LSH 7 - The Italian (Cooking) Job

Halu! It's been a while since I've posted here and as you've probably noticed, Malou and I have been going gah-gah over cooking. Sometime last week, I believe around Wednesday, I was hankering for some eggplant parmesan and salmon. We just came from our biweekly grocery the previous weekend and I didn't want the large eggplant to go bad. So with some provisions and a large appetite, I set out for The Italian Cooking Job...


Eggplant Mozzarella and Provolone Dish

(1) 8oz can tomato sauce
(2) teaspoon olive oil
(1) clove garlic, chopped into slivers
(4) tablespoons dried basil or more depending on one's taste
(1) teaspoon black pepper
(1) eggplant
(1/2) cup shredded provolone
(1/2) cup shredded mozzarella

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place the olive oil in a sauce pan. Turn the stove on medium heat. Once olive oil is hot, add garlic slivers.
3. Once they turn slightly brown, add the tomato sauce. After five minutes, add the dried basil and black pepper. Keep stirring the tomato sauce until the basil and the black pepper is mixed completely with the tomato sauce.
4. Turn the stove to low heat and cover the pan. Let it simmer for another 10 minutes.
5. Clean the eggplant under cold running water. Remove the skin of the eggplant and then chop into 1/3 inch thick disks.
6. Place eggplant disks in the bottom of a baking dish. Pour just enough of the tomato sauce on top of the eggplant disks to cover them. If you have a small enough baking dish, you can add another layer of eggplant disks and tomato sauce.
7. Spread the mixture of mozzarella and provolone cheeses on top of the tomato sauce. Place baking dish in the oven and set timer to 10 minutes. Check on eggplant dish by making sure the cheese has melted and covered the entire pan. Serve immediately!


Baked Dijon Salmon

(1/4) cup butter, melted
(3) tablespoons Dijon mustard
(1 1/2) tablespoons honey
(1/4) cup italian dry bread crumbs
(2) salmon fillets
(1) lemon sliced into 1/3 inch disks

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place lemon slices on the bottom of a pan. Put salmon fillets on top of the lemon slices.
3. Mix the butter, Dijon mustard and honey in a bowl. Brush mixture on the salmon fillets.
4. Cover the fillets with the bread crumbs.
5. Place the pan in the oven for 15 minutes. Check on the fillets until they are a cooked well. Serve and enjoy!

LSH 3 - Pork Ribs

For the past couple of days, I have been thinking of having some breaded pork chops as part of a meal. During lunch, Malou and I went out to eat. Right there in the menu was a lunch special for sweet and hot pork chops! They fried the pork chop then poured some sweet and hot chili sauce on it. I still plan on making some breaded pork chops hopefully during the weekend.
About the ribs, we bought a pack a week ago. I promised Malou I would take care of it some day. Well, today's the day! I also had some molasses in the ref so I thought I might as well use some of that too. I was thinking of hunan spare ribs but it was probably the color of the ribs I was after.

1.5 lbs pork ribs
0.5 cup of soy sauce
0.5 cup of vinegar
1 tbsp of molasses
3 cloves of garlic mashed
0.5 cup of apple juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pork ribs in a pan.
2. Rub garlic cloves all over pork ribs. Leave the garlic with the pork ribs.
3. Mix the soy sauce, vinegar and molasses. Pour over the pork ribs and garlic.
4. Place pork ribs in the oven for 20 minutes.
5. Flip pork ribs and roast for another 20 minutes.
6. Place pork ribs on chopping board and let rest. Pour juices left in the pan into a sauce pan. Add apple juice and heat sauce pan until sauce is to desired thickness.
7. Chop pork ribs and serve the sauce on the side. That or just pour it on the pork chops!

LSH 2 - Quick and easy mushrooms

We had a bag of mushrooms that we weren't able to use. It has been over a week since we bought it and I said to Malou the other night I will take care of them tonight. I asked her to wash them before hand before I got home. This is what I eventually ended up doing:

Ingredients:
1 container of washed mushrooms chopped
three cloves of garlic chopped (or more depending how much you like garlic)
a pat of butter
orange juice (no pulp)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat your pan and add butter. Make sure it coats the bottom of the pan.
2. Add garlic and let brown.
3. Add mushrooms stirring the entire pan occasionally.
4. Season mushrooms with salt and pepper.
4. Add a bit of orange juice. Now how much orange juice you ask? That depends on how much liquid you want in your pan. I think I added about 1/16 of a cup just enough so that the mushrooms don't dry out. Remember that mushrooms give up a lot of liquid so don't over do it or you might end up with a sour mushroom soup!

If you have anything to add or would just like to comment, feel free!

It's been three weeks...

... since that glorious Wednesday morning when I woke up and realized, today is THE day. We have been thinking, planning, arguing, resolving, and finally accepting what our wedding day was going to be like. Ahh, yes, we are going to be man and wife today. I remember after taking a bath, I open the card Malou gave to me during breakfast. It was a lovely card and really made me appreciate the day even more. And boy what a day it was.

