Cooking for myself again

September 22, 2020 8:41 PM

I'm going to end up having three weeks on my own before I head back home to visit family again. And you know what I've realized? I don't actually need to cook all that much. I've also started timing myself to see how fast I can cook. Spoiler: I don't cook that fast, but I actually can cook faster than I thought.

I made this pasta since it's one of my go-to meals when I don't know what to cook. I've made it so many times that I'm actually able to beat the estimated time on Budget Bytes! It took me 24 minutes and the recipe says 25 minutes! Look at me shaving off one minute.

I used some of a tub of chive and onion cream cheese in this, which turned out fine, but this is way better when you just have a block of plain cream cheese. The spreadable tubs just don't give that nice creamy consistency that you want.

Shortly after that, I made this Shrimp Scampi Florentine which is another go-to. When I was visiting family, we noticed that shrimp was on sale for $5/lb. What a steal! They're never that cheap in the grocery stores I live near! Not even at Aldi!

I made it with rice since I didn't want to go overboard and eat pasta twice in one day (even though I have no problem eating rice three times a day), but I had some later meals with pasta, and I think this works much better with pasta than rice.

This also took me about 40 minutes to make, which is exactly how long the recipe said it would take. I don't know. I was going kind of slow and listening to a podcast at the same time. Feels like it should actually only take 30 minutes.

And finally, I made some Posole today. Back when my sister was still here, we tried a stove top carnitas recipe which was...lackluster. Anyway, I threw it in the freezer, and I figured this was a good use for some of it.

I don't know what it was, but I had a super potent onion, and I was crying just from chopping it up. My eyes were hurting so badly that they kept hurting for over an hour after I was done cooking. It took me just over 30 minutes to prep and cook, so I guess the name of the recipe was right.

What I'd really like to do is buy some more bowls. These Corelle bowls are just not suitable for picture taking.

Social Distancing: Days 52 - 56

May 17, 2020 11:32 AM

Day 52 (Saturday): It's the weekend! Which means no work! Which means I actually had time to cook!

Yeah, that's right. I did the cooking. I really wanted to make some shrimp bowls. Of course, it ended up taking me forever, and it really felt like I made four different things: shrimp, rice, pineapple salsa, and black beans.

But whatever. It was worth it. Absolutely delicious.

Day 53 (Sunday): My sister was feeling lazy (and I've been feeling lazy for the past three weeks), so we just ate leftovers. We had too many leftovers sitting in the fridge anyway.

Day 54 (Monday): We bought this big thing of pork butt in our last grocery shopping trip and I think it may have been sitting in the fridge for just a little too long. So we decided to cook it.

I really wanted to try another pork loin recipe (but using a pork butt), and this honey garlic pork loin sounded really good. Using pork butt for this was definitely a good idea. We also needed a veg and some starch, so we roasted some brussels sprouts and potatoes as well. Overall, it was a good meal.

Day 55 (Tuesday): My sister made 韭菜粿 and I think it's worthy of its own post. So you'll see it in the next one.

Day 56 (Wednesday): When we went grocery shopping earlier this week, we stopped in the Italian grocery store, and decided to look all the different fancy pastas they had. Both my sister and I really like wide noodles, and I normally find fettuccine not wide enough.

But the Italian grocery store had some really nice fettuccine. The one we bought was completely in Italian! It was also a whole $2! I think paying that extra dollar was worth it though. The recipe we used was a bit weird, but it still tasted good.

Social Distancing: Days 7 - 9

March 30, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 7 (Wednesday): So during my multi-grocery store excursion, I impulse bought some Ahi Tuna, because of course I did. And because I was out for three hours, that gave plenty of time for that slab of tuna to already start thawing, so I figured we might as well keep it in the fridge and have Poke the next day.

One of our lessons learned from past poke parties is that we usually buy way too much fish. So we picked out the smallest piece (about 1/2 lb), and we decided to NOT add any extra items to our grocery list because the best way to do poke parties is to just use what you already have.

Another lesson learned is that we should just marinate the fish, and not any of the other ingredients because otherwise it gets too salty. My sister makes the most delicious marinade with soy sauce and other Asian sauces and ginger and garlic and onions and she even included some lime this time!

If you're wondering, yes, we ate everything on that table. There were no leftovers, and there shouldn't be, since this is raw fish we're talking about.

Day 8 (Thursday): We had a planned game night with our cousins this day, so I wanted to make something easy. I still had a lot of pulled pork leftover from a few days ago, so it's taco time again!

I was expecting to do another taco night, so I made sure to buy lots of cilantro and sweet onions. I also happened to buy Mexican cheese, which I wasn't even planning on using for this. (I like putting Mexican cheese in my green bean casserole...which will be for another blog post!) But it adds some nice color to the tacos!

