Cooking rice the normal way …
We bought a rice cooker after the old one was retired. Not long after, the new one opted for a very, very early retirement. We couldn't, for the life of us, decide what was the course, it wasn't like we were overworking it???
Anyway, I didn't think we should run out and buy one since rice can be cooked on the stove. I used the rice cooker pot.
This post contains the steps to cooking rice for Hubby, who likes to have things all written down, filed and cataloged 
Currently we are using Thai Scented Long Grain rice which we buy from Chong Lei in a 40 lb sack. It looks and taste really good, believe me (nope, not being paid to advertise by the producers).
1. First, I usually rinse out the rice and let it drain while the water boils in the rice pot. I used to use the stainless steel sauce pan but I opted to use the rice pot then I could use the sauce pan for something else, like soup.
2. Bring the water to a boil and add in the rice. Put it on low to medium heat (for our stove, '5') for 10 mins.
3. After that, I usually like to fluff the rice with a chopstick and leave it on low for another 10 mins.
4. We are done!
Thai Green Fish Curry
I planned to cook fish today, Thai Green Fish Curry. I looked through the internet to find a recipe for which I had all the ingredients. I disregarded many websites, most of which used the ready made Thai green curry paste and some which had additional ingredients that we could do without which I think after all is done would not add much to the taste as I was looking for a more 'kampung' flavour rather than exquisite dining.
Well, I came to this website, "thaigreencurryrecipe.com" which had listed 5 green curry recipes, one of them being the one I was looking for. Hmmm ... I had already seen this recipe being listed on another website, "foodreference.com'. Don't know where it originated from but it seems easy enough (meaning I had like, 90% of the ingredients).
Basically, like all curries, there is the usual:
1 onion (big, medium or small? I went for medium)
3 garlic cloves (no problem here)
6 small hot green chilli deseeded and sliced (for extra extra hot, I threw in more than was required, we are gonna be smoking for lunch - seeds included)
5 cm fresh ginger scraped and sliced (this was a problem ... 5 cm??? well, if I had a really fat ginger, how would that be measured??? anyway, to your discretion, don't want to have a ginger curry paste now, would we? I decided to go with a 2 by 4)
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp shrimp paste (aka belacan. I had a chunk of belacan which I believe is a few years old .... and it has become quite hard to break up so I don't know if I want to break a small piece off, roast it and pound it to powder ... hmmm ... was planning to use the Sambal Belachan Powder by Singlong which had red chilli included ... let's be a bit more industrious and try the belacan)
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 stalk of lemon grass peeled and sliced thinly (I sliced up the bottom part and smashed the top half to add to the curry and just in case there wasn't enough, I added another stalk)
Blend the above ingredients together. I added in a little bit of coconut milk to help with the blending.
1 tbsp of peanut oil
400ml coconut milk
1 tbsp fresh coriander chopped (this is confusing ... I just did a search for fresh coriander and some funny things popped up ... well, in Wikipedia, 'Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) is an annual herb in the family Apiaceae. It is also known as Chinese parsley or, particularly in the Americas, cilantro'. Surprisingly, some people think that they are different, or aren't they?)
Instructions weren't clear and arrangement of items were not right. You have to actually read the whole recipe and reconstruct it. Originally, fish, chopped coriander, coconut milk and peanut oil were placed under the spice paste heading and one would think, "why would I blend the fish along with the others??" I very nearly emptied all my coconut milk into it.
The next instructions were:
1. Put the oil in a wok and heat well. Add the spice paste and stir fry for a few seconds to release the aromas. Add the thick portion from the top of the coconut milk, stir well and boil to thicken a little.
2. Add the fish and turn the pieces over in the sauce until they are well coated. Reheat (reheat??? hasn't it been on the fire still?) to simmering point and cook until they start to become opaque for about two minutes.
4. Add the remaining coconut milk (seems like quite a lot) and chopped coriander and continue cooking until the fish is ready. Serve topped with Thai basil plus the halved limes and fragrant Thai rice or noodles.
