No no, not 2012 so not the end of the world… yet. Just that this whole cooking business is amazingly therapeutic that it makes me feel like a natural woman. That which can be a dangerous thing but is an entirely different subject altogether.

Nonsense aside, I’ve always envied those who are able to offhandedly remark that because they got home late, they wanted a simple dinner. So they took out a couple of steaks from the freezer, rub them with salt and pepper and what-not, then dump them into the oven to grill before om nom nom nom. Oh, toss a simple crunchy salad on the side too.

Like, wtf? If I’m going home late, my simple dinner would be food as fast as they would come, i.e. takeaway 1300-13-1300. Who the hell got no time then go home and grill steaks for dinner? GRILL.STEAKS?! I think they were just saying that to confuse me and make me doubt my female-ness. I don’t know how that works so figure it out yourselves (but make sure it involves something about the world revolving around me).

Until one day, out of the total blue, I decided to do it. Yes, grill meat. It all happened as I was getting bacon at the non-halal section of Jaya Grocer when I spotted some booooootiful pork steak. So tenderly gorgeous, I couldn’t help but to pick up a couple of those and pay for them at the cashier before you could say, “what the heck am I gonna do with them??”

Lantak sajalah. Made do with what I had at home, except for the Worcestershire sauce which I bought. Obviously, because no one is going to give me a new bottle of Worcestershire sauce. I’d probably never use it again, or use about 5 inches of it before its expiry date so it was a good thing that I got the smaller bottle.

Oh look, I rubbed my booooootiful pork steaks with salt, black pepper, oregano and Worcestershire sauce. Probably a tad too much oregano there but I was herb-happy.

Ooooo it smelled great too. Poked the meat a bit to let the seasoning seep in, then left it aside for about 20 mins.

Since my oven is one of those microwave+grill combi thing, it didn’t have enough space for a proper grilling tray. Or whatever the heck you all call it lah, I’m not good with kitchenware. So I made do with aluminum foil ‘cos I am brilliant like that.

Tekan ‘Grill’. Cook each side for 10 mins. Mine doesn’t have those power/temperature control thingy so I have no idea what kind of heat it was cooking in. Hot enough lah ‘cos my booooootiful pork steaks were cooked booooootifully.

How to know if your pork’s properly cooked? Stick a knife in it and make sure that the insides are white, not pink. For a variety of health reasons, pork has to be cooked well, none of those rare/ medium shite.

Oooooo look at that! Aren’t my pork steaks pretty? Juicy too! *beams*

I served my pork steaks with a thick slice of German ham pan-fried in bacon grease, world-changing potato salad and not-so-fail failed bacon-wrapped asparagus.

Kiss my apron and call me Julia Child! :D

About 4 years ago, I bravely stepped into the kitchen (an uncharted territory for me) to make bacon-wrapped asparagus. The result? In layman’s term, it sucked. I threw away the asparagus, ate the bacon in gloomy silence then documented my failure.

I think 4 years is just about enough for me to get over myself and the spectacular culinary disaster, don’t you? So I tried it again. I got the necessary ingredients, which in this case are streaky bacon and asparagus. No really, all you need is streaky bacon and asparagus. Serious, don’t bluff one.

But this time, I got (slightly) smarter. I blanched the asparagus FIRST, AHA!!!
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Then I got too pleased with my smartness that I left it in the boiling water for way too long.
So the asparagus came out a bit dead. You know, limp.

Whatever lah, what’s done is done. Wrap the bacon around bundles of the asparagus lah.
At this point, I belatedly realise that perhaps I should have halved each bacon slice.

Dump them into the frying pan. This was like watching history repeat itself.

I’d forgotten to buy picks too (to hold the bacon and asparagus together). So I just used tongs to carefully turn each bundle around. I guess after a while, some of the bacon fat sticks to the asparagus so they don’t come out all bleargh.

Ta-dahhh! The Not-So-Fail Failed Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus. The asparagus was overcooked (though edible this time!), the bacon was too thick and too much, and I really should have gotten picks to hold them together.

Never mind, attempt #3 in the year 2014 will be better! Just you wait and see :)