Girl with wings

A super useful trick to remove the remaining glue on tableware

2012-01-05T14:40:00.000+01:00

One good concept to save money and to be environment-friendly is to reuse the tableware/ containers, like glass bottle from drinks, plastic box from fast-food etc.
But there is one issue that haunts me: the remaining glue after I rip off the labels on tableware. It can take forever to rub it off and still leaving stains. Really irritating.

I googled a bit today and found a few alternatives: 1. hair-dryer (I have used, not always working); 2. soak in warm water (also used, not always working); 3. alcolhol; 4. chemicals (well I don't want chemicals on my tableware). I tried with alcolhol but it didn't work so well, so I figured out an improvement:

1. Mix a few drops of alcolhol (I used Chinese Liquor BaiJiu) with a few drops oil
2. Dip a clean cloth in the mixed liquid and rub on the remaining glue
3. Rinse with warm water
4. If needed, repeat the above 3 steps

This worked like charm! The remaining glue was completely gone after 3 min.
Try it yourself and you'll see!

God jul!

2011-12-24T18:53:00.001+01:00

Klassisk svensk julbord. Fantastiskt!

Swiss marängtårta!

2011-10-30T14:16:00.002+01:00

Jag var på ett födelsekalas igår. Jag blir alltid glad när jag träffar pojkarna.
Ha lärt mig en enkel recept av marängtårta. Vaniljglass + vispadgrädde + maränger + hallon + rostad mandel + choklad. Supergod!

Fancy salmon salad

2011-06-12T21:25:00.001+02:00

Tbd

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Happy Easter!

2011-04-22T17:54:00.001+02:00

Finally the winter is gone! The first big celebration in spring is certainly Easter. Here is our wonderful Easter dinner. Fancy isn't it?
Happy Easter my friends!

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Let's Dance!

2011-04-10T14:11:00.001+02:00

This is a memorable night as I got to meet celebrities for the first time here in Sweden!
It was last Friday when we had an Afterwork at Göta Källaren. There we had the chance to learn some Disco moves from these two professional dancers from the TV show Let's Dance. The moves were a bit 80's but we had great fun. Afterwards we went to another club called Marie Laveau and "danced the night away". That was fantastic! Had a little hangover and ache in the body but it was totally worth it.

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Homemade fastfood - Pitta bread in Chinese style

2011-01-28T22:14:00.000+01:00

I found a recipe on ICA website that can consume the minced meat we had in freezer. (I bought a couple of kilos on a meat sale a couple of months ago.) Moreover, the recipe is really simple and works perfectly when we are in a hurry.

After trying it, I have to write it down coz it's surprisingly tasty! Amazing that such simple combination and simple cooking can bring that taste out.

Ingredient

1 onion
300g cabbage
100g mushroom
300g minced meat
meat stock (I used vegetable stock and that worked as well)
50g bean sprout
6 pitta bread
1dl crème fraiche
salt, pepper, soya sauce, oyster sauce

1. Shred the onion, cabbage and mushroom. Mill them in a pan/wok for a while until the onion and cabbage gets soft. Take them out of the pan/wok.
2. Mill the minced meat. Sprinkle 2 spoon meat stock (or whatever stock) over the meat (I actually added a bit chili powder). Add soya sauce and oyster sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Pour back the mixture of onion, cabbage and mushroom. Wok a bit and add the bean sprouts
4. Fill the bread with the wok mixture. Add a click of crème fraiche and chilli sauce/ whatever sauce you like

The original recipe is slightly different. I added the oyster sauce on my own since my experience told me that it works with mushroom and soya. The mild taste of cabbage and onion mix well with the rest of the ingredient. Strongly recommended!

Woked Rice Cake - hometown food

2011-01-08T21:02:00.002+01:00

The spring-roll fillings I made the other day reminded me of one traditional hometown food - Woked rice cake, which is also cooked with Chinese cabbage, Chinese mushroom and pork slices. My mum used to cook it when she ran out of ideas or ingredients for dinner and I always ate double so much as I usually did. I am not sure if it is the food or the feeling that I actually miss.