Am now frying the blended ingredients in the wok. Hmmm ... smells good. I also put in the smashed top half of the lemon grass. It tastes hot!
I added in more fish sauce according to my taste at the end.
To Serve:
• sprigs of Thai basil
• 2 limes, quartered
• fragrant Thai rice or noodles
I didn't have any Thai basil or limes so had none of that.
Wearing black may not be good for your look after all
Hubby is still in bed at 9:39 am, he didn't sleep much last night, had too much on his mind. So I decided to check up on my yahoo mail and had a "Shocking discovery of the day: 4 in 5 people look bad in black clothing".
Wow! This will definitely cause changes in people's wardrobe. No doubt wearing black does give you a slimming effect but would you want to accentuate and produce wrinkles where there aren't any? I was just talking with Hubby yesterday about skin colour contrasts. He is fair and I am hmmm ... more on the tanned side. Trying to touch up our photos would be a pain as to lighten it would cause him to look pale and to darken it would be to cause me look darker. Yeah, true, there are other ways but I am just highlighting one of them.
So now, wearing black is a no no for those with a darker skin colour unless as the authors say,"opt for one with a low neckline, or add a colorful necklace." And how did this topic become a shocking discovery? Hasn't it been in practice for a long time and haven't people actually noticed how they look in a black sheathe from neck to toe? Maybe they have realised it but it is as fashion dictates. Fashion has dictated what a lot of people wear. Some people never go out without consulting a friend (who is believed to have better fashion sense) or a fashion consultant.
I believe we all do have our own sense of colour. Back home in Malaysia, I have noticed Indians (most of them are quite dark in skin colour) wearing colours that you believe they shouldn't wear like bright orange or purple but then that's their colour sense. We may think it looks awful but has it detracted from the way they look? Did the colour make them look ugly or old? When I was younger, my mum used to say I looked good in red, I didn't believe her but it turned out to be true, I feel good in red t-shirts and blouses nowadays. Believe it or not, with the colour skin I have, it does give me a lighter and brighter look. My younger brother who is very very dark also looks good in colours that you would say is bad for him. So what do you say?
Indeo Video IV50 on Windows 7 Fix
Running into unnecessary problems trying to play a movie encoded with the accursed IV50 codec? I sure did. Some of my AVI videos were encoded with the Ligos Indeo XP Video codec awhile back via Pinnacle Studio 8.12.7, and has since stirred up a fuss trying to let me access them in Windoze 7. After much scouring the search results and tinkering and testing stuff, I believe I finally have that gremlin drawn and quartered.
First and foremost, you will need the Ligos Indeo Legacy Package (IV31, IV32, IV41, IV50, YVU9), which I believe is freeware according to my source. It will install Indeo Video codecs for 3, 4, 5, and Indeo Raw (YVU9). The filesize should be about 2,068,266 bytes. You can get it at...
Indeo Codecs Legacy Package (IV31, IV32, IV41, IV50)
Once installed, incredibly enough (believe it or not) you may still run into problems opening your IV50 encoded video. Why? That's because the Indeo installer FAILED (tch! tch!) to register the dll on Windows 7! Is it Indeo's fault, or WINDOZE SEVEN's fault, or BOTH? Who knows? Who cares? OK, I do, but that's a debate for another time. Right now I am itching to share the solution for the good of all mankind.
So go ahead and click that round Microsoft thingy at the bottom leftmost part of your desktop. Then click on All Programs followed by Accessories. Look for Command Prompt and right-click on it. Then click on Run as administrator. Helloooo, are you paying attention there? There's a reason why it's ITALICIZED and BOLDED! I cannot stress enough how *VERY* important this Run as administrator priviledge is, which is a very common problem in Windows 7 with some programs. Ignore it for this instance, and you will be smacked with a pop-up window out of nowhere happily informing you that "... the codec was loaded but the call to DllRegisterServer failed with the error code 0x8000ffff".
