Who am I?

Well, let's see...

I'm a Canadian student who's studying medicine in Ireland. I came over via the Atlantic Bridge Program and am in the Graduate Entry Medicine program at the Royal College Of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).

Now that the boring stuff's over, I'll admit I have a slight addiction to cooking and experimenting with recipes. I'm originally from Malaysia and lived there for 17 years so it's really not unusual for me to come up with fusion recipes since that's most of the food from that area of the world.

Most of the time my recipes are lazy, and quick. Cause let's face it, once you come home after a 8 hour day of classes and tutorials where it takes 30-45 mins travel in each direction, the last thing I want to do is whip up some fancy French dish that I can't pronounce. 

Apple Curry (without a pot)

I'll admit it straight up, this is not my recipe. It's from Simply Recipes and is a recipe for Green Apple Curry. But it's one of my favourites and I couldn't resist sharing it! I've made a few small modifications since I like my curries a little more spicy than the original :)

It's a really easy recipe that I can throw together on the weekend and then freeze it into meal sized portions. On top of that it's dairy free and vegetarian and you totally don't feel like you're eating something healthy at ALL! Excellent student food material!

On top of everything, when my super kitchen friendly flatmate moved out all the cooking paraphernalia went with her, so there went the nice large curry pot I used to borrow for these such occasions! What could I do??? Well, what ay student does when they're in a dilemma, call mom! So my mom was treated to a 8am Viber call in Canada where I was asking her how to substitute a pot. Lo and behold, a RICE COOKER!

Curry in a rice cooker!

Yes that is a picture of my wonderful lunch and dinner being made in a rice cooker! And it worked! Hey, if you can bake a cake in a rice cooker, curry should be fair game too! All you need to do is make sure the switch stays on 'COOK' and not just 'WARM'.

Ingredients

- 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

- 4 large garlic cloves, smashed with the flat of your knife and roughly chopped

- 1/4 cup / 1 medium sized yellow onion

- 4 Tbsp. yellow curry powder (Or 1 Tbsp red curry powder)

- 2 Tbsp. water

- 1 tsp. butter

- 4 Granny Smith apples (cored, roughly chopped with the skin on)

- 1 tsp. Kosher salt

- 1 1/2 cups water

- 1 Tbsp. brown sugar

Method (this works for a por or a rice cooker)

1. Heat oil and sautee the garlic. Once browned, discard the garlic. 

2. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Meanwhile in a separate bowl mix the curry powder and 2 Tbsp. water to make a paste.

3. Once the onions are cooked, stir in the curry paste. Let bubble for about a minute before adding the butter.

4. Add the apples and salt and just enough water to cover the apples from the 1.5 cups water. Add the brown sugar.

5. Bring to a boil and then simmer uncovered for 30 mins. For a rice cooker, keep the setting on COOK until it starts to boil then change it to WARM to allow it to simmer. Don't cover it. I covered it and ended up overcooking my apples :(

6. If the mixture gets too thick, add more water. Enjoy eating with rice or bread :)

Mystery pasta

So, I really have too much of an addiction to cooking. I spend more money on food ingredients than I do on hospital clothes (which if you're a young professional, you know isn't easy to save on that).

Anyway, just had a long day of classes and tutorials and was in my carpool on the way home and started craving this pasta dish I usually make when I'm super lazy but need a little flavour. I adapted it from the Lemon Butter Baked Shrimp by LittleBitOfEverything.

My Mystery Refrigerator Pasta

Ta da! Probably looks more all over the place here, but let's look at the mystery ingredients that made the cut.

Ingredients

- spaghetti (I just made a ring with my fingers about 3cm in diameter and made enough for lunch the day after)

- 1 lamb chop (I really like lamb) 

- 3in of chorizo

- 2 pods garlic

- 2 Tbsp olive oil

- 1 lemon

- dried/fresh parsley

- dried rosemary (for seasoning)

Optional: 1 egg

Method

1. First boil the spaghetti in a pot of water until al dente, I usually add a pinch of salt to the boiling water. If you overcook it you've failed one of the crucial lessons of life: Never overcook spaghetti.

2. I get the lamb chops frozen from Aldi and they're usually €3 for a bag of 6, so not bad for an occasional flavour. Defrosted them first before slicing it up and then with a little olive oil fried it in the pan with some salt, pepper and rosemary. I LOVE rosemary.

3. Once the lamb is cooked but not browned yet, i had chopped the chorizo into chunks that I just tossed in to get that warmed up a little before removing all the meat from the pan.

4. Fry the garlic in the 2Tbsp of olive oil and once it's aromatic toss the cooked spaghetti in. Stir to coat the pasta with the oil and garlic. (Medium low temperature)

5. Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon (or 2 depending on how lemony you like it, or how dry it is) onto the pasta and toss some more. 

Optional step: I cracked an egg into the pan at this point and fried it with the pasta. 

6. Add salt and pepper to taste, and toss some parsley in to make it look fancy and like you're succeeding in life. (I had no parsley so I used dried basil)

7. Toss the meat back into the pan and toss some more. I ended up tossing some leftover roast chicken I made the day before in as well to finish it and make more fridge space.

Enjoy while watching an episode of Big Bang Theory. I made enough for dinner and lunch the next day with what seems like an endless parade of classes. 

NB: I would usually make the shrimp I previously mentioned and then just toss that with pasta, but I felt like switching it up this time and I still got the lemon garlic flavour I was craving. Plus, the shop with the good shrimp was closed once I got back from class.