A single’s weekend…

The past week of work has been a little more daunting as my helper went for a holiday in HK (with her bf) awww… but nevertheless as the week ended, turned out rather nice on friday as it was my colleague’s birthday… so the 4 of us drove down to IMM for lunch at Ajisen. Its really been awhile since I’ve been there, and it was really nice to have this bowl of thick soup and chewy ramen again.

As our office supplies were running short, we decided to take the opportunity to shop for supplies at Giant at the other corner of IMM. For a guy… I’m considered lucky to be in the company of young female colleagues who are older than me. =p

I never knew shopping with 3 ladies would be so insane… 

 

like that call insane meh? no lor…… this is even more power…

The entire trolley was filled passed the brim, with what I would say a ton of junk food. First it was packs and packs of tetra packed drinks of various flavors, lotsa types of biscuits, a couple of Cheezels fun packs (my personal fav), a lot of instant noodles, instant milo, coffee, tea… ah whatever… the good thing was we got what we wanted. Reached the office damn late of course, boss asked as expected lah… but in the past we used to order online via cold storage and the variety was extremely limited… not to mention expensive. We actually saved a lot more and got much better stuff. 

Woke up rather early in this Saturday morning and caught Larry King Live on CNN… then chatted with W online and discovered she’d been up for 13 hours straight past the wee hours just to help her friends with a theatre make-up plan. It sounded much more disdainful when I found out that she was informed at the extreme last minute yesterday, with the actual play commencing TODAY!! *faint* She was completely gutted, yet could not possibly refuse to help either… its those kinda situations where you get dragged into something you were never part of… and I would never want to be in those types of circumstances. I mean she got the tickets to WATCH the play… not actually like help backstage?? big sigh… could have done much better planning than that…

Speaking of plans… I didn’t really know what to do this weekend… so I brought out my cues and went to Taka to get my new wallet. Smsed JL and ML to find out they weren’t free for a game… and kinda got stuck as to what to do. Then thought why not do some cooking… so spent the remaining $50 voucher at Cold Storage. Got 2 raw ribeye steaks, nice and pink, 3 fresh chicken legs deboned (for chicken chop), a pack of white button mushrooms, a pack of “golden” mushrooms (the long straw like type), some high grade smoked bacon, and couldn’t believe that they didn’t sell Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and ended up getting Cornettos. $51.85. Smack on budget.

Got on a cab to rush back to marinate the meats, called parents beforehand but they couldn’t confirm if they were coming back for dinner, so just prepared only for my bro and I.

First up was the ribeye (for mua)… looked absolutely gorgeous. Rubbed in a generous amount of salt on both sides, freaked out when there wasn’t enough coarse black pepper remaining… dug the cabinets and discovered Szechuan pepper… and boy it smelled really spicy… but the fragrance was perfect, so just put a few dashes of that. Next key part was red wine… dug the cabinets again to find a 2001 Cabernet Merlot… woo hoo… made a whole mess trying to uncork it, but managed to get a few splashes of that onto the meat. That’s it. Doesn’t seem like much… but I love food that’s made simple and you get the natural flavours of the meat which is just fantastic.

For my bro it was chicken… and the marinate was just as simple. About a teaspoon of oyster sauce, some teriyaki sauce, few drops of sesame oil for fragrance, and some coarse brown sugar to increase the savory flavor. I might be more adventurous if I had more herbs and sauces but that was really all my mum kept in stock.

Both meats marinated for about an hour while I was watching tv. Got back to the kitchen and took out the strawlike mushrooms and bacon. Chopped off the roots (contained remaining soil) washed it, and wrapped bunches of it with bacon. This was just gonna be the side dish with the main course. So really simple… smoking hot pan and sauteed the bacon wrapped mushrooms till the bacon fat melts retaining a crispy exterior. By the time I was done, my kitchen was filled with smoke. Side dish done.

With the bacon fat and juices from the mushroom in the pan, I just dumped the marinated steak in. The result was the biggest and highest flambé in my kitchen’s history (from my waist up to my head). It took over a minute for the alcohol to fully vaporize, and luckily I was quick enough to turn the steak to its other side cos clearly the initial side was charring… I got really worried but thankfully it wasn’t overcooked. After just another minute or so, steak was done and I brought it out to the dining table to let the meat set for awhile.

Now with the juices from the steak, bacon and mushrooms, in went the chicken, skin downwards. Charred the skin a bit to make it crispy… by now… the kitchen looked as though we just extinguished a fire. Once the meat firmed up, off the stove. Dinner was done.

So now to taste… and I’ve never been more satisfied. The chicken wasn’t overcooked and it was very tender. My bro went “Wah…” and kept nodding. And the steak was almost a perfect medium doneness. Pinkish in the centre, very tender… and it was really sweet. The wine’s darn good. Bacon and mushrooms will never go wrong. Standard taste always good. My mum came out and tried the steak… and kept asking for more… hahaha… found that it tasted better than jack’s place (figured its the wine). Nothing tasted dry and I’d do it again if anyone would wanna try my cooking haha… its really enjoyable when you cook and pple say that its good. The last time someone commended was during a bbq with my colleagues… grilled the steaks for them. God I love beef… but honestly… I can’t cook many things other than beef/chicken/fish. I also find stir frying rather tricky. Also I have no clue how to make a good sauce… still got lots to learn…

Still have 1 more steak and 2 more chicken chops… thought of trying something different with it… like with noodles or something but… really not enough ingredients to get more creative. Also low on budget and shag to do grocery shopping during the crowded weekends.

Hands are itching to play pool tomorrow… and registration for the new tournament format started. Ought to register soon…