Assuming that you had followed the given instructions right down to the letter, you should be idling at the command prompt right now. Go ahead and type in the following:
regsvr32 ir50_32.dll
Press your Enter key, and voila, *hopefully* your problem should be solved. I know it did mine. 
Happy New Year… and Microsoft bug!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Yep, this is *my* year... the Year of the Tiger! 
It's been an interesting ride the last 4 days... eating (more like gorging on) wifey's freshly baked bread, researching on going to law school until one look at a sample of the LSAT pretty much gave me an endless headache that will rival me wifey's migraine. And of course, who can forget an annoying computer bug thanks to Microsoft's newest operating system, Windoze Seven. Just what I need to keep things interesting.
"The action can't be completed because the file is open in windows explorer."
Yeah... right. So, Explorer's got a chokehold on one of my files and wouldn't let me rename nor delete it. Yes, I have configured the permissions correctly, giving myself enough control to supposedly smash the file to smithereens if I should have wished it so. Unfortunately, it was all an illusion. How cruel of Microsoft. No matter. I still *smile* through it just as one of my many past martial art instructors had advised regardless of the circumstances. He taught me well. And through an enlightened peace of mind I discovered... tadaa... LOCKHUNTER.
Check out http://lockhunter.com
Unlocker has had its glory days with XP (thanks for the memories while it lasted), but this newest bomb of an atom literally tore Explorer's chokehold on my file to shreds, leaving the file finally at my mercy to do whatever I wanted to do with it. Here kitty kitty... HEY, where ya going? Wait till I get my hands on...
Limey Baked chicken
I had run out of ideas for what to do for chicken and decided to browse Ptitchef for any chicken recipe, namely those involving broiling. I found this one which looked rather inviting. There wasn't much of a measurement so you have to wing it. The recipe gave the ingredients as fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then bake it at 350 degrees for about 40 - 50 minutes. I didn't have any lemons around so I went with lime juice. I felt it was too limey so I added in some sugar instead and it worked fine for me. I baked it for about 45 mins and finished it up with broiling. Hubby absolutely loved it and because there was a lot of gravy, he had a field day!
Sushi – California Rolls
Hubby has always been the one in charge of sushi, that is until I found a video showing "How to Prepare Perfect Sushi Rice" with Chef John Mitzewich. It absolutely put me in the spirit of doing just that. I also love California Rolls so that was going to be my project. Hubby picked out an avocado for me and we bought some imitation crab from the T&T Supermarket.
A few days later, I tried it out. I followed the recipe showed. I wasn't too sure about the amount of water though so added a bit more to mine. Wow, the rice came out really well, not mashed up. I didn't cut up the imitation crab, just microwaved them for a bit. I used two seaweed wraps cut into 2 and had four rolls. I learned a really good thing from this video "How to Make a California Roll" with Sushi Chef Lin. He had wrapped up his bamboo mat with cling wrap so no messy bamboo mats to clean now
So here are the California Rolls!
Dark sauce chicken drumsticks
This is a "play it by ear" dark sauce. I wanted something sweet, sticky and at the same time savory and it ended up tasting a bit like the barbecue pork sauce. I added in a mixture of dark sauce, some red colouring, oyster sauce and a few other stuff which I can't rightly remember now. When I find the recipe which I probably scribbled on some piece of paper hidden away, I'll post it up
Stuffed chicken leg
While browsing the internet, I came across a few videos of Chef Ramsey on youtube. One of them was his stuffed chicken leg. I stuffed the chicken leg with minced pork and then wrapped it with bacon. They worked out beautifully.
Bacon and onion pizza
This post is a bit delayed but we had this dish some time ago. Hubby was just a lil late in getting the pictures. We had bought some bacon at a good price (2 for CAD 4.00) and we had a field day, making stuff with them. One of them was the bacon onion pizza below, well, half of it anyway. Can't remember what the other half was now, was it minced pork? Yeah, we usually do go overboard with the cheese but Hubby loves cheese!
