Ice Cream Making Tips & Tricks

We have been making homemade ice cream for years now. I love the fact that I can make any flavor I like, reduce the amount of sugar, and the fact that it doesn't have additives. 

We use Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. First time my then curious toddler see how the machine works:

We made a lot of ice cream and create lot of memory with the ice cream machines over the years

Some tips and tricks I learned on Ice Cream Making: {so that you don't make the same mistakes I did}:

1. We use Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, which has yet fail us these past 8 years. 
2. For the heavy cream: Do NOT use the ultra-pasteurized one {like the one normally sold in most grocery stores. I also don't like the one that Costco sells}. I got mine either from Trader Joe's or Wholefoods. 
3.   
4. Use digital scale for more exact measurement of weight: and 
   
   
    measuring cup to measure the liquid: 

Soothing drink for cold

Whenever we are down with cough, sore throat, and congestion, my dad often reminded us to consume honey and lemon to soothe the pain. My friend, Carolina advised us to drink Chrysanthemum Tea as natural coolant while another friend suggested ginger drink and lo han kuo drink. I found all of the ingredients in the Asian Supermarket except for the raw honey, which I either buy at Costco of the farmer's market.  Here is my go to drink recipe to combat cold:

What we eat and not eat when recovering from stomach flu

One by one each one of us was hit by stomach flu since last weekend. It always stinks no matter how many times we experienced it in the past;  the diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, fever, we just has to let it run its course. Thankfully, my mom was here the first and second day I got sick. She cooked porridge and made sure I got plenty of rest and liquid.

I thought I wrote down here what we eat or not eat while recovering from stomach flu for future reference.

What we eat/ drink
Day 1:
Most likely they won't be able to eat anything this day. Wait until the vomiting stop before giving the person food to eat because the stomach is still too weak to digest. Do not worry because once they recover they will get their appetite back. Instead make sure they get enough liquid. The doctor here recommends Smart Water/ Pedialyte/ Gatorade/ Vitamin Water diluted but my boys do not like those drinks so instead we give them honey and chrysanthemum tea.


Day 2:
Once they are no longer vomiting and ready to eat, start with easy to digest food such as:
Porridge

Plain bread or cracker

Kitchen Makeover The Final Reveal

It's been more than a year since we renovated the kitchen and I finally took the time to clean it up to give you a little tour. In case you are wondering what it looks like before, I shared the before pictures of our 1960 kitchen with all its glory here.  

There used to be a wall separating the kitchen with the living room:

We had it knocked it down and now there is no barrier between the kitchen and the rest of the house.

We live in a small 1000 square feet (about 92 m2) house; the limited space forced us to carefully choose things that we put in our house, following William Morris' famous saying, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." 

In this space, we had to make the decision whether to have an island or regular dining table. I still remember the exact conversation I had with hubby.
Me, "I love having an island but isn't it weird to have a house without a dining table?"
Hubby, "The island works as dining table too."
Me, "but what if we have to sell the house in the future and buyers may be hesitant to buy since there's no place to put their dining table?"
Hubby, "Honey, we renovate the house to make it work for us. We can remove it and change it to normal dining table later if we have to sell the house." 

 

That's the end of our conversation. I kept it in mind as I design/ plan the kitchen to make it work for us and our budget, not according to Pinterest, current trend, or other people's taste.

The next time I wonder if should have chosen dining table instead, I just walk over the other side of the island and see the ample storage it provides.

Another thing I opted to not having is pendant lights on top of the island. We have two boys who like to play paper airplane, indoor Frisbee, and basketball inside the house so having pendant lights won't work for us besides, the fluorescent ceiling light provide enough light already.

How to clean stainless steel pots and pans

Upon hearing how unsafe teflon coated cookware, we slowly replaced ours with Stainless Steel. Most of the time it works well {we even cook omelett with it} but once in a while like when I cook fish it will left me with this mess.

Let's clean it up. First thing, fill the pot/ pan with water up to cover the burned food. Heat the water to boil. then turn it off


Add a few teaspoons of vinegar. Let it be for about 30 minutes:


Add a drop of dish soap and use this kind of sponge to scrape away the burned food.


Wash as usual. Ta Da!


How to clean stainless steel pots and pans:
1. Wash away as much of the food as possible
2. Fill the burned pan with water up to the level covering the burn spots.
3. Bring the water to boil for about 10 minutes, turn off the heat,
4. Add a few teaspoon of vinegar and leave the water to cool for 30 minutes.
5. Add a few drop of dish soap and scrape away the burned food with this sponge.
6. Rinse well.


A friend of mine shared this video when I was in college. It has saved me at least two times so I thought I share it here too: What to do when your pot/ pan is burning:

What to do with a box of strawberries

Whenever I get to go to Farmer Market, I usually get a box of strawberries because it's cheaper when I bought them in large quantities. I often got asked, "What would you do with so many strawberries?" So I thought I wrote this post to answer the question.

Right after I got home, I usually hulled those strawberries, then asked my 6 years old to cut them into half.
Afterward, I would do the rinsing-strawberries-with-vinegar-trick to make berries last longer.

I would then freeze some for snack or for future used but in order for them not to stuck together in the Ziploc, I (or my lovely assistant here) would have to arrange them in a baking pan then freeze them overnight then move them into a Ziploc bag the day after.

It's a good finger pinching, counting and self-control exercise for preschooler

although sometimes the temptation is too great, he would eat some and make this face when I ask, "Hey, did you just eat some of them?"

What I make with a box of strawberries:

Food Photography: Before and After

I started taking pictures of my food a few years back for my own reference. I learned and am still learning about food photography. Recently, I updated a few of  the old pictures to make it more appetizing and sharing the lessons I learned along the way.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Before: July 2011

After:

Lesson learned: natural light is way better than artificial light

Spaghetti Meatballs

Before: January 2010


After:

Lesson learned: take picture of the food before eating it

Wonchester Sauce Chicken

How to cook the perfect soft boiled egg

Today cooking tips and tricks is brought to you by our friend, William Thie. I first saw the picture of his perfect soft boiled egg on Facebook and shamelessly asked for the secret. Thankfully, he generously shared the recipe, which came from 2 months of experiment.

The process:

How to cook "krupuk" {Indonesian Cracker} in microwave

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours gave us this Indonesian Crackers, different brands can be found in most Asian Market. Growing up, both Chris and I ate this cracker and like it so much. We still like it a lot but we don't like the fact that we had to deep fry it first.

What motivate me to cook

Growing up in Indonesia, kids were not encourage to enter the kitchen. The only time I remember doing so was to cook  instant noodle in the middle of the night with my younger brother, who usually happen to be hungry as well. Either one of us would cook while the other watch in case there was rat or cockroach {very common residents of the kitchen over there} happened to roam around.

I started cooking when I move to the States for college out of necessity. Mostly because I miss the food I used to eat back home and to save money. Then, I married Chris, who enjoy cooking and love to eat good foods.

{pardon the big belly, I was 8 months pregnant then}

I remember praying for God to give me the joy of cooking for my family. And He answered my prayers through so many different ways:

Cooking Omelette with Stainless Steel Pan

After so many years cooking omelettes, I just recently discovered how to cook omelette without it get stuck to the pan. The secret is: by heating the pan first. That's it then do the rest of the cooking as you usually do.

First, Heat the pan

after the pan is hot, add the oil {or butter}