Adventures of a Non-Gourmand

The fact is, I eat to live and not the other way around. Whatever works best with the least effort works best for me. Without an acutely discerning sense of taste, it hardly seems worth the effort of sweating over a hot stove for hours just to be able to replicate some favourite dish at home. But now that time is available in abundance, I've decided to get off my lazy arse and make more of an effort. Part of my "Get my act together" project is attempting some recipes which I have always been tempted by, but conveniently used the excuse of lack of time to escape from.

Years ago, I had witnessed Fourth Aunt making Char Siew in a wok. I've got that recipe down somewhere, but, with the huge amount of cookbooks I have (which don't get referred to much), I've lost it...Inspired one day by some delicious aroma coming from the neighbour's home, I googled and was tempted by the photos on a blog to try this.

This is my second attempt at making Char Siew. The first attempt failed because apparently, there IS such a thing as cooking your meat too long and getting it too soft...I had been too impatient and resorted to the pressure cooker in the first instance. The second time around, I decided to do it right, and use a non-stick pan at that (so Our Friend would not freak out at the prospect of cleaning out yet another sticky pan full of charred meat and sauce...).


Tadah!

The success of this effort has SO inspired and encouraged me to try out more things. Afterall, I had promised myself so many adventures - bread, cakes, cookies, simple home-cooked everyday dishes, tapas, extravagant champagne breakfasts (done and crossed off the list! Should definitely be repeated with various friends!), pizza with homemade dough, local and Indonesian dishes, dishes which are time-consuming and requires a bit more effort than a few quick chops and slices and stir fried or steamed very quickly on the stove-top or in the oven.

And I plan to chronicle them here, using my new toy...:)