refried it again with water which stir with corn stach and sugar. Added Onion in also to make the shrimp taste sweeter which can reduce the salty.
At the end, this was my least favorite, it just still nice edible (69% score).

Dish 3- Cincaluk Ground Meat:
Ingredients:
3/4 lb ground meat
2 tea spoon cincaluk
6/7 chili padi
1 egg whie
Directions:
1. Put in cincaluk, chili padi and mix with ground meat. Added egg white and corn stach, little sugar and black pepper. Salt is excepted too, because cincaluk is quite salty.
2. Once all the ingredients mixed well, made it into meat ball shape on the oven pan.
3. Baked inside oven for 40 mins with 400F.

Dish 4- Sambal Asparagus:
Ingredients:
1 bunch asparagus
1 pack sambal (due to no red chillis here)
7 red onion
few dry salted shrimp
4 pieces garlic
4 chili padi
7 medium shrimp (peeled off all the shell)
little ginger
Direction:
1. Blended the red onion, salted shrimp, garlic, chili padi and ginder. Then, mixed them with sambal.
2. Heat up the pan, add oil then fried the (1).
3. Then put in the shrimp before asparagus. Once put in the asparagus, added some water, sugar and littel salt.
4. Once the asparagus cooked, then can ready to serve in plate.

Soup- Lotus root:
Ingredients:
1.5 lotus root
few pieces of lean pork meat
1/4 of nuts
few slides of dry squip
6/7 honey dates (tone down to 4/5)
>10 red dates
Direction:
1. Peel up the lotus root skin, and clean the nuts.
2. Started to boil the soup with nuts, lotus root, honey date, red date and dry squip. Only until it boiled, put in the lean pork.
3. Added some salt / sugar to make the soup taste good. Then, continue to boil the soup for few hours till dinner time. The longer, it taste much better!

Dessert- Green bean + durian:
Ingredients:
3/4 pack green beans
few dark sugar
4 or 5 pieces of durian meats
Is good if can find the pandan leaf.
Directions:
1. After cleaned up the green beans, the cook it.
2. Waited till the green beans cooked, else it will taste hard.
3. Added in the durian. ONLY add sugar in after everything cooked. if put in sugar too early, it may cause burnt and need more attention. Since, I was multi cooking and preparing other dishes, better add the sugar when i done with other dishes.

Last but no least, Ernest also contributed and did smoothies for us. He was using strawberries, banana, grapes, orange and apple, then blended with ice. Hmm... i prefer he did that during afternoon time, this is cool drink to cold down the temp, but if have it with dinner, then quite heavy! haha...

Any how, my duty just prepared the dinner, Ernest promised will do the cleaning. However, as usual, he always delivered his commit late. The kictchen was totally a mess and even worst, because of his cleverness, put few beers in the freezer. Ended up, it didn't help to cold down the beers, it made it explored! I was so so worry, when Lila back, we will banned from using this kicthen again. Anyway, like i said earlier, Ernest's style, he will do it but later. Before we left the house in the following day, he washed the dishes and kitchen 90% back to normal. :)
We had 2 movies, "The Road" and "The descent 2". The Road, for me quite a boring show. But, the Descent 2 very good! It made us scream! haha!
I really had great wkend! It was fun and cool especially hang out with old friends! :)

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 6

This is my last lunch box for this week. :) Tomorrow will get myself some rest because this Saturday promised will help Ernest prepares dinner for friends to his house in Maricopa. Besides, tomorrow I need leave my apartment around 7:15am plus to have breakfast with friend in Spring Hill.
Today is pork day! haha, pork chop is having great deal! (jezz... my thinking always like Ah Beng).
Meal 6- fried dark soy source pork, steam lady fingers and brown rice.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup brown rice
few slides gingers
1/4 onion
3 pieces garlic
4 butter mushroom
1 pack lady fingers

