Kung Pao Chicken
March 9, 2019 11:30 AM
I actually have no idea what Kung Pao Chicken even is, but I saw this recipe on Jessica Gavin's site and I basically had everything I needed to make it, so I figured why not.
We first had to make candied walnuts, and I took no part in this process since my sister knows how to do this, and if I were making this on my own, I would skip the walnuts altogether. I think it probably tastes better without the walnuts, anyway.
It did make the dish look nice though. Overall, the dish was very sweet and probably could have used something like fish sauce to give it a better flavor. But hey, this was certainly way cheaper and probably healthier than takeout.
Stuff My Sister Made
March 8, 2019 5:15 PM
Hey! My sister is a way better cook than I am. Here's a post with a few things that I had no part in making, starting with some noodle soup.
We actually intended to make Pho, and while this was very good, I don't think I could call it Pho. We used bone marrow and had the broth soak for about 6 hours.
After eating the noodles, we still had that bone marrow, and we didn't want it to go to waste. So my sister baked some bread so we could have toast to spread the bone marrow on.
And so we could have avocado toast! This was actually the first time in my life that I ever had avocado toast. I used to hate avocados, but my sister told me they're just like egg yolks and I finally saw the appeal.
Meatloaf, Broccoli, and Sweet Potatoes
March 5, 2019 11:30 AM
I'm trying really hard this month to cook using the food I have and to not go to the grocery store almost every day. Yes that's right, I go to the grocery store almost every day. I found Sheet Pan BBQ Meatloaf Dinner from Budget Bytes, and I already had everything in my kitchen so I avoided a trip to the store yesterday!
The recipe said to roast the broccoli for 35 minutes, and we roasted it for 20 and that was way too long. Also I need to make sure that I cook the meatloaf and the broccoli in a separate pan next time. Broccoli with meat juices does not taste right.
I also forgot to flip the sweet potatoes halfway through, so they all just got really dark on one side.
I actually still have more broccoli and sweet potatoes, so I'll need to find more recipes that use them.
Odds 'n Ends
March 4, 2019 11:30 AM
Egg Drop Soup from Souped Up Recipes
My sister actually made this to eat with the bánh xèo, which was nice because the pancakes took a while to cook. It was delicious.
One Pan Roasted Kielbasa and Cabbage Dinner from Budget Bytes
This recipe claims to serve 4, but I doubled it and I don't even think that amount served 4 because I got one meal out of it and my sister got two meals out of it. Maybe that just means it was that good.
Cheesy Scallion Stuffed Jalapeños from Budget Bytes
We had jalapeños that had been sitting in the fridge for too long, so I needed to make something that would use up all of them. Aldi was out of scallions though! Why does this keep happening? I also completely forgot to buy sour cream. It still tasted good though, especially because we added breadcrumbs. And we paired this with other foods that didn't really make any sense, but whatever.
Bánh Xèo
March 3, 2019 10:20 AM
My friend came over and we tried to make Bánh Xèo. We used this recipe from Hungry Huy. Here is a progression of how things went as we tried to make yellow pancakes.
Attempt #1
We poured too much batter in this.
Attempt #2
I don't know, we probably still used too much batter again. And the heat may have been too high.
Attempt #3 & #4
Heeey, look the third one didn't totally fall apart. And I think we finally figured out that the meat and onions needed to be on only one side of the pan, so it was easier to fold the pancake in half.
Many attempts later...
Yeah! We finally made it look nice! I'll have to make this again in the future, but I'll probably see if I can find a different recipe. Or at least cook the meat separately from the pancake.
Oh yeah, we had extra batter so we cooked the rest of the pancakes the next day.
