Sometimes They Forget

I had a very interesting conversation with Beetchie yesterday and it seems that she may have lost her marbles for a minute.

She seems to have forgotten that I can be quite evil.

To help remind her (although I did a fine job of that yesterday when I referenced a certain flower girl and a Masamune), I will present to her some pictures of delicious times H1 cooked and we indulged in some weeks ago.

Why yes, those are pictures of curried crab and dumplings.

No worries though, Beetchie, as we will make some more when you return.  Perhaps we might even be able to find a Carib to go with.  

 But just so you are reminded as to the extent of my evil, by posting these pictures I'm not only being a jerkface to you but possibly to X as well.

It's only unfortunate this does not affect MC, as he is still allergic to shellfish.

Let's Recap: Pork + Birthday = Tasty Love

What better way to celebrate a Birthday than with pork? (Answers to Rhetorical question need not apply).

It's true that Momma HOchie loves us.  However, I am beginning to suspect that she may love Papa HOchie the most and why shouldn't she?

Well...I mean, he did deny her rum cake at the airport in Trinidad that one time... perhaps she forgot that little incident but who am I to remind her? Especially when I would not have wanted to deny myself a participation in the awesome time meal that she prepared for him for his Birthday on Thursday last.

When we got home, we were greeted by Chinese style West Indian food of the epic variety.

Roast belly pork? Yes, please.

Food of Champions

Never chronicled before (at least, I don't think so), I present to you one of my favourite quick time foods that H1 specializes in making.

There's nothing better than spaghetti with vienna sausages a la H1.

Just look at how beautiful it is!

More importantly, it tastes beautiful.  What's in there? There are secret ingredients in here other than the love.

A Trini Christmas in Food

What Christmas would be complete without some pastelles.

Thanks to Frass this year for bring us pastelles from Brooklyn.  H1 has decided they were little too hot which made them not as enjoyable as they could have been.

Mom and I loved them.  Please bring more soon.  Bwahahaha.

We also thank Frass for being this year's designated caper and olive boy for the batch of pastelles that The HOchieS churned out.

We bought a tortilla press this year to assist in the making of the pastelles and it is now universally acknowledged that H1 is the Master of the Tortilla press.

Shubh Divali!

Shubh Divali to all this day.

Are you all lighting your deyas? Laughing with friends? Praying with family? Eating the good eats?

The HOchieS could not find our deya unfortunately.  It's either broken and long been thrown out or in a closet feeling sorry for itself.  I for one feel sorry for myself.

But do not despair!

Momma HOchie made us some Divali eats today.

There was curried mango, pumpkin, curried channa and aloo, and paratha.  And pictures to mark the occasion!

yummy curried mango.  Not the right type of mango to make curried mango but still ...

What You Need

All you need in life sometimes is some home-cooked curried crab and dumplings.

Plus a cold one

...Followed by the Successful Sunday

For some reason, H1 and I have been going on a cooking rampage.  Is it due to the fact that I enjoy torturing my frenemies with things they are unable to eat because they live in different states? What's that Beetchie and MC? You think that's what it is?

Oh no.

That would be evil of us!

We're so far from evi...uh.  Never mind.

It seems I may have forgotten myself and my middle name for a second.

Although, truth be told, I would like to call these cooking sessions as...practice.  Yes! Trying and perfecting recipes, so that when you people come around, we can replicate them for you.

See? There's no evil in our hearts.

Just maybe some hunger to go along with that good intention.

Being hungry, caring people, we decided to continue our Saturday cooking spree into Sunday by making grilled skirt steak with a port wine mushroom sauce over couscous.

The Semi Successful Saturday...

There were plans to make a lot more today but time got away from us! Running around town for over an hour in search of ingredients can do that to you.

Instead our plans will spill over to today and hopefully all will get done.

In any event, H1 did manage to cook up some good times for us.

What is it, you ask? Why...

A Successful Sort of Saturday

Saturday was one of those winning kind of days for The HOchieS.

It was not the 'winning' Charlie Sheen kind of day, no.  There were no drugs, no 'baby-sitters', no porn stars and no crazy.

Perhaps someone would find that much of a 'losing' sort of day for us...

Your dirty thoughts aside, H1 and I set out to try new recipes this day, starting with bacon cheddar pop-overs for breakfast.

Bits of Bacon Goodness

Out of the oven

Tragedy

Amidst the heavy rains, flooded basements and the chaos that ensued, another tragic event was waiting in the wings.

The Crown Jewel, worthy to be placed in the Tower of London, met with an unfortunate end yesterday.

In my heart, when the phone rang, I immediately knew without being told that a disaster had struck.  A Queen knows when there is a major loss of one of her priceless jewels.

Think of all the custard batches that could have been made!

H1 claims it slipped out of her hand.

When asked, I will claim that 'off with her head' slipped out of my mouth.

