Spot your gift... Wow! You can cook?!

This is my desk in my sizable hostel room. I really can't complain about the size of the apartment. Its very spacious. So is my room. Thankfully! :) Doesn't my desk look "used"?? I've really made use of it to do my *ehem* WORK!

See if you can spot the following, haha:

1. The cow photo frame with a picture of Elliot and I. (I can't believe Elliot gave me a cow picture frame, without a picture mind you, and thought it was romantic!!) HAHAHAHAHA :P

2. The little black book that my bible study group at PUNJ gave me.

3. The pink water bottle that April gave me. (I love it ap, but it leaks!! So can't use it much unfortunately)

4. The 2007 diary that Keeevin and Carilyn gave me for me birthday last year. (It's come in VERY handy)

5. The violin books that Carl gave me to practise so that I can be a violinist like him! haha

6. The stash of food that's always kept in my room for my insatiable appetite.



I've also been cooking fairly regularly and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I even have an apron just to suit the role! HAHA!! Its fun creating your own dishes and having control over what you want to eat. I can cook whatever I feel like eating and make it as spicy/salty/sweet as I want it to be (some of the plus sides of cooking for yourself).

The hard thing about cooking for one person is that you have to enjoy your food alone, there's no one to say "that was yummy" haha, so I usually say it to myself HAHAHA (no surprises there heehee) and there's ALWAYS left-overs because its just so hard to cook small portions of food! Its actually easier to cook for more people. Of course anyone with any sort of cooking experience can tell me all this, but I found out on my own.

So I usually cook for two people, freeze the left-overs and eat it the next day! :)



This is (half) the salmon dish that I cooked (I ate the other half yesterday). Here's the idiot's guide to I've-never-cooked-never-ever-in-my-life recipe that I conjured on my own!!

INGREDIENTS

1 salmon cutlet
Chopped onions
Chopped tomatos
Chopped garlic
Chopped mushrooms. (I used the longish mushrooms, I think its shitake mushrooms?? No buttom mushrooms from a can please!! That's an abomination!!!)
Soy sauce for seasoning
Salt
Pepper
1/2 a lemon
1 Chilli

METHOD

1. Wake up early in the morning to wash and season the salmon. Make sure the salmon is already defrosted if it was kept in the freezer. I used Kikoman sauce to season the salmon, though you don't really need to do this, me thinks, cause salmon meat is quite tasty on its own.

2. At lunch time, pre heat the frying pan for a coupla seconds and pour a table-ish spoon of olive oil (it's healthy). Wait a few seconds for the pan and oil to heat up.

3. Put the garlic and onions into the frying pan. Use the frying slice to "fry". Once the garlic turns a little brown..

4. Put the salmon cutlet into the pan. (At this point you should be hearing a sizzling sound, I LOVE IT!! hahaha). The fire should be on low and not high, why I don't know, but its doesn't over cook the outside of the fish.

5. Wait a few seconds. Pour like a table spoon of soy sauce (depending on how much gravy you want at the end) and pour some water (depending on how much gravy you want at the end) haha

6. Add the tomatos, mushrooms and chilli.

7. Squeeze some juice from the lemon so that the gravy has a lemony flavour (DUH)

8. Cover the frying pan and let everything simmer for 10-15 minutes.

9. I suppose you can turn the salmon over at some point. I don't know if this is necessary. But I do it just for fun. heh

VIOLA!! You're done!! Serve with rice and you've got a meal fit for a king!!! haha

Cooking is so fun and common sense. :) Thank God somewhere in my DNA, my mom's cooking gene got passed to me. Yay!

Someone please, amuse me, try this recipe and tell me how it went!!!