flailing in my kitchen v3.1
How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
Continuing on the egg train! 🪺 🥚 🍳
So my little sister visited me in May, and around that time we like to celebrate a little holiday we made up where we exchange gifts and tell each other "Happy not-a-Mother's day!" I gave her some Pokémon cards, and she gave me a few packs of my absolute favorite MAMA instant noodles with gue diao粿條 - rice noodles.
My dad would always keep these stocked in his apartment, and when I went off to college he sent me a huge box full of them to keep in my dorm room. They were my go-to noodles, and I would always eat them with an egg. As an adult, I don't eat instant noodles too often, but there was one time last year that I thought, I could really go for some Mama mi.
I know it's not actually mi麵 - egg noodles, I just find it rolls off the tongue to say Mama mi
Unfortunately, most Asian grocery stores do NOT stock these! I mean they're not impossible to find like ou nam烏欖 - Chinese black olives, but at least 9 out of 10 Asian stores aren't going to have them. I would know. I look for them every time I'm in an Asian store.
Sometimes I find a similar instant noodle with clear broth, but it has the thin noodles instead. It's the same flavor, so it tastes good, but man, it does not hit the same as the wide, flat noodles.
The noodles come with a seasoning packet, an oil packet, and a spicy packet. Now when I eat something like Buldak, I always use all of the spicy sauce, because I gotta have the full spice-inducing experience. With these Mama noodles, I don't use any of the spicy stuff. I'm not trying to struggle here.
I mostly follow the package instructions. I boil about 1.5 cups of water, and I throw the noodles in and stir them around until they're soft. You do want to give them a good stir because I find that it's very easy for rice noodles to stick to each other. Then I crack in my egg and do some more stirring, and finally I add the oil and seasoning and turn off the heat.
If I have a scallion in my fridge, I usually cut that up and throw it on top as well, because it gives me the illusion that I'm making this healthier and because it makes the dish look prettier. And then I eat this one spoonful at a time, making sure to put a noodle, some egg, some scallion, and some soup, all in each bite. So comforting and so good.
Unfortunately, I've been feeling under the weather for the past couple of days, and I'm taking some "sick days". I still wanted to do something a little special to celebrate Valentine's Day, so I bought my boyfriend a pepper grinder from Aldi, and I made some vegetarian shepherd's pie with a heart on it! Some of the filling ended up spilling out after baking it, but it was very tasty!
Happy Chinese New Year! Today we celebrated by making tacos.
I've always thought Blue Apron was a huge waste of money. I have to pay $8+ for a meal that I need to prep and cook myself. I actually like going to the grocery store, and I don't like cutting vegetables, so why would I ever pay extra money to cut veggies?!
However, all of the Blue Apron recipes are available online for free! And they have a pretty great cookbook with useful pictures. My favorite of their recipes is Spiced Catfish Tacos with Roasted Sweet Potato and Coleslaw.
Except I use tilapia because even though I don't know how much catfish costs, I know it costs way more than tilapia.
Tacos are always delicious. I'll have another new year's post coming soon!
