My life has been busy

November 20, 2020 10:04 PM

Really my work has been busy. It's been so exhausting that I haven't been able to prepare good meals for myself. And when I have I've been too lazy to take photos of it. But it's getting better, so the food pics are coming back. These pics are all kind of terrible, but hey, in the end it's about how the food tastes.

Yeah, I really wish I threw something green on that. But fajitas are delicious, and I think I really like cooking shrimp in the oven. It cooks evenly, and I rarely overcook shrimp when it's in the oven. It was delicious.

So one of my friends was telling me about this chipotle cream sauce thing that she had at a restaurant and that she was trying to recreate it. We actually ended up getting takeout from this restaurant and there was no such chipotle sauce, so I have no idea what she was talking about. But I decided, hey let's make these loaded sweet potatoes so I can actually have some chipotle lime crema. Also delicious.

And finally, I made some bibimbap because I had 1/2 a pound of ground beef and I didn't know what to do with it. Pretty good. Don't know if I'd put it at the delicious level. I think it was missing a sauce-y element to it.

More salmon

November 21, 2020 3:15 PM

You guys know I love salmon. One of my friends has been raving about this Garlic Butter Baked Salmon so I figured it was time for me to try and make it myself.

The recipe calls for asparagus, but I just happened to have broccoli on me so I used that instead. And lemon-y broccoli? Not quite the same as lemon-y asparagus. I do think this would have been better if I used asparagus instead. I also don't know how I feel about one-pan baking meals. Something about the meat juices seeping into the veggies weirds me out. I also didn't even have enough room in my pan to make this all fit in a single pan, so I put the broccoli in its own pan.

I know, that would have made a lot more sense if I put the salmon in its own pan instead. Hey, at least I cooked it right side up this time!

The salmon tasted good, but I definitely overcooked it. I think salmon cooks better at 350 instead of 400. But the potatoes? They were delicious. I know, it's just salt, pepper, and olive oil, but it was so good I bought and roasted more potatoes the next day.

I also cooked a lot of salmon (maybe that's why it didn't all fit in one pan), and I happened to have some leftover sushi rice, so I turned some of it into sushi.

Clearly not as good (or as pretty) as raw salmon sushi, but still a pretty decent breakfast.

I needed some Thai basil

November 24, 2020 9:31 PM

The other day, I had a sudden craving for some spring rolls.

Okay, those pictures are from July. But that's the last time I made spring rolls for myself! I was totally due for another spring roll meal. I know, it's getting colder out, and spring rolls are totally a summer thing. (Or a...spring...thing I guess)

Anyway, here's the spring roll spread I had a week ago.

Honestly, the ones I made back in July were a lot better. A few things about these spring rolls that I recently made:

• I used already-cooked shrimp in this because it was on sale, and I bought a whole 3 lb bag of it. The shrimp was pretty meh. Gotta cook it myself next time.
• This would be so much better if I had pork belly.
• I added carrots just because I had half a carrot that I didn't know what to do with. I feel like restaurants love putting carrots in their spring roll. I'm not really a fan.
• I also added mint! I like mint, but I realized that the bag of mint I got from the Asian store was huge and I used a bunch of it in a stir fry (I'll get to that soon) and I still have way too much left over.
• It was such a pain in the butt to get Thai basil. When I was at the Asian store, there was none sitting out, and I asked the lady who works at the store if they had any and she said "Oh! Yes!" and walked away, and I waited for over ten minutes, and she never came back ): Then I wanted to try to go to the other Asian store a few streets over, but it was Saturday, which means street parking costs money, so I park in the other grocery store lot (for the place right next to the Asian store), and when I get out of my car, the parking lot guard says to me "You're only shopping at Wholey's, right?" so I felt bad and I never stepped foot in that other Asian store. I checked Wholey's though. They don't even sell Italian basil.

I was feeling so exhausted just from being in two grocery stores that I decided to head home, BUT I STILL NEEDED MY BASIL. I drove to the Asian store again the next day just to get it. And with my large amounts of basil and mint, I made some stir fry.

So good. So worth the many trips to the grocery store.

Happy Thanksgiving

November 29, 2020 11:39 AM

This past week was weird. It's the first time in my life that I'm not home with family on Thanksgiving. To make it feel more "Thanksgiving-y", I decided to cook a bunch of Thanksgiving food this past week! And by that I mean I cooked a bunch of American food, and after about two days of it I remembered something: I don't really like Thanksgiving food that much.

Anyway, I started off with some pulled pork because turkey is too much work, and it doesn't taste as good. And the pulled pork was delicious.

And then later that day I made some mac n cheese. I've had mac n cheese on my "to make" list for a while, and I've also had a pound of elbow pasta sitting in my pantry for who knows how long. I've always been a fan of baked mac n cheese, but after I cooked it, I totally regretted cooking a whole pound. Also, I'm definitely making a stovetop version next time.

Yeah, that was a lot. It's still a lot. The recipe said this was more like a casserole, and she wasn't kidding. Once you put it in the fridge, it just hardens and I feel like I have to microwave it for two minutes just to make it not shaped like a block. I've eaten about a quarter of it by now, and I don't think I can eat any more, so I cut it all up and threw it in the freezer. I'll figure out how to repurpose it.

I also made some collard greens. When I was talking to my aunt on the phone, she suggested it and I thought it was a great idea. The recipe I used wasn't bad, but I made a few tweaks. I cut the bacon before cooking it. I also added about a tablespoon of brown sugar to the recipe, which made it much better.

And finally, I made some sweet potatoes. I went with this cumin lime recipe because I have a bunch of lines in the fridge, but I also thought it was kind of weird to have a lime-y dish in my Thanksgiving meals. Oh well.

Yeah, I'm totally sick of Thanksgiving food now.

Thanksgiving dumplings

December 1, 2020 8:59 PM

Since I didn't go and see my family on Thanksgiving, my friend invited me over for a (very small) Friendsgiving. Small in the number of people, but definitely not in the amount of food. I offered to bring dumplings, which ended up being a huge hit. I had fish tacos during Chinese New Year last year, so I figured dumplings for Thanksgiving was appropriate.

I actually already had dumplings in my freezer, because of course I did, but I decided to make more because you can never have too many dumplings. At this point, I don't really even use a recipe anymore. This is what I put in the filling this time:

• 1 lb ground pork
• Half a cabbage, shredded
• 4 oz mushrooms, diced
• A knob of ginger, grated
• A few cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• Some splashes of fish sauce

And for the sauce (No measurements, because who knows how much of everything I added):

• Tamari
• Mirin
• Sugar
• Water
• Green Onions
• Sesame Seeds
• Chili Garlic

Of course, the key to making good dumplings is to just microwave a small bit of filling and try it, and if it needs something, add it.

I also had to buy a new non-stick pan because my last one was ruined when we brought it on our last camping trip. This is the first time I attempted to arrange the dumplings in a fancy circle. It did not end up that fancy. I don't know how my sister makes it look so nice.

But as always, it was delicious.

Look at the bottom of that dumpling! You don't want to know how many times I attempted to take a close-up picture of one.