Cake in a mug

March 13, 2021 9:57 AM

If you've been paying attention to the blog, you'll notice that I almost always make savory food. I'm not really a huge fan of sweets (unless it's ice cream or a smoothie, then I'm a huge fan of sweets with no self control). My little sister was always the one that did the baking. I don't really know how to bake anything, so I never make dessert for myself.

Okay, there's one exception to that.

I absolutely love making this Cinnamon Nut Swirl Mug Cake (except I never put nuts in it). For a "cupcake" that you bake in the microwave it takes way more effort than it should, and uses up way too many measuring spoons, but it's so worth it. And it's the perfect size, so I'm not tempted to eat too much dessert.

Some southwest inspired meals

March 6, 2021 9:59 PM

For some reason, I keep buying milk at the grocery store, then realizing it's about to expire so I scramble to find something to make with it, and then once it's gone I end up buying another quart of milk because I need it for something else.

Anyway, this time when I looked up recipes that use milk, I came across this Chili Cornbread Skillet. So I read the recipe and it looked pretty simple. Make some chili, mix up some cornbread mix, put it on top of the chili and then bake it.

The only thing I wasn't sure about was What pot or pan do I use? The recipe said to use a 4qt skillet. I don't know if most pans are labeled with their volume, but mine aren't. I had a deep skillet that I wanted to use, but I wasn't sure if it was big enough. So I actually went and measured 4 quarts of water and started dumping it in this skillet. Turns out it only holds 3.5qt. Alright, I'll use my pot instead.

Look at all that extra room in the pot! I totally could have used my skillet! That would have been so much better and so much more aesthetic. Plus I had preheated my oven not realizing how close the two racks were and then I needed to awkwardly remove one to make the pot actually fit.

Overall, this recipe was alright. A good number of commenters said that this was bland and I have to agree with them. I doubled the amount of salt, but I think I should have doubled all the spices. The cornbread was also kind of bland. It needed more sugar at least. And maybe the whole thing needs more cheese because I barely noticed it in between the chili and the cornbread.

I really enjoyed the leftovers though. I reheated the cornbread part in the toaster oven and the chili part in the microwave, which worked out well.

Today I made another southwest-y dish: Creamy Chicken Fajita Pasta. The reason I decided to make this was because I happened to have half a block of cream cheese and 2 bell peppers that I needed to use up.

Now this was delicious. I really like the pasta recipes on Budget Bytes. And cream cheese in pasta is great. Problem is, I still don't like leftover pasta, and I have a feeling this will go from a 5/5 meal to a 3/5 meal in leftover form.

Origin story

March 3, 2021 9:33 PM

This post has no pictures. Just a personal story.

I was a really, really picky eater growing up. It seemed like all I really liked eating was porridge with salty fish, salty olives, or salty eggs. I barely touched school lunches until I was in high school. But slowly, over time, partly from going to college and partly from my little sister telling me how much she loved certain foods, I started to expand my tastes.

I ended up gaining 30 pounds during my first semester of college. That's right, I quadrupled the Freshman 15.

At the time, I hated cooking. Hated having to come up with meals, hated going to the grocery store, hated the prep work involved, hated the way my own food tasted, and hated the cleanup that went along with it. Not to mention I was absolutely terrible at it. My mom might have tried to teach me how to cook a few times during high school. I distinctly remember trying to make stir fried cabbage. My mom insisted on turning the heat up to high and dumping all of the cabbage into the pan even though it barely fit. It was a mess.

I couldn't even cook easy things. I burned my leg once in high school while making eggs. I had put oil in the pan and when I cracked the egg in it, the oil splattered and a huge piece of it hit my upper leg. It created a scar that lasted for about two years.

Throughout college, I got used to eating out all the time. Yeah, it was expensive, but it felt justified. At one point, I figured I would just make enough money so I'd never have to cook again. But after two years of living in a dorm, I moved to an apartment, and I figured I'd try to be more of an adult.

