Snacks

In All recipes, Seafood, Snacks

PORKY, GINGERY SHRIMP TOASTS

“HAS IT BECOME OBVIOUS? I LIKE SHRIMPS”

Can I rudely leave you alone with this crunchy… buttery… porky, gingery shrimpy thingy today even though you were just introduced? Not that you’ll need any persuasions to take them home to your bed, but you know, I still feel like explaining myself why I’m in such a hast today. Well, first, It’s been the third consecutive “blue sky day” here in Beijing which is as rare as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade through The Black Gate of Mordor, so yes first, I think I should step outside my nest. Secondly, yesterday as I was routinely sipping my afternoon joe while courting my laptop, through the misty reflection of the screen I saw there he was… Rebeus Hagrid, in his bad hair-day. So yes secondly, I think I should step outside my nest. Thirdly, there’s a fabulous red skirt from Zara with my hip’s name on it.

First-second-who?

03.06.2014

In All recipes, Condiments, Poultry, Snacks

MICKY-WHO? BETTER HOMEMADE CHICKEN NUGGETS

“I
SUPERNOVA-SIZED MYSELF
FOR YOU. IF THIS IS NOT LOVE…”

Oh you thought I was kidding about the what-my-ailing-dog-wouldn’t-eat-but-you-might series?

Uhem, no sir, no ma’am… I was dead serious. You see, the following story is either gonna provide clarity or forever put you off from reading another word in this post, but I’m gonna say it anyways. In the past weeks of my bumpy journey on coming up with nourishments that my heartbroken dog-son might be willing to sniff or perhaps take a bite, I found myself embarrassingly wanting… salivating really… over these supposedly “dog foods” that I kept for him in a tupperware… And for awhile it took some considerable amount of trembling self-respect not to, until finally I decided silly was just silly. That I shall eat them myself.

No, again, I’m not kidding.

02.07.2014

In All recipes, Condiments, Meat, Quick Meals, Snacks

WOODLAND FIRE SICHUAN-HUMMUS

“Tonight… LET’S SET THE WORLD
ON FIRE”

I guess… it really isn’t a secret what unnecessary gimmicks I’ve been occupying myself with in the last couple days. Hello, my name is Mandy and I’m a theme-aholic. In fact, I’m a theme-aholic who also happens to be, tech-intolerant. Like an alcoholic who’s allergic to alcohol, an UV-addict who lives in Seattle, a real human being married to Gwyneth Paltrow…

Well, you get the point. It’s all been very dysfunctional around here.

01.23.2014

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Snacks, Sweets

BA-DA ‘BINGS’

There’s a Chinese saying that goes “A loser in love, a winner in casinos.” It simply means that the good fortune you lack in one aspect in life will be compensated in others.

Well… it’s total bullshit. Just like all Chinese superstitions are.

But having said that, it would leave my current streak of grand slams over an age-old kitchen nemesis – at a time when my every other single happiness in life seems to be throwing themselves under a train – completely unexplained. I mean, lay… layers? Is that you? Have you come back to see me? A predicted failure in my first attempt to replicate an iconic staple in northern China, came not as anticipated but instead, a smashing, success.

Ladies and gents, may I introduce you, the explosively layered… bing.

01.19.2014

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Meat, Snacks, Top Posts In 90 Days

A WRONG AND IRRESPONSIBLE SANDWICH

We’ve all heard about this growing up, that the adult life is all about responsibilities. “Pfff, whatever…” I said. I mean what does that even mean, really? As if kids don’t got no responsibility, like I hadn’t already been tying my own shoes, wearing my painful braises, and attending my designated school every morning where I dealt with mean kids on my own like any accountable, dutiful children since seven. Think I did all those for fun? I was doing good for my own greater good. Responsibility. You know? In fact, it seems that my whole life so far has been a reversed testimony for such statement.

As I am slowly coming to terms that my diligent, responsible life had took its last dying breath the moment… I became an adult.

01.05.2014

In All recipes, Snacks, Sweets

THE NONSENSICAL HOT PEPPERCORN PEANUT BRITTLE

They say that comedy is tragedy plus time. They say that there’s a very thin line, separating laughter and pain… humor and hurt. Sounds like comedy is just an accidental kid of the abusive reality-junkie mom called life, trying hysterically to grow up as sane and functional as possible, maybe go to college, trying to make sense of it all like we all are, by drinking pain as fuel for jokes.

Well, if all that is true, there’s nothing funnier… than telling stories about a dead pet.

