swuica

Takoyaki

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 19:40:00 -0700

Lambert and I had been wanting to make takoyaki for some time now, so we went out to bought the pan and the ingredients to try it on our own.

The ingredients we went out to get were pickled ginger, green onions, aonori seaweed, bonito flakes, takoyaki sauce and some mayonnaise.

Oh and of course the main ingredient octopus (tako)!

We poured the batter on the hot pan and quickly added the octopus, green onions, and pickled ginger. The recipe we were following was from Cooking with Dog.

It took us some tries until we got the hang of flipping the takoyaki. Thats why the first image only has 4 in the middle. After we got the hang of it, we were able to make a bigger batch in one go.

Sizzle sizzle.

Take them out then add the sauce, mayonnaise, aonori seaweed, green onions and bonito flakes. Serve them while they’re hot!

Cheers!

Calcifer the Fallen Star

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:00:00 -0700

Tina is going to the anime convention “Cos and Effect’s” Masquerade dance, dressed up as Howl from “Howl’s Moving Castle” at UBC this Friday. She though it would be perfect by having Calcifer by her side.

Tina went and grabbed some orange, yellow, and red felt, a yellow ball as well as some white and black foam to make Calcifer. She cut a whole on the top, then a slit on each side so that the felt can stick out. For his eyes you cut some foam circles to give him sort of a ._. look. To make Calcifer look like he’s on fire, Tina used my rear red bike light and stuffed it inside.

Here’s the final product!

Designer/Creator: Tina Ma

Photographer: Howard Chow

Cheers.

Ratatouille

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 20:30:00 -0700

For father’s day, Lambert and I thought we would make our usual steak dinner. We couldn’t decide on what to do for vegetables, so I started looking around the fridge, found some eggplants and zucchini and decided to make some ratatouille.

The rest of the ingredients were tomatoes, parsley, mushrooms, garlic and onions. They asked for large tomatoes, but while shopping we found some beautiful heirloom tomatoes so we bought those instead. The first step was to saute the eggplant. I kind of messed up reading the directions and saute the eggplants with the onions….It tasted fine in the end, but I was suppose to layer the onions raw.

After the eggplants are tender, put it on the bottom of a casserole dish and start layer the other ingredients, sprinkling parmesan cheese in between each layer. The order for us was eggplants, onions, mushrooms, zucchini and tomatoes on top.

We baked it for 45 mins at 350 degrees F, below is what the finished product looks like.

I think next time for fun I would like the attempt to make it look like the ratatouille from the Disney movie :)

Cheers.

Deviled Eggs

Sat, 19 May 2012 13:48:26 -0700

My friend had a house opening and asked us to bring some food for the pot luck. So I thought I’d try something that I always hear about, but have never eaten in gatherings. Which was deviled eggs.

I forgot to take pictures of the process again so all I have are the finished product. My bad.

This was my first time making these, so I didn’t have high hopes that they’ll turn out well. I started with simmering a dozen eggs until the water reached 210 degrees Fahrenheit I turned off the heat and let the eggs sit in the water for 17 mins. After I peeled them, took out the yolks and started mashing them to make a paste.

I didn’t have exact measurements, I just added some mayonnaise, sriracha hot sauce, salt and pepper until I the texture was creamy smooth. I seasoned to my liking so I just added the ingredients tasted it every so often until I was satisfied.

I added the mixture to a old ziplock bag and pipped the yolk back into the egg whites and garnished with some green onions and bits of bacon. I tried one and thought it wasn’t spicy enough so I finely sliced some thai chili peppers and sprinkled them on top.

Here’s a better shot of the finished deviled eggs.

Cheers.

Beef Stroganoff

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:55:00 -0700

Lambert and I decided to cook dinner for our parents again. After looking through some cooking videos we picked Beef Stroganoff as our dish. To prep for this meal, we had to make Cream Fraiche a few days earlier. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it.

The recipe asked for tagliatelle pasta which we couldn’t find so we ended up making our own fresh pasta. The ingredients needed was flour, olive oil, salt, and eggs. After looking around the house it turns out my dad bought a pasta maker a long time ago. So we used that to roll out the pasta sheets.

Here’s the finished product! We had cut the pasta by hand because there was no setting on the pasta maker to cut it 3/4 inches thick.

The beef stroganoff’s ingredients are beef stock, thick cut beef chuck, onions, mushrooms, green onions, and cream fraiche. We bought the wrong type of meat, and ended up with something with a lot of tendons so we simmered the meat for 2 hours.

After the sauce was done, we tossed it with the homemade fresh pasta and garnished it with some chopped green onions and fresh grounded pepper.

It was very delicious and the fresh pasta had a texture completely different from dried pasta. Its smoother and softer than dried pasta, even when you cook it to al dente.

Cheers.

Since I’m posting about books. Here’s a cool video...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:53:00 -0800

Since I’m posting about books. Here’s a cool video about them!
Cheers.