Directions:
1. Marinated the pork meat with rice wine, little salt, black pepper and corn flour overnight. (I did it overnight, because no time in the morning, actual 1-2 hours will do).
2. As usual, put the lady fingers in the steamber on top the rice cooker together with brown rice.
3. Heat up the pan, put oil and fried the garlic till golden colours. Follow by ginger, after a while put Onion and butter mushroom. Some water needed, so it wont be dry.
4. Then, put in the pork meat and fried with the stuffs in item 3. Put little bit sugar, osyter source, dark source, little bit soy source, black pepper and rice wine. Oh ya, sesame oil too, this will make it smell and taste good. Then, just continue to fried till it ready. :)

This meal take little bit longer, but still can be done within 40 mins and i still able arrived office before 8am (3 mins earlier). haha :D

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 5

Another new day, always comes with new meal. But, I do not know how long more i can continue to come out new idea. Some of the dishes sure will repeat. What i had for today is one of my favorites, which is cincaluk steam meat! :)
Meal 5- Steam cincaluk groud meat, fried pak choy with squip ball and brown rice.
Ingredients:
0.25 lbs ground meat
2 table spoons cincaluk
6 chili padi
1 egg
6 squip balls
4 bunches pak choy
3 pieces garlic

Direction:
1. Put the ground meat in the small bowl, then follow by cincaluk, chili padi and eggs. of course need to add little bit sugar, corn flour, black pepper, stir all until they mixed well. Then, steam it for 20-30 mins.
2. Heat up the pan, put oil and then fried garlic. When the garlic were turning to golden, then put in the squip balls. Then after, put in the pak choy, some water, rice wine, salt, oyster source and black pepper. Just usual, dont over cook.

The whole lunch box can be ready within 30 mins. While waiting for the rice and cincaluk steam meat ready, can just take shower and get myself reaady to work!

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 3.5 and 4

Although is 2 days of lunch box, it still consider half half for each because i just cooked one chicken for 2 days. :) Everyone hates Monday except this day is PH. So do I! It took me a while to get out from bed! So, let's cook something MOST simple lunch for Monday is high recommended! :)
Meal 3.5- Roasted Chicken with steam brocolli, carrots and pak choy
Ingredients:
half chicken breast
2 carrots
2 bunches of brocolli
2 pak choy

Direction:
1. Marinated the chicken with rice wine, oyster source, soy source, black pepper, little bit salt and sugar overnight.
2. Heat up the Oven to 450F, then put the chicken breast in for 20 mins.
3. Boil the water; once boiled, put all veggies in. Dont over cook, because at lunch time will reheat the lunch box again.

So, the whole cooking just need focus on boiled the veggies and it should done within 10 mins. :D That's my Monday meal! Simple and still tasty!

Meal 4: Roasted chicken, fried pak choy with eggs and steam brown rice
Ingredients:
1 cup of brown rice (forgot soak overnight)
half chicken breast
4 pak choy
half carrot
1 eggs
3 pieces of Onion

Direction:
1. Same like I did for the meal 3.5, marinated the chicken for overnight and this morning roasted in Oven.
2. heat up the pan with little cooking oil, then fried Onion.
3. The fried egg, scrumble it.
4. Once the egg was ready, put in the pak choy, water, oyster source, salt, and black pepper. As usual, don't over cook the veggie.

I'll always prepare 2 dishes for my lunch, one will cook with the simple method either steam or bake in oven; the other dish i'll fried or some other method. So, I can get everything done within 30 mins. of course, all the preparations need to be done a night before. Like now, i done for the tomorrow stuffs, once I woke up, i just need to cook. :)

Knowing someone...