12.16.2013

In All recipes, Meat, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Snacks, Top Posts In 90 Days

HIGHLY ADDICTIVE PARTY CIGARS

Oh mah God… I haven’t been under so much pressure, yes, since the time when I realized I needed six more credits to graduate college (SIX! “Professor, your otherwise gross beard appears unexpectedly dashing today”… just kidding)… and it is precisely the reason why, as much as I may seem to be an ideal candidate to host a dinner party, I shouldn’t be allowed to. At all. Because my management skills crumble in disarray when I’m cooking more than one thing. There’s a large number of oysters that I’m pulling all strings to keep alive inside a fridge that lacks everything else to cook them with, and a whole scale-on, bone-in, head-attached sea bass that frankly… I don’t remember inviting to dinner. On top of which, a 7 pounds limp-neck goose-beast is going to be dropped onto my doorstep like surprise! any minute now… could be like now! Plus did I mention I’m supposed to make a tart? That’s it, time for emotional breakdown.

Hey, nobody said my threshold for stress isn’t delicate at best.

12.13.2013

In All recipes, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Seafood, Snacks

SPICY SALMON MINI HAND ROLLS

Let me cut to the chase with this one. Because along with what has officially come as the “holiday/party season”, also came a bubbling frenzy of ideas that harasses my otherwise unambitious nature to just relax through it all. I mean really, really self-tormenting thoughts, such as the fixation on the idea of a Christmas goose (goose!… I must’ve lost my mind.), the racing finger-snapping sounds that repeats “hors d’oeuvre, hors d’oeuvre, hors d’oeuvre!” and then “cookies, cookies, cookies!”, plus a reignited and very unhealthy obsession to tackle the ever–evil, ever-defiant croissant dough which, let’s not kid ourselves, will end in tears (I wonder where that came from…). All in all I mean, I’m busy.

But then, speaking of hors d’oeuvre…

12.10.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Snacks, Vegatables

MULTI-LAYERED SCALLION FLAT BREADS

Do you have things that you tried and tried and tried making, and it. Just. Doesn’t. Work? In the kitchen, I call them my culinary nemesis, and they can be summed up by two words, “chewy” and “layers”. You whisper these words to my ears in the middle of the night…

I pee my pants.

12.06.2013

In All recipes, Snacks, Vegatables

LAMINATED POTATO CHIPS

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of effort in the kitchen, not just on the usual manual labor I do driven by unknown impulses, but on trying to draw the very blurred line on practicality/doability when it comes to home-cooking, which I have slowly come to realize to having a very different definition than the general public. Well, I suspect not having a day-job has something to do with it, but really though, what do people consider worth-the-effort when the grunt work is to be done by their own hands in their own kitchen?

11.26.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Snacks, Sweets

APPLE PERSIMMON PIES

Season-transitioning flu… they just love me so. A tender… suffocating love. So listen here’s what I can do. With my energy level slightly above a wheezing squirrel, I’m gonna save any effort on an elaborate sales pitch with delicious stories for you to try this. This being – fry your damn pies and do it this way. I’m not gonna go there… Instead, I’m just gonna give it to you straight, as in bullet point-style. As in STONE-COLD FACTS. Yeah. Because we all believe in science. Right? So eat this because:

11.05.2013

In All recipes, Poultry, Snacks

CHICKEN WINGS ON THE MISSION

Sometime I amaze even myself on how I get inspirations for a post while being locked on top of this self-confined tower. Well, not to deter you from visiting (especially you who owns a white horse) but it’s a tower sitting atop an oppressed world hidden inside a choking cloud of toxic smoke as far as the eyes can see, and guarded by, well not a dragon HA! I wish, but an army of creatures that to say mildly… nobody from your world is going to find it pleasurable to meet. So I mostly sit inside this emotionally distraught and physically demolished little tower of mine, with my greasy hair, rattled temper and… my magic mirror. Yeah, just like Beast’s who got it with me on Groupon. You see, it’s hooked to this fantastical plate-looking thing just outside the window, oh and how marvellous that it even comes with a remote. Like magic I tell you.

My life is but a little fairy tale.

11.01.2013

Snacks

“HAS IT BECOME OBVIOUS? I LIKE SHRIMPS”

“I SUPERNOVA-SIZED MYSELF FOR YOU. IF THIS IS NOT LOVE…”

“Tonight… LET’S SET THE WORLD ON FIRE”

“I
SUPERNOVA-SIZED MYSELF
FOR YOU. IF THIS IS NOT LOVE…”

“Tonight… LET’S SET THE WORLD
ON FIRE”