The Improper Way: Cheese Katsudon

katsudon?

I don't know why but I always end up ordering a katsudon with a sweet sauce (forgot the exact name) whenever I got to a katsu house.  It's weird because I'm not really a fan of it...it's too sweet for me.

I wanted to try to make it at home and perfectly I found a recipe from pepper.ph that will balance the saltiness and sweetness of the dish because cheese is added to the recipe.

If you want to know how to properly make it then head over to www.pepper.ph because here I'll be showing how to make Cheese Katsudon the illegal/improper let's say the faster and untraditional way?

Cheese Chicken Katsodun

Ingredients:
Chicken Katsu
1/2 kilo chicken breast fillet
salt and pepper
1/2 cup flour
1 beaten egg
1 cup bread crumbs
oil for frying

Sauce
1 cup water
1/4 cup Kikkoman soy sauce
1/2 piece of chicken cubes
*1 tbps or more depending on your level of sweetness but this is optional

Other Ingredients
2 tbsp. oil
1 white onion, sliced
4 beaten eggs
2 stalks leeks, sliced diagonally
1 cup grated cheese
and of course, RICE

How to:
Katsu:
1.  Start with the katsu.  Clean and pat dry the chicken fillets then season it lightly with salt and pepper.
2.  Coat all the chicken with the flour.
3.  Pour over the chicken the 1 beaten egg, then work it until all the fillets are coated with egg. (see how improper this is?)
4.  Next heat the oil in a pan.
5.  While the pan is heating, coat the fillets with bread crumbs.
6.  Then fry!  It'll take a minute or two for each side of the chicken.  Drain excess oil and set aside.

I burnt some because I was headbanging when Jam88.3 played a block party song

Sauce
1.  Boil all the sauce ingredients until the chicken cube is melted.
2.  Set aside but keep warm.

Finally, assembly
1.  Sliced the fillets into long strips, keeping the pieces together though.  Set aside.
2.  Heat oil in pan and sautee the onion.
3.  Add the eggs and when it's half cook, top it with the chicken fillets.
4.  Pour the sauce.
5.  Add on the top of the fillets the leeks and cheese.

melting the cheese!

6.  Cover the pan and let everything cooked over medium heat until the cheese is semi-melted.
7.  Serve with rice.

I'm always in a hurry when I make this because I need to go to work and only have an hour time to cook which explains why I make and assemble everything in one pan instead of fillet by fillet.

the family thinks this is yummy!

Well, I hope this crazy method of mine helps you in your cooking :P

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading. Till then. Bye!

Cold Weather Buddies

The weather at the start of the year is unbelievably cold and even if it's already wearing off and the summer breeze is coming (well, that's the case here in the Philippines), my skin is still super dry and itchy so I still continue to use the these products that helped me get through the nice yet harsh weather.

Secret Key Argan Angel Moisture Steam Cream
I wanted to get out and ran to the nearest grocery when I ran out of the Vaseline Total Moisture Cocoa Glow but I pinched myself and said "Hey, you still have a lot of lotions to get through" so I rumble my mini department store and found two lovely tin cans.  They are from Secret Key and they are steam cream and they have argan as the main ingredient and they are super creamy and heavy so they are perfect for cold weather.  But they are dense and creamy that I have a tiny bit of a problem in spreading it so I use oil to kind of soften the texture.

Moringa O-2 Malunggay Oil
And so I used the malunggay (moringa oil) from Moringa O-2.  Before this, I'm using the dry oil from The Body Shop but it seems like they don't make the surface of my skin well moisturized and velvety and so I switch to something heavier.  Some say that this moringa oil is on the light side, I don't believe that because although it's lighter than baby oil it's still heavier than dry or argan oil and it doesn't sink into my skin immediately which I love for this kind of weather because it prevents the outer layer of my skin from "scale-ing" plus this one doesn't have an unpleasant smell.

Nature Republic Soothing and Moisture Aloe Vera 92% Soothing Gel
I thought that I'll just be using this gel during summertime but I'm totally wrong because this gel just soothe my itchy skin.  Period!

Soap and Glory Hand Food
Almost every hour I do my business in the comfort room and when you do your business in the CR of course washing your hands is a must, right?  I'm very thankful that Eva Nyah of Bunny Kiss sent this to me as a prize because it just makes my hands soft and moisturized even if I already washed my hands twice unlike other lotions that the moisturizing wears off after washing.  I wish I could win another of this thing again.

