Happy new year

January 2, 2025 7:51 PM

It's finally 2025! I've been waiting for this since like...January 2024!

Yeah, 2024 was a lot. I did a lot. I cooked a lot! But I did not food blog a lot. I only made four posts. (I'm not counting the one my cousin wrote) And I ended 2024 the same way it started, by being sick. It's a little unfortunate, but it's not so bad that I can't start off the year right.

So on January 1, 2025 I wanted to cook something. My first thought was to make some curry, but the curry blocks that I thought I had in the fridge weren't actually there. Then I was thinking I would make some peanut stew because our friend gave us a piece of ginger, and I figured I should try to use it. I made this whole grocery list, and I even planned out a second meal, but then I realized that Aldi was closed because of course they're closed on New Years. And I had intended on buying almost everything on my list from Aldi because there are certain things I just do not want to buy from Giant Eagle.

Okay, so I scrapped that idea and decided on...hummus. Yeah, I know that's more like a snack and not a meal, but I've really been wanting to make some caramelized onion and balsamic hummus.

I already had two onions in the fridge, and you know what else goes well with caramelized onions? Pierogies. I had some frozen pierogies sitting in the freezer, and I figured that if I pair pierogie with some veggies, that's basically a meal. The holidays were pretty heavy so it was good to eat something light.

I ended up buying some green beans because they're pretty easy to cook and because the green beans at Giant Eagle are not that much more expensive than the ones at Aldi. But at Giant Eagle they just have green beans in bulk, and I'm the kind of person that will pick up each green bean individually and inspect it before putting it in my bag. So I was hunched over picking out beans one by one until I got a headache and decided that 0.91 lbs of green beans is good enough.

My boyfriend cooked the pierogie. He likes to first boil them and then toast them in the toaster oven with some spices and shredded cheese. It's pretty good! If I ever write a cookbook, I'd feature them.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

I think it's time

December 30, 2021 4:34 PM

Earlier this year I took a break from my food blog, and I told myself that I wouldn't be back until I made a mobile app for myself. Well, I switched to an Android phone, and I learned some basic mobile app programming, and here I am again.

I think it's time to get back to flailing in my kitchen.

Pulled pork

March 17, 2021 11:03 PM

A few weeks ago, I was getting lunch with my friend from one of my favorite restaurants: Taco Town. This place is right next to the office that I work in, but because I've been working at home for the past year, I haven't been able to eat here. So we were very fortunate that we happened to order food here on the last day they were open before taking a two month break.

On the other hand, they were out of carnitas that day. How can they run out of carnitas?! It's the best thing on their menu! Taco Town used to be a solid 5/5 stars for me, but recently I've had to dock them a star.

But whatever. If I can't buy carnitas I'll just make them. Except carnitas are a little more work than I like sometimes, so instead I ended up making some chili rubbed pulled pork.

Obviously these are pictures of the prep work, and I actually don't have pictures of the finished product. I invited a friend over for tacos that night, and sometimes you're just having too much fun to take pictures. I can assure you it was delicious though.

This was close to 4lbs of pork. I had lots left over, which meant I had lots of other meals with my pulled pork. Like this meal with garlic parmesan green beans and cilantro lime rice.

The green beans weren't bad, but I don't think I'd make that recipe again.

I also made some guac to eat with this pulled pork. Guacamole is one of the few things I can make without a recipe.

Typically when I make guac, it starts to brown after sitting in the fridge for a day. But this time was different. I had that guac in the fridge for 5 days, and it was still completely green! It was insane! Like I did some sort of magic on it!

I wanted to make the guac to put it in tacos or burrito bowls, but I knew I wouldn't need a whole avocado's worth of guac just for that. I went to the grocery store to buy some chips, and I came across guacamole-flavored tortilla chips, which made me feel kind of nostalgic. I used to hate guacamole, but when I was in high school, I loved guac-flavored chips. I guess that makes sense because guac-flavored chips taste absolutely nothing like guac. Eventually, well after graduating college, I started liking guac, but I still hated avocados. And just two years ago, my sister showed me just how delicious avocados are, and here I am now, loving all forms of avocado.

So many great uses for pulled pork. All were delicious.

(No, I haven't forgotten about carnitas. I'm absolutely going to make that at some point.)

Salmon and green beans

October 5, 2020 5:49 PM

The other day I saw salmon on sale for $5.99/lb. I didn't have salmon on my list of things to cook for the week, but I can't say no to cheap salmon. So I walked to the grocery store and bought two pounds of salmon. That's it. Just salmon.

My aunt makes this great salmon dish with lemon pepper and mayonnaise. I always look forward to eating it when I visit her. It seems so simple to make, but for some reason, every time I try to make it, it doesn't turn out right.

And this time? It's no different. It wasn't great. I don't know, I think I need to watch her make it. I have all the ingredients written down, but how much of everything do I need?!

Also, do you see that salmon? I cooked it UPSIDE DOWN. How the heck did I do that? I didn't even notice it until I took it out of the oven. It was overcooked, but the breadcrumbs weren't browned, and it wasn't seasoned enough, but I think I put too much butter, but I didn't even use salted butter so it was weird...

It's alright. Next time, cook it for like 10 minutes and then broil for a few more minutes. Use more lemon pepper. Use more mayo. Use more chicken granules.

At least my green beans and eggplant turned out well.

Yeah, 5/5 for the veggies. 2/5 for the salmon, but I'll try the salmon again another time.