Ojisan Dinner

I really need to correct my over-shopping tendency at grocery stores... the people at the grocery store probably don't know that I am only shopping for 1 (I think I spend $80 on average, which is unacceptable for a single woman who travels 50%+ for her job)  oh well, the good news is... I do eat everything I bought...

Tetsubin

The first time I had tea served in a tetsubin was at Mandarin Oriental, DC April 2010.  I fell in love with the tetsubin almost immediately (I didn't even know what's it formal name is until today).  Tea stays warm without a tea light for hours and I just loved everything about the tetsubin.

Lasagna

Have been craving for lasagna since the one I had at Carmine's... /drool

Looked up some recipes on allrecipes.com and found one called World's Best Lasagna... well, I am a sucker to names like this... so I had to make it...  it literally took me all night (and half a morning)... I definitely would not recommend anyone to make it on a week night... I decided to bake it in the morning so it will be nice and fresh (hopefully the meat sauce will soak up the noodles overnight nicely and provide better flavor) and it's just too late to eat when it's finally done cooking...  (best idea ever!)

Strawberry Jam

Strawberries were on sale at my local groceries store... $0.99 a pound... can't resist... Instead of just eating all of them fresh (even I can only eat so much strawberries at one time...), I made some of them into strawberry jam.  The only thing that remotely resembles jam I made in the past was cranberry sauce and that was really good... I should post the recipe some other time... (maybe this Thanksgiving?)

Ichigo Daifuku

One of the many benefits of not watching TV is that you have more time to pursue your hobbies and tonight, I present to you - Ichigo Daifuku (originally I just want to make green tea azuki bean daifuku but since I got fresh strawberries in the fridge so I tell myself, why not?)  At the risk of insomnia, I brewed a fresh pot of green tea at 11 p.m. and enjoyed my freshly made daifuku - that's bliss right there my friend :)

Bao

 Instead of making my usual weekday dinner - dumplings, I actually tried something new tonight... bao!  It wasn't as hard as I thought it was in the beginning but then I soon learn it's not an easy dish to perfect... and it took forever to cook (I need a bigger bamboo steamer!)  It takes 20 minutes when you steam the bao in the proper bamboo steamer... you can already tell how long it will take me to steam 12 with this tiny steamer that I have....