Social Distancing: Days 36 - 38

May 3, 2020 11:53 AM

Remember how I said I was super busy at work, but I had some breathing room? Yeah, work got super busy again.

Day 36 (Thursday): I had this warm cauliflower salad on my to-make list for a while. And now I always have Tahini stocked so it felt like a good time to make it. I was a little concerned this wasn't going to be enough food for dinner, but we paired it with that pork loin we made the other day.

Yeah, that really dry pork loin. You can even see how dry it is in the picture!

But the salad was delicious. Warm salads are great.

Day 37 (Friday): One of the things I've had sitting in my pantry for waaay too long are canned bamboo shoots. I don't really like bamboo, but my sister really likes it and I don't mind it so much in curry. I had some other veggies that would go well in curry (frozen green beans, carrots) so we decided to make some.

Unfortunately, Aldi was out of chicken thighs when we went, but that's alright. This was still delicious with chicken breast. This was super easy to make and very flavorful, so I'd definitely make it again. And adding limes made it even better!

Day 38 (Saturday): Somehow with all the stay-at-home orders, I still managed to have jam-packed weekends. I had a virtual hangout with my friends during the day, and a virtual hangout with my cousins at night. So I wanted to make something easy for dinner.

I've made this beef and cabbage stir fry a few times in the past, and it's easy and tastes good enough, but I feel like it was lacking something. Maybe it needed more fish sauce and sugar. The sriracha helps though.

Social Distancing: Days 33 - 35

April 28, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 33 (Monday): Every once in a while I feel the need to make a fried chicken sandwich. Because who doesn't love fried chicken sandwiches? I actually found a recipe on Budget Bytes for a baked chicken sandwich, but it looked like it was fried.

This meal was way bigger than I meant for it to be. We marinated the chicken in pickle juice overnight, which meant we had a jar of pickles with no juice, so we made fried pickles as well. My sister even made the buns from scratch.

But it was worth it. These sandwiches were really good, though I don't think they're quite as good as actual fried chicken sandwiches. I would definitely make them again.

Day 34 (Tuesday): So we actually were going to include sweet potato fries in Monday's meal, but we realized that was way too many things to cook. We moved it to Tuesday and paired it with a pork tenderloin. And...various leftover veggies because veggies are important.

I never actually posted this dish on my blog, but back when my sister was living with me last year, we baked pork and it was the best pork I've ever tasted in my life. We were hoping to replicate that here, but last year we used a pork shoulder and this time we used pork tenderloin. It was kind of dry. Lesson learned, never buy tenderloin. Always go for the butt. The pork butt, I mean.

Now those sweet potato fries were delicious. I'm definitely making them again.

Day 35(Wednesday): I was scrolling through food blogs and I saw a picture of some Bibimbap, and I don't know, but those fried eggs on top always get to me. So we decided to make some Bibimbap.

Bowl meals are great. Just get whatever ingredients you have on hand and chop them up and put them into little bowls and have a bowl party.

Delicious.

Social Distancing: Days 30 - 32

April 27, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 30 (Friday): I don't know what it is, but work is starting to exhaust me. I'm trying to find more easy meals to make. So I decide on some Sesame Chicken.

The original recipe doesn't call for broccoli, but I figured we should have some vegetables. And contrary to the comments on Budget Bytes for this, I think there is plenty of sauce. Maybe even too much sauce. We boiled the broccoli for a few minutes before mixing it in with the chicken, but now I'm wondering if it would have been better if we roasted the broccoli first. I'll try that next time. Overall, this still tasted good.

Day 31 (Saturday): I had a virtual game night on Saturday, so I wanted to do something easy. We've had dumplings in the freezer, so this seemed like a good time to cook some of those. We also had some iceberg lettuce in the fridge, along with other various veggies, so it seemed like a good idea to make some salad. When I think of how to use iceberg, my mind immediately jumps to those salads you get at Hibachi restaurants.

Yes, we had dumplings from two different batches. Look at that color contrast.