I lost all the weight I had gained as a freshman after a year of living in an apartment. I attribute part of that to running everyday. I also attribute that to the fact that I was cooking for myself. Honestly, it was a struggle. I cooked so many meals and felt so dejected so many times because my food was awful.

Because cooking was such a struggle, I went back to eating out more. I got a decent paying job right out of college, so I figured I had the money for it. But then something happened that has nothing to do with food at all. I got bored at work. I got so bored that I had an existential crisis sitting in my cubicle wondering if my life was going to be like this for the next 40 years.

No. No it wasn't. I refused. I started saving up money and making it my life goal to retire as early as possible. But that meant I needed to stop eating out so much and I needed to start cooking meals again.

While browsing through early retirement forums, I stumbled across Budget Bytes, which is a food blog focused around making easy, cheap meals. I tried one recipe and it changed. my. life. Holy crap, I can actually cook things that taste good.

Eventually, I hit a point where I was consistently getting disappointed at restaurants because it was never as good as the food I made myself. I had a complete 180 shift from where I was in college.

At the time of writing this, it's been about five years since that first delicious meal that I made. I've gotten better at cooking since then, but I still have so so much more to learn. What started out as a way to save money has transformed into both a passion of mine and a forever project.

Mashed potatoes, chicken bites, and brussels sprouts

March 2, 2021 11:03 PM

It's later than I should be up for a worknight, but I'm excited to show off what I've been working on for the past two days: Tags! This is just the first iteration of it. More to come.

Last week I made a meal of mashed potatoes, garlic chicken bites, and brussels sprouts, except I spread out cooking the different components on different days so it didn't all come together until I made the brussels sprouts.

For the mashed potatoes, I used this slow cooker mashed potatoes recipe from Budget Bytes. I had that huge bag of potatoes, and I rarely make mashed potatoes so I figured I'd give this a try. It was alright. Needed some herbs. And more butter. And salt. And garlic. And maybe some cheese. I don't have a picture of the mashed potatoes because that's kind of boring on its own.

The garlic mushroom and chicken bites was a recipe I had saved for a while. I unfortunately didn't have chicken thigh, so I had to settle for chicken breast. Would this have tasted better with chicken thigh? Absolutely. But it was still good. I followed the recipe pretty closely except I also added half a cup of chicken broth because I thought it needed to be a little more sauce-y.

I didn't use a recipe for the brussels sprouts. I just cut them in half, tossed them in salt, lemon pepper, and olive oil, threw them in the oven at 425°F for about 10 minutes, and then finished them off in the broiler for another minute. Delicious. I could eat the whole pound of brussels sprouts all in one sitting, but I made sure to save some for two more future meals.

Oh! I also made gravy. The recipe told me to keep whisking until all the lumps were gone. I didn't do a very good job of that. Just don't look too closely at the photo.

Fried rice

February 27, 2021 9:51 AM

Last Sunday I made some fried rice.

I needed an easy, filling meal for a lazy Sunday and I figured this Chinese Sausage Fried Rice 香肠炒饭 recipe would be good for this. In Teochew, I think I would tell my family I ate 炒饭合腊肠  (cha beung gat lat chiang).

There was a decent amount of prep work involved, so it took a while, but it was easy.

I think I may have had more rice than I needed. The recipe called for 5 cups of cooked rice, which is the most unhelpful measurement since I needed to cook the rice first and I have no idea what the ratio of "uncooked rice cooker cups" is to "cooked rice measuring cup cups". I used 3 cups of uncooked rice cooker cups, and I think I should have at least doubled the sauce.

But overall, this was a good meal that I would definitely make again. The best part of this was definitely the crunchy bits of rice at the bottom of the pan. If I have extra time, I'll reheat this again on the stove, which makes it even better.

Just like my mother, I had to add some sriracha to top this off. Well, not exactly like my mother. She would have had this swimming in hot sauce.