How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
A few months ago, my dad visited me, and I made burgers for him one night because he likes burgers and because I know I can make them well enough to his satisfaction. Even so, I've always found burgers to be so much work, so I decided to try and make things easier for myself by buying pre-made frozen patties.
That was a terrible mistake. I think using the frozen patties made it so much more stressful. And it made me realize, cooking burgers on a pan is not ideal. All the fat renders off and just sits in a puddle and then you have a splattery mess to deal with. I had to keep removing all the extra fat from the pan, which was both annoying and precarious. I ended up way overcooking the burgers and they didn't taste very good ):
But a few days ago I saw some french fries and it made me really want french fries, and I also had a burger from my favorite ice cream shop, which was delicious, and I thought, it's time for me to make some burgers and fries again.
I used this ranch burger recipe, which is one of my go-to's. Some people will tell me that I'm really making meatloaf because of the fact that there's ranch seasoning, onions, breading, and egg mixed in with the beef, but I don't care, that's what makes it taste good.
But you know what really made this a successful stovetop burger? I used 93% lean beef. Now I like my meat fatty, but I really wanted to avoid the puddle of fat in my pan, so I splurged a bit on this. (It's okay, it evens out the mayonnaise that I bought for less than $1)
And it totally worked! I cooked the patties and it was super chill! I even used my meat thermometer and I cooked the meat to a temperature of about 140°F, which was plenty cooked.
It did still take a while to prep and cook and clean it all, but the important thing was that I didn't stress out about it, and I didn't make a mess.
I've spent the past five days mostly at home, mostly not doing much, and it's really getting to me. Well today it finally feels like I'm getting over this cold. I saw this video for braised tofu a couple of weeks ago, and I've been wanting to make it. It's honestly a bit involved, especially since I also decided to make the broccoli, but I feel like I need to make a pretty dish after this dreary weekend.
There were a lot of steps to this, so it took a while, but honestly, I was pretty relaxed the whole time, even when my dad called me in the middle of my cooking session to ask me about trying to use TurboTax. (I hate TurboTax by the way. But it seems that everyone in my family insists on using it)
Anyway, the end product was very tasty and very pretty! Even though it's just garnish, I made sure to buy sesame seeds and scallions just for this dish. I don't even really like sesame seeds, but I gotta admit they do give a nice pop.
If I ever make this again, I'd probably use a little less cornstarch and I'd use less chili flakes. I do seem to keep making things too spicy for me 🥵
Well, I still haven't gotten over this sickness that started over the holidays. I haven't felt terrible, but my throat has been sore and there's some extra nasal congestion. I'm pretty okay during the day most days, but night time is the worst. I'm going to have a lot more free time now, so I'm hoping I can sleep in a little more and finally get better.
Anyway, since I've been sick, I've been wanting to eat more comfort food, and in my mind, comfort food is not only comforting to eat, but it's also comforting to make. It might not be a quick meal, but it's an easy one where I can relax and you know, not flail in my kitchen.
One of my go-to easy and satisfying breakfasts is to make some dumpling soup. And while I do like wrapping my own dumplings, I always go with some store bought mini dumplings for my dumpling soup. I like mini dumplings because I can't eat a regular sized dumpling in one bite. And it's awkward to have to cut your dumplings even smaller when you're eating them in a soup. (Okay, I'll admit, I still cut up the mini dumplings in my soup)
All I do is boil 10 or so dumplings, and then I throw in some sauces to give it some flavor. I usually end up adding:
I taste it and maybe add a little more of something. Then I top it with some scallions and/or cilantro.
It's so good, and such a nice way to start my day.
So in the past when I've made Japanese style curry, I've always included chicken and I made it with curry powder (not Japanese curry powder so who knows how Japanese this really was). But I had seen other people just buy those curry blocks and I figured I would give it a try because it sounds so much easier! And at a local meetup last year, someone had brought some curry and they used tofu, and ever since then I had been wanting to try tofu in this instead.
