Lettuce wraps on a lazy Sunday

June 26, 2023 7:49 PM

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.

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.

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.

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

Cinnamon swirl pancakes

August 23, 2022 12:15 PM

Prior to this entry, I had six posts tagged with "pancakes", and every single one of them has been a savory pancake. But that all changes today! Twice this week I have made your typical breakfast pancakes. In the oven. Can't be too traditional.

I remember when I first saw the recipe for cinnamon swirl oven pancakes close to a year ago, I decided I had to make it. That day. I've actually made this a lot of times in the past, but this is the first time I've taken any pictures.

When I made this pancake earlier in the week, I'll admit I didn't do a very good job. For some reason the batter was super lumpy (I know they say you're supposed to have lumps in it, but this had A LOT of lumps of dry flour). The batter itself was also really thin. I noticed that when I mixed the melted butter with the rest of the wet ingredients, it just solidified again.

And at first, I was just going to leave it at that. I had used up the last of my bag of all purpose flour, and I didn't want to buy another huge bag. But as I was organizing one of my kitchen cabinets, I noticed an expired bag of self rising flour that I got from one of my coworkers at the start of the pandemic.

BEST IF USED BY 1/22/19

Totally fine!

The second time, it went a lot better! I actually heated the milk up to room temperature before mixing it with the rest of the ingredients, and I must have done a better job measuring because the batter was more viscous and less lumpy.

I like to double the amount of cinnamon mixture and use white sugar instead of brown for it. When I make the cinnamon swirl, it reminds me of childhood, when I often made box marble cake with my 细姑. The last step before putting the cake in the oven was to pour a chocolate mixture over the batter and run a chopstick through it to make a cool pattern.

These pancakes were much fluffier than my first batch! The only thing that didn't work out so well was that I ran out of vanilla, and I could only use a quarter of what the recipe called for. But that's okay. I had some expired maple syrup that I could pour on my pancakes to give it some extra sweetness.

BEST BY 1/19/19

I mean, maple syrup can't go bad that quickly, right?

Despite the questionable expiration dates, it was a very tasty breakfast.

Something that vaguely resembles pho

August 18, 2022 10:14 PM

Every once in a while I get a sudden craving for pho. I don't know how it hits me, but I just think about that pho smell and then I want some. I'm not about to spend 6 hours simmering some broth though, so I needed a shortcut. I remembered that Budget Bytes has a "faux pho" recipe, and it has decent reviews, so I decided to give it a try.

Her recipe uses chicken, and it just doesn't feel right to have chicken pho. I wanted beef. So I used beef broth instead of chicken broth and sliced beef instead of cooked chicken. I had a container of beef Better than Bouillon that expired earlier this year that I wanted to use up, and I bought the cheapest piece of beef I could find at Aldi, which was an "eye of round".

The soup is really simple. It's just broth and five spice. And so I mixed my beef broth with five spice and took a sip. It...felt like it was lacking something. I wasn't really sure what, but I ended up throwing in some bullhead barbecue sauce (hot pot sauce) and a little bit of hoisin, and, well, it didn't really taste like pho, but I guess it wasn't bad.

I ended up squeezing a lime slice into my bowl, and that made it taste a lot better. Still didn't really taste like pho, but it was some good noodle soup. Later that day, after I got back from a walk, I remember stepping into my living room and thinking "hey it vaguely smells like pho in here!"

I had some leftover broth and fixin's so I made more the next day, but I just went completely hot pot on it, and added cooked broccoli as well.

I really like noodle soup, and I want to give pho a try again. Maybe I'll actually use a recipe from an Asian person next time.

Mug cakes

November 12, 2021 7:26 PM

I've been really into mug cakes lately. They're easy to make, and I end up with just the right amount of warm dessert for myself. I really like Budget Byte's Cinnamon Nut Swirl Mug Cake (minus the nuts).

But man, for a "microwave cake", it's actually kind of complicated. I'm pretty sure I use every size measuring spoon I own plus an extra bowl, mix three sets of things, and use the microwave many times. So yeah, I needed to cut some of this out.

Budget Bytes has a few other mug cake recipes, and I wanted to try them out. I saw her post this Funfetti Mug Cake earlier this year, and I saved it for the next time I had milk I needed to use up. This was a lot easier. Like, I finished making it and I thought, "wow that was easy".

The taste? It was okay. It felt like something was missing though.