Day 32 (Sunday): Another thought about using up lettuce is to put it in soup. So we figured, let's make some noodle soup! We were thinking we might want to make Pho since we're stuck at home all day, but that requires way too many herbs and spices that I don't currently have, so we're making Teochew Noodle Soup 粿条汤 instead.

This made me realize I don't have those large Asian bowls. We still made it work with smaller ones.

We actually never ended up putting lettuce in this. But it doesn't matter, noodle soup is always a good idea.

Social Distancing: Days 27 - 29

April 26, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 27 (Tuesday): Finally! Grocery shopping time! We go to Target since we need some non-food items, and then Trader Joes because Target is seriously lacking on actual food items. We made it to Trader Joes literally two minutes before the store closed. And I am pooped. My sister takes control of dinner because I am too exhausted to do anything else. Shopping is stressful during these times.

She made some Kimchi fried rice which was already on our list of things to make, but the lack of eggs made that harder. And you just need that egg on top. Look at how good that looks. It tasted great too.

Day 28 (Wednesday): We have eggs! And fruit! And other foods! It's amazing! Anyway, I had Mac n Cheese on my list of things to make, and we finally had the ingredients to make it.

What a classic American meal. This was pretty good, but I don't think I'll use shells if I make mac n cheese again. I guess I should have called this shells n cheese. They have a tendency to get inside each other.

Day 29 (Thursday): We still had leftover Indian food, but we were all out of naan, so my sister made some paratha, which is an Indian flatbread. She was so so so excited about it, and even more excited when she tasted it. It was deeelicious.

For dinner that night, we made burgers. I saw a picture of a burger a few weeks ago and since then it's been on my list of things to make.

You can never go wrong with a homemade burger. Burgers are always better when they're homemade.

I wanted a picture of one of us holding up the burger but it was way too messy. I guess that's a good thing though.

Social Distancing: Days 24 - 26

April 25, 2020 5:57 AM

So I've been verybusy at work lately, which is why I haven't posted an update in a while. When I start working on a project at work my mind is just in this "I NEED TO FINISH THIS" mode and I can't work on other things. Anyway, I've found a stopping point, so it's time to catch up on blog posts.

Day 24 (Saturday): I have decided to take inventory of all my food. That's right. Everything in my kitchen.

I had already been doing this, but I finally took inventory of my herbs, spices, sauces, etc. Yes, this is what I stare at every day when I decide what to cook and what leftover to eat for breakfast or lunch.

Before I get to the dinner portion of this, check out this super aesthetic coffee my sister made.

So tonight's dinner was Nam Sod (Thai pork salad). I had about a pound of ground pork sitting in the freezer, but what I really needed to use up were some super sad looking limes.

We ate it both with rice and in lettuce wraps. I thought it was great, though my sister prefers something sweeter. Adding some Thai basil would have made this even better though!

Day 25 (Sunday): We decide to go grocery shopping. On a Sunday. But we didn't think about what Sunday it is. EASTER. That's right, all the stores are closed except Whole Foods. And Whole Foods has a line that wraps around the building. We decide to head back home. We'll survive.

Since we have about half a head of cabbage in the fridge, we decide to make Okonomiyaki. It was delicious. We also had some green beans that seemed like they were going to go bad soon, so we fried those up as well. Of course at this point we're starting to struggle a little with what ingredients we had left. We used up the rest of our eggs for this meal!

Day 26 (Monday): We also wanted to go grocery shopping this day, but for some reason my stomach wasn't feeling so great, so we stayed home again. It's okay. We had some salmon in the freezer and some broccoli in the fridge so we made a quick meal out of that.

Unfortunately I didn't let the salmon thaw all the way before putting it under the broiler so that was a bit of a struggle to get it cooked completely. I'm still learning how to use that broiler properly. But the rub we added to the salmon was great, and the meal overall was delicious.

At this point, we were out of garlic, soy sauce, milk, fruit...we absolutely needed a grocery trip.