Starting new life in a new place (although is not really new to me), the toughest part is to rebuild the friendship! I was always hoping to know someone local who i can hang out with. My last assignment 2.5 years just inside the Malaysian circle, because that trip, here was full with a lot of friends from same motherland. That was cool. But, this round, just me alone so far... although they are few Malaysians here, just yet my type of friens that can hang out with. Yup, Ernest, you are my best buddy, lucky you are here, BUT you stay far away from here and you big BABE that you have to look after..... so, most of the time, i'm alone!
Today it started with a call from someone who I still don't know his name, we chatted and decided how's about the hang out this afternoon. The hang out started with a mess, because i was waiting at starbucks one hour earlier than his new confirmed time which left in my voice mail after i left my house. But, we were catching up good after reschedule at Boba tea nearby Lee Lee market.
Normal chatting and usual hang out. Anyway, no much expectation, it was cool to know someone local only... We migth hang out again tomorrow.. I believe tomorrow will always better, isn't it? :D

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 3

Let's have something different today, no rice! But, is Japanese Udong. Haha! I love a veggies, especially fried noodles with different type of veggies, that's always my favorite! This meal preparation was fast!

Meal 2: Fried Udong with veggies

Ingredients:
1 pack of Udong (can get it from Lee Lee)
half tomato
4 small chilis
half onion
1 bowl of bean sprouts
2 pok choy
half carrot
6 squip balls
2 eggs
3 pieces of Garlic

Directions:
1. Heat up the oil, then started fried garlic. Once got the small put Onion, follow by tomato and carrot.
2. Put some water and salt. Then follow by squip ball, chilis and pak choy.
3. Then, put the main course- udong, the oyster source, soy source, sugar and salt will make it taste good.
4. Then, put in the eggs and fried mix around.
5. Last part is put bean sprout, make sure dont over cook, because later in office will heat it up again in microwave.

That's my 3rd day lunch box. Tomorrow and friday will not need to prepare lunch box because will have lunch appointment tomorrow with my IBX counterpart (Jim) and Friday will be my former boss and collegues. :)

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 2

Preparing lunch box, the most critical part is time! That's not good to eat overnight food, thus we have to wake up earlier in the morning to cook the food. We also try avoid to wake up super early, because it will be very tiring afternoon time and we have to stay focus in our work. So, time is number priority! Today, I need to arrive office before 7:30am because of medical check up appointment set at 7:45am. Thus, i need cook something as simple as possible BUT still tasty! :)
Meal 2: Fried tomoto eggs, Honey BBQ drumstick, steam brocolli with brown rice

Ingredients:
1 cup of brown rice had been soaked for 22 hours, this makes it alkaline.
1 bunch brocolli
1 tomato
2 eggs
1 drumstick

Directions:
1. The night before marinated the drumstick with Osyter source, soya source, honey, rice wine, pepper. This morning, put into oven and bake for 20 mins at 400F.
2. Put the brocolli at the steamer on top the rice cooker, steam it together with brown rice.
3. Heat up the oil in the pan, then fried tomato till it cooked, then follow by fried eggs together with tomato.
4. Add little salt, sugar and few drop of lemon juice to make it taste better.
5. once it cook, done with the cooking. The whole process done within 30 mins. :)

Lunch Box Preparation- Meal 1

Hmm.. honestly life in Chandler started to feel boring, may be not much close friends here that I can chill out with. Besides, this assignment I'm aiming more $$ saving, resulted have some restriction on my spending. It added up, won't be a fun trip like my last assignment.
Since, I'm boring, better do something that meaningful and utlize my some little free time. I'm creating this Lunch Box Preparation series also try to give my good bro Ernest, some tips / ideas on Malaysian food. :)
Meal 1- prepared on July 12, 2010: Fried onion group meat, steam lady fingers with brown rice.
Ingredients:
1 cup of brown rice had been soaked for 22 hours, this makes it alkaline.
1 pack of lady fingers from Lee Lee
1/3 Onion
5 slides of Gingers
4 small chilis
few slides of carrot

Directions:
1. Steamed the lady fingers on top of rice cooker while cooking the rice.
2. Heat up the pan, then put some little sesami oil on the pan.
3. Once the sesame oil heat up, fried the Onions, follow by ginger and carrot.
4. Put some waters and salt, and continue to fry it.
5. Then put the ground meat in; add soy source, little brown sugar, oyster source and rice wine.
6. Stir fry the ground meat and make sure it combines with earlier stuffs- onion, chilis, carrot, etc.
7. Continue to stir fry it until the ground meat is cooked.

The the lunch box can be done less than 30 minutes. :)

World cup 2010

I found it interesting, last round when i was here for 2.5 years, i learnt about NBA and loves it. Now this round, i learn about world cup and love it too.
I never watch world cup or any of the football game for my last 32 years! All the while, my thought was football is the most boring game in this world and always didn't understand, why peoples are loving it. So many ppls are chasing after one ball. And it take times to get a goal.
But, i started to change my thinking a wk before i left Malaysia. That's night I was in my pal's house copied movies. During the copying, he was watching the match- Uruguay VS. Korean, from that night onwards. I'm starting to pay attention on it. Once I arrived here, my friends surround me also talking about the match, so I'm in the game now! haha...
It was cool watching the final game in Zipp sport bar with a lot of peoples. The environment really HOT, the cheers from everywhere!
Watching this final liked doing cardio, the heart beat so so fast for every attack, either from any team.
Finally, Spain crown the 2010 world cup champion. The feeling was great, when seeing the team that I supported get the champ. Anyhow, next round of world cup which will happen 2014 in Brazil, I do not know whether still have such feeling. Unless, with friends. :)
Congratulation SPAIN, you guys really did gr8 job. 1st time in final and got the title! Keep it up and see you 4 years later!

New environment; old place?

Time flies, already here for almost a week plus. I was waited for this assignment years, finally it comes truth!
A week before my departured, so busy with the packing, shopping and meeting up with friends. Until a stage that I was not feeling well. Lucky with immediate control, nothing worse happen. The moment that I left my house, looking at my mom's eyes, she was doing well, no tears. But, she couldn't speak much! I understand her feeling.
The night stayed in Changi airport was perfect! I never expect, the transit hotel in Terminal 3 even better than Penang's Eastin Hotel. So, i asked extension for another hour with cost SIN15.3, but it worth it! Before that arrival I was in Penang airport or 2 wks ago i was in KLIA airport, speechless, Singapore ROCK! The food couts options are fantastic till I did not know what too choose. In Penang, you have to pay ringgits to vist butterfly farm; but in that airport FREE! Jess, nvr expect now they have HRC too. Gosh, I wish I can spend more times there! Before my next long journey, I gave my mom a call and told her how wonderful is the airport. Definitely, next year will bring her here. :)
The journey from SIN to LAX was "hem hem", didn't have space for my long legs and the worst part was my neighbour, so annoying! I have a word for him- KANASAI!
Finally after 16 hours flight arrived LAX, while waiting for the immigration; I was worry, because I was always lucky to have "special treatment". Thank GOD, the KL US consulate had remove me successful from this special register interview, thank you!
Waiting 6 hours in LAX airport like old time PUDU RAYA, haha... just with better environment. But, it was not fun at all. Even wanted connect to internet also $$.
When I touched down in PHX, like step in the Oven, can feel the heat! Getting a car, is just small car, but comfortable! I'm so proud of myself, I still can recognize the way to my old apartment. My buddy already waited me in my apartment with the stuffs that I needed. Meeting back old good friend is cool! I was so excited, immediate drove away and stock up foods and waters!
1st night, 2nd night, 3rd night ... 5 nights, GOSH, i was JET Lag!! Now, still not 100% recover, still wake up few times 1-2am; 3-4am; 5-6am. Hell, but better now!
Life here so far so good, but starting to feel "bored" feeling. It will take time to build up friendship in new environment. Hopefully, I can find more friends like my last assignment here. I miss our AZ Gang...
Job wise, just started report to work on last Tuesday, still in progress knowing ppls here. The working environment here totally different than mother land. In my place, I loved go around and fool around with friends; here all have their own circle of friends. If believe things are different in CD. BUT, i still will choose here... I know I can survive here better!