I made the kimchi pasta again

February 5, 2025 6:37 PM

I wasn't actually going to make a post about this. I just wanted to try the kimchi pasta recipe again, with some tweaks. I used some pork loin instead of bacon, and cream cheese instead of heavy cream because that's what I have. And I was having a chill afternoon, prepping all the ingredients in advance.

In the youtube video, Aaron tells you that rather than use a knife and cutting board, you should probably put your kimchi in a bowl and use scissors to cut it, so you don't stain your cutting board. Well, I was trying to do that, but then I somehow dropped the bowl 😱

and kimchi spilled all over my cutting board! And my clothes! It's a good thing I didn't actually start cooking the pasta yet because I had to wipe the kitchen floor and wash and change my pants and tide pen my sweatshirt. I've been saying for years that I should get an apron.

Oh, the pasta ended up looking like...every other pasta I make. 😅 But it tasted different! It was more kimchi-y, which was good!

Kimchi pasta

February 1, 2025 12:56 AM

It's kind of a gloomy day today. So, I don't have great food photos. That doesn't mean I don't have any good food, but it was already enough work to cook, and I think I used up most of my photo-taking energy on chicken and rice.

Anyway, as I was browsing youtube the other night, I saw a recipe for kimchi pasta and it looked really good. I mean, orange pasta always looks good. I also happened to already have kimchi in my fridge and half a box of rigatoni and some parmesan and some green onions, so I added this to my list of things to cook.

But that was last week. I ran out of all those ingredients, but I still wanted to make this pasta, so I bought more of everything today. Well, except for green onions. Aldi was completely out! I've watched enough Aaron and Claire youtube videos to know that Aaron's favorite ingredient is green onion, but well, we're gonna have to settle for cilantro.

I decided to double the recipe just so I would have plenty of leftovers (we'll see if I regret having too much leftover pasta). And this was actually a lot more work than I expected. There were a lot of things to cut up, kind of like stir fries. And it took me so long to grate the cheese, and my hand was so tired. Maybe I should invest in a box grater. Or maybe I should just buy a container of pre-grated parmesan.

Once I got to the actual cooking part of this, it was pretty easy. After I poured in the heavy cream, I thought it looked a little too creamy though. The youtube video made this look so orange! Mine was super pale compared to that. It kind of looked more like an alfredo or a mac n cheese. So, if I make this again, I might cut the heavy cream in half. It's probably healthier that way too.

I gotta say, even though I'm not too happy with the color, it doesn't taste bad! The kimchi, oyster sauce, mushroom, and bacon all add a lot of depth to the flavor and I was really digging that. I would totally make this again, but I'd definitely make some adjustments so it's easier.

Rigatoni with sausage and zucchini

January 22, 2025 2:09 PM

Last year was a really busy year, and I often got stressed out over what to cook. One of my friends was regularly ordering from HelloFresh, and I also got a box every once in a while. It was nice to not have to think about what I was going to cook, but man was it expensive. And that's even after I had 50% off and I wasn't paying for shipping. It also came with way too much packaging.

But I did really enjoy one of the recipes so much that it's become one of my go tos: Pork Sausage Rigatoni Rosa. I think that name makes it sound way fancier than it is. It's basically another one of those tomato-y cream cheese pastas, and if you've been following this blog you know that I love putting cream cheese in pasta.

If you click on the recipe link, you'll notice that there are certain ingredients that don't exactly have a real measurement. The recipe calls for "1 unit" of zucchini, tomato paste, and chicken stock concentrate. Okay, the zucchini is simple enough, it's literally one zucchini, but what is 1 unit of tomato paste?!

Well, I've made this enough times and I've written down all the real measurements on my paper version of this. I've also modified this recipe to my own tastes. I find that HelloFresh usually includes more meat than I care for, and not enough of anything else.

• I use 8 oz (rather than 6 oz) of pasta
• I also use two zucchinis because I can't buy a single zucchini from Aldi. But also because it's good to eat a lot of veggies!
• I lower the amount of sausage to half a pound
• 1.5 oz (or ~3 tablespoons) of tomato paste and 1 tsp of Better than Bouillon chicken stock concentrate

I also found that I get a little flail-y when I've made this in the past. There's one step when it tells you to add cream cheese, stock concentrate, pasta water, butter, sugar, and chili flakes all at once and I am never ready for that. I always ended up running around my kitchen grabbing each item--meanwhile, my tomato paste is starting to burn in the pan. So this time I measured and put every ingredient out before I started cooking.