And then I realized that she doesn't put any salt in this recipe. How can you make a cake with no salt?! I made the recipe again a day later with a pinch of salt. Not the best, still not even close to the taste of that cinnamon mug cake, but better.

Okay, so I also made some hot chocolate a few days later, and I realized my cocoa powder expired over two years ago. It still seems fine, but I guess I should try and use it all up. I remembered that Budget Bytes has a chocolate mug cake recipe. I made this once while my sister had been staying with me and I remember feeling that it was pretty...average.

But I still need to use up this milk, and I also need to use up this cocoa powder, so I made that chocolate mug cake again. And this? This was even easier. This one doesn't have butter, so I didn't have to even use the microwave twice or grab a bowl. I also didn't bother with the dollop of peanut butter in the middle.

The taste was still pretty average though, and it definitely wasn't sweet enough. Maybe I've grown too much of a sweet tooth lately, but two teaspoons of sugar just did not feel like enough. So I decided to remake this again, but use a whole tablespoon of sugar. Definitely helped.

And that had that extra benefit of getting rid of a need for a measuring teaspoon. So this is so easy now. One mug, one 1/4 tsp spoon, one tbsp spoon. Use the 1/4 tsp spoon to mix everything. One minute in the microwave. That's it. I could make one of these every day.

Still, those two easier mug cakes don't beat the taste of the cinnamon swirl mug cake. Maybe I can tweak that one...

Meal Plan: 12/5 - 12/11

December 12, 2020 11:41 AM

Last week I showed you what was in the PERISHABLE section of my whiteboard. This week I'll expand that and also show you the PANTRY.

You see how some of the items aren't underneath a date? That means they're so old, I've forgotten when I actually bought them. And that can of bamboo shoots? I think it's been expired for a while. My go-to recipe for using up bamboo is curry, so I decided to put green chicken curry on my list of dishes for the week.

Obviously, that means I need to go to the Asian store to buy green curry paste. And since I've got that on my list, why not just make it a full week of Asian food? Sweet rice (sticky rice) is at the top of my PANTRY section, and the reason I bought that in the first place was to make Sticky Rice with Chinese Sausage. But, the last time I made it, I didn't feel like actually opening that new bag of rice, so I just used my normal Jasmine rice. And that bag of sweet rice has been sitting in a cabinet, unopened, ever since.

For my third dish, I looked up noodle soup recipes on The Woks of Life since it's cold out now, and noodle soup sounds really good. I settled on Udon Noodle Soup with Chicken and Mushrooms since I've made it before and it uses dashi, which I currently have, and shiitake mushrooms, which I'm going to buy anyway for the sticky rice meal.

And that would have settled it, except I looked back at my whiteboard and realized I STILL NEED TO USE UP THE CABBAGE. I was trying to think of other Asian dishes that use cabbage, and my mind went to Singapore noodles. I don't know why my mind associates that with cabbage, but it works since I also have vermicelli noodles.

So, my original shopping plan was to just hit up the Asian store. But then I put together my list and realized I needed to buy chicken, and I just do not think buying chicken from the Asian store is a good idea. I don't even know if the local Asian stores here sell chicken.

So, I made a trip to Aldi. And look at all that produce! I'm definitely getting my greens this week. And yeah, Aldi sells ginger now. Crazy.

Aldi also sells coconut milk, but I just decided I'd get it at the Asian store instead. I'm not actually sure which option would have been cheaper. The Chinese sausage and dried shrimp are also kinda pricey. In total, I spent $48.37 on my groceries, which is way more than I should spent on food in one week. But, I did have a very light grocery haul last week, and next week will probably also be light. If we're averaging, I'm still under $30/week.

So, it's Saturday now, and I'm sitting here and I cannot remember well enough what I actually ate on Wednesday. Usually I try to write this down the day of, but I just happened to forget to do that on Wednesday. Did I actually skip a meal? Why in the world would I have skipped breakfast? Maybe I snacked on something. Maybe I had beef jerky in the morning.

I did sort of skip lunch on Thursday. I mean I ate food. I was grazing all day. I definitely had a yogurt and some beef jerky and probably something else as well. You'll also notice that I had McDonald's on Friday. I just really wanted those french fries. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything else on the menu I really wanted. But I got a few other things and it was still satisfying enough for a lazy Friday evening.

Ending with an obligatory photo of the pulled pork tacos: