Homemade Oregon

It all started with yogurt. I don't know how it came to me. Maybe it's the exorbitant amount of yogurt we eat every week, or the suggestion from my friend Wendy years ago that popped back into my head (that I could use some of her yogurt culture). I had never really looked into it before. Recently, I came across a recipe for homemade yogurt and I laughed to myself - could it really be that easy?? So Rob and I got a gallon of milk and a new cooler. We followed everything in the recipe, all the while scratching our heads saying, "Are we really making yogurt right now? It can't be this easy!" But the next day, voila! 9 jars of thick, creamy yogurt in our fridge! Here is the break-down: for the cost of a $3 gallon of milk, 20 minutes in the kitchen and 3 hours waiting, we could make enough yogurt equal in cost to a third of what we would have spent in the store - and it tastes BETTER than the store-bought yogurt!! Go figure! The new cooler has since been designated "The Yogurator" - Quite an appropriate name don't you think?

So each week, we go through this process now and it's so satisfying. Each time we make a new batch, it tastes better and better. Last weekend we made our second batch and with that, we started thinking - are there other things that are this easy that we could make ourselves? When we had our farm share in New Hampshire years ago, I used to use the ridiculous amounts of basil we got every week to make homemade pesto. Did you know you can freeze pesto? You can put it in a zip lock bag and break small pieces off when you need it. It thaws in about 5-10 minutes. Anyway, we didn't make pesto (because fresh basil isn't out yet) but I made my first attempt at homemade wheat thins and homemade hummus. Both came out amazing! Who knew it was so easy to make wheat thins? Or hummus? What's the best part about making homemade wheat thins? You can roll the dough a million times and it won't fall apart and you use a pizza roller to cut the little squares, which makes it fun! What's the best part about making homemade hummus? Um hello, do you have to ask? Instant gratification, of course! It whips up faster than baking cookies from a Nestle Tollhouse log. Here's the entire process: Add ingredients to food processor. Press button. Done.

Rob and I also happened to buy 3 horseradish roots at the grocery store last week. It was inspired by my sister-in-law Kristen, who had made incredible horseradish a few years ago. It was also inspired by our frustration with all store-bought horseradish options - not one horseradish at our grocery store is made without high fructose corn syrup. What's the point of adding HFCS anyway? I don't get it! Anyway, Kristen told us her story about how she accidentally leaned over it after she ground the root and it stung her eyes so badly - it's about 1000x worse than cutting an onion. So Rob and I were very careful. After grinding the horseradish root in the food processor, waiting 10 minutes, then adding the remaining ingredients (we also had the kitchen fan and 2 other fans going in the house), Rob donned his old gas mask - that's right people, he put on a GAS MASK - in order to transfer the completed horseradish into the jars. It's one thing to put on a gas mask in the kitchen and another to put it on and actually need it. And let me tell you, he needed it! I had to leave the kitchen because the air was so spicy-hot. It was all worth it though, because now we have horseradish without the HFCS and is also hotter than the gates of hell, which is how horseradish should be if you ask me.

So in one weekend, we made yogurt, wheat thins, hummus and horseradish. We had so much fun in the kitchen together (and everything was so easy) that I had to blog about it. We aren't always this industrious by the way...

Singapore 2012

This month, I travelled to Singapore for the first time. It is a long flight (about 18 hours plus layover in Japan), but totally worth it. Singapore reminds me a little bit of New York City because of its endless shopping possibilities and the beautiful skyline. It also reminds me a little bit of Las Vegas because people are out and about at all hours (this makes a lot of sense because it is cooler only at night) and because of what I have heard about the island of Sentosa off the coast of Singapore (I didn't have time to actually go there). It is very clean, very safe, most people speak English (so it is easy to communicate), the water is safe and the food is absolutely amazing. The only drawback is that it's really expensive. The hotels in the popular areas are expensive - like staying in Manhattan - and restaurants (other than hawker stalls or food centers) are pretty pricey.

That being said, I mostly ate at the food centers/hawker stalls because this is where the best local food can be had - for about $5 a meal! It is completely safe to eat at the food centers - each food stall is rated online and most are very clean and safe. The food centers reminded me a little bit of food courts in American shopping malls, but each food stall specialized in only 1-2 dishes and the food was much better than eating at a food court in an American shopping mall. I got in the routine of walking around the entire food center to see all the options and either picking what looked best to me or standing in line for the dishes that all the locals were waiting for. One of my favorite meals was from a food stall called JJ Yong Tau Foo in the ION Food Center which served a Chinese noodle soup in which you could pick what you wanted in your soup and they would cook it right in front of you. It was delicious, fresh, and really filling!

Singapore is really small. It only takes about 1 hour to drive from one end to the other. That's smaller than most US cities!! This is why it is extremely expensive to drive a car in Singapore - it is an attempt to limit the number of people driving and causing congestion. I was surprised to learn that in Singapore it costs over S$60,000 for a 10-year driving certificate. Cars cost much more than in the US - like S$200,000-S$300,000. And insurance will cost you about S$1000 per month. This is why most of the cars I saw on the roads in Singapore were nice cars - like BMW, Audi, Mercedes, etc. It seems mostly white collar workers are able to afford to drive a car in Singapore, therefore those who can afford it buy nice cars. Most people take mass transit (bus or train) or a taxi.

Singapore is crowded, but not Thailand-crowded (Thailand will always be by baseline for this until I experience some place even more crowded than Thailand - which I hope never happens, but I digress...). Because of its size, they build UP to accommodate all the people. One of the funniest things for me while I was there was trying to navigate through the shopping centers on Orchard Road. The shopping centers are all interconnected by underpasses and overpasses, nothing is labelled, and depending on which shopping center you are in the connection will be on a different floor. The ION Orchard shopping center was 8 floors (4 above ground, 4 below ground) and every single time I went in, it took me at least 20 minutes to find the place I wanted to go and at least 20 minutes to find my way back out. I suppose it's smart - once they get you in, you are prone to buy more if you can't get out!! I can only laugh at myself for getting lost in the mall - multiple times!

While I was in Singapore, I also had a chance to visit the Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Gardens are free (except the Orchid Garden, which is only a $5 entrance fee). In the gardens, there are all kinds of tropical flowers and plants. One of the coolest parts was the Ginger garden - an entire garden devoted to different types of ginger plants. I learned a lot and got to see beautiful flowers I've never seen before. If I go back to Singapore, I will definitely return to the Botanical Gardens. In fact, if I go back, I already have a list of places I want to see and things to do! Here is a link to my Flickr album from Singapore!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629543567106/