I was much less flail-y today! I think I made the pasta a little too al dente, but that's alright, that means the leftovers will still taste good.

I made the pasta a little too salty

December 14, 2024 2:18 PM

A guest post from my cousin Leng

Getting here was quite the ordeal; It was a story of intrigue and betrayal. Plot twists! O' Mennonites! A story too long and drawn out to regale in a single blog post, but the short of it was I arrived three hours later than expected. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of my final destination-- homeland of Gian'Iggle, a city with at least one river and probably at least one bridge: Pittsburgh (the 'Burgh).

During my time on that train, I had plenty of time to decide what I would cook. I told Jeje that if I stayed at her place this weekend, I would cook a meal so she wouldn't be cooking all the time. The problem is, I'm a "throw things together and hope for the best" kinda guy. I don't really cook foods with names. I started thinking of meals I knew the names of. "Does pasta count?" I thought to myself. My work caters lunch, and one of the foods I remembered trying was the Winter Cajun Pasta from Fireworks Pizza in Arlington. I gave it a quick Google search, and lo and behold, a recipe from Budget Bytes appeared. Long time fans of this blog already know-- it seemed like it was meant to be. I had decided that's what I would make, and I instantly started to get hungry. So, I ate the small bag of roasted chestnuts I brought with me as emergency provisions.

At last, I arrived at the Amtrak station. I want to say thanks to my Jeje for picking me up at the station at the incredibly late/early hour of 3am (with yummy Kent mangoes), and to Dan for setting up such a wonderful comfy mattress for me to sleep on during my stay.

When I got to Jeje's apartment, I knew I needed to sleep because tomorrow was the Big DDR Holiday Party, but for some reason I couldn't. In a vain attempt to lull myself to sleep I tried listening to a two hour video on Spongebob lore, but it was so bad I couldn't bear it. Instead, I opted to rest in silence, to drift off to the sound of the rumbling heater. I hope I have the energy to dance hard today!

Oh, here's the link to the recipe! I opted to substitute the chicken with kielbasa.

Rounding out the week

June 25, 2023 2:11 PM

I'm cooking a lot. Sometimes my aunt will call me and ask me if I've gone grocery shopping that day, and my answer is always yes. I think I go to the grocery store an average of at least once a day. I mean, it's so convenient. I have at least 5 stores within walking distance.

So, here are just a few more things that I've cooked this week.

I bought a whole head of green leaf lettuce when I made the guac burgers, and I only ended up using two leaves total! That's half a leaf per burger! So, I figured I could make some salad with the rest of it. I keep buying caesar salad bag mixes from Aldi, and I could save so much money by just buying the ingredients separately.

But man, having to wash and dry lettuce is such a pain. I don't mind chopping things, but drying things is the worst. I still don't know how people do it. You never see people drying veggies in recipe videos. Green leaf lettuce is also not a great choice for caesar salad. It was just way too leafy and soft. I needed some extra crunch.

I still have some green leaf lettuce left, but I decided to buy a bag of some romaine and...some type of red crunchy leaf for the next batch of salad. And it was pre-washed so I didn't have to wash it! (But I still ended up cutting it into smaller pieces because the pieces are too large)

The other thing you can see in the photo is some mashed potatoes. I made slow cooker mashed potatoes to use up half a block of cream cheese (and some of my milk). It wasn't bad, but I really should have cooked it for an extra hour. I don't have a potato masher, so I was using other various cooking utensils to mash the potatoes: a wooden spoon, a slotted spatula, a ladle, a fork. I really should have just used a hand mixer like it said to do in the recipe, because I actually have one of those!

Oh, I've made these mashed potatoes before, and I said it needed more, well, everything. I still agree with that. Maybe future me will actually remember next time.

To use up the other half of the cream cheese, I made this tortellini pasta. I figured it would be good because I really like the creamy tomato spinach pasta from Budget Bytes. She said this would be even easier (and it was!) but I think I prefer the other pasta. I don't think this one had enough sauce for how much pasta was in it.

This recipe called for 19 oz of pasta, and I should have known that that would be WAY too much pasta, especially given the fact that the tortellini package was labeled "Family pack". You know how I feel about leftover pasta. I also dislike leftover spinach. But it's okay, my boyfriend told me he will eat the rest 😁