Monday, July 28, 2008

My New Housewife Gadget

I'm not a techie so I don't get turned on by the latest gadgets. All those MB's, Gigs, and so and so's mean nothing to me. I would love to add more techie terms, but this is all I can think of. Haha! My husband bought me this laptop only because we needed one so we can stay in touch with our relatives back home. I have a phone, but it's low tech. I just bought it so I can call or text my husband when I need to meet him somewhere.


If there's something that I can truly lust for to the point that I will lose sleep just thinking about it, it's kitchen gadgets. Oh my, just thinking about the KitchenAid Artisan Mixer is making my heart beat faster. Corning Ware at 30% off?!! I'll be there at the snap of a finger. Hay...shopping for houseware is indeed my new addiction.


So what's my latest acquisition? A brand-new Tefal Food Steamer. Why a steamer? Here's why:


It's no secret that I'm a neat freak, just like Monica Gellar of Friends. It drives my husband nuts at times but hey, as a stay-at-home mom, I think it would be a shame if the house is not spic and span!


One of the things that I hate is a dirty, smelly kitchen. Ugh! Hate, hate, hate it! Just one whiff of that malansa smell totally ruins my day. That's why I rarely cook fried fish because I don't want the kitchen to have that fishy smell. Our apartment has poor ventilation. The last time we cooked fried fish in the kitchen, the stench did not go away until the next day even after soaping and scrubbing the stove area. So I have to be creative because I don't want my poor husband and daughter to eat chicken, pork, beef and shrimp all the time. We need to eat fish. They love fish!


I searched the internet for new ideas and I discovered Pinoy Cook. It's a blog by Connie Veneracion that features recipes that she cooked for her family, her own restaurant observations, and just about anything about Filipino food. She had a couple of steamed fish recipes which I really wanted to try. So I bought the ingredients and the steamer on the same week. Yeah, I was that excited.


For my steamer's debut, I tried the Steamed Tilapia recipe.
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Here's our new steamer at work.
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Steamed Tilapia with ginger and garlic. Sarap!
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Richard and Yan loved the tilapia. I love that our kitchen had no malansa smell after I cooked it. In fact, it smelled really good! The aroma of ginger and sesame seed oil filled the entire kitchen and to me, it's the smell of culinary success. Now I can include fish in our weekly diet without having to deal with icky oil splatters and the dreaded fishy smell.
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I also use the steamer for cooking rice and it's a lot better than using the rice cooker. The rice is more fluffy and there's no tutong so nothing is wasted. Neat! Richard and I are trying to lose weight so we don't eat rice in the evening. We only cook one cup for Alyannah and since our rice cooker does not have telfon lining, most of it sticks to the bottom and you can no longer eat it.
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I love my new kitchen gadget! If you have a fantastic recipe that requires steaming, please feel free to share them with me :)


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