Bell’s Blog

I know that not a lot of people frequent my blog anymore. I don’t blame them though, I’ve been totally slack at updating and writing. But I just thought I should make some announcements or confirmations. In case anyone still doesn’t know… I’m Having a Baby. Yes I’m pregnant… due in early December… meaning I’m now officially halfway through the ordeal. I’ve been feeling mostly fine throughout. No unpleasantness. No sickness. Just general tiredness mostly, after all, creation of life is an exhausting task to undertake! Of course now at 20+ weeks I’m beginning to round out and feel somewhat more like a hippo than a human… and I guess it’s only a matter of time before I feel like a beached whale… Not looking forward to that part! Haha!

Just got back from my monthly doctor’s check up today and it seems like I’m having a girl, though the baby was moving around a lot so we only got quick glimpses. We can take another look next month and see if there are any surprise changes. But in the mean time… I’ll assume it’s a girl Kwang’s pretty proud of himself, as he’s been saying all week that he thinks we’re having a girl. Though he couldn’t really give me an answer as to why he thought that. He had some theory about me not being grumpy and angry all the time like the horror stories he’d been hearing.

Work has been going on mostly as normal. I’m no longer allowed to carry anything remotely heavy but I’m ok with that. I plan to keep working for as long as is sensible for me to be there. My boss said his wife worked until a week before her due date. I might not last as long as that but I will certainly try. In the mean time, life goes on and there are things that need doing and planning. I will try to keep updated here…

I haven’t posted since March! I figured I should probably write something here once in a while… but life’s got me in tangles most of the time. Still… I wanted to share a recipe I tried today. As always I trawl the net for recipes and I’m especially partial to Japanese cooking. One of my special favourites is Karaage… or Japanese fried chicken. Karaage is something I make often but I don’t think I’ve ever posted about it. I’ve never made them the same way more than a couple of times. I’m always finding new recipes or variations and I’m always trying them out or constantly tweaking ones I have already tried. I do have a few methods that I go back to time and again… but today I will share a new one I found last night and tried today.

no bonus points for presentation I guess….

Karaage

Ingredients

500g Boneless Chicken Thighs (cut into bite size pieces)
1 piece of Ginger (approximately thumb sized, chopped finely to make about 1 Tablespoon)
2 cloves Garlic (minced)
2 Spring Onions (chopped)
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Sake
1 Tbsp Sugar
2 Tbsp All purpose flour
3 Tbsp Corn Starch
1 Pinch Salt and Pepper
Oil for frying

Marinate

a little corn starch before frying

Method

• Marinate the chicken in ginger, garlic, spring onions, soy sauce, sake, sugar, salt and pepper. Mix in the all purpose flour to soak up excess liquids. Cover and put in the fridge for about an hour.
• After an hour, toss in corn flour and coat as evenly as possible. (I found this part a little challenging because of the flour I’d already mixed in previously)
• Heat oil to 160˚C and fry chicken a few pieces at a time until golden brown.
• Serve over rice… or in a sandwich (apparently).

I also made a nice sauce to go with the karaage. It’s really easy and you can prepare it while waiting for your frying oil to heat up.

Karaage Sauce

Ingredients

1 Spring onion (chopped)
70ml Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Sake
1 Tbsp Rice Vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil

Method

• Fry the spring onions lightly in a small amount of cooking oil until soft
• Add soy sauce, sugar, sake, and rice vinegar and bring to a boil.
• Turn off the heat and add sesame oil.
• Spoon over rice and/or karaage and serve. Yum!

serve over rice and a little bit of karaage sauce. In this pic I only had a little of the sauce cos it was my first time trying it and I wasn’t sure if it would be good. But it was so later on I was soaking my chicken in it!!

The Verdict…. To be honest I preferred some of my older recipes. This karaage is not as crispy as I would like. It was also fairly greasy. I might feel compelled to post one of those variations up sometime, but generally I prefer to use potato starch to corn starch, as it as a very crispy and leaves a non-greasy finish… though the drawback would be that oddly it saps my chicken of some of its flavour. BUT… having said that, I think that reduction of flavour can be compensated for by increasing the amount of marinade and the marinating time. Plus with the discovery of this new karaage sauce, which Kwang really likes by the way , I think it could be a very nice option.

If you try out this recipe, let me know how it turned out for you, and if you made variations and changes that worked out well, please do share.

I will try to post more often… until next time… Toodles and Itadakimasu!

