Pork adobo

JM and I haven't cooked adobo on our own yet. Until tonight, that is. So that we could have something substantial to eat for lunch in the office tomorrow. (Thank God for a nice office pantry!)

Anyhow, this is the adobo recipe we followed -- sort of. We didn't have laurel leaves so we just sort of followed it. Also, we didn't separate the sauce from the adobo. We removed the marinade after making the meat tender in it but after frying the pork we poured all the sauce in the pan and let it 'dry up' or 'reduce' -- I am not sure what the proper term is but what happened is that in the end there was less sauce. :D

We had to add more pepper because we used crushed pepper. That was all we had in stock. We added it in while waiting for it to dry up a little.

Some pictures of the cooking experiment:




And this is the finished product!


As of the time I am writing this post, it's more like the dry adobo JM likes. I prefer it a bit soupy to be honest but this works too! And we tasted it earlier. I could say it was Nami*!!!

*Nami = my bastardized word for "Yummy!"

Welcome, Jan!

I got Jan from a Flickr user who's also on the Pinky:St forums. :) Lucky! Because I got the Super Lovers Yoshiko jacket and legs. And he was ok with swapping the face of Yoshiko with Suu. :D I need Suu's face for something XD

Anyhow, Arc and Tami were with me in the office so we welcomed Jan by treating ourselves to chocolate icecream XD

Gimme music

I need all kinds of music to fuel me throughout the day!

Sometimes I listen to classical music. I blame Nodame Cantabile for that.

Sometimes I listen to Pinoy rock. Sometimes OPM ballads. Acoustic stuff by MYMP, et al.

Sometimes I like electronica. Shibuya-kei, chill out, and so on and so forth. I even have some Korean electropop songs.

I could also listen to rock. And pop.

There's jazz too. And bossa nova.

Sometimes songs from J-drama soundtracks get me going.

It's all so different, the way all these songs sound like and it depends on my mood which of these sets of songs would actually help me through the day.

Right now, I am contemplating on saving up for some Japanese CDs. Maybe Brilliant Green and Tommy February 6 or Tommy Heavenly 6. All I know is that I need my music fix!

Fun with dolls

Ryuk, as well as the other Death Note Nendroids belong to my co-worker, Martin. :)



I borrowed them the other day just so I could take pictures. Sadly I don't have a digital camera. :( But it's so fun making them pose with my Pinky:St dolls!

More photos on my Flickr account.

Considerations for the front page of Crafty Neko

I used to work for Eversun Software and we have a blog which aggregates the rest of the blogs. Well, it isn't just like that. There are also updates within that encompassing and aggregating blog. Maybe some announcements and opinions concerning the entire group of blogs.

Now I am considering something like it. The front page should have the latest updates from the other blogs within the domain. But what should I do? Use an aggregator like Planet or maybe something else like the Feedwordpress plugin we used to have.

Tuna with Mushrooms in Cream Sauce

Chelle says it's tuna casserole but I don't know. ^^;;; Gomen, I just made it according to gut feel. In high school, my bestfriend used to cook tuna and mushrooms a lot. And she would pour some cream sauce over it. It's been ages since I ate that and because JM wanted to eat something different, I prepared something close to it. XD

Ingredients:

• 1 can of Century Tuna (the one in oil)


• half a tetrapack of Nestle Cream


• 1 small can of mushrooms


• Eden cheese - the snack pack type

Instructions:

1. Heat up the tuna in some of its oil.


2. Add the mushrooms.


3. Pour in the cream.


4. Grate the cheese into the mix.


5. Let it simmer.


6. Add some pepper if you want it a bit spicy.

Clair's Notes:

• You can use the tuna with hot and spicy oil. It's yummy if you love spicy stuff. I don't think the other variants of tuna in can such as Tuna in Asado or Tuna adobo would taste as good when used in this recipe.


• Don't use too much oil. It will end up bleh~


• If you prefer tuna in brine or in water, maybe use margarine just to make sure it won't stick to the pan.


• Don't cook the cream for too long. My friends say it might curdle. :(


• You could opt to lessen the cheese.