The Body Shop Born Lippy Lip Balm in Raspberry
Finally have the reason to use this lip balm.  It's heavier than my usual lip balm in sticks and helps in moisturizing my pout throughout the night plus I love the smell!  I have to let it sip it first into my lips though before I get in the sack or else my pillows would totally be sticky (but smelling good) the next morning.

Missha Super Aqua Deep Hydro Cream
My usual creams works fine on my dry skin on normal 30 degrees weather.  Having a 19 to 25 degrees weather is a different case, I need something heavier so after finishing Etude House's Moistfull Collagen Cream, I immediately grab this from my cream pile.  It's creamier than EH's Collagen Cream but not as heavy as the steam cream from Secret Key because it's "hydro" yet it works like a normal cream in a cold weather 'cause even if I wanted my skin to be well moisturized, I don't like to put something on my face that is super heavy.

Renuzit Northern Pine Gel Air Freshener
A bonus to this set of products is this air freshener.  It just makes a gloomy smelling place fresh.  I love the pine scent that's coming from and I love the pine tree design all over it (it's cute, I hope this is available all year round).

Thanks for reading. Till then. Bye!

Innisfree It's Real Tea Tree Mask and Jeju Volcanic Nose Pack

I just have a haircut that makes my brother continuously tease me saying that I can now be part of "that's my tomboy" contest in Showtime.  I showed the hair-cutter the picture below and he/she was shocked and ask me if I'm sure about it and said I'm pretty pretty sure about it (my hair is shoulder length and I think 10 to 12 inches of hair was cut).  But it seems like she assumed that I wanted my hair really really short that the shortest piece of my hair now is in my eyebrows, yikes!  Anyway in 2 weeks time maybe, my haircut will look like what the below lovely girl is sporting.

source

The word "assumed" keep me babbling because if there's one variant of mask that I think can help me get rid of pimples or redness on my face , it's gotta be tea tree.  I always assumed that it can dry out zits and tame the redness and itchiness of my allergies or small bumps on my face.

I tried the Innisfree it's real tea tree mask yesterday and it's time to judge it's efficacy.

Innisfree It's Real Tea Tree Mask
Regular price 950 won/$1
20ml of essence
Got it from Kkochi Pida online store for P35
Links:  Innisfree Global/ Innisfree facebook page/ Kkochi Pida facebook page

It says in the packaging that it has tea tree complex and green complex and has this description that is actually the same with the rest of Innisfree masks under It's Real line but we all know that tea tree variant soothes troubled skin.

For the photo of the mask sheet, you can just go to my Avocado variant post.  Let's just go straight to the smell which is very horrible, it's alcohol to the max.  I have a small bottle of tea tree oil and the essence of this mask doesn't smell like it.

Another horrible thing about this mask is that the essence is sticky and when I pat the excess (when I already removed the mask sheet off my face), it got stickier and my face looks oily and I wanted to wash my face but for the sake of knowing if this mask works, I sleep with a sticky face.

Luckily, this mask somehow helped in soothing the bumps and redness on my face and the pimple that I have on my cheeks got smaller and less angry.  My face is quite moisturized too considering that it's tea tree which usually dries out skin.  Effective mask but I just really hate the strong alcohol smell.

Innisfree Jeju Volcanic Nose Pack
Regular price 500won/$.49
Got it from Bhappywithme for P20
Links:  Gmarket Innisfree page/ Bhappywithme

Moving on to another Innisfree product, I tried just now the Jeju Volcanic Nose Pack that has scoria and green complex.  It's a nose strip but based on the back of the packaging, it can also be used on the chin and forehead and I'm thinking that maybe I can also use it in my cheeks to remove whiteheads.

everything in korean

The strip is quite different with others that I tried; wherein they are shape in a weird way to better fit the nostril area, this one however just have a simple curve cut at the top and just straight with 3 cuts at the bottom (the three extra cut didn't help much though).

and this is how the strip looks like

Since there's no english instruction on how to use this thing on the packaging, I just use it the way I use my regular pore strips that is wetting the nose area and putting the sticky part on it.  After like more or less a minute, I can feel some heat on my nose and also the strip started to harden.  I waited 15 minutes before stripping the strip off.

There are some blackheads that are sticking out and needed to be pluck but overall this pore strip/nose pack removes the majority of my blackheads and whiteheads that almost all the area of the strip is pack with those nasty -heads.

That's it!

Thanks for reading. Till then. Bye!