Update plus recipe, or "god, I think about food too much".

[misora]

Wow, it's actually been a little while since I've updated. J and I caught the sickness (probably swine flu) and have been out of commission for like the...past 2 weeks. We're *just* now starting to feel better. I'm back at work after missing nearly all last week. Fun fun!


To make ourselves feel better while we were sick and groggy, we spent the time cooking (trading shifts depending on who felt better/worse). John made his comforting chicken soup, with veggies and pasta that held us over for several meals and aided our speedy recovery, I think. I made a lemon chicken picatta (we ate lots of chicken, I guess) and buttermilk mashed potatoes, with lemon-garlic roasted red onions, courtesy the Barefoot Contessa. (This is what happens when I'm sick and home from work, and watching the food channel. I was soooo tempted to make her chocolate-coffee cupcakes with peanut butter icing. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have a professional mixer.)

Then we were treated to food by our friends/J's family, including lots of fruits/veggies/breads, and a delicious lobster stir-fry with soy, scallions and ginger from J's parents. Being Chinese, they are super-superstitious, and made us eat all kinds of interesting root vegetables with the claim that they'll heal us right up. I love having J's parents in close proximity for times like this, especially when my own parents live out-of-state now -- and especially with kids potentially on the horizon.

So because I actually started to feel better last night, I made a quick and easy dinner with rice and sauteed bok choy that we both love: san choi bau, which means meat-lettuce-bun in Chinese. Or something.

Ingredients:

• 1lb ground pork


• 1 large head of iceburg lettuce (or butter lettuce, if you prefer)


• 1 large red pepper, diced


• 1 can water chestnuts, drained and diced


• 4 green onions, chopped finely


• 3 garlic cloves, smashed and minced


• 1 tspn grated fresh ginger


• 2 tbspn peanut oil


• 1 tspn sesame oil


• 2 tbspn oyster sauce


• 2 tbspn soy sauce


• 2 tbspn dry sherry


• handful of chopped fresh basil and cilantro, for garnish.

To make:
Heat the oils in a wok or large saucepan. Add the garlic, ginger, and green onions, and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the ground pork and break it apart as it browns, about 5-8 minutes. You might want to drain the fat at this point unless it's extra-lean pork.

Once it's cooked, add the red pepper, water chestnuts, oyster sauce/soy sauce/sherry. Let the meat soak up the flavors for a bit, and you can even reduce it for a while under low flame. It's still going to be kind of saucey.

Arrange the lettuce into cups, and fill with the meat mixture, topping with basil and cilantro. It's kinda messy, so have napkins/paper towels/drop cloth on hand. :)



Other than that, now that I'm finally feeling better, I'm hoping to get back to writing soon. Then we have, like...ten million birthdays to celebrate this next month, in June, in addition to Father's Day. My brother's, my Aunt's (I have only one Aunt, so she's special), one of J's sister's, J's niece, three of our friends, two of our friends' kids, etc. Oi.

Comments

[chuuni.livejournal.com]

Gee, I hope it wasn't the swine flu....it shouldn't be, because you'd still be quarantined or something XD

SANCHOIBAO! That's the Cantonese way of saying pork/lettuce bun. :D I guess you're doing it in Canto style. (But wouldn't know, since I'm bad at cooking)

I hope you feel better soon! And I look forward to your fics.

[misora.livejournal.com]

It most likely *was* H1N1, since it's the major flu going around right now, and there's been tons of cases in California. It spread here pretty quickly. But as I mentioned to someone else above, it really wasn't worse than any other flu virus I've had. It's only deadly (as all flu viruses are, avian or swine) if you have a compromised immune system, or you're elderly or a toddler.

And yes! It's Cantonese. Are you Cantonese? My b/f's family is from Canton, so that's the only way he and his family know how to cook. I've bought tons of cookbooks on Hong Kong/Cantonese style cooking, and I'm having fun picking recipes to try. :)

[chuuni.livejournal.com]

I see...they make a huge deal out of any cases of flu here, so we get paranoid. But it hasn't become an epidemic here in Asia yet (maybe except Japan, strange, given their country's the cleanest).

I'm from Hong Kong so it's basically the same as Canton. Dim summmm~~~