Slippery Snake

Be kind.

Work Hard.

Stay Humble.

Smile often.

Stay Loyal.

Be Honest.

Travel when Impossible.

Never Stop Learning.

Be Thankful Always.

Love.

 Hello!!! It is the sixth installment of the 10 minute meal project. Fur more and I am done. I wonder what I should  I do next? Any suggestions?


I do not want want to say too much today because I want  to reflect on that quote above. Come on, reflect it with me. Isn't it a nice quote?

The preparation for this is very simple. All you have to do is mix the ingredients and you are done. But the assembling of the spread took me 15 minutes as I was really careful not to make the cream cheese fall on my counter. Also, you do not have to make the whole snake look. You can use the cream cream cheese mixture as spread for you bagel.Otherwise, this good looking snake is so yuuummmmmmy!

Slippery Snake Recipe

1. 1 (5 oz ) can chunk light tuna
2. 1/2 cup cream cheese
3. 1 ( 8 1/4 oz) can corn kernels, drained
4. 4 bagels, halved
5. 8 cherry tomatoes halved
6. 1 black grape ( halved)
7. 1 strip of cucumber skin, cut into a forked tongue

Mix together ingredients 1 to 3
Cut each bagel into half to make semicircles and arrange them end to end on each board to resemble a snake
 .
Spread the tuna mixture on the bagels and arrange the cherry tomatoes, cut side down along the length. Place the grape halves at one end for eyes and finish with the cucumber forked tongue.

NOTE:

You don't have to do the whole snake. Just skip the 5 to 6 ingredients. Just make the spread for you bagel.

5 Things to Do When You are Bored

Sometimes, the smallest step in the right direction ends up the biggest step of your life. Tip toe if you must but take the step.

Today, I am going to share to you my ideas on how to overcome boredom. I am no expert but these are just my ways on beating the dark word " boring ."

My pastor when I was in college said that bored mind is the playground of the devil. Knowing this, I try as much as I could not to be idle. I am not always successful, for sure. There are times that I am just so bored I feel like going to town and dance on the streets. I remember one time, I was sooooooo bored I asked Google Search : WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE BORED?

Try it yourself, right now, search Google on the topic random things to fight boredom and you will see millions of suggestions on how to fight it. I guess there are a lot of people who are also bored like me. There are good suggestions and bad ones and there are crazy ones. I listed some of these suggestions below.

Some suggestions Google search recommended:

1. Blink wildly - I decided this will not work for me because I wear contact lens
2. Bite your toenails - uhh I only have enough toenails to bite?
3. Plant a tree - well, I do not really have a room for tree in my backyard
4. Use mind power - what ? how do you do that?
5. Scratch myself - uhhh where?
6. Pretend to be a car I guess this is a good idea. I do not have to pay car payments, right?
7. Get yourself nauseated - this is a no, no, no, for me. I do not want to inflict pain on myself! No way!
8. Invent a wild twitch - A big no. I do not want to look spastic.

Contemplating on these suggestions, I decided to find boredom solutions my own way. One that really fit my personality. So these are Boredom Fighting Ideas I came up with.

5 WAYS TO FIGHT BOREDOM

1. Write a blog. Since I started writing this blog, I have never been bored. I got so busy cooking the food, taking pictures of the food  and  thinking about what articles to write in my food blog that I have no time for boredom.You do not have to write a food blog. If you like fashion, blog about it. If you have a cute cat, blog about it. If you want to break up with your boyfriend because he is too boring, blog about that too. Blogging does not cost anything. Check Blogger and Word press. They have various ways and instructions on how to start your own blog for free. In my case however, I opened a (dot) com blog name www.easytocookmeals.com, so I had to pay for that. But you can simply open a blog for free. This blogspot account I am writing this on, is free. 
2. Learn Photography. You do no have to have a fancy camera to learn photography. You have a digital camera which I am betting you are using automatically. Try to set it in manual setting and see what you can learn from it. 
3. Plant something. I did not plant an apple tree, but I planted herbs inside the pot. I arranged them in one of the corners in my house and I  watered it away. Unfortunately, none of those herb plants I planted survived. But currently, I have five ornamental plants that are still alive. When you want freshness and life inside your home, real plants surely accomplish that.

