Do we really know about FOOD?

Food,INC. (毒食難肥)
(A film by Robert Kenner, Fortissimofilms)

i haven't seen this movie at HKFF'09, but there are disks now.it is very important to know what is behind 'FOOD' and vote for what we want to put into our mouths EVERYDAY.

P.S. where to find 'grass-feed' beef in HK? i have some experiences:

at Citysuper,there are 'grass-feed' beef steak (labelled) at the very bottom rack, don't miss it.

at Oliver, they don't label it and the butcher doesn't understand 'grass-feed' but he/she does understand 'organic beef steak'. (some days ago, i went there shopping as usual, i asked about it and the lady butcher got a funny look at me and answered: 'grass-feed??? humm... we have 'organic' here.' after i turned back, i heard she gossiped to her colleague aside: 'ha! grass-feed beef??? brabrabra... . ' obviously, she never thinks about what the cows are eating nowadays. or may be she still believes cow certainly eats grass as the textbook said 40 years ago? )

at Sogo, well, i don't think there is grass-feed beef but you can ask. i only found that there are beef steak labelled 'grain-feed' in the fringe and the packing even lets the stick marks look like that 'grain-feed' beef is a luxury and a very good stuff.

(no hope at Taste/Welcome, don't waste your time....wait!... i'm thinking, in the other hand, if we, the customers, ask for grass-feed beef again and again, may be those HK food markert monopolies will import some for the demand, may be. who knows? no harm to try.)

finally, there's one more thing i have to mention.the texture of grass-feed beef (i found in HK) is lean and a bit harder than grain-feed beef. but the price is cheaper and makes me feel worry less about the food security. i'll support it all my heart.

'We are what we eat.' so cliche but so god damn right.

Cast Iron pan from Ikea.cheap and fab!

My new cast iron pan is fab!!!

i brought this pan to the cashier in Ikea yesterday, bcoz the code was blurred, the cashier rogerred her onsite colleague to look at the code on rack, she spoke to the walkie talkie: pls check for me a plain black, 'damn heavy' pan. i urged to correct her: it is a 'cast iron fry pan' for good. of coz, she didn't care what i said, just like these pans are treated in Ikea as no one cares they can be sold or not for ages.

anyway, these 'damn heavy' pans only cost $79 HKD each. no matter what, it is a good bargain to have this pan at home even though for frying steaks only. 79 dollars!! what can i say?

i cooked a small portion of non-expensive beef steak to check how the pan worked. the steak was from SOGO supermarket around dozens dollars only. since it was not at the top quality, i prefered to make it well-done. i heated the pan and put a half table spoon ghee inside and then the steak. i loved the ziiiiiiii sound while my steak was frying. it came out brown and crispy. although it was well-done, the meat was still tender enough. after the meal, the pan was still a bit warm, i cleaned it under running water. it didn't stick at all. it was so easy to rub the grease and remains off. i didn't use cleaning agent at all. then i put it on the stove and reheated it for 1 minutes until it was completely dry. not much work to do actually. brilliant cast iron pan!

(P.S. cast iron pan needs to be seasoned before use. the method is as similar as chinese wok.)

Peaches Cardinal

i bought 2 peaches this evening. after dinner,i started to make a simple french dessert 'Peaches Cardinal'. it should be simple: just pour sugary raspberry purée onto the very ripe peaches. although the original recipe suggested 'raspberry puree' but i only had frozen 'mixed berries' in my fridge. i thought that raspberry anyway was among those mixed berries. the taste and the colour would be a little bit different but it made no harm. i decided to use the substitution.

everything was ready. there was no possibility to be wrong, well,well, you know, life always has something else ahead. and this time was: my peaches were totally NOT ripe, not ripe at all !

i changed my mind and got the peaches cooked with the mixed berry purée. as a result, it came out quite delicious. well, well, life always has something else ahead and it might be not bad at all.

Veggi lunch with Beetroot & lentils

It is good to have some Vegan meals among our meaty meals sometimes. today i've made my lunch with fresh beetroot and lentils, plus some olives and a piece of homemade malted bread, oh and a half glass of causal but good 'vino rosso' from Frescobaldi, why not? today is sunday, come on!

the plate is a bit messy coz i forgot to take photos until i started chewing for a few bites already. anyway, i still love the colour, it brings out an 'autumn' mood to me.

BTW, i prefer the fresh beetroot than the canned ones, the fresh ones are more chewy and taste much better. actually, i planed this lunch yesterday, so i boiled the beetroot yesterday night and let it cool down during the night. while we boil beetroot, we have to cook it in a whole piece, that means no peeling, no cutting before hand. we just need to wash off the dirt on the skin, that's it. otherwise, we have to deal with a horrible red color mess in our kitchen, no kidding. and eveytime when i cut the root, i do lay a piece of plastic wrap or a used clean plastic bag on the cut board and wear a plastic gloves. it's not a must but if i were you, i'll do the same. well, you will see.

Lentils is easy to deal with. the most simple way is just wash the amount of them you need, then boiled them in salted water until they are soft and then add them into anything you want, a soup, a salad etc. easy job.

one more thing i want to say: my dearest friends, please don't try to order a chinese dish "羅漢齋" for me when i say i need to have a vegan's day at the dinner table. sorry, my friend, that thing is the most horrible dish in the chinese veggi's world. for god sake, who wants a dark, oily, soybean-sauce-taste-only dish? my goddness, we have a lot of good things to eat from our mother nature and they are totally fresh, colourful, tasty and healthy.

enjoy vegan's meals!

Potato chips cookies

It's inspired by a youtube video that a lady who made cookies with potato chips! I love salty and sweet sparkling in my mouth at the same time. The concept of "potato chips + cookies" really hits me.

I just did my version as the normal cookies way but reduced flour and replaced it with smashed potato chips (honestly speaking, i used the left-over potato chips, well ok, be frankly, it was a more-than-a-few-days-leftover.)

I could't believe the result. It was soooo good. while i was dealing with the batter, i could feel that it was going to be perfectly right. I just fell in love with it at the first bite. I used the "70% less saturated fat & 100% less cholesterol" margarine and that "lightly salted & reduced fat" potato chips, i keep telling myself that it's ok to eat one more, or may be another more.

Now, it has been 3 days since i've made those cookies. They're still crispy. i definitely will do it again and again (when i have potato chips left-over every time).

Chunks‧Chunks‧Chunks

It seems that Hongkongers don't like to eat big cookies as americans do. They prefer smaller and (of course) less sugar and butter version. Alors, i make my cookies into bite-size-chunks most of the time. It's kind of attractive to most of my colleagues (i mean those ladies), not some male colleagues, who don't mind sugar and butter, sometimes complain: not sweet enough! so, once a while i bake those sugary and buttery cookies to comfort their taste buds, but not today.

Here i attach some photos of the chunks i made today and some days before.