Stuff I cooked after the New Year
February 3, 2020 3:59 PM
Hey, I might be playing catch-up all year at this rate. It is already February and I'm getting even more behind on my blogging, which means I remember less and less about various things that I cooked.
Sun-Dried Tomato Fettuccine Alfredo - Damn Delicious
I really, really wanted to make fettuccine alfredo when I got back from the holidays. I don't quite remember why, but I think it's because I saw a picture of fettuccine alfredo on a box for a large pan, and I kept passing by this box over and over. After looking through various pasta recipes I settled on this one, and when I made this I was very surprised at how....orange the whole thing turned out. I guess I should have realized that would happen because of the tomato paste. Anyway, this was good, but it took me way longer than it should have because I'm slow.
Kimchi Fried Rice - Damn Delicious
Sometimes when I go to the Asian store I like to buy kimchi because I think it makes a great snack, and every day when I get home from work I feel like I need to eat something immediately. I'm trying to avoid things like chips and shredded cheese (yes, I snack on shredded cheese more than I'd care to admit), but I don't feel so bad eating kimchi since it's all vegetables. Since I had a jar of it, I wanted to try this kimchi fried rice. It was good! I don't remember anything else about it.
Red Curry Noodles with Chicken - The Woks of Life
So the other day I decided I needed to take inventory of everything that I had stocked in my pantry and fridge that I forgot about. I have a lot of random stuff that I need to use before it expires. One of those things was a can of curry paste. I'm sure I had a reason for buying this curry paste originally, but I have since forgotten that reason, so I needed a different use for it. These noodles seemed easy enough to make. (I only used half the tin, the other half I used to make a more soup-y curry except I never took a picture) Overall, they were alright, but I don't think they'll make my make-again list. It definitely needed more flavor. I added fish sauce, but it still felt lacking.
Spinach and Orzo Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette - Budget Bytes
Huh, I know I made this to use up the spinach, but I have no idea what I used the spinach for originally. Maybe I just thought, I'll buy some spinach because veggies are good and spinach is easy to use. Anyway, if you actually follow my blog, you'll know that I'm really bad at making salads. I think this ended up turning out okay, and I think I also ate the whole thing in one sitting, but I don't think I'll really want to make this again.
Chimichurri Chicken Kebabs - Budget Bytes
Remember that 5lb family pack bag of chicken breast that I bought in December? I still haven't used it all yet. And you know what else? I was at that same grocery store on Saturday, and they were selling chicken breast for even cheaper! But the bags were even bigger! They must have been 10lbs! Anyway, I resisted the urge this time. But back to the point of the chicken. I made this recipe, and I think I finally figured out how to use the broiler. I just needed to put my food on the top rack. I ended up seriously overcooking the chicken here, but I'm optimistic about my next try at broiling!
Stuff I cooked before the New Year
January 20, 2020 12:50 PM
Yeah, I'm still catching up. But I apparently didn't cook much between Thanksgiving and New Years. Or at least I didn't take pictures of what I cooked.
Creamy Tomato and Spinach Pasta - Budget Bytes
Yeah, I make this a lot. It's still my go-to for an easy meal when I don't want to put a lot of effort into cooking.
Jackfruit Tacos
Yup, that taco is completely vegetarian. I don't know, I wanted to try jackfruit-pretending-to-be-meat, since I know it's commonly used as a vegetarian substitute for pulled pork. It tastes and feels nothing like pork. So it was alright, I guess.
Japanese Eggplant with Chicken and Thai Basil - The Woks of Life
I don't remember why, but I think I really wanted some stir fried eggplant, so I looked up recipes for it, and this looked easy enough. I also impulsively bought a family pack of chicken breast. (5 pounds!) I don't remember how much it cost, but I assume it was cheap since I impulse bought it. I do remember this tasting good, but pretty much all stir fry recipes I try are good.
Fried Chicken Sandwiches - Pinch of Yum
So when I went home for Thanksgiving, my cousins were kind of obsessed with Popeye's new chicken sandwiches. And apparently the rest of the world was too, because Popeye's kept running out of chicken sandwiches, and the first few that I checked didn't even have any! And when I don't get to eat a food that I expect to, I want it even more.