4. Volunteer. I did this and I just felt great about myself. Just  knowing that you are contributing your time and talents for a good cause surely boost your energy. I opted to volunteer to a shelter here in our state. It is a shelter for those families who are evicted from their houses or families who lost their jobs. They have nothing to stay. I volunteered to bake cakes for the kids' birthdays. Good thing I do not have to do it everyday, but it is sure to be good way to fight boredom. I also volunteered to a feeding program where I distributed food for the homeless.

5. Open an Etsy Store. If you have a little bit of skills on something, why not open an Etsy store. I do not recommend it that much because maintaining an online store gets to be expensive, but I did this 4 months ago. I eventually got tired of it and closed it. But it served its purpose. I was not bored at that time.

6. Go to the gym. I know. I said 5 ways to fight boredom, but this trick really helped me. Join group classes in the gym. You will find new friends and it will make your body rip. Though my body is still far away from being rip, that Zumba class, ooh la lala. It is is fun.

If you  think that these suggestions do not work for you, try the Google suggestions I wrote above and let me know how it goes.

How about you? How do you fight boredom?

Again, it is the 10 Minute Meal Project. I chose this since I have Parmesan an chicken breast in the ref. I misread the recipe though, instead of using two chicken cutlets,  I used 1 1/2 pounds. I  realized this halfway into cooking when  I said, " There is no way this is 10 minute meal, I have been frying the chicken cutlets for almost 30 minutes. " Then I re read the recipe ....

Verdict: I cannot tell how many minutes it was but in term of taste, it was delicious.


10 Minute Meal Project # 4 Chicken with Parmesan and Basil Leaves

Ingredients;

1. 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
2. 1 1/2 cup croutons/ can be bread crumbs
3. 1/2 cup basil
4. salt and black pepper to taste
5. 1 1/2 lb chicken cutlets 1/4 inch thick
6. 1 egg
7. 3 tbsp cooking oil

Directions:

Mix ingredients 1 to 4. in a flat plate.
Scramble 1 egg in a small bowl
Cut chicken breast into thin slices. Around 1/4 " thickness
Dip the chicken cutlets on the scramble egg then roll it in the cheese mixture. Then fry it in a heated oil.
Fry until golden brown
Do this to the rest of the chicken .Serve with lemon or salad.

10 Minute Meal Project # 3 Sweet and Sour Ground Pork

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve

-Joseph Joubert

Hello! Today is the 3rd 10 Minute Meal Project. I have fun doing this thing because it really surprises me that meals can be prepared so quickly.

This meal is reminiscent of the the sweet and sour fish  my mom prepared before when I was still in the Philippines; only, she used vinegar to create the sour paste and she added some carrots to neutralize the vinegar's sour taste. Boy, I remember how good it was...

When I started this project, I just randomly chose which meal recipes I have to follow, so I did not really know how they will turn out. I buy the ingredients and cook away. Of course I expected the recipes to be good since they were published in the cookbook so I expect good results. They say taste is subjective. The food may be good for you and not good for me. Everyone's taste is different.

After two successes from the 10 Minute Meal recipe book, I was expecting success on this one but I was disappointed with this recipe in terms of taste. The ground pork with pineapple juice plus the bell pepper did not make a good combination for me. The taste  was too sour  and the ground pork was so crumbly and dry.

It is an irony that I place kindness quote on top but I just cannot say something good about this meal, so I do not recommend it to you my friends. Yup, my family ate it, but it sat on the fridge for like three days before I finally have to shove it in my mouth so as not to waste it. I say this post today is pretty useless, unless you want to try it at your own risk. Sorry!

VERDICT:  Fact that you can cook this meal within 10 minutes but the taste was BLAH.


10 Minute Meal Project # 3 Sweet and Sour Ground Pork

1 tbs cooking oil
1 8 oz can pineapple chunks
1 lb lean ground pork
1 bell pepper (sliced in chunks)
1 onion ( sliced into small chunks)

Sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tbsp chopped ginger
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp black soy sauce
2 tbsp white vinegar

Drain the pineapple from the can and reserve the juice. Set aside the pineapple.
Put the sauce ingredients in a deep bowl and  whisk in the juice, mix them completely and set aside.

Heat cooking oil in a pan over high heat.
Add the pork and onion and stir fry for about 4 minutes until pork is cooked through.Add in bell pepper and let it cook for two minutes then add in the sauce cook through until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately.

10 Minute Meal Project no #. 2 - Thai red Beef Curry

The things you take for granted, someone is praying for..