I’m really pissed off right now! Last week I ordered some shrimps for my aquarium from Germany. They were supposed to send it to me by express post on Monday so I spent the day preparing my tank for new arrivals on Tuesday. I waited at home on Tuesday and got an email in the evening that they had just posted it… and it should arrive Wednesday or Thursday. I was kinda annoyed… cos I’d spent the entire day at home waiting. So again on Wednesday I waited at home for the courier… unable to leave home to do groceries or go to the basement to do my laundry in case I missed the doorbellIf I missed the courier I’d have to arrange for a re-delivery. I waited and waited and waited and nothing came. Maybe it’s a little slow, I thought… maybe they got held up at customs while the officers pawed at my package. I waited again all day today. And again they never arrived. I rarely have so much time off from work. I could have spent this time doing many things… thinking of things I can cook and what not, but because couriers can arrive any time of day rather than a fixed time for regular post, I had to stay home and wait… and for what? NOTHING! My shrimps have not arrived. By now they’d have been cooped up in a plastic bag for 3 days! If they arrive tomorrow and I’m at work… they’d probably be dead anyway! It’s winter… and they get packed in a styrofoam box and with a small heat pack to maintain the warm temperature but after a day it would have run out of heat.

Back to the customs issue. Perhaps they got stopped at customs for trying to post living animals… shrimps. But the problem there is that if sending them to Switzerland from Germany was not allowed, the seller would know and they would have allowed the purchase to be processed. But that shouldn’t be the case because I’ve read in forums that some people in Switzerland have ordered stock from Germany too. So what’s the problem here? I have no idea what’s gone wrong… honestly! I’m just really angry!  I’ve emailed the seller to ask for a tracking number… but they haven’t got back to me. Not that it matters anymore now. If I never receive my parcel I will have to contact them again… and if I do receive it and the shrimps are all dead I’d better get my money back!

And I was so looking forward to getting some new shrimps too! I’d ordered 20 shrimps that came with a mini igloo… and I’d ordered an extra 3 pregnant shrimps… it would be a real shame if they’re all dead.

Oh what have I done? I have been trying out some skin care “recipes” at home that I find online. Well on Friday I actually tried a puffy-eye-reduction treatment. It says to grate some cucumber and some potato and put them into disposable teabags, you can buy ones that you fill yourself with tea leaves…. except you fill it with this mushed up concoction. Anyway, it felt really nice… cucumber soothes and tightens, and potato supposedly reduces swelling and lightens the dark circles. I didn’t see any difference, but that was a one time use. So tonight I tried it again, and to my horror my skin and eyes began to swell and itch within 2 – 3 minutes of my applying the bags to my eyes! I hurriedly went to wash my face and in the end I hopped into the shower. I stayed there for about 10 mins. After I got out my eyes were red and swollen like capsules. I looked like I was wearing eye makeup and then just cried my eyes out. My face too was red and irritated because some of the juice ran down my face. Lucky I have a balancing face cream for just such situations to soothe and rebalance the skin after harsh environmental exposure or allergies. I have taken antihistamines, to get the allergic reaction under control and am feeling unbelievably sleepy. I was looking for my allergy eyedrops but I’ve probably either misplaced them or used it all up somehow. I think I’ve most likely misplaced them cos I don’t use them often.

I didn’t have such a reaction the first time I tried this… so it’s really weird. I must have done something different… like didn’t peel the skin off the cucumber. But I’m not entirely sure that’s it… Did I use more potato than last time? Cucumber is supposed to be very good for the skin right? I’m so confused…. I should go to bed and sleep this off… I’ll feel awful tomorrow as is the way of medicine-induced sleep. *sighs* I’ll not be trying this again in a hurry. I’ll give my face some time to recover before experimenting again.

I have a few days off from work. Which gives me the opportunity to focus on caring for myself. Let’s face it… I’m not going to get any younger. I’ll be 30 this year!!! Yikes! I’ve not been sleeping very well recently, I wake up super tired, and people at work have noticed that my eyes are puffy and dark, and I’ve noticed my skin is a lot drier than it used to be. While it’s generally drier in the winter anyway, I know that it feels worse than usual. So I’ve been researching online and I’ve found a lot of natural home remedies that I can whip up at home for a fraction of the price I’d pay for many different products… Just like me to opt for whipping something up in the kitchen to plaster all over my face!

Today I’m starting with a yoghurt and oatmeal face mask. It’ll drench my face with moisture, and exfoliate and tighten the pores… or so it claims. So I’m very excited about this. It smells pretty yummy too! I made too much and plastered it on Kwang’s face too! He HAS been complaining about dry skin after all, and recently he started looking at skin care products that aren’t targeted exclusively toward men. As I’m writing this post, I’ve still got it on my face… LOL

This is what I look like:

Pretty disgusting right? Hehe! If I remember I will post more info of other stuff as I try them out. If I remember to, I will also write about how successful or unsuccessful I find them to be. If I forget to write a review and you really really want to know, remind me