Rice cake is more common in south China. It is called “Nian Gao” 年糕 in Chinese, which happens to sound same as 年高 meaning more and more prosperous year after year. So in my hometown, we eat rice cake on the morning of Chinese New Years Day. It doesn't taste much itself, but we cook it with other tasty wok or sauce so that the rice sucks in the taste and blends it with its own simple rice flavor. Yummy.

Just keep in mind that for some rice cakes we need to soak them overnight so that they get soft.
- Then to wok the ingredients you have. In my case, I fried ginger and scallion first and added pork and mushroom. Wok until pork changes color and then added cabbage. Then seasoning with salt and stock.
- When the wok is almost done and tastes fine, add a bit water into the wok and pour in the rice cakes so that they can suck in the taste during simmering
- When the sauce is reduced turn up the stove and wok for a minute
- Ready to serve!

Mmm... It tasted like home...

New goal in the new year - Masterchef (preservation of scallion/ Vårlök)

2011-01-06T16:08:00.001+01:00

Well I have to clarify that I am not going to sign for the "Masterchef" program, but rather just to steal the name from it. I wouldn't be able to stand Gordon Ramsays coarse language, but I love watching him make food. After having a fantastic cooking night with my sister-in-law I have much more confidence and interest in challenging myself in cooking.

I now have a lot of ingredients and spices for Chinese food and the recipes for these homeland dishes are already wandering on my mind. I decided to start with the preservation of scallion (in Swedish vårlök). In Chinese food we use scallion almost as often as salt, but the sad thing is that it is quite some trouble to get hold of fresh scallions (one has to go to Asian food markets) and the price is ten times more expensive. So I have to compromise between freshness and price, and therefore come with this preservation solution.

First take away the top of the scallion which we usually don't use in cooking. But wait -- Don't throw them! Coz they are of great use later.

Chop the rest in fine pieces and put them in freezer. Remember to keep them as dry as you can, so that it won't be too much ice around them later.

Now it's time to squeeze out some value from the top parts - we can make scallion oil. Put a star-anise, a bay leaf and several Sichuan-pepper in about 30ml cold oil, slowly warm the oil until you feel the aroma from the spices. Then put the top of the scallions in, stir them until they dry out and become yellowish. Filter out the stuff in the oil and keep the oil in a sealed jar and store in dark dry place. Remember DON'T warm the oil too much or it'll age quite soon.

The scallion oil can hold for about 3 months and is very useful in cooking. It brings the aroma and taste of scallion in food. You can basically use it for frying, seasoning, garnishing, or making buns. Try to make scrambled eggs with it and you'll see what it can bring!

Now we've made the most of the scallion. The rest is to find good recipes and use them! I feel like I have already made a step toward my goal :D

Fantastic Cooking Night

2011-01-05T23:42:00.001+01:00

I have always admired my sister-in-law Annika for her cooking skills -- Every time we visited them, we were so spoiled with tasty food! She and I have been talking about a cooking night together for a long time - that we can cook Chinese food together, and learn from each other. Finally we've decided to do it today!

I was so excited. I don't have much cooking skills - lousy at chopping, lousy at seasoning, lack of experience. But I know that I can offer some tips or tricks that I learned from my mum or from reading all kinds of Chinese cooking blogs. If those doesn't count, I have to say that cooking is in my blood for the sake of being a Chinese!

I promised that I was gonna make spring rolls 春卷, Sichuan toufu 麻婆豆腐, and Chinese cabbage in stock 上汤白菜. So I got up early so as to prepare the spring rolls in advance. It went really well and I learned a new trick about marinating pork:
Add a little rice wine to remove the meat smell (肉腥味儿）- Add salt and stir until the pork gets a bit sticky - Add a little water in several steps so that the pork sucks in the water and remains dry and sticky on the surface. - Now sprinkle some corn flour and keep stirring so that the flour forms a thin film over the pork to prevent it from losing moist during cooking. With these steps, the pork is guaranteed to have a tender and juicy consistence during cooking.

Then it was chop chop chop and wok wok wok until the filling was done. It took me a while to wrap all these babies into the spring roll pastries. But when they were done, they were in really good shape!

After that we rushed to buy the rest of the ingredients and to Annika's place. She has so many pretty tableware and kitchenware that cooking at her place feels like a soldier going to war finally got equipped with weapons... I've gotta start collecting these things as well!