Also, we're sitting here at my dinky table, when I realize how nice the lighting is at one particular spot. And I realize that I have a spotlight in my kitchen that is pointing RIGHT at that spot on the table, and I have two other spotlights and I'm like WHY HAVEN'T I NOTICED THIS BEFORE. I need to buy a ladder now so I can re-angle these lights and give my pictures better lighting for the future.

My sister also made some shaobing. She's so talented.

Day 9 (Friday): So one of my friends is really into those Bon Appetit videos, and I figured I'd watch one to see what all the fuss is about. I'm not really into watching videos about food, but watching this video of this guy making pasta with chickpeas really made me want to make pasta with chickpeas.

Except this is more like soup. Pasta soup? They call it "brothy pasta" which my sister thought was weird, but that's what it is! You eat it with a spoon! We also threw in some kale and celery that we just happened to have. I thought it was great. I'd make it again.

Oh remember how I was struggling to find flour at the grocery store? Well, that's not the only thing we struggled with. We also couldn't find butter. We did find butter substitutes though, so we bought two packs of margarine. My sister used it to make these croissant-like things that don't really resemble croissants at this point, but whatever. It was still tasty.

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!

^ Cilantro Jalapeno Hummus, Sesame Tuna Salad (Budget Bytes) Also a traditional tuna salad and veggies

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, green onion with cilantro, 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.

Slowing Down

February 22, 2020 11:07 AM

You might be thinking, "Slowing down?! Aren't you already making new posts at a ridiculously slow rate?!" and yeah, I am. But that's because my life has been busy busy busy, and I need to slow down what I'm doing in my life. I had a realization while driving home last week that I've been doing way too much. drinking too much coffee, and not getting enough sleep. So, I've officially started a no-coffee diet that I'm going to try and keep up for the next couple of months.

No coffee obviously means I need to get more sleep, and because I'm trying to prioritize sleep, I might actually be cooking less. But we'll see!

One Pot Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta - Budget Bytes

I want to say I made this because I had cream cheese that I needed to use up, and whenever I need to use up cream cheese, I look for a creamy pasta to make. All of the cream cheese filled pastas I've made have been great, even if the leftovers aren't my favorite. I think this pasta could have used more of the cajun-y taste though. I also think it might have been better if I added more cheese, as it still tasted very tomato-y. Still, this tasted good and I'll probably make it again at some point.

Sushi - Just One Cookbook

Okay, I know I didn't really need a recipe for sushi, but the recipe I linked is what I referred to for making the sushi rice. Of course I just cooked rice like normal and then stirred in the extra ingredients when it was done.

I wanted to make sushi because I had a bunch of those seaweed wrappers and I also had imitation crab in the freezer, and I'm really trying to use what I have instead of buying extra ingredients all the time.

I considered buying one of those bamboo rolling things that make it easier to make sushi but I just tried rolling one on my own and while it wasn't super pretty, it seemed to work well enough so I'll be sticking to my own hand rolling for now. Anyway, I didn't realize how easy it was to make sushi like this. I'll be doing this some more in the future.

One Pan Roasted Kielbasa and Cabbage Dinner - Budget Bytes

For some reason I really wanted some sausage the other day, and I also had cabbage I needed to use up. Kielbasa is basically sausage, right? I think I ended up having extra meat and not as much cabbage as the recipe called for, which isn't really the direction I like to take these recipes, but whatever. This was a nice, easy dish to make.

Posole - Budget Bytes

I considered not posting this because of how ugly I think this picture is, but this did serve me well for four meals. I had a bag of leftover pulled pork in my fridge, and while I did use some of it for tacos, I also used it to make this soup. It was delicious.

Spiced Fish Tacos - Blue Apron

Because I love tacos so much, I also made fish tacos. The recipe calls for catfish, but I use tilapia because I'm cheap. It's been a while since I've made this, but this is one of my go-to recipes. I've made this so many times, and yet, I still haven't tried anything else from Blue Apron's cookbook. Maybe one day.

I actually deviated from the recipe this time, and I used avocado in place of sweet potato. I do think sweet potato would have been better, but I'm really trying hard to use ingredients I already have, and I just happened to have a lot of avocados on hand.

Tomato Basil Pasta with Ricotta - Budget Bytes

Yeah, more pasta! Pasta is easy so I make it a lot. I was actually looking up recipes that use ricotta since I bought some to make ravioli out of dumpling wrappers (that was gross, I'm never doing that again), and I had half the thing of ricotta left. This was good, but I cut the amount of tomatoes in half since I was too lazy to cut up a whole 2 pints. I definitely should have use all of them though.