It could serve two to four people, depending on the appetite. Also, we had other viands around so there was more than enough for us.

Arc and Sacchin are home

At last! They are with me. :)

Already got the registry notice for Arc and Sacchin

I AM SO HAPPY!!!!!!!! XD XD XD

Arc and Sacchin made it home. For some odd reason, I feel like calling Sacchin as Sacha while Arc will remain Arc because she is Arc from Tsukihime, after all. :D

I was surprised that I got only one notice but I noticed that there was a note in green ink that there are two pieces that I have to claim. Yay! My girls are home. They will join Tami and Mishka on my desk tomorrow morning. Now I feel great and will be a bit bouncy because of this great news as well as the song playing on my laptop which happens to be a HalCali song called Pisudori.

So yeah, expect pictures tomorrow!

Welcome home Tami (Tamae)!

I wanted to make a custom of something and I thought that Tamae's hair would be nice for it. Aside from that, she has clothes which I thought would be nice to have for a basic set now that I am still waiting for my HLJ orders to come home to me. Now Mishka (Mikimiki) won't have to feel lonely when my sister brings Akito/Agito and Makimaki (Maki repaint) with her in the office.

Tamae's face is growing on me though I wish her eyes were a different color. Maybe grey, blue or brown. But green. Hmmm. One more thing I love about her is her hand pose. It's like she's contemplating the meaning life, the universe and everything. (42!)

This afternoon I suddenly had to make a soundstage though it was sucky because I didn't have much materials. I had to use a soundstage even I took pictures outside the house because we mainly have gravel. :( The plants haven't grown nicely yet. But I like the colorful one the table on Mom's sari-sari store.



I made some hats for the girls last night. :) I was followed the tutorial by Yue. I even made a prototype for a hat with bunny ears but the ears were too short and flimsy.

My sister wanted to make Akito look gay though so she also made him strike a pose. ;)



So it seems like this weekend of welcoming Tami home was so fun for everyone. :) Even my mom was amused that my sister and I were making them pose. XD Now I am wishing that all my girls from HLJ would come home soon so we could have a party!

The Haruhi Suzumiya Pinkies

I am still waiting for HLJ to send me my Haruhi!

But here's the thing: the rest of the girls are already scheduled to be released this April and in May. At least that is what I understand from the site news page.

Asahina Mikuru is scheduled for release on April 17. (That's just a few days away!)
Nagato Yuki and Tsuruya are scheduled for release on May 29.

I am glad to see the packaging for Mikuru. Her maid's apron is a separate thing. I was afraid that her entire uniform is a one-piece thing. I could use that uniform for the Kohaku mod I have been thinking of. But I might have to try to copy parts of that apron for the Hisui mod I want to make.

Yuki's eyeglasses are definitely cute so I can't help but want to pre-order her. Tsuruya is cute too but it's her hair that I really want. Rawr. I wish they gave other alternate outfits to these girls so that they wouldn't be yet another set of school girls. ^^;

Experimental pasta with white sauce and bangus fillet

The dish is pasta with white sauce and bangus fillet on the side.



Ingredients:

• 500 g of linguine


• 300 g of spaghetti


• 1 can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup


• 1 cup of milk


• garlic


• butter/margarine


• 500g bangus fillet


• grated cheese


• salt and pepper


• 100 g dried mushrooms

Bangus fillet
The bangus fillet needs to be marinated. Use salt, pepper, garlic to marinade the fish. Set it aside for later.

When you're done with the marinade, you could now cook the bangus fillet. We used the oven toaster.

Put some margarine/butter in the heating tray. Put the bangus fillet on the tray, as well as the bits and pieces of garlic from the marinade. Set the timer to five minutes. Then turn the fish around and heat it up again for another five minutes.

Pasta
Cook the pasta according to the instructions in the packet. In this case, we had to make two batches of pasta because there were more people eating the pasta than we anticipated. JM's method is a bit different though. We only had a rice cooker, a microwave oven and an oven toaster so he used the rice cooker. He put hot water in the rice cooker then added the noodles even if the water hasn't boiled yet. He was constantly watching over the pasta.

