Today is my birthday. There were a lot of things I could have done today. Most of which I didn’t do. I didn’t go to Disneyland. I didn’t go out drinking. I didn’t go have a special birthday lunch, nor a dinner. No, today, I went to work, and I was actually productive! Slow, but productive.
Category: Daily Life
Donabe, Makes Yummy Food
Ok, so the donabe I received for my bday was small for 4 people. I think I hear people snickering at me for thinking it was bigger. Hey, first time!
I ended up using our electric nabe. It was also too small for 4 people.
Luckily, it was for 3 people!
The chicken yuzu pepper pot came out delicious. But since I bought ingredients for 4 people, I had left overs. Some of those into the donabe to make lunch for myself today. Yeay! I used the donabe Sat gave me for my birthday!
At one point, I was thinking about getting a bigger donabe to feed 4 people, but seriously, I don’t want to spend the money. They’re expensive! :( I should throw another birthday party and ask for a donabe that will feed 4 people. >.> Oh, well, electric nabe is still good.
Umeshu Tasting
I finally tasted the umeshu that I made back in May 2008. The ume flavor is wonderful. Unfortunately, it’s too sweet! >.<; It might be good if I use as a mixer. Sprite and plum wine, anyone?
I should think of other concoctions I can make with it. Oooh, if I invent something new, maybe I can name it! :D
Donabe, What to Do?
Last year, for my birthday, Satsuki bought me a donabe.
Opens present, “Oh, it’s a bunny themed nabe…”
“No, not just a nabe, it’s a donabe!”
(Well, that’s how I remember the conversation… It was a year ago!)
At the time, I didn’t know what to do with it. My family never used a donabe before. We normally use an electric nabe. (I’m sorry, Satsuki, if I looked disappointed! I didn’t know how to use it! Which sounds kinda dumb if you think about it… Gomen!!)
It’s 2009 and I’m armed with a Kyou no Ryouri November 2008 magazine! (“Wait, Erika, you’re 2 months behind!” Shush, you!)
I’ve come across… 鶏の柚子こしょう鍋 or in English, Chicken Yuzu Pepper Pot. :D I haven’t made it yet, but I’m think I’m going to try this next weekend. I’m going to have to increase or decrease the ingredients depending on the number of people I’m going to be feeding (Me, mom, dad? Or me, mom, dad, sister, bro-in-law? Or me, mom, dad, sis?).
I could always be greedy and make this for myself. It’d make a good lunch, I bet. I would just have to pack it in a airtight container. When lunch time comes around, microwave it for a few minutes, and ta-da!
/me is excited!
Recipes on the DS
I bought a Nintendo DS game that’s about cooking. Personal Training: Cooking. I figured, what the hey, it might be interesting for $20. So far, it is. It was about 200+ recipes from around the world, some more than others. There’s even a recipe for ratatouille. I’ll should watch the movie Ratatouille while making ratatouille! :D First, I need to get the DVD.
Happy New Year! 2009
For New Year’s Eve this year (last year?) I went down to Fullerton to be with my UC Irvine friends. We did what all band geeks do… Play Rock Band 2. Well, it’s what UCI band geeks do. Right before midnight we went to the area around Commonwealth and Harbor to watch the fireworks. I don’t think I’ve ever watched fireworks for new year’s. In my mind, fireworks = summer. Definitely not summer. (Cold!)
Earthlink DNS Sucks Ass
I have Earthlink as my internet service provider. It’s been good to me (for the most part), but once in a while, I’ll have to run through hoops to get things working.
Namely, getting the DNS to work correctly.
Frustration knows no bounds when I’m trying to pay my bills and my web browser comes back saying ‘Earthlink can’t find that URL, maybe it no longer exists.’ Yeah, right! I was just there 2 minutes ago! Other sites that my web browser (read: Earthlink’s DNS) came back as not existing: LA Times.com, CNN.com, Yahoo.com. Hrmph. I’m sure Yahoo no longer exists. Maybe when Microsoft finally manages to buy Yahoo and nukes that site out of existence, then I’ll believe that. That’s why I manually inputted a DNS address.
And then I had issues trying to get onto FFXI on my PS2/PS3. Not a lick of trouble from my Xbox 360 though.
A call to Square-Enix customer support said my DNS sucks and that I need to fix that. *grumble* So I changed that and it seemed to have worked. Ah, but the side effect is that I can’t get to websites anymore (again). So I go back to my old DNS numbers.
Haven’t booted up FFXI yet so I don’t know if I’ll be able to connect. Crap, I’d rather have the internet than FFXI on my PS2/PS3. Since I don’t like FFXI on my 360, I’d be playing less of it. Probably a good thing.
Surfing the good old web found this: Good Earthlink DNS numbers. Which I vaguely remember as the numbers I was using before SE told me to change it… I would so change my ISP if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t want to change my e-mail address of over 10 years.
Started Last Remnants
Interesting story line so far. Unfortunately, the demo I played at TGS didn’t quite display all the HORRIBLE animations of the characters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen animation this bad. Over animation in some cases. It’s as if they hired a newbie animator who just learned the tools. What is with the weird hand gestures!
And the voice acting is a bit poor, too. :(
The story better make up for the animation and voices! I’m wondering this game looks in Japanese.
Erika’s Christmas Day
For lunch I thought I would make shumai again using the rest of the pork. I also invited Laura over to eat some. I also managed to get her to help me out. She initially only wanted to just come to eat and then go home, but I convinced her otherwise.
So off to Mitsuwa I went to pick up our Xmas cake and some shumai making supplies. Nothing exciting happened. I bought Tokyo negi to use in the gyoza instead of the usual ao negi simply because 1/4 of a negi seemed too little. Utsuwa-no-yakata was having a holiday sale. They had cute bunny themed plated for $10. Tempted, but I said no to myself.
It took me about 2 hours from start to finish. About 45 minutes of that time was spent cooking the shumai in 3 batches. While the shumai was cooking, I made more of the negi and aburaage hitashi using the rest of the Tokyo negi. I think I messed up on the ingredients, but my mom liked it better as it wasn’t as salty.
After lunch, we ate the cake. My mom had 2 slices. :x
Presents! Laura gave me a necklace, soap, lip balm, and $100 gift certificate to Whole Foods. She forgot to bring the Firefly blu-ray DVDs she got from her boss. ;_; My gift to Laura was the Battlestar Galactica DVD sets I gave her earlier. I gave nothing to my parents. :| Hey, I made them lunch! >.>;
First Attempt at Shumai
Last night, I made shumai from scratch for the first time. I saw a recipe from the January 2009 issue of Kyou no Ryouri and I thought I’d give it a try. Shizuki always talks about making shumai and I was like, mmm, shuuumaaaiiiii…
Making it was easy enough. Making it look just as good as it tasted was quite difficult. When I wrapped the pork into the shumai wrapper, it looks alright. However, when I steamed it, the pork mix fell out of the skins, either because the shumai stuck to it’s neighbor and/or because the pork shrank away from the wrapper. I will have to practice some more. :|
I also made a green onion and fried tofu hitashi, which was also in the same issue.
It turned out a bit salty.