Books and My Old Hobby

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:51:00 -0800

When I was in elementary one of my hobbies was reading. My parents would take me out to the library and I would borrow a huge bunch of books. After I got into high school playing video games took full control and I stopped reading books, unless if it was for class. Now that I have to head to Surrey Central for some of my classes I started bringing books with me to read (I don’t have a smart phone to entertain me….) So here are all the books I’ve read since November.

This is my book mark who has been with me in every adventure I have followed.

Cheers.

Such an amazing video! I love how OK Go does their music videos....

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:03:00 -0800

Such an amazing video! I love how OK Go does their music videos. The song is also very good.

Cheers.

Check out this amazing cover of Coldplay’s Paradise. The...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:34:52 -0800

Check out this amazing cover of Coldplay’s Paradise. The instruments and video are just breathtaking.

I’m going to see the Vancouver Coldplay concert this cominng April, and watching this has got me all excited again. I honestly can not wait.

Building a Ramen Stand

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:47:00 -0800

So Lambert thought it would be a good project for his portfolio if he made a Ramen stand from scratch. As authentic as possible to the ones you see in japan.

Here is a little background about us. Lambert and I have been helping me dad, who does renovation, since we’ve been in elementary school. The work varied from help lifting lumber, holding this thing in place to actually cutting wood, setting up a frame to install dry wall, painting it and finish it with moulding. So we were fairly confident that we could build the stand with no problems with structure or design.

So we took those skills and went to build a ramen stand in a backyard. It took us about 2 weeks to build it; we would head to the location at around 12 and finish up around 5 - 6. I think we started the project around October and finished around early November.

We started with building two frames to make the front and back wall.

There’s me at the top and my older brother on the bottom picture.

My dad would sometimes have spare wood around, so a lot of lumber came from him. The rest came from scrounging around and buying it from Home Depot.

After a couple of days of measuring, cutting, nailing, and screwing up the angles we got the frame for the roof up.

Lambert chose a dark stain for the wood so it’ll have a more Japanese image. We also added some plywood for the roof.

After that we installed a front cover, a table, boards at the side of the roof and some details on roof. If you look closer you can see we added a wider railing on each opening, a swinging door on the other side of the building, rope to go over the stand to hold up the cover, and some lighting on the inside.

We also made some tables on the inside, installed a sink, and ran some hoses for running water. I don’t have any pictures of it but if you check out the blog about how we served our own homemade ramen (coming later) you can see the interior of the stand.

Cheers.

Margherita Pizza

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:34:00 -0800

Lambert and I thought that we should try to make some authentic margherita pizza. We went out to grab some basil, fresh mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce (we got lazy,) flour, and some yeast.This was our first time making pizza dough from scratch.

To make the dough you mix some yeast, flour, salt, sugar, warm water, and some oil. Put the dough on a floured surface and knead it for a couple of mins. We used active dry yeast so we didn’t have to wait for the dough to ferment.

After we kneaded it, we cut them into smaller portions and rolled them out. I got the dough until it was about a half a centimeter thin. We have a large pan for pizza so the pizza got pretty big.

We then add the toppings. I forgot to mention that we added some crushed cayenne peppers!

Here’s the finished product after 15 mins or so in the oven!

Serve it on a plate and enjoy :)

Cheers.

Amazing art and originality. I thought this was fantastic in...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:17:00 -0800

Amazing art and originality. I thought this was fantastic in style and presentation.

Cheers.

Passing around compliments, everyone could use a smile. Cheers.

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:09:00 -0800

Passing around compliments, everyone could use a smile.

Cheers.

A Coca Cola commercial about families going back home for...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:32:00 -0800

A Coca Cola commercial about families going back home for Christmas. I always loved these videos of people’s reaction seeing their loved ones come home. Maybe that’s why I’m always cheerful when I head tothe YVR airport.

Cheers

Wow this brought back many memories. Use to watch this show all...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:21:05 -0800

Wow this brought back many memories. Use to watch this show all the time, even have the cassette for this movie. Found this trailer while looking around youtube, thought it was very well done giving the movie a grittier feel. Check out some of his other works.

Cheers

Power of Pentatonic Scale

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:24:54 -0800

This is why I love Bobby McFerrin, he’s such an amazing funny person with so much talent. You should check out his other musical works, they’re awesome.

Cheers.

Pencil Ruler

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:15:51 -0800

This is one of those things that I wish I had at the start of my schooling. Genius invention!

Cheers.

Seconds of Beauty

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:39:00 -0800

Check out this cool project that Montblanc is doing! Every moment has it’s beauty.

Cheers.

Following Tradition

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:11:00 -0800

I thought this video was beautiful on how traditions are passed down from generation to generation. The video is by Etsy

Cheers.

Lantern Festival

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:12:00 -0800

Wanted to post this a couple of months ago. There was a lantern festival at Richmond, so I thought I’d go and check it out with a new lens I got for my DSLR. By the time I got there the sun was setting and most of the stands were closed but the lanterns were still up to take some photos.

Tina came along as a model dressed up in her qipao with her umbrella.

Here’s the rest of the shots I took that evening.

A couple of shots of Tina’s umbrella.

And a shot of the actual lanterns.

Cheers.