I'm sure I could have just tried to make a similar recipe as the chicken one, but I'm really bad at throwing things together, so I googled "golden curry with tofu" and the first thing that comes up is a reddit post which linked to this Vegan Japanese Tofu Curry recipe, and it sounded so good and I had to try it. (Also I seriously appreciate that this recipe webpage is simple and has no ads and doesn't totally drain my phone battery while I'm viewing it)
I actually first tried it a few months ago, but I keep going back to it because it really is so good. I mostly follow the recipe as-is, but I actually halve the amount of curry blocks, and I think it's plenty flavorful. I also use chicken bouillon instead of veggie just because that's what I have. But I'm definitely going to keep this in mind as a potential vegan dish to make if I need one.
It required a little extra attention to fry up the tofu because I'm flipping every single one of these tofu cubes one by one just to make sure I brown as many sides as possible, but there's something nice and relaxing about standing at the stove and seeing the tofu slowly get nice and golden.
I always pop one of the tofu cubes in my mouth before I throw the rest into the curry. The final result is so comforting and so delicious.
Finally, I wanted to share some mac n cheese that I made. I love making mac n cheese. One of my go-to mac n cheese recipes is from Budget Bytes. The recipe actually has pretty mixed reviews, but I think it's great every time I make it. And I like that I can use up a little bit of hot sauce in it.
Making mac n cheese definitely takes patience. You have to make a roux in the beginning and you need to keep stirring the milk+flour+butter mixture until it thickens. When you start stirring it, it seems like it's going nowhere, but slowly and surely it thickens up and then you can start mixing in the cheese. I don't know, maybe I just like to keep mixing things.
I decided to actually throw this one in the oven after I was done putting it all together on the stove. Sometimes baked mac n cheese can get a little too dry, but this one had so much cheesy sauce. Adding the extra shredded cheese and letting it broil (and watching it broil the whole time so it doesn't burn!) was definitely a nice touch. But next time I'll try to remember breadcrumbs!
I really like making baked ziti. It's kind of time consuming, but it's so relaxing, and it's such good comfort food. But the problem I run into with baked ziti is that it makes so much food, and it would take me at least ten meals to get through all of it by myself. And I don't want to cut the recipe in half either, because then I'd just be left over with a bunch of baked ziti ingredients.
Last time I mentioned baked ziti, I said it would be good to cook for my family. So I figured that it would be the perfect dish for me to make for Christmas! Every year, my family likes to do something special for Christmas. One year it was "dip-mas", where everyone had to bring a dip. This past year was "app-mas", and everyone had to bring an appetizer that starts with the first letter of their name.
Well, my name doesn't start with a B or a Z, but I still wanted to make baked ziti! I decided to look up various pasta shapes to see if any started with an M or a K. Macaroni didn't quite feel right. But I found something that would work!
Mostaccioli. It's penne with no ridges.
My cousin even made a silly tiktok video, and I was very awkward in it.
And it turned out great! Mostaccioli is a great substitute for ziti. But I learned that not all pasta shapes work quite that well. A few weeks ago, we had a friend over, and I decided to make baked ziti again. This time I did halve the recipe (because it's still plenty for three people), and I didn't want to buy a box of ziti just to have half of it left over. I decided to use what was already in the pantry, which happened to be half a box of radiatore.
This definitely felt different. The dish wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the baked ziti I normally make. Something about the extra surface area and lack of tubular-ness.
And somehow, I still haven't gotten sick of variations on baked ziti, so this past weekend, I decided to make baked ravioli.
I actually was going to suggest baked ziti, but I switched it up, and used ravioli instead so I wouldn't have to buy ricotta cheese. This probably resembles lasagna more than ziti, but lasagna is just ziti with lasagna noodles anyway.
This was even easier to make than baked ziti, and it was really tasty too! My friend really enjoyed it.
That salad was also delicious. The chopped caesar salad kit from Aldi is 👌
