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.
Dumpling Party
January 26, 2019 10:45 PM
I know they call them "pot stickers" but you really don't want them to stick to the pot. Because then you can't take them out of the pot, and you end up with dumplings that are missing bottoms.
We switched to a non-stick pan for the second batch. I guess you can't really tell from the picture though, since the bottoms are hidden.
One of my friends made a pretty salad to go with the dumplings. Apparently he was supposed to use green onions, but Aldi was out of them so he used red ones instead. Red onion is not a good substitute for green onion.
Seafood Blend: Part 2
January 20, 2019 2:38 PM
...is unfortunately not as successful as part 1.
Last Christmas my aunt made these shrimp avocado cucumber bites, and it was probably the most Californian thing I've ever seen. And I was convinced I needed to make these myself. I googled "shrimp guacamole cucumber" and grabbed the first recipe I saw: Avocado Cucumber Shrimp Appetizers from Natasha's Kitchen. Now it probably would have made sense to actually buy some shrimp for this, but I had half a bag of seafood blend that I needed to use up.
I also had guacamole that we had made earlier in the week using Skinnytaste's Best Guacamole Recipe. So really all I took from that other recipe is the Cajun shrimp part. It wasn't so bad, but next time we'll just use shrimp, and actually use freshly made guacamole. Or be lazy and buy it from the store.
We actually had leftover pieces of seafood, and my sister remarked that we could throw some pasta in it. I checked my cabinets and I found a box of that Banza chickpea pasta...that expired last year. Hey, it's a box of pasta! It should be fine!
Second note to self: Do not eat expired chickpea pasta. In fact do not even buy chickpea pasta at all. It is way more expensive than regular pasta and doesn't taste as good.
Tuna Salad
January 13, 2019 1:16 PM
I had two cans of tuna sitting in one of the kitchen cabinets, so I figured it would make sense to make some tuna salad. Now I know I could just throw tuna, mayonnaise, and chopped celery in a bowl and call that a tuna salad, but that's boring. I went to Allrecipes.com to try and find something better. I typed in "tuna salad" in the search bar, and this is the first result:
Tuna and lettuce salad with garbanzo beans, chopped egg, and cucumber. Great with French dressing.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/21406/tuna-salad/
Uhh, that's not what I call a tuna salad. That's a "Salad with Tuna". And you know what the second result is?
Quick and easy vegetarian main dish made from pantry items in just a few minutes. Perfect for summer picnics or fast weeknight meals. Serve on bread, buns, crackers, pita bread, or plain.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/234227/no-tuna-salad/
WHAT. That's not a tuna salad at all! Why would you show me a vegetarian recipe as one of the top results? If I had typed "vegetarian tuna salad" then I totally get it. I even understand if it's say, the fifth result, after other results that are traditional tuna salads. But Allrecipes needs to redo their search algorithm.
So Recipe #3 it is: Barbie's Tuna Salad. What I liked about this was that it didn't call for celery, and it did call for lots of spices. I do like celery in my tuna salad, but I don't want to buy a huge piece of celery just to use a single stalk. Unfortunately there was no crunch at all in this recipe, so I replaced the dried minced onions with fresh diced onions. And I put waaay more than 1/8 tsp. It was at least a 1/4 cup.
As I mixed up all the ingredients, something hit me. I was missing a crucial tuna salad ingredient: hard boiled eggs! NOOOO. Why doesn't the recipe call for hard boiled eggs?! Well, it was too late to add it since I was hungry. Next time.
I burned the roll even though I literally stared at it the whole time it was in the toaster oven.