Lettuce wraps on a lazy Sunday

June 26, 2023 7:49 PM

Some cooked ground pork in a pan next to some dipping sauce

Lazy Sunday cooking is one of my favorite things. Lazy Sunday cooking doesn't mean it's a quick meal, just an easy one. I don't have anywhere to be, so I want to take my time and go slow. I don't have work during the day, so I can take as long as I need to make my lunch, and then when I take photos I have plenty of natural light!

So this week's Sunday meal was lettuce wraps. This is one of the first things I wrote about in this blog way back in 2019. I decided on lettuce wraps when I concluded that the green leaf lettuce was just not going to work in a salad. This also allowed me to use up more of my hoisin sauce, which, hmm, is that expired?

FEB 19, 2023

Okay, so it's only a little expired. Honestly, it's probably still good for another year. I also got to use up more of my rice cooking wine which has probably been sitting in my pantry for much longer...

Best Before: 04012019

😬 Uhhh, I think it's still fine.

A spread of lettuce wrap ingredients - marinated ground pork, mushroom, and peanuts, some dipping sauce, pieces of green leaf lettuce, and some chopped scallions

The recipe only calls for half a pound of meat, but I doubled it (except for the dipping sauce--there's more than plenty of that). I really like the ground meat mixture, and I know in my old post I said that I can use whatever mushrooms I have available, but I did use shiitake in this, and I thought shiitake was great in it.

A scoop of the ground pork mixture on a lettuce leaf, with some rice next to it

The whole process of actually putting the meat in some lettuce, and then attempting to wrap that up? Yeah, that's still completely impractical. It just breaks and food falls out and your hands are a mess. I don't care what kind of lettuce you use. Lettuce is not a good wrap.

Next time, I'm chopping up the lettuce into bite size pieces and just making it a bowl meal.

Another photo of the cooked ground pork mixture in a pan, next to some lettuce leaves on a place, and dipping sauce in a bowl

In spite of the mess, this was delicious, and perfect for a lazy Sunday. I'd definitely make it again.

Meal prepping

December 11, 2023 10:12 PM

About a month ago, I thought to myself, "Man, I'm spending way too much money eating out. I need to cook more of my meals." And then I went on a little vacation, and I ate out for every single meal of the day because I'm not cooking on vacation.

But vacation is over. Time to cook. I'm know I'm really slow at making things, so I decided that I was going to try meal prepping. I'm not making three different dishes in one day--that's too much--but I wanted to see if I could do more prep in advance: cutting up vegetables, mixing together sauces and spice mixtures. So I came up with a bunch of different meals for the week, and I wrote down all the groceries I would need for those meals, and I spent over two hours on prep work ~~last~~ last last Saturday.

I was exhausted. But, it really did make the cooking for the rest of the week a lot easier.

So the first thing I decided to make after all that prep work was leftovers. I was way too tired to cook a whole meal. But after I ate that meal, I guess I felt like I had enough energy to make some real dessert. That's right, I didn't just microwave something in a mug, I made a whole batch of snickerdoodles.

Snickerdoodles in a tupperware container — *This was actually from a batch I made like...a month ago*

I have this little container of cream of tartar sitting in my pantry, and apparently that's what you use to make snickerdoodles. For most of my life, I thought snickerdoodles were just sugar cookies with extra cinnamon on them. Turns out they're sugar cookies with cinnamon and cream of tartar.

When I made my first batch a month ago, it was way more work than I expected. Mostly because I don't own a stand mixer. And it also took me forever. This time it was juuust a little bit easier and went juuust a little bit more quickly. I still somehow seem to mess up at least one batch in the oven, but I'm getting the hang of this.

Greek turkey rice in a skillet — *So bright! Gotta take advantage of that natural light in the morning*

On Sunday morning, I made some Greek Turkey Rice. (Actually I used chicken, because for some reason turkey is sold in 19.2 oz packages rather than 1 lb, and I already think 1 lb is way more meat that I need for this.)

I've had a bunch of pasta dishes lately, so I wanted to switch it up with some rice. I had some leftover spinach from last week, and I didn't mind buying feta, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes since I can just snack on those.

Very good, very easy meal. Also very easy to pack and heat up leftovers, which is what I needed after getting nothing but take out at work for the past few months.

An overhead shot of cajun shrimp toast arranged on a plate — *Yes, I also took this in front of the window*

Later on Sunday, I made some Cajun shrimp toast. I've already made up my mind that I want to make these as a Christmas appetizer when I visit family, but I wanted to try it a couple of times before then.

A close-up shot of Cajun shrimp toast on a plate

This stuff is so good. I went over to a friend's house on Sunday night to watch a movie, and I brought the shrimp toast. It was a big hit.

