Thursday, August 28, 2008

garlic mash

this garlic mash is useful when u want to infuse a smooth sauce with garlic flavor without compromising the texture. great as rubs on meat and poultry as well.

get a few bulbs of garlic. peel away the outer layers of skin (except the immediate layer of skin surrounding each individual clove) and leave the cloves intact to the bulb. using a knife, cut off the top of the bulbs so that each clove has it's top end removed. place the garlic bulbs on a tray and bake in preheated oven at 350-400F for abt 30 minutes. remove from the oven, let cool, and then squeeze the garlic (each individual clove) out of its jacket into an airtight jar. store in the refrigerator up to 3 months, possibly more.

Monday, August 4, 2008

cheesecake factory

cosy lil restaurant i went to in boston. as the name suggests, they specialise in cheesecakes. kinda like secret recipe back in malaysia, just with much better selection of food. i mean, like, it's a real restaurant and all. lots of different food items in the menu. great seafood selection. good service. nice atmosphere. decent pricing. awesome...

*me and the jojo at cheesecake factory during winter...

i've been there twice, once in december (with jojo, tiffany and yiran) and again a few weeks ago. and both times i ordered fried calamari. yup, like i said, crazy asian's love for seafood. muahaha... so, yeah, the calamari was yum. totally satisfied my cravings for fried calamari which i've been deprived of in oswego. i had fried calamari twice in my recent boston trip. the other time was at pizza uno, like 2 days before my cheesecake factory trip. the pizza uno's fried calamari was not bad. interesting that they had some fried yellow peppers with it and it was served with marinara sauce, but i wasn't quite satisfied coz it was pricier and half the serving size of what cheescake factory gave me. hence, me gobbling down fried calamari again so soon after i've had it.

anyways, i wish i'll have another chance to go there. like i said, i was very impressed by their selection of seafood. and from the looks of the food served to other tables, they are pretty nicely done. cant wait to try out their salmon...

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Shrimp Salad

i went down to one of the cafes in the new campus center for lunch on friday with patrick and amazingly, they had boiled shrimps at their salad bar!!! must be my lucky day coz i hardly ever eat at the campus center during summer unless patrick comes and drags me over, but they've never served shrimps at the salad bar everytime i've been there. anyway, i proceeded to make myself a shrimp salad, got myself some new england clam chowder (to which i added more shrimps) and a bottle of orange juice. lunch came up to $7.50 or so. it... was... yummy!!!

...but that wasn't enough. once i was done with lunch, i went back to the salad bar and bought more shrimps! lol, to the amusement of patrick, who sorta understands the crazy asians' love for all things seafood (ok, not ALL seafood, but most seafood. i mean, sea cucumber? yuck...) since he has a chinese girlfriend.

coincidentally i did just buy some mixed greens, my favourite romaine lettuce, and cherry tomatoes. hehe, which means... more shrimp salads to come!!! yay...

so, yeah, i just finished eating my shrimp salad supper. burp. excuse me. here's the recipe... nothing special, but a totally fantabulous salad.

chop up some fresh romaine lettuce, pile it on top of some mixed greens. dump in some cherry/grape tomatoes. add some croutons, then flood it with lotsa small chilled boiled shrimps. sprinkle some black pepper. now top up with some thousand island dressing.

i mixed the thousand island dressing with equal parts mayonnaise and some lemon juice to tone down the sweetness and tangy taste of the thousand island dressing.

voila.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

photoshopping

well, got bored, and decided to do a little photoshopping...


i'm gonna go print it out and use it as a bookmark. want one?