Garlic noodle recipes

This recipe from the Noodle Guy worked pretty well for me, but I'm going to try tripling the garlic next time.  I used Thin Egg Noodles from Golden World Food (a California company) - I enjoyed the texture and would buy them again.  Half a 15 oz package of noodles was about 3 servings that the two of us scarfed up.

Inspired by this recipe, I made shrimp to go with the garlic noodles.

The real winner was this broccoli recipe from vegetarian times.  I even forgot the balsamic vinegar but I enjoyed it a lot - I will definitely be trying it again soon.

Yeti tea infuser

Gosh, this Ye-TEA project is so cute!  I hope it becomes a product soon.

saturday cooking

Trying out an approximation of this corn bread recipe - lots of sugar!

I always mix the batter too much though, so the odds of success are low.  But it's good to use up my cornmeal and flour.  From now on, corn bread mix is my friend.

cooking videos

Two well-done and entertaining cooking videos:

From GardenFork.TV: Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix : Creamed Corn Bread Recipe
 
From Country: Cracklin Corn Bread
Unhealthy but it looks delicious!  I like the spoon method of pouring the batter.  I might try with bacon sometime.

a good weekend

I ran twice, cooked twice, cleaned the house, got some laundry done, and even got a smidgen of studying done!

I tried Chinese Beef, Egg and Tomato; my first try turned out pretty well and I'm optimistic that more practice will make it quite tasty. I used Japanese beef (和牛) - it's hard to overcook this kind of beef! It was delicious. The pack had a little black sticker "Tested for radiation" (放射能検査済　or something like that) labelled by the grocery store..

I tried making dumplings Sunday, but I was a bit lazy about following a recipe, and I bought chives instead of green onions. Still, perfectly edible.

Can't wait for the weekend, hehe.

so wrong it's right

Cookie-cake-pie

new year's resolution, step one

I've been whining about not being able to cook for years now. This is quite sad. So I've resolved to make bento lunch boxes at least twice each week. So I'm taking steps towards fulfilling one of my perennial new years' resolutions.

第一歩！

Also, a friend inspired me with his easy and scrumptious home-made Japanese curry. It looked like a lot of fun.

美味かったし

I tried to make 4 things on Saturday. One dish turned out quite well, one wasn't bad, and the other 2 were edible but not exactly good. It was my second time making 3 of the dishes, but I followed slightly different recipes.

A good experience for me, but it took 3 hours, all in all! I need a tool for shredding stuff. And how do you slice carrots diagonally?

こつを教えて下さい！または道具（笑）

The scorecard:
Win:
stir-fried asparagus and carrot

Draw:
stir-fried shredded potatoes

Loss:
teriyaki chicken (Yee Kum Kee sauce recipe)
cabbage and egg stir-fry

On asparagus and carrots:
I loosely followed this recipe for the asparagus and carrot stir fry:
http://www.everydayhealth.com/publicsite/recipes/viewrecipe.aspx?recipeid=6048

Ever since my roommate made the dish years ago, I've wanted to replicate it for myself, as I've never seen it in Chinese restaurants.

I ignored the water chesnuts (didn't have any, and my roommate didn't use any) and cilantro (yuck), and didn't have nearly as much asparagus as needed, and instead of julienne cut I sliced the carrots thinly in diagonals (but they turned out as ovals). Despite all of these ad hoc modifications, the dish turned out quite tasty. I will try making it again this week for bento lunch to bring to work.

I really need to find my totoro lunch box; it's very annoying to have bought it (against my better judgement) and to not be able to find it. It's probably in that wall of boxes that refuses to unpack itself in the corner of my room.

On shredded potatoes:
I love this dish where the potatoes are washed free of starch so that they are crunchy, and lightly seasoned with salt and spicy green peppers (and probably some msg). However, I haven't quite found the right recipe. A lot of recipes add carrots and green onions, and while those are probably quite tasty, they are not the dish I am trying to re-create. Actually, I tried green onions and didn't think it added anything to the dish. I've managed to get the texture of the potatoes satisfactorily, but the taste still doesn't match my memory. I will try again! It takes way too long to julienne the potatoes though... must find tool.

On teriyaki chicken:
I followed the recipe on the back of the sauce packet, but in my opinion boiling chicken in sauce is very difficult to do without overcooking the chicken. I just don't know how to do it. The sauce itself isn't bad.

On shredded cabbage and egg:
I found a recipe that uses onion and cabbage, but in my opinion the onion just doesn't go very well with the cabbage. I'm going to try again with just cabbage. I also need to learn to make an egg pancake without over cooking the egg...

Cooking is fun, because I make whatever I want, but it's hard to actually replicate what it is I'm trying to make! I'm eating more veggies this way though.

stir-fried shredded potato

I started cooking a bit again. I'm currently trying to replicate this shredded potato dish that I am very fond of. I've figured out the texture element (soaking the potatoes in water gets rid of the starch, leaving it nicely crunchy), but the flavor element was lacking in my latest attempt.

There are quite a few recipes that call for vinegar, but the dish I am trying to replicate was probably only flavored with green chili peppers and salt (and msg?).

people who cannot cook

really ought to know better than to hazard mixing random ingredients in the hope of making something appetizing. Unless it's tried-and-true combinations like chocolate and fruit, or yogurt and fruit, or something similar, it's doomed to failure.

Doomed.

Yet I persist, lately. I'm not sure why.

tuna noodle

casserole! I tried my hand at an omelette today, in an effort to use up the stuff in my kitchen. The omelette looked terrible but was quite edible so it was all in all a success. I guess my desire to cook yet clings to life.

At some point I want to try one of these microwave tuna noodle casserole recipes.
* Microwave Tuna Noodle Casserole
* Tuna Noodle Casserole II
Lacking an oven, the regular baking method is infeasible for me.

update on the risotto

Well, the rice cooker risotto was less than a success. I added too much water and it was quite mushy. And lacking a convenient source of chicken broth, I put in half water and half broth which of course resulted in a very mild flavored risotto. When adding the parmesan cheese, I noticed that the expiration date was October... of last year. Whoops! Gotta buy more. I really haven't been cooking much, haha.

The microwaved capellini turned out much better. I'm going to experiment with various sauces. I love capellini. Yummy and so quick to cook.

Now I'm tired from cooking. I'll give it another try next month.

things to cook

Day one of being healthier!

Things I love but have never gotten around to making:

• Brittany-style crepes (whole wheat thingies)
• lasagna (too much work?)
• scallion pancakes (I need to learn to write the pinyin) (quite possibly too much work)
  
  • lots of recipes online, wonder which are good
  • http://www.kitchenlink.com/cookbooks/1999/0375400362_2.html

Need to practice:

• soy sauce chicken with garlic and ginger
• kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) risotto
• fried rice
• stir-fried tomato and egg

Today's plan:
Fresh mozzarella salad

• need tomatoes and fresh basil
  

Kabocha risotto

• need kabocha, onion, throw in some other veggies?
  

soy sauce chicken

• need everything (chicken, garlic, ginger, eggs)

Edit: 6pm
It'll take too much time to make the chicken so I'm going to look up more vegetable recipes.