Should You Make Your Own Ramen?

I am of course, not speaking about the pack ramen which you can pull off a shelf in your local supermarket.  Of course you should do that.

What I mean to ask is, should you painstakingly go to a Japanese supermarket and buy noodles - soba, udon or otherwise, buy some soup base and proceed to experiment?

Hey, why not?! We can all boil water, here, right? RIGHT? How bad could it be?

I also ask of you, how hard could it be to throw some veggies and meat in a pot to your own liking for your own specialty ramen? Huh? Sounds like fun to me!

So, The HOchieS last Saturday, did exactly that.

Not being skilled to hand pull our own noodles, we bought some dry pre-packaged soba noodles.

Not really sure what sort of soup base to make, we bought a somen soup base.

Okay...I promise this story gets better and will redeem our venture of not just buying a 75 cent package of Ichiban.

Next, we bought things to add to the pot.  Here's what we got:

Marrow bones, with which to flavour our soup base.

Bok choy for veggies and a lovely green colour along with...

...Mushrooms! Yummy, yummy mushrooms.

Watercress for a good time.

Corn, for a not-so-good time garnish.  Not on my ramen, H1.  Not on mine.

Scallions for a garnish that also does not belong on my ramen.  And thanks.

Some brilliant seaweed. 

Shrimp for yum.

And beef for x2 times the awesome yum.

With our marrow bones boiling away in a water and somen soup base mix, we assembled each bowl of ramen with love.  We boiled the noodles, added veggies to the pot, cooked the meat and shrimp and presto!

Ramen for me.

Ramen for you.

I'll have some ramen if...

...you'll have some too.

Oooo, and let us not forget our Japanese pepper that cost an arm and a leg that you got in ripped off in Osaka for.

Now.

Should you make your own ramen?

Yes.

But please, follow the noodle preparation instructions on the packet.  If it says boil in water for ten minutes, those people probably know what they're talking about.

We boiled ours in our stock and even though the stock was lightly salted, the soba noodles were clearly hella salty causing our food to be almost inedible unless eaten with everything.

It was near perfection, that ramen...

::sigh::

A HOchieS semi-fail? Check.

Defeated? Never!

We'll do this again.

Oh yes we will.

Old Year's Night 2010 with The Cheat, Diderick, Gnomey-Gnome and The HOchieS

The festivities are only now beginning, so I will update as to the happenings some time soon.

Will there be potentially incriminating photos?

Yes, probably.

It's already 2011 somewhere in the world but here in our little corner, we're still waiting to usher in the new year with the rest of you.

The update will come soon!

Here's the Update! (01/01/2011):

There was much scandal this year.  Yes, much indeed.

The Cheat and Diderick dined on mince and slices of quince, or what we HOchieS like to call, all of this:

piggies in blankets

(Happy?) Thanksgiving

This year The HOchieS spent Thanksgiving with 18 friends and family.  Two turkeys were made, along with all the regular favourites and a couple of newbies: pernil, ham, saffron rice, stuffing, sweet potato souffle, corn bread, spicy corn pudding, macaroni pie, collard greens, green bean casserole (with bacon!!!), sweet potato cheesecake, apple pie and key lime pie.

I'm certain there are more things I have forgotten but it was delicious as usual, and wonderful to have so many friends with us (MC and Kimpossible came! but no TD5 =( ).

What was and is not wonderful is that I have been holed up for two reasons.

The first is that I am sick.  Another wonderful cold that will not go away on its own and requires antibiotics.

The second is much more crazy a reason... Gobblor sent a Thanksgiving Warning to my house this year.  Bughie J. suspects he got some sort of electronic scrambling device at last year's Black Friday sales hence the lack of photos.  He's up to something huge, so huge that he did not make an appearance this year and has a plan two years in the making it seems!

Not wanting me to forget (as if I could), he did send me a little scare which was waiting for me on my doorstep on Thanksgiving morning.

Terrifying! Look at this thing...watching me with its beady eyes!

Not An Epic Fail....Or Was It?

If it may be considered an epic fail, it is only due to the fact that we prefer our kurma to have a hard, crunchy texture.

Aside from personal preference, our first attempt at Kurma making was a great success.  They were crispy, flaky, rich and extremely yummilicious when fresh.

The 1/4 Indian residing in these HOchieS thereby making us 1/2 Indian when we combine our forces, worked to our advantage.

It may not look like much now, but stay with me.

Stay...

Very  hot oil.  Dangerous!

It gets better, I assure you

KAPOW!

A Trini from work ate some.

She loved them.

Kurma of this kind can now be marked off the list.

Kurma
Kurma (we prefer)

Goolab Jamoon
Parasad

I may still need Sons to make things for us, though.

For now, MC, you may not have any so do not ask us to make for you.  We would faster make for Frass than we would for you.

Ooo, low blow.