Making my own Frozen meals - Getting rid of the Mushrooms

Mindful of what the lady at Mycofarm said about consuming the mushrooms within the seven days to maximise their benefits, I had the most merry time getting rid of them (I only cook Saturday lunches nowadays) yesterday. 

After trying unsuccessfully to experiment with the willow mushrooms, I realise that that stupid shroom cannot be gotten rid of with simple stirfry. They hardened quickly like a *ahem* penis (I find it strange that other than people at work, no one asks me why my blog is called "My Life as a Tiny Plasticine Penis") and taste wooden (don't you just love puns). 

So on Saturday, the hapless B1 and I tried to get rid of the oyster mushrooms, abalone mushrooms and willow mushrooms in tempura, lo mai kai and potty pies. I had liked the frozen lo mai kai that we bought from Mycofarm though I must say they are bloody stingy with the mushrooms despite mass producing them.  I had cooked lo mai kai as a child before, and the results had been excellent (I hadn't started blogging then) but I could not for the life of me, figure out the recipe. It was much later that I realised my error, stock. 

Surprisingly, B1 was the one who did a better job at frying the tempura. I know that washing the mushrooms was a super bad idea because they will spit in the hot oil, and that they also emit a lot of water, but I am a stickler for not poisoning myself and my family. Oyster mushrooms and abalone mushrooms are bad frying unless you know how to control the temperature of the oil. You can see what happens when you don't control the temperature of the oil well in the photo below. Left would be B1's efforts (I had given up after my shrooms drank oil, i.e. the drowned pieces on the right, and went to cook the rest of Saturday lunch instead). Btw if you are buying the beef patties in NTUC, PLEASE do not marinate them. I marinated them and damn they were super salty, because they were already marinated... Mistake: should check with the meat counter if they marinated the meat already). Or you can take the effort and drive to Meidiya at Liang Court to buy their wagyu beef (10% off on Thursdays), but seriously the price difference is HUGE. 

Check out B1's excellent tempura frying skills. Also, do not follow the instructions on the tempura flour package, it's total bullshit. And then I argued with B1 because I said it clings like water to a duck's back, and he argued that the package said so. We ended up having to waste more flour because the mixture was so watery. So I was right (like I usually am).

First Frozen Dish: Lo Mai Kai but with Abalone and Oyster Mushrooms

Do you see how the Oyster and Abalone mushrooms sweat water after cooking? Sigh. Cleaning the stove after frying the tempura was a pain. After steaming the damn things for hours (I played one super long stonewall with noobs), I realised my mistake. Haha.

Second Frozen Dish: Potty Pies

I cheated. I got bored of cooking from scratch, so I used the Japanese package cream stew  to make the sauce. Bad idea, because the mixture is super salty, and I reduced the water content to make the pie, so the pies were super salty. =( As you can see, I was decorating the pies any old how because I wanted to play my CoH. Keke.

Btw this is going to sound terribly hypocritical since I am quite a carnivore, but I am thinking of doing a Vegetarian cookbook. Since I hate handling meat (unless it's been cleaning nicely by the butcher, lord have mercy when I am facing a chicken carcass with the head still on, I will be flailing the knife like a drunken samurai trying to behead it), and I have been cooking increasingly vegetarian meals on Saturday, I think I can start writing a vegetarian cookbook soon =) once I amass enough recipes.