I made the pasta a little too salty

December 14, 2024 2:18 PM

A guest post from my cousin Leng

Getting here was quite the ordeal; It was a story of intrigue and betrayal. Plot twists! O' Mennonites! A story too long and drawn out to regale in a single blog post, but the short of it was I arrived three hours later than expected. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of my final destination-- homeland of Gian'Iggle, a city with at least one river and probably at least one bridge: Pittsburgh (the 'Burgh).

During my time on that train, I had plenty of time to decide what I would cook. I told Jeje that if I stayed at her place this weekend, I would cook a meal so she wouldn't be cooking all the time. The problem is, I'm a "throw things together and hope for the best" kinda guy. I don't really cook foods with names. I started thinking of meals I knew the names of. "Does pasta count?" I thought to myself. My work caters lunch, and one of the foods I remembered trying was the Winter Cajun Pasta from Fireworks Pizza in Arlington. I gave it a quick Google search, and lo and behold, a recipe from Budget Bytes appeared. Long time fans of this blog already know-- it seemed like it was meant to be. I had decided that's what I would make, and I instantly started to get hungry. So, I ate the small bag of roasted chestnuts I brought with me as emergency provisions.

Cajun pasta with kielbasa — *I decided to write this blog post when I was aleady halfway-done stuffing my face. That's why the pan is so devoid of pasta. I tried my best to spread it out.*

At last, I arrived at the Amtrak station. I want to say thanks to my Jeje for picking me up at the station at the incredibly late/early hour of 3am (with yummy Kent mangoes), and to Dan for setting up such a wonderful comfy mattress for me to sleep on during my stay.

When I got to Jeje's apartment, I knew I needed to sleep because tomorrow was the Big DDR Holiday Party, but for some reason I couldn't. In a vain attempt to lull myself to sleep I tried listening to a two hour video on Spongebob lore, but it was so bad I couldn't bear it. Instead, I opted to rest in silence, to drift off to the sound of the rumbling heater. I hope I have the energy to dance hard today!

Oh, here's the link to the recipe! I opted to substitute the chicken with kielbasa.

Filed under: guest post sausage pasta

Cucumber guac shrimp bites

June 8, 2024 6:07 PM

Continuing with my blast from the past, I decided to make avocado cucumber shrimp appetizers, which is something I made way back in 2019 when I first started the blog. I had half a cucumber left over from another meal, and I thought that it was time to revisit this and actually make it better this time.

A closeup shot of three cucumber avocado shrimp bites on a cutting board with some sliced cucumbers and cilantro in the background — *And it really was better this time!*

First I had to buy my ingredients, one of which was an avocado. Now I could have gone to Giant Eagle and spent $2.50 on a single probably-already-ripe avocado, but that seemed ridiculous when Aldi sells them for 99 cents. The only problem is that Aldi's avocados are pretty much never already-ripe, so I had to wait three days before I could make it. I even tried putting it in a paper bag, but that did not seem to really do much. I also bought shrimp the same day and immediately put it in the fridge to thaw, and that was a little dicey because I was worried my shrimp might go bad before my avocado was ready to eat.

But today my avocado was finally ready! And I mashed it into a nice guac-without-the-onions. I sliced up my cucumber, and I cooked my shrimp (which was totally fine). I've learned that the key to cooking shrimp on the stove is to just watch over it and not multitask and take each shrimp out right when it's opaque.

A closeup shot of a single cucumber avocado shrimp bite topped with cilantro — *I forgot to put cilantro on the first few bites 😱*

These turned out really well! I bought "jumbo" shrimp, which in my opinion is really just "large", but it also seemed just a tad too big for one bite for me. I ended up cutting up the shrimp into smaller pieces to get it to be bite-sized. But it was delicious, even if it was a bit cumbersome to eat.

Along with my cucumber avocado shrimp bites, I also made myself a single quesadilla. I had some leftover slices of velveeta cheese, and while I hate how pre-packaged, individually-wrapped sliced cheese tastes on a sandwich, maybe it would be okay in between some corn tortillas.

A spread of sliced cucumbers, a lime, cilantro, shrimp avocado cucumber bites, extra shrimp, cut up quesadilla and my crocheted chick in the background — *Look at the little egg shell hat on my chick!*

It was terrible. Never ever ever use sliced cheese in a quesadilla.

Filed under: avocado shrimp

Poultry seasoning

June 3, 2024 9:35 PM

I have had a tiny little container of poultry seasoning sitting in my cabinet for the past...10 years maybe? It expired at least 7 years ago. I don't know why I have it. I'm sure some recipe called for it, but I couldn't tell you what it was. And it's been bugging me because I have no idea how to use this ingredient. But it's over. I finally used up all of the poultry seasoning, and I am never buying poultry seasoning again in my life.

Some roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy sitting on the stove

When you google "recipes with poultry seasoning" all you really end up with are recipes for how to make poultry seasoning. But there was one recipe for a baked chicken and even though I pretty much never cook bone-in chicken, it didn't look too hard to make.