White Sauce
Put the dried mushrooms in water then chop them up when they are soft already.

Heat the pan (in our case, the rice cooker) and melt the butter/margarine in it. Saute the garlic and the mushrooms. Add the cream of mushroom soup. Simmer. Add a cup of water. Add milk. Simmer. Add grated cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serving the dish
Mix the pasta and sauce. Put it on a nice dish. Put the fish fillet on the side.

Clair's notes

We weren't able to anticipate the number of people eating the dish and how big their appetites were individually. We were roughly 6-8 people who shared the food that night. Also, we weren't able to add enough cheese, salt and pepper to make the sauce more flavorful. Next time, I will buy more dried mushrooms because the texture is great and the flavor so divine! Martin asked me if they were Chinese mushrooms but I wouldn't really know. Next time I will read the label more carefully. The dish doesn't look too nice but it's something we could work on later.

Also, it was one of those times that JM and I really cooked together. It was a bit awkward because I found the pantry too small and his way of cooking very different from mine. But it turned out fine, I think. The sauce was just a bit bland. Jo helped us out with this dish because she loves cooking pasta with white sauce and I didn't really know much about it.

Wisdom ala Romaya-senpai?!

A chat between me and Rjene:

Rjene (4/7/2008 12:54:06 PM): time is running
Rjene (4/7/2008 12:54:14 PM): stop time
Clair (4/7/2008 12:54:17 PM): :))
Rjene (4/7/2008 12:54:19 PM): :((
Clair (4/7/2008 12:55:47 PM): lahat tayo gusto pa ng oras
Clair (4/7/2008 12:55:52 PM): pero wala tayong magagawa
Clair (4/7/2008 12:55:53 PM): limited
Clair (4/7/2008 12:55:55 PM): life
Clair (4/7/2008 12:56:05 PM): has a way of making us cherish each moment
Clair (4/7/2008 12:56:13 PM): (malalim daw kunwari)
Rjene (4/7/2008 12:56:21 PM): huwow
Rjene (4/7/2008 12:56:55 PM): clair sempai~~ *squeels like takemoto ala romaya sempai**
Clair (4/7/2008 12:57:20 PM): hahahaha
Clair (4/7/2008 12:57:35 PM): oo nga, nasobrahan ata ako ng honey and clover :P

Maybe I've been watching too much J-drama but I do feel that way sometimes. I want so much more time. I want more time to spend with people I love so I could have more memories with them.

Maybe it's so cheesy for me to tell Rjene something like that but I think it's true. Maybe I was trying to be poetic and stuff like that. But I guess it's exactly why people try to create art: to re-construct life and 'trap time' somehow.

The fountain move and the reverse corkscrew

During poi class tonight, I was able to learn the fountain and the reverse corkscrew. :D :D :D Can I say that I am happy, happy, happy?!

The fountain is essentially the following moves:

• upward weave


• windmill


• downward weave

If you start from the right, you do an upward weave then a windmill then a downward weave. After that open up your downward weave to transition to the upward weave on the right then do the windmill then a downward weave.

But if you start your fountain from the left, you have to do a reverse windmill in the middle. Argh!

That is why Ramir had to teach me the reverse corkscrew and windmill tonight. He wanted to make sure that I could do the reverse windmill in the middle if I start from the left.

After practicing the move without the poi, I was able to make my body move the make a reverse corkscrew and windmill! Happy happy joy joy! XD

Some also taught me a trick that would help me practice the fire fairy move! She was so frustrated with the move before but after some time of practicing with that trick she was able to do the fire fairy and its variations. XD I will try practicing that trick. I don't know how to describe it so that will be for another post.

Still waiting for Arc and Sacchin

:(

They haven't arrived yet. Should I regret choosing SAL over EMS shipment? But it costs practically double :( :( :( Maybe when I am not planning to buy anything other than Pinkies, maybe I'd choose EMS shipment over SAL. If only EMS didn't cost more than the Pinkies...

*sigh*

I wasn't able to change my shipment option to EMS in time for Haruhi. HLJ already sent me an email about shipping Haruhi to me. It's going to be another long wait, maybe? It's 20 days and counting...