my culinary journal.....

I’m back hehe…suddenly having the inspiration to write smth after having a chat with my friend about guess what? Food!! I’m starving now btw, but lemme write this down first before thinking what’s left in the fridge :s….So, flashback, I hardly use a frying pan before I come here. Those of you who know me should know that I can cook the best instant noodle in the world haha…=P well, omelette is still within my ability but no further than that.

In my previous entry I told you about the shocking prices of food here which left me no option but to start cooking. I really wonder how to survive 4 months cooking on my own…OMG….not to mention losing weight is my nightmare. So here’s my culinary journal….

The third day after I arrive here I went to a supermarket for the first time, couldn’t cope more with the crazy meal prices of 4-5 euro a meal. I remember scanning through shelves of instant food, canned food, and spices, definitely searching for my only hope of survival, instant noodle. Only to be shocked again by the price of course. I didn’t really know what to buy because as far as I can remember I hardly know any recipe other than my egg-plus-cheese omelette. Can’t recall exactly what I bought, pasta sauce and penne for first trial for sure. Oh ya, surprised again by the fact that we have to bring our own shopping bags here :s.

So, I started with salads, sausages, pastas, toasts and omelette *duh* haha…and of course thank God I brought 10 packets of indomie. Btw I try to avoid frying as heated oil splashing on the pan just scares me haha…After a while, I found out that I can cook rice from a friend of mine who’s German. Ya, such an embarrassment I know, an Indonesian learning to cook rice from a Caucasian -.-‘. So, I can cook rice without rice cooker, cool huh, I didn’t know that! *and how do ya think people survive before rice cooker was invented =P* …So fried rice on the way!!! After getting the recipe from my friend, I went to look for red onion in the market. Call me moron, but I ended up buying onion, not red *Bombay maksudnya*. Whatever, they taste better anyway haha… So my onion-ny meals started then…pasta + onions, fried rice +onions, salad + onions, beef + onions, hey I didn’t know onion is that powerful hahaha…

Congratulations, first stage cleared, u can now move on to the next level. Meat definitely, I needed meat. My housemate started asking me whether I’m vegetarian :s. So, after a treasure hunt in a few supermarkets, I found the affordable meat. Minced beef is the next experiment sample. Another one is fish fingers *little fish fillets in bread crumbs basically*. They are the cheapest and I love fish!!. I found out the superb use of grill and oven to get my fish fingers ready in minutes without have to fry them in the pan. Various range of instant sauce are then experimented hahaha =P…..thai chilli sauce, sweet and sour sauce, cheese sause, black pepper sauce hohohoho…..cooking can be quite fun after all huh.

There are of course moments where I run out of ideas and I get sick of eating fish fingers, fried rice in 10 consecutive cycles :s…But, I can proudly say I have improved my culinary skill!!!! Hahhaha…the few successful menus even include perkedel, beef stew and fishball *from a Chinese store, they don’t sell fishball in supermarkets here* soup. I wish I had taken pictures of my pieces of art haha..they do look better that they taste =P…but pardon me, I was just too starving to grab a camera, plus the fact my housemate might wonder whether I’m a psychotic vegetarian =P…..