Indo Leisure Chef: Day 1

Hey all! Welcome to my cyber kitchen!! This is my first food blog. Well, its actually my 1st blog ever.

I have been thinking of writing a blog for a long time, just that I don't know what to write about.... days of my life, moments of my life, my life in general..... but then, why would anyone want to read about my life? What makes me think that my life will be special, different from the rest?

So I decided to write about my passion..... COOKING. However, as I am a cheeky fella as well, dribbles of a certain X-rated nature may sometime rub in..... cos that's me, in real life I am like that too. :) so i hope, I do not offend anyone.

I have been in love with cooking since I can rememeber and now, as I am recently jobless, what better way to relax then to cook?

I am sure that other people have other means of releasing thier stress / pent up frustrations / boredom on shopping (oh... I love this too....) / sleeping (waste of time) / reading (yawnnnn...) etc, but cooking, it's a love affair; when you prepare the food, when you cook the creation, when you look at the finished dish.... it's about the effort and love that went to making that dish.

My kitchen is simple, a Teka stove, a Gazz grill / bake contraption, Tefal pans, WMF knives, WMF pots and my trusted IKEA grill pan (love this thing! its cheap and good) These are my faithful partners in crime. (the Moulinex kettle leaked on me last week..... any sponsors?) And oh.... my trusted Nikon D60 for taking pictures of my dishes, badly need to get good macro lenses but DANG! It's the price of me camera!!! Sigh.....

I have tested on my faithful lab rats (no bribes needed, neither were abusive force implemented) and they have so far loved it.... so I hope that some of the readers will like my humble creations as well.

I will put up my other earlier creations soon, but for today, let's start with a simple challange... SGD8 bucks to make a dinner sandwich:

- tuna in brine 1.92 (on the can, in the ingredient box, it stated: THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS FISH. Gee, I guess not many people know that TUNA is FISH)

- no frills bread 1.52

- golden mushrooms (mushrooms guys... not shower....) 1.00

- grated mozzy cheeeeeeze (aka Mozarella cheese) 2.99

- a small head of cabbage 0.98

Of course, you will need your regular olive oil and other condiments already (yes... it's a tad cheating but c'mon..... i was refering to the main ingredients!)

Why did I choose to do this dish? Well, I guess, buying food from Cold Storage @ The Village Centre, I didn't have much choice? Nah.... I was thinking of a light dinner for me and my mate and since I have putting on some weight, I decided, let's try LIGHT.... or so I thought.

TO THE KITCHEN!!

Golden Shrooms - simple as pie! Just rinse them and then place them straight to the grill pan! TA DAH! Oh, its just for 3 mins on high heat too. Done? Let them rest too.

Tuna - filter the brine and put the tuna into a small bowl (depends on servings ok, mine is just for 2 so 140g of tuna is more than enough), I decided to add a table spoon of Materfoods Honey Mustard, a dash of pepper and a pinch of salt. Just mish and mash them together.... done!

Cabbage - shred them leaves!!! As thin as you can, and then, in boiling salted water (2 teaspoons), just dip them in for about a minute.... done! Its still crunchy enough but cooked enough! (I know some of you rather other greens, try rockets, lettuce or whatever you fancy.. hey its YOUR dish!) Drain the leaves and let them rest.

Bread - do we really need a toaster? NO. The ribbed grill pans does the same magic..... (oi... its ribbed GRILL PAN, not that ribbed latex thingy). Ok, high heat on each side for 2 mins will do, and if you think to add a bit more flavour to the bread, add a teaspoon of olive oil to the pan and salt.

Heat up the grill / toaster contraption for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, place the cabbage on a bread, then place the shrooms, then the mozza cheese. On the other bread, give a good dullop of tuna on it and mayo if you want to. Place them both side by side into the contraption and close the lid, usually, the heat retains and thus, you can turn off the device, leave the bread in for 1 min or until the cheese melts; you can also leave the heat on if you like......

And there you go, cut in half and serve with crisps or as it is and enjoy........