I think it's time
December 30, 2021 4:34 PM
Earlier this year I took a break from my food blog, and I told myself that I wouldn't be back until I made a mobile app for myself. Well, I switched to an Android phone, and I learned some basic mobile app programming, and here I am again.
I think it's time to get back to flailing in my kitchen.
Mashed potatoes, chicken bites, and brussels sprouts
March 2, 2021 11:03 PM
It's later than I should be up for a worknight, but I'm excited to show off what I've been working on for the past two days: Tags! This is just the first iteration of it. More to come.
Last week I made a meal of mashed potatoes, garlic chicken bites, and brussels sprouts, except I spread out cooking the different components on different days so it didn't all come together until I made the brussels sprouts.
For the mashed potatoes, I used this slow cooker mashed potatoes recipe from Budget Bytes. I had that huge bag of potatoes, and I rarely make mashed potatoes so I figured I'd give this a try. It was alright. Needed some herbs. And more butter. And salt. And garlic. And maybe some cheese. I don't have a picture of the mashed potatoes because that's kind of boring on its own.
The garlic mushroom and chicken bites was a recipe I had saved for a while. I unfortunately didn't have chicken thigh, so I had to settle for chicken breast. Would this have tasted better with chicken thigh? Absolutely. But it was still good. I followed the recipe pretty closely except I also added half a cup of chicken broth because I thought it needed to be a little more sauce-y.
I didn't use a recipe for the brussels sprouts. I just cut them in half, tossed them in salt, lemon pepper, and olive oil, threw them in the oven at 425ÃÂðF for about 10 minutes, and then finished them off in the broiler for another minute. Delicious. I could eat the whole pound of brussels sprouts all in one sitting, but I made sure to save some for two more future meals.
Oh! I also made gravy. The recipe told me to keep whisking until all the lumps were gone. I didn't do a very good job of that. Just don't look too closely at the photo.
More salmon
November 21, 2020 3:15 PM
You guys know I love salmon. One of my friends has been raving about this Garlic Butter Baked Salmon so I figured it was time for me to try and make it myself.
The recipe calls for asparagus, but I just happened to have broccoli on me so I used that instead. And lemon-y broccoli? Not quite the same as lemon-y asparagus. I do think this would have been better if I used asparagus instead. I also don't know how I feel about one-pan baking meals. Something about the meat juices seeping into the veggies weirds me out. I also didn't even have enough room in my pan to make this all fit in a single pan, so I put the broccoli in its own pan.
I know, that would have made a lot more sense if I put the salmon in its own pan instead. Hey, at least I cooked it right side up this time!
The salmon tasted good, but I definitely overcooked it. I think salmon cooks better at 350 instead of 400. But the potatoes? They were delicious. I know, it's just salt, pepper, and olive oil, but it was so good I bought and roasted more potatoes the next day.
I also cooked a lot of salmon (maybe that's why it didn't all fit in one pan), and I happened to have some leftover sushi rice, so I turned some of it into sushi.
Clearly not as good (or as pretty) as raw salmon sushi, but still a pretty decent breakfast.
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 42 - 45
May 5, 2020 8:00 AM
Day 42 (Wednesday): During this whole quarantine, I've made sure to have chicken breast stocked at all times. I know chicken breast is kind of boring, but my sister has gotten really good at cooking it well.
Seriously, it was really good chicken. We also had some scalloped potatoes and asparagus to round out the meal.
What a nice fancy, American meal.
Day 43 (Thursday): After eating that chicken and that shepherd's pie, I was starting to feel really sluggish, so I wanted to have something a little bit lighter. I stared at my whiteboard for a while until deciding on making some Greek chicken wraps.
Except I had pita bread, so it wasn't actually wrapped. My sister also made me some french fries since I told her I really wanted some (: We had to be a little creative for the hummus, since I realized in the moment that we didn't have any lemons. We replaced that with some vinegar and orange, which was a really strange combination. Not my favorite hummus, but it was still edible.
The sandwiches all put together were really good though! Once again, my sister did a great job cooking the chicken.
Day 44 (Friday): We ordered takeout. Yup, we finally supported a local business and got some fried chicken. It was alright. The cornbread was dry. I don't take pictures of food I eat at a restaurant, so I don't have a picture of the fried chicken we ordered.
Day 45 (Saturday): Rounding out the American-ish meals, we decided to make meatloaf!
We put the dry cornbread in this, which I think was a good use of it. I think it turned out great.
I know meatloaf isn't very visually appealing, but it had really good flavor. My sister loved it.
Sunday we're hitting up the Asian store and the Mexican store, so that'll spice up our meals for next week.