Some chicken patties and some chicken nuggets, freshly fried — *I may have overcooked one of the patties*

So the week before this, I ordered a HelloFresh box, and one of the meals was Cajun chicken sandwich. It was pretty tasty. I wasn't originally planning on making more chicken sandwiches, but then I thought about my container of celery seed that expired in 2017 that I'm trying to use up. I can make coleslaw with that. Coleslaw goes well enough with chicken sandwiches, right?

Cajun chicken sandwich with some coleslaw, chicken nuggets, and barbecue sauce — *Back to the night time photos*

Right. I thought the coleslaw was great. I had only intended on making four sandwiches, but I had a little bit of chicken left over, so I fried up some nuggets and ate them with a pack of McDonald's BBQ sauce. That was also great.

Baked mac n cheese in a casserole dish — *I already took a little bite out of the corner*

I also really wanted to make some mac n cheese because I had some breadcrumbs, and because my boyfriend has mentioned that he likes baked mac n cheese, with the crispy breadcrumbs on top. The last time I made mac n cheese, it was just okay and it was way way way too much food.

Okay, so this time I tried a different recipe. And I only cooked half a pound of pasta, which is a much more reasonable amoumnt of pasta for one or two pasta. This was pretty easy to make since I could use pre-shredded cheese. I ended up using the rest of all the random bags of cheese that I had: pepperjack, mozzarella, and Mexican blend (four different cheeses!). And then I topped it with some parmesan! It's six cheese macaroni!

Scooping out some mac n cheese from a casserole dish — *I'm very thankful when I don't have to take the photos*

Honestly, after I put it in the oven, I was a little worried about all the different cheeses that I added. Maybe it was too much. But it ended up tasting pretty good! I think I made it a tad too salty, but we had no trouble eating all of it within a few days.

Udon noodles with mushrooms and edamame — *It's always so steamy when I take photos in front of the stove like this*

Finally, the last meal I cooked was some almost vegetarian shoyu butter udon noodles. Why is it almost vegetarian? Because I used butter. And oyster sauce. But I wasn't going to buy vegan products when I had perfectly good non-vegan substitutes.

Anyway, this was really easy and the mushrooms were delicious. I'm gonna make it again this week (I still have more noodles and edamame!)

Three carrot cake square muffins, one with some cream cheese frosting on top — *Not very pretty. Doesn't matter. Very tasty*

And finally finally, I decided to make some carrot cake to use up the rest of a block of cream cheese I had sitting in the fridge. I followed this carrot cake for two recipe, but I doubled it, and then I also used my square muffin tins which are very large, so it ended up making three very large muffins. And it was kind of a struggle to get these cakes out of the muffin tin.

I also only ended up icing a single muffin so I have lots of cream cheese frosting left over. More muffins this week! I'll be sure to make them smaller and use cupcake liners so it's easier.

Okay, done writing for now. I know it's been a while, but thanks for reading my rambly food thoughts!

Filed under: skillet rice cookies shrimp chicken sandwich mac n cheese noodles carrot cake

Eating more veggies

December 17, 2023 7:43 PM

I tried to eat a little bit healthier during my second week of meal prepping. That meant less meat and more veggies. First, I decided to make Mediterranean hummus bowls. I already had feta and olives from a meal last week. I also had a bunch of cilantro, and I thought that would go well in the hummus. Cilantro jalapeno hummus is one of my favorites (: And I also made pickled onions! I didn't realize how easy it was to make pickled onions. I should have been doing this years ago. I heard celery seed goes well in pickled things, so it was a good way to use up more of that.

Various food items that went into the hummus bowls

We really like how healthy and fresh it is, and it's become one of my go-to meals to make.

A hummus bowl with some ingredients in the background

I only used a small amount of ground beef in the hummus bowls, and I used the rest of it to make a couple of stir fry dishes. I bought a pound of green beans and I added just a little bit of the ground beef to make some stir fry.

Stir fried green beans in the pan

Stir fried green beans and rice

I really like ordering green beans from Szechuan restaurants, but it costs like $15, and I can easily make this myself. Pretty sure it's healthier this way too.

An overhead shot of my stir fry lunch that I took to work, some stir fried ground beef and onions, and some cut up cilantro

With the last half-ish pound of ground beef, I did another stir fry. One of my co-workers said she likes to stir fry beef with coriander and some other spices, and I have a really old container of coriander, so I tried it out. It was alright. I'm really not good at just throwing things together without a recipe.

Some loaded chipotle sweet potatoes in a plate bowl — *See that messy looking sweet potato in the back? I dropped that one and it all fell apart D:*

The next meal I made was loaded chipotle sweet potatoes. I had a little bit of sour cream leftover from last week, and also a little bit of chipotle powder that I wanted to use up. It didn't look very pretty, but it still tasted pretty good!

Close up shot of some udon noodles in a plate — *You can still see the steam coming out of this!*

Finally, I'm ending on these udon noodles again. I made a little bit more sauce this time, and it was even better than the last time.

Filed under: hummus green beans stir fry sweet potatoes noodles

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

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

<< Older Newer >>

How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

Posts on this page: