flailing in my kitchen v3

How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
Showing posts filed under: salad

My new favorite way to prepare salmon

So, I originally wasn't going to make a blog post just for this salmon, especially because the photos I took are...not great. But I just had to tell you that I spent so much time de-scaling this piece of salmon, having the scales fly everywhere and making the sink all gross and fishy, only to end up with the salmon skin sticking to the foil! I don't know why I thought it wouldn't stick. I always buy salmon with skin on it, because I figured the skin would stick to the pan and I'd easily pull off the meat from it.

Baked salmon that just looks like a pile of breadcrumbs
I know this just looks like a pile of breadcrumbs. But the breadcrumbs are important.

Well, at least I remembered to cook the salmon skin side down.

Two years ago, I had attempted to make this same salmon dish, and it was a complete failure. I must be getting better at this whole cooking thing, because I tried to make this again earlier this year, and it was so good and so easy. I didn't even have to measure anything! In the past, I wouldn't know what to do with just a list of ingredients, but I think I'm getting more comfortable with just sprinkling and pouring things and going by feel.

So, I wanted to take it up a notch by also de-scaling the salmon. Next time, I'll actually spray some oil or butter on the baking pan and hopefully it won't stick. And eventually I will post this recipe on the blog! But today's not that day.

A meal of salmon, salad, and some rice
There's no green D:

I also made a salad using some leftover iceberg lettuce, and I even blended up some carrot ginger salad dressing. It was a very good meal despite some wasted efforts.

Filed under: salmon salad flailing

Home cooked meals

Man I have been so busy with work and various trips that I have not been doing much cooking. And I can feel it. So much eating out and eating junk food. But it is now February 2023 and I am finally feeling a little less busy.

I don't have a nice theme to tie these all together, but here are a few meals that I cooked this past week:

Spring roll salad
Featuring my permanently stained chopstick

I had four pieces of rice paper left in my cabinet, and while I don't have a picture of the spring rolls I made, I do have a picture of the salad I made with all of the same ingredients. I cooked some pork butt, and tossed it in toasted rice, which is something that my aunt taught me how to do. One day I'll post a recipe for that pork.


Savory bread
This is...kinda sad looking

One of my friends has really been in the mood for "savory bread" lately, but I was definitely not prepared to make bread. She looked up a recipe to see if she could find something easy, and we decided to make this savory quick bread with cheese and olives, which is bread in the same sense that banana bread or zucchini bread is bread. Basically, it's cake in the shape of a bread loaf.

We added a bunch of extra things that the recipe didn't even call for, like green onion and sun dried tomatoes. I think we went a little overboard. This recipe also called for four eggs, which is way too many eggs, especially considering how expensive eggs are nowadays. But what we didn't add was salt. Bad decision. You always need salt. The recipe simply said to "salt to taste", but how am I supposed to salt to taste when there's raw flour and eggs?! I can't taste that!

I was a little worried I was going to hate this because I don't like egg-y things, but it turned out to be...okay. Not great. Would not make this recipe again. I'd probably try a different bread recipe though.


Coffee and rice with beef jerky, a soft boiled egg, and some cucumbers
Featuring my chopsticks that got ruined from sitting in hot oil for too long...from a previous meal. They are just my designated deep fry chopsticks now.

And finally, here's my breakfast from this morning that I spent way too much effort on. It was worth it though. My family gave me some beef jerky, and I just love the combination of beef jerky and white rice. I also added a marinated soft boiled egg and some cucumber slices to trick myself into thinking this is a well balanced meal.


Social Distancing: Days 36 - 38

Remember how I said I was super busy at work, but I had some breathing room? Yeah, work got super busy again.

Day 36 (Thursday): I had this warm cauliflower salad on my to-make list for a while. And now I always have Tahini stocked so it felt like a good time to make it. I was a little concerned this wasn't going to be enough food for dinner, but we paired it with that pork loin we made the other day.

Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing (Budget Bytes)
Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing (Budget Bytes)

Yeah, that really dry pork loin. You can even see how dry it is in the picture!

But the salad was delicious. Warm salads are great.


Day 37 (Friday): One of the things I've had sitting in my pantry for waaay too long are canned bamboo shoots. I don't really like bamboo, but my sister really likes it and I don't mind it so much in curry. I had some other veggies that would go well in curry (frozen green beans, carrots) so we decided to make some.

Green Curry Chicken (The Woks of Life)
Green Curry Chicken (The Woks of Life)

Unfortunately, Aldi was out of chicken thighs when we went, but that's alright. This was still delicious with chicken breast. This was super easy to make and very flavorful, so I'd definitely make it again. And adding limes made it even better!


Day 38 (Saturday): Somehow with all the stay-at-home orders, I still managed to have jam-packed weekends. I had a virtual hangout with my friends during the day, and a virtual hangout with my cousins at night. So I wanted to make something easy for dinner.

Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry (Budget Bytes)
Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry (Budget Bytes)

I've made this beef and cabbage stir fry a few times in the past, and it's easy and tastes good enough, but I feel like it was lacking something. Maybe it needed more fish sauce and sugar. The sriracha helps though.


Social Distancing: Days 30 - 32

Day 30 (Friday): I don't know what it is, but work is starting to exhaust me. I'm trying to find more easy meals to make. So I decide on some Sesame Chicken.

Sesame Chicken (Budget Bytes)
Sesame Chicken (Budget Bytes)

The original recipe doesn't call for broccoli, but I figured we should have some vegetables. And contrary to the comments on Budget Bytes for this, I think there is plenty of sauce. Maybe even too much sauce. We boiled the broccoli for a few minutes before mixing it in with the chicken, but now I'm wondering if it would have been better if we roasted the broccoli first. I'll try that next time. Overall, this still tasted good.


Day 31 (Saturday): I had a virtual game night on Saturday, so I wanted to do something easy. We've had dumplings in the freezer, so this seemed like a good time to cook some of those. We also had some iceberg lettuce in the fridge, along with other various veggies, so it seemed like a good idea to make some salad. When I think of how to use iceberg, my mind immediately jumps to those salads you get at Hibachi restaurants.

Yes, we had dumplings from two different batches. Look at that color contrast.


Day 32 (Sunday): Another thought about using up lettuce is to put it in soup. So we figured, let's make some noodle soup! We were thinking we might want to make Pho since we're stuck at home all day, but that requires way too many herbs and spices that I don't currently have, so we're making Teochew Noodle Soup 粿条汤 instead.

This made me realize I don't have those large Asian bowls. We still made it work with smaller ones.

We actually never ended up putting lettuce in this. But it doesn't matter, noodle soup is always a good idea.


Social Distancing: Days 24 - 26

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.

Nam Sod (Budget Bytes)
Nam Sod (Budget Bytes)

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.

Okonomiyaki (Just One Cookbook), Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans (The Woks of Life) but we winged a lot of this since we were out of a bunch of ingredients
Okonomiyaki (Just One Cookbook), Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans (The Woks of Life) but we winged a lot of this since we were out of a bunch of ingredients

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.

Cajun Salmon (How Sweet Eats), Cilantro Lime Rice (Budget Bytes)
Cajun Salmon (How Sweet Eats), Cilantro Lime Rice (Budget Bytes)

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.


Showing posts filed under: salad