I’m taking exams for the next two weeks.
There is nothing like finals to make me hungry. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m hungry all the time, anyway. But I feel that making delicious food is the best way to procrastinate on studying.
My first exam isn’t until Tuesday. Whyever should I start studying now! That’s four days early? Because I should, but… well, I’m not. At least not so far.
Last night I cooked up some chicken. My friends and I have been ordering large quantities of groceries, and predominately freezing the meat so we can use it later, so I have a freezer drawer filled with chicken and casserole steaks. So I used some of the chicken, but because I was defrosting it, I first immersed it in a soy sauce and brown sugar mixture, then filled the rest of the bowl up with water around the chicken. Maybe not the best way of marinading, but I was trying to avoid freezer burn! Because the living space I’m in doesn’t have an oven, just a hob/stove, I “fryed” the chicken, but it was just a frying pan with a lid. I forgot to flip the chicken, and it still cooked through deliciously! I ate it too fast to get a picture.
This morning I made couscous. I’ve never done so before, and I can’t imagine why I haven’t! If all I have to do is pour boiling water over the stuff and some butter and salt, why don’t I do so all the time? I can’t imagine. I have certainly been a couscous lover forever, but if I knew it was this easy to make, I would have started to make it when I was seven and first introduced.
And now I’m cooking that wonderful breakfast, or really every meal food, pancakes!
Because I’m running on low supplies, finishing up my last weeks studying abroad, I’m out of eggs, butter, and I’m almost out of milk. But that doesn’t stop me from my pancakes!
I’m tweaking a recipe I found through a Google search. Because Google is awesome!
My eggless pancake recipe, tweaked for the ingredients I have on hand!
Here’s the original: courtesy of Rak’s Kitchen
1 cup of flour
Dash of brown sugar, but definitely less than a tablespoon, because I’m a bad guesstimator
Dash of salt, about half a teaspoon
About one third of a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, because I don’t have baking soda
1 cup of milk – I had just enough!
About 1 tablespoon of oil.
(I also included some leftover loose tea I had. More on that later.)
Because I know how to follow a recipe, but choose to ignore it, I started with the milk. I then added the tea. It was apple flavored, and gave the milk a wonderful smell!
Then I added all of the dry ingredients, and finally the oil.
I let it rest for about ten minutes, as instructed. I used this time to whip up another batch of the dry mix, without the tea, for the next time I need pancakes, which may or may not be in a few hours. Hopefully tomorrow, but the convenience store around the corner is kinda open until midnight. Because I’ll need more milk.
Then I heated up the frypan with the most non-stick coating still present, and the least amount of metal scores, and then added some oil. Honestly too much oil, so temper yourself newbies. In fact, I really don’t like to oil my pancake pan, but because there is no real nonstick coating in this kitchen (it runs away with its coating tail between its legs in fear), I can’t do anything without it.
I cooked ’em up like normal pancakes, and then enjoyed them with my warm chocolate drink!
My first few didn’t come out all that good looking, but they still tasted good!
I say warm chocolate drink, because honestly, its not chocolatey or milky enough to be hot chocolate, and its not cold or chocolatey enough to be chocolate milk, so I have decided on warm chocolate drink.
And in regards to tea. I love tea. I tend to have more tea than other drinks. But sometimes a tea just doesn’t end up getting drunk. Or I’m in a non-loose tea friendly environment. The last time I used a reusable tea bag for my loose tea, my roommate threw it out. And that was mostly the end of my loose tea escapades this semester. I’m trying to use up some of my tea that isn’t my favorite. I’ve been trying to use up as much tea as possible before buying more, but that doesn’t always work out…
In hindsight, my tea idea was good, but I should hydrate the tea first, so I’m not trying to bite down on an overly dried apple chunk. Beware
And now I’m going to enjoy my pancakes and hopefully study!
Oh, and my obligatory costume update. These used to be dangles from some earrings my grandmother had given me, and they are going to end up on the shoulders of my miniature jacket for my TARDIS costume, as inspired by last week’s episode of Doctor Who. The machine making contraption… thing.
Anyway… Bye!