Preparing the ingredients was quite some work. Let's see the "Before" picture with all the raw stuff.

I cooked my dishes with the recipes in my head and as usual I realized that I forgot some seasoning in something. However I was quite satisfied with my performance -- it went smoothly and the food tasted fine. Annika on the other hand, followed exactly every single step in the recipe. She was a bit clumsy now and then, but her food was amazing! Most Chinese would be impressed by her food I believe. Well it was quite encouraging to see that she made mistakes as well and she needs recipes so much as well...Here is the "After" picture and you can see how the dishes looked like!

After that we played Guitar Hero, Sing Star, and Buzz. Really fun!

回顾2010年

2010-12-31T23:59:00.003+01:00

我一直觉得2010年过得平淡无奇，波澜不惊；但真要回顾起来，也算是小有收获。如果要按上一个主题词给我的2010年，恐怕是“适应”。记得有个友人在两年前跟我说：Language is the door. 现在看来还真是很有道理。这一年我的瑞典语水平突飞猛进，于是不知不觉间就走近了瑞典人的处世哲学和文化。现在我能用瑞典语工作，跟得上大部分瑞典语的交流，能听懂瑞典人的笑话，也能不时开一把玩笑——虽然是鸡毛蒜皮的小细节，但汇聚起来却是我融入本地生活的一大步。

现在非常庆幸当初自己无视老板的阻力坚持练习瑞典语，也非常庆幸自己终于下定决心换工作。虽然算不上什么大成就，但对于自己还是意义非凡。

下面流水帐一把，留作纪念吧：
1月    跟老公去巴黎，大衣被烧，辗转浪费很多时间在保险理赔上...
          幸好最后一天买了一个包，心情好转
          围棋比赛夺冠
2月    出差去巴塞罗那，在巴黎刚买的包被偷，连带护照钱包相机手机等全部丢失
          再次辗转纠结保险理赔
          不过组织成功HW在巴塞罗那电信展的一个4G新闻发布会，很有成就感
3月    出差去芬兰，冰岛火山灰爆发，被困芬兰数日
4月    受不了高频度的出差和勾心斗角的工作环境，决心换工作。
          保持每天投一份简历
          复活节一大家子去公婆家庆祝，找复活节彩蛋找得很high
5月    开始工作面试。面试机会并不多，但是仅有的几个表现还行
          参加瑞典围棋比赛，全胜；由于无瑞典国籍，不能参加冠亚军决赛
6月    瑞典仲夏节。也是跟老公的一大家子去海边的度假屋
          扎了生平第一个may pole
          斯德哥尔摩公开赛夺冠
7月    收到新工作offer。扬眉吐气地跟前老板辞职
8月    享受瑞典的夏天，外带练习瑞典语
9月    回国休假。上海-西安-北京-海南-周庄。
          在北京跟大伙儿一起看了场戏，吃了顿串儿；
          带着父母在三亚的海边玩了10天，算是尽点孝心；
          带着老公看了兵马俑/世博会和水乡周庄——他的人生完整了
10月回瑞典第二天即新工作入职，入职当天就送到爱立信面试。结果被卖到爱立信
          新的工作和人事界面很友好。第一次开始全瑞典语的工作环境，开头有些累
          参加了斯德哥尔摩围棋俱乐部比赛，顺利夺冠
11月基本上适应了新工作，老板和同事反馈也很好。瑞典语突飞猛进
          跟棋友拼车去哥德堡参加围棋比赛，一路上喝酒唱歌很high。比赛惨不忍睹
12月又是一大家子去公婆家庆祝圣诞，居然收到了红包...
          今年最后一天和老公在家做了头菜/主菜/甜点的晚餐，一起庆祝新年的到来

2011年的目标：

- 报个舞蹈班学习街舞或爵士舞
- 认真看房，早日买房
- 工作转正，争取加薪
- 学习理财，开始炒股
- 早睡早起，多锻炼多养生

Julklapp tävling!

2010-12-24T21:44:00.002+01:00

Wish me good luck!

- And I won cinema present card + candy! I am happy with that. M got shower creme and lotion, which is really practical I think. But he is a bit disappointed... Poor M.