Simply having baked chicken didn't sound like much of a meal, so I decided to make mashed potatoes to go with it. And that still didn't sound like a meal, but making three things is a little too much for me, so I bought bagged Caesar salad from Aldi.

Chicken, mashed potatoes, and caesar salad on a plate — *Another crochet piece in progress!*

It wasn't too bad. I don't think I'll make this chicken again though. It was very seasoned on top and barely seasoned elsewhere. But I was really happy with the gravy and I could eat the unseasoned bits of chicken with the gravy, so overall, I'd call this a success.

Filed under: chicken potatoes recipe searching adventures

Seafood Blend: Part...3?

May 26, 2024 1:52 PM

Way back in the early days of this blog, my sister and I made a seafood skillet dish. It was...okay. Guess that's why I was never compelled to make it again.

Until today! I was thinking that I wanted to use up a tiny amount of frozen peas, and I had read this old blog entry and saw that the dish had peas, but apparently I thought there were too many peas in it. Well, it's been over five years. Maybe I can make it better this time.

I had told myself that Trader Joe's seafood blend was terrible, so I bought a different seafood mix that I found at the Korean store. Honestly, when I saw it, I was skeptical. I wasn't sure if the mix of squid, octopus, shrimp, and mussels would go well here. But I got it anyway. I also told myself to double the amount of seafood, and since this was a 1 lb bag, I figured I would use up the whole thing. I did not end up cooking the seafood first though. (I probably should have though)

A pan of the seafood skillet that I made, held up in front of the window

This may have been worse than when I first made it. 🫠 At least the first time, I managed to make it look pretty. I knew this was going to be bad when I went to stir all the rice and seafood around and saw that the heat was not getting distributed evenly and that some of the food was overcooked and other parts were not getting cooked at all.

I turned up the heat a little and kept cooking it longer so I could hopefully get the seafood more cooked, but I think I just ended up overcooking the rice and it got all gummy. I also took some bites of seafood and it was...not great. I think I had way too much in the pan.

Okay, so, if I decide to make this again, I now have a new set of notes to follow:

Buy a frozen seafood mix that has shrimp, calamari, and scallops. I don't think it matters if it's Trader Joes or some other brand, but I don't want any octopus.
Use 1 lb of seafood, and 1 cup of rice. Two cups of rice was way way way too much for my pan.
Only cook the rice for 10 minutes before adding the seafood. All of the water had basically evaporated by the time I added the seafood, which probably contributed to it not cooking well. (Or, cook the seafood separately like I said to do five years ago :P)

Filed under: skillet rice failing in my kitchen

Cookin' and wooblin'

May 24, 2024 11:32 PM

I picked up a new hobby: crocheting! But this is my food blog, so here are five meals that I made this past week, featuring some things that I crocheted. My sister had been staying for me for a few months, and she just went back to the west coast. So now I'm using up some of the leftover ingredients from her stay.

First, I had a little bit of heavy cream sitting in my fridge, and my go-to use for heavy cream is chicken tikka masala. Is that weird?

A crocheted chick wearing a bunny headband, standing behind a plate of chicken tikka masala — *This headband did not fit very well on this chick*

We also had some sweetened condensed milk because my sister used it to make her iced coffees. I honestly had only ever used it to make iced coffee in the past, but I remembered that she also used it to make a tasty sauce to put on some tacos. So I also made some tacos! (Shrimp tacos. I know it's hard to tell from the photos)

A crocheted chick with a finished bunny headband, standing next to a tinier crocheted chick. They are both standing behind a plate of shrimp tacos — *The headband now has a little pink nose on it!*

My sister is probably not the reason we had shredded mozzarella cheese and a tiny nub of parmesan. I pretty much always have some sort of cheese stocked. But I wanted to use up the rest of the can of tomato paste that I bought for the tikka masala, and I thought these cheeses would be a great addition to it.

The tiny crocheted chick standing next to a plate of salad and chicken nuggets, with tomato pull-apart bread in front — *At this point I got too lazy to take photos in the day time in front of the window*

And just to pile on with even more dairy, I had about half a quart of milk that was getting very close to its expiration date. I think I may have made mac n cheese just a couple of weeks ago, but that was stovetop mac n cheese, so I went with a baked mac n cheese this week. And I also had some breadcrumbs, which was perfect for topping. This was the first time I had ever made a white cheese sauce, and I think it turned out pretty well!

Some baked mac n cheese with a little white crocheted ball next to it — *It's a little egg!*

Finally, I made some dessert! I had a few carrots in a bag, which my sister had bought an excess of because she told me "you wanted to make some carrot cake!". Yeah, I did tell her that I wanted to make some. Unfortunately I didn't get the time to do so until she had already left :/

An unfinished crocheted bunny next to four carrot cake muffins — *Whoa, the egg grew some ears!*

What will happen next? Is v4 of the blog going to be crochet+food?!

Filed under: indian food tacos bread mac n cheese carrot cake

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