Three weeks have passed and we are still trying to get used to calling each other wife or husband. We went to our local parish earlier in the day to register. We have gone grocery shopping a couple of times already. We even went out the other day and bought our dining table! I still feel a little heady with everything that is going on right now. No rush anyway as we have our entire lives to spend with each other.

What's coming...

So many things happened today that I still can't believe it's time to go. I just hope everything goes well in the next couple of weeks. I also hope that when we come back here, our love is still as fresh as it was three years ago. Here's to us Schatz and see you soon!

GTB 1 - Getting the basics... Broadband

One of the first things I looked for in an apartment or house is the cable and phone jacks. Being born in this generation requires an online presence. Since dial-up is slowly dying out, and I have no plans on getting email via a 52kbps connectionI, I started scouting around for the best broadband provider that fits our budget and our needs.

I initially wanted a package but found out that they either do not serve it in our building or the price keeps increasing every year. It was a good thing that my DSL provider doesn't require a voice connection because we plan on getting cell phones with a family plan. So I placed an order a couple of days ago and was checking on it for the past two days. At first they couldn't find my request as I did not request a voice connection. It took six or seven transfers before I could talk with someone who could find my account. I made sure I got all the pertinent info I needed from him so that next time I call, I would know what to identify myself with. I thought that would be it but then I got an email today about my modem getting shipped to my address. When I checked the address, it was missing a critical piece of information! I called them up again but they said it shouldn't be a problem. They will update my record and when the delivery company comes around, I could opt to pick the package up myself. Let's see if I can get the package before I leave next week.

TDGOT 4 - If they can do it for stuff, they can do it for money...

If Ebay could bring buyers and sellers together, why can't someone bring lenders and borrowers together? Chris Larsen had the bright idea of bringing the process of loaning money online. Give this article (go to Bugmenot.com for a free login) a read if you want to find out more. If you had the cash on hand and feel like being a VC for someone, head on over to this site. Hey, maybe this will help you unloading that bonus you got this year.

HTE 1 - Here, There, Everywhere!

For all you travelers out there particularly those flying with NWA to and from the US and Philippines, you may want to double check the weight of the baggages you want to check-in. I read on NWA's website that their checked luggage allowance has dropped to 50 pounds for people flying internationally. Then while reading through the fine print, I noticed something....







If you notice the really, really small print, it says "Exceptions for travel wholly between the U.S./Canada and the Philippines, checked pieces may weigh up to 70 pounds (32kg) each." I contacted the reservation number for NWA and a nice lady named Ginny confirmed that people traveling to and from the Philippines are not covered by the new rule. If you need to see it for yourself, here is the link.

I'm going to print this page before I leave for the airport as insurance.

TROOH 7 - Our humble abode...

My tasks for the wedding was making sure we had proper financing for the wedding and getting everything ready when we come back here. One of my major tasks was finding a dwelling for me and Malou. I only started looking sometime during December of last year since most people are moving out and more units are available during this time. I was getting pretty worried as it was already late January and I had yet to find an apartment. Hey, it wasn't like I was looking for a palace that was dirt cheap. As long as it had one bedroom and the place was clean I would have taken it.

The first apartment I looked at was still being renovated. The realtor said that it would be available on Feb 1st. It really wasn't much since work was still going on. What I liked about it was the free standing bath tub in the bathroom! It reminded me of those western movies where people soak in a tub that was in the middle of a small room. Anyway, I just told the realtor that I will call her again the following week to find out if the apartment was done.

During this time I was calling realtors/owners trying to find out if they had any vacancies. Most of them didn't call me back and some had listed bad phone numbers. What can a guy do? Anyway, during the last Sunday of January I found a couple of listings on craigslist and promptly gave them a call. Two were located in the same area where I currently reside and another was in Queens. The guy from Queens never called me back but I scheduled with the realtor/owner of the two other listings. I made sure to see them both on the same day. After work though, as I was getting ready to go, the owner of one of the apartments called me to say that somebody got the apartment already! So by the time I got to New Jersey I was feeling low. I didn't have high expectations for the other one. Boy was I wrong.

It was one of the condos I pass by every time I get a haircut or go to a doctor's appointment. I was always intrigued by it because it always looked nice from the outside. When the realtor showed me the inside I couldn't believe it. The corridors were very clean and I did not smell any obnoxious odors wafting from anywhere. Their elevator is quirky in the sense that you had to open a door to get inside (of course an inner door closes when you go up and down the building). Also, the floor number starts with the ground floor. Hey I'm back in Germany! The condo had nice hardwood floors and felt pretty spacious. I could already see Malou and me cooking our first meal together. I just hope the realtor didn't feel the vibe I was giving off as we looked in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room. I did make sure to fill up the application form because I was pretty sure I'll be back.

And early yesterday, I signed my first apartment lease.

Harder time at school...

I posted something last year about how some schools are segregating children by gender. Here is another article (get your free login from Bugmenot.com!) about how boys are now the "disadvantaged gender" in the education system. As scientists are discovering how girls' brains mature 18 months earlier than boys, educators are finding that the gap between the sexes widening. Hmm, so maybe studying in an all boys HS did help?