Hello, guys! It is the 10 minute meal project once again, and to those who are not familiar with this, this is my project which sprouted from me buying a 10 minute meal cookbook. I want to see if the author's cookbook is a myth or a fact.  I also want to know if these meals are good or not. 

It starts with preparation of the ingredients and when everything is ready, I set my timer to ten minutes. So here goes...
I set the pan and the fire on high heat and turn my timer on. I started with heating the oil and and browning the beef then I added the other liquid ingredients. I never cooked as fast as this. I feel like I want to give the book's author the opportunity to shine and  not challenge her claims of a ten minute meal, by me scampering to get this done within 10 minutes.

Because I was trying to beat the time, I am kind of worried that the meat will not be cooked but it was already brown by three minutes. I added the rest of the ingredients, let them boil and I got done at 9 minutes!

VERDICT : FACT

I think the secret is to set the fire on high and beef meat are really easy to cook as well, so the author is not lying. And the taste was very delicious. It is the first time I tasted red curry paste because I detested its color. It looks so spicy and gooey but I was wrong.Rather, curry paste was sweeter and it was not spicy .The combination of the curry paste, coconut milk and beef broth made this meal set apart from the rest of the Asian foods I tasted. It has a unique taste in it that I cannot describe. This one is oh so, delicioso!!!!

Next 10 Minute Meal Project # 3 : Sweet and Sour Ground Pork

1 tbsp peanut oil or any type of oil will do
1 1/4 lb beef strips
2 tbsp Thai red curry paste
3/4 can coconut milk
2/3 cup beef stock
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp prepared chopped ginger
1 lemon grass stalk (pound/ bruised)
2 cups diagonally sliced snow peas
1 cup bean sprouts ( I skipped this one because my store does not have bean sprouts)
1 tbsp thai fish sauce
small handful fresh cilantro

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat
Add the beef and curry paste and stir fry or about 2 minutes, until beef is slightly brown

Add the coconut milk,stock,sugar,ginger.
Bring to a boil,then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes until snow peas are tender

Remove the lemon grass from the curry and stir in the cilantro

NOTE: If you have left over broth and coconut milk, just put them in a container and freeze them for future use.

Ten Minute Meal Project # 1 Shrimp Salad

Hello! I just got this very cute and small recipe book titled - Ten Minute Meal Recipe. There are 200 pages of meals that the author claimed that I can prepare for 10 minutes. I want to prove if the author's claim is a myth or a fact. I chose 10 meals out of the 200 and I  will be posting 1 (one) Ten Minute Meal each week, so stay tune.

I chose this Shrimp Recipe today because my family are not used to eating salad, so we are kind of trying to incorporate salads in our Sunday lunches. We are so used to sautee' ng our veggies. It is a big adjustment for all of us.

When I  got this recipe book, I was thinking that each meal can be prepared within ten minutes including the preparation of the ingredients. I guess, I am just stretching it too much, because washing and cutting the vegetables alone took me more than ten minutes. I realized it quickly. So, it looked like the author meant that I have to prepare the ingredients first then the span of cooking or making the meals take only 10 minutes. So, I set my timer from the cooking time itself and see if it is within ten minutes.

VERCDICT:  FACT !


Yup, I can toss this salad in less than 10 minutes but the preparation of ingredients surely took a long time. Nevertheless, we liked this salad. My daughter did not care for the cucumber, so I am thinking that I am going to add in a mango in the recipe instead of cucumber. Actually, the original recipe called for mango, but since our store did not have mango available,I used cucumber instead.

NOTE: Next week's Ten Minute Meal Project # 2 will be Beef Red Thai Curry

Ingredients:

Dressing:

Juice from 1 lime
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp Sesame oil or any oil type of oil will work
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 lb cooked shrimp

Salad:

10 pcs of lettuce leaves ( washed and cut into bite size)
1/2 lb cooked shrimp
1 pitted avocado
1 pc of sliced cucumber or mango (pitted)
Salt and pepper to taste

Direction:

Place oil, sugar, lime juice in a bowl and whisk until the sugar is thoroughly melted. Add in cooked shrimp and mix mixture to coat the shrimp. Set aside.
Place the lettuce,cucumber in a salad bowl or plate. Place the avocado on top. Pour in dressing on top of the vegetables and mix  gently. Add in salt and pepper if desired.