Social Distancing: Days 24 - 26

April 25, 2020 5:57 AM

So I've been verybusy at work lately, which is why I haven't posted an update in a while. When I start working on a project at work my mind is just in this "I NEED TO FINISH THIS" mode and I can't work on other things. Anyway, I've found a stopping point, so it's time to catch up on blog posts.

Day 24 (Saturday): I have decided to take inventory of all my food. That's right. Everything in my kitchen.

I had already been doing this, but I finally took inventory of my herbs, spices, sauces, etc. Yes, this is what I stare at every day when I decide what to cook and what leftover to eat for breakfast or lunch.

Before I get to the dinner portion of this, check out this super aesthetic coffee my sister made.

So tonight's dinner was Nam Sod (Thai pork salad). I had about a pound of ground pork sitting in the freezer, but what I really needed to use up were some super sad looking limes.

We ate it both with rice and in lettuce wraps. I thought it was great, though my sister prefers something sweeter. Adding some Thai basil would have made this even better though!

Day 25 (Sunday): We decide to go grocery shopping. On a Sunday. But we didn't think about what Sunday it is. EASTER. That's right, all the stores are closed except Whole Foods. And Whole Foods has a line that wraps around the building. We decide to head back home. We'll survive.

Since we have about half a head of cabbage in the fridge, we decide to make Okonomiyaki. It was delicious. We also had some green beans that seemed like they were going to go bad soon, so we fried those up as well. Of course at this point we're starting to struggle a little with what ingredients we had left. We used up the rest of our eggs for this meal!

Day 26 (Monday): We also wanted to go grocery shopping this day, but for some reason my stomach wasn't feeling so great, so we stayed home again. It's okay. We had some salmon in the freezer and some broccoli in the fridge so we made a quick meal out of that.

Unfortunately I didn't let the salmon thaw all the way before putting it under the broiler so that was a bit of a struggle to get it cooked completely. I'm still learning how to use that broiler properly. But the rub we added to the salmon was great, and the meal overall was delicious.

At this point, we were out of garlic, soy sauce, milk, fruit...we absolutely needed a grocery trip.

Social Distancing: First 3 Days

March 21, 2020 7:38 PM

So, my sister's school got canceled for who knows how long, which means she's back with me! And since she's back, you know what that means. We make lots of food and take lots of pictures.

So, when we got home we went grocery shopping, and my mom told us to buy two week's worth of groceries. So we bought a lot of food. But, there is zero chance that we managed to get enough for two weeks. I don't even think we bought enough food for one week. We went through a whole pound of broccoli in one meal!

We're trying really hard to not go grocery shopping again until all our veggies are used up. I think we can last a couple more days. Maybe. But I will not sacrifice healthy, well-balanced meals for this. I know eating veggies with dip might seem like a weird thing to have for lunch, but look at the different flavors! I have all the food groups represented. And I can use up my whole thing of celery, which is great because I don't really like celery.

And we bought so much fruit! Which is crazy for me, since I don't really like fruit that much. But my sister can turn that fruit into delicious smoothies, and I love smoothies.

Of course this means we have to be a little creative. Out of limes? Let's use lemons instead. Out of cilantro? What else do I have that's green? Have the wrong kind of cheese? Doesn't matter, I'll just use what I have.

Yes, I made tacos and replaced limes with lemons, cilantro with green onion, and queso fresco with feta. And it was better than any other taco from a hipster restaurant that I've ever had.

Yeah, we're now officially out of fresh green things to use as garnish. Lesson learned? Buy way way way more vegetables next time.

Yellow Squash Pancakes

March 31, 2019 11:09 AM

I'm not really a huge fan of yellow squash. It just reminds me of college cafeteria vegetables because for some reason "mixed veggies" always meant a bunch of sauteed diced squash. But I saw a recipe for Summer Squash and Chive Pancakes on Skinnytaste, which sounded cool since I could just turn the squash into something that doesn't resemble it at all. I didn't actually have chives, but I always have green onions stocked, so I just subbed that in.

No matter how many times I make pancakes, the first pancake in a batch never seems to turn out right. I think I get impatient and don't wait for the pan to fully heat up. And then I try to flip it, and it completely falls apart.

I don't know what it is about "fake" pancakes, but they always taste like egg to me! My aunt used to make paleo pancakes, and all I could taste was the egg. I put exactly one egg in this batch, and if I didn't know what ingredients were in this, I would just call it scrambled eggs. They tasted just like scrambled eggs with chive that my family makes. I feel like there's a genius idea somewhere for making vegan scrambled eggs using yellow squash. But...I'm not vegan so I'll never think about that again.

You'd think I would love this, because I love eggs, but egg-y pancakes just taste like overcooked scrambled eggs to me, and I think overcooking the egg completely ruins the texture and flavor. And yet, these pancakes were incredibly liquid-y on the inside. Even if I kept it on the stove for 10 minutes, it was still liquid-y. So this was just weirdly undercooked and overcooked at the same time. I think it might be better to roast the squash instead of boiling it.

I threw sour cream, feta, and cilantro on top to make this more palatable to me (and also to possibly make it look prettier?). I'm sure the flavor profile is all wrong, but it made it seem less like eggs, so I thought it tasted decent at the end. My sister liked it on its own though!

Not sure if I'll ever make this again. Pancakes are way too much work.

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.