So after unsuccessfully trying to buy a Popeye's chicken sandwich I said, screw it, I'm making this myself. Well, not the way Popeye's does, but I can look up chicken sandwich recipes and follow them. I had this recipe saved for a while, and I figured it was finally time to make it. This took me like an hour to make because I'm really slow, but hey, it was worth it.
Still so busy
November 3, 2019 6:07 AM
My mind has been so distracted about work that I haven't been able to really give this blog much thought. I'm even eating out more, and my body is not happy with that. Anyway, I am still cooking regularly, so I feel like I should at least update this with pictures every so often.
One Pot Creamy Pesto Chicken Pasta - Budget Bytes
I really like getting bagels from Giant Eagle, which means I also end up buying cream cheese, but one block of cream cheese is just so much cream cheese that I end up with lots of leftover cream cheese. So then I look up recipes with cream cheese, and for some reason, it's always just a bunch of pasta. This was good though. I'd make it again, but I probably won't put it in my "go-to recipes".
Roasted Poblano Hummus - Budget Bytes
I also bought a bag of Poblano peppers from Giant Eagle because I needed one for that enchilada recipe I made a few weeks ago. What was annoying was that I only needed one pepper and I had to buy five because Giant Eagle only sells these in bags, and I did not want to take the extra ten minutes to trek to Whole Foods. So I looked up Poblano recipes and I came across hummus. I love hummus (as I love chickpeas), but store-bought hummus is usually so bad. The problem with making hummus though, is that I have to take out my food processor, which is a pain in the butt because it's annoying to wash, and it takes me forever to figure out how to put it back in the box. But hey, I have it, so I really should make use of it more often.
This hummus was delicious, but it really could have used a second Poblano pepper. I'll have to make hummus more often, as it's a great healthy snack that I can bring to work. Plus, what else am I gonna use my jar of tahini for?
Sichuan Dry Fried String Beans - The Woks of Life
Sometimes I eat so much pasta and tacos that it makes me really miss Asian food. I also feel like I need more vegetables in my system, and this is one of my favorite dishes to order at the local Chinese restaurant. We actually made this once when my sister was here! I figured I'd try this out on my own, and it turned out to be a super oil-splatter-y mess, but it did taste good! Next time I need to be better about really drying the green beans before throwing them into the pan. I also really should have used a larger pan. This is going to go into my "things I want to cook for my mom or dad when they visit" list.
Korean Beef Bulgogi - Damn Delicious
More Asian food! I was just browsing recipes and I stumbled across this, and the picture looked really good, so I wanted to make it myself. Of course, when I made it, it didn't look nearly as good as the original recipe's picture. The marinade was delicious, but I still haven't quite gotten the hang of using my cast iron skillet. I was supposed to let the beef really brown, but it wasn't quite doing that. There was also so much marinade, and I probably could have cut it in half. I also should have cut the pieces of beef much much thinner. I'll have to try this again sometime.
Shrimp Scampi Florentine - All Recipes
Now this is one of my go-to recipes. Of course I still haven't taken a decent picture of it yet. What's nice about this dish is that I can pair it with whatever starch I want. Rice, pasta, or bread all work really well. And I just happened to have a whole take-and-bake baguette sitting in my freezer.
Pizza...again!
With Aldi now stocking pizza dough for less than $1, making pizza is really convenient. Especially because whenever I buy shredded cheese, it comes in these giant bags and I never know what to do with all of it, so I snack on it. I'd definitely rather be cooking with the cheese instead. Tomatoes are also one of my favorite pizza toppings (tomatoes, not tomato sauce). I should have put more green onions on this, but I totally forgot about them until the last minute so I awkwardly placed them in-between tomatoes at the end.
I should really buy a round pizza dish so I can actually make it circular next time. Oh, and maybe a pizza cutter.
Pasta, Pizza, and Dumplings
September 15, 2019 12:27 PM
I don't have anything exciting to say in my opening sentence of this post, but hey, look at my fancy breakfast I made last Sunday! My arugula salad was really good.
I went to a diner for lunch that day, and I ate pancakes, so I really had breakfast twice in one day, which is way too much breakfast for one day.
One Pot Roasted Red Pepper Pasta - Budget Bytes
So I had some cream cheese that was sitting in the fridge for who knows how long, and when I went to use it, I saw a piece of mold! But there was still a lot of cream cheese in that block, and I really didn't want to throw it all away (plus I was going to eat a bagel), so I did some googling to see if I could salvage the cream cheese, and I got...mostly bad news. But this one random person said it would be fine if I just cut off the chunk around the mold, so that's what I did! And that was two weeks ago, so I think it was fine.
Anyway, I bring that up because I felt like I really needed to use up all my cream cheese quickly after that. And this pasta optionally takes cream cheese. Turns out I used almost all the cream cheese on my bagels, so I barely had any left for this pasta. But that's okay, it still turned out really well. I cut the recipe in half (except for the diced tomatoes, because half a can of diced tomatoes is kind of useless), and it made enough for five meals. I usually hate leftover pasta, but this time the leftovers actually tasted decent.
Bacon and Caramelized Pineapple Pizza - Budget Bytes
I had the most random things in my fridge: canned pineapple, bacon, arugula, jarred red peppers, shredded cheese, green onions. After thinking about what else I can do with my much too large supply of arugula, I figured pizza would be good. All I needed to buy was pizza dough!
But wait, that pizza doesn't have arugula. Yeah, so I was looking up pizza recipes mostly because I wanted some inspiration, and I saw this recipe for bacon and pineapple pizza. And I had bacon and pineapple, so I thought this was perfect. It tasted really good, but I need to get better at dealing with pizza dough. I don't think I quite understand how to form it in that nice circle shape.
Oh, don't worry, I used the arugula in my own Tomato, Red Pepper, and Arugula White Pizza.
Sweet Chili Charred Brussels Sprouts - Love & Lemons Cookbook
I don't have a link to this recipe since I got it from a cookbook. The recipe was actually for broccolini, but brussels sprouts were on sale at Aldi. I really like the taste of the sauce that was used, which consisted of some tamari, rice vinegar, srirachi, garlic, and sugar. I accidentally overcooked it a bit though, by leaving it in the oven for 20 minutes. I might use the sauce in a stir-fry later.
Pan Fried Dumplings - Damn Delicious
I was down to my last two bags of emergency dumplings, so I wanted to make some more. I normally just throw whatever I feel like in my dumplings, but I figured I'd try a recipe this time. This was a pretty typical dumpling recipe, but I really didn't want to buy zucchini or carrot, so I only used cabbage and green onion. Tasted decent enough, but I don't think I'll use it again. I thought the texture was a little weird.
But hey, I have ten freezer dumpling meals now!
Odds 'n Ends
March 11, 2019 12:30 PM
We just forget to take multiple pictures of the meals we make. Or I'm stuck by myself and have to take a picture with my phone.
Root Vegetable Hash Egg Skillet from Naturally Ella
I totally forgot about this in my last Odds 'n Ends post! I had a turnip and I had no idea how to use it, but I saw an egg hash recipe, and I love egg hash. We added bacon and crumbled feta cheese on top which added some extra flavor. All of the turnip recipes I looked at used it like a potato, but I must say, it tastes nothing like a potato.
Lemon Garlic Asparagus Pasta from Budget Bytes
We needed a really quick meal for a Friday night since we had plans to play a game with our cousins. I almost said that we should just get food from a local restaurant, but making pasta is cheaper and faster. I had these really dinky looking asparagus from Aldi, so I didn't even bother steaming them, and I just sauteed them for a couple of minutes. I also added mushrooms, which you really can't see in the picture either.
Yellow Rice Chicken Skillet from Budget Bytes
This might actually be the very first recipe I ever tried from Budget Bytes. It was delicious the first time I made it, and it's become one of my really simple go to meals. This is the first time I made it with bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, though. I normally buy boneless, skinless because I'm lazy, but I'm trying to save money so I'm buying whatever meat is on sale. These chicken thighs were only $0.69/lb!
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