Korean BBQ ribs make my life

 This is my absolute favourite food at sushi buffet places (and formerly the only reason I used to go to sushi places, until I learned to like sushi), so when I went to the new Korean supermarket and found marinating sauce on sale, I knew I had to try this! I got the ribs there too, but I'm pretty sure you can get them at other supermarkets. I think the first time I bought them, Loblaws in a Korean neighbourhood was having a sale and they were gone so fast! Anyway I just marinated them in the premade sauce (I'm definitely not pro enough to make my own version) for an hour ish and then fried them. Too bad I was sick so I couldn't smell it, but they tasted wonderful. 

Also I finally figured out a good vegetarian stirfry. The yellow soft noodles keep going moldy on me! So I'm gonna stick to the dry noodles that you boil and fry. So this has bok choy, mushrooms, orange peppers, carrots, tofu, and a gluten thing. Unfortunately all those ingredients mean I now have enough to feed a small family or myself for the next 4 meals.... but what's new?



 

The last thing I made this week was oreo cheesecake cupcakes from the cupcake book I bought over the break. (I'm super excited about cupcakes now!) Chopping up oreo cookies is surprisingly cathartic. I really like the oreo cookie at the bottom touch. I think they turned out a bit cheesy though (it asked for a pound of cream cheese and I had 2 250 g packs, so close enough right?) I think next time I'll add some more sugar or something to balance out the cheese. But overall a good baking time was had! Next time - raspberry cheesecake cookies and/or mocha ones!

Pancakes by design, part II

So another lazy Sunday = another chance to make pretty pancakes! To be fair, I didn't design any of these - they're all the creative genius of my roommate. I was attempting to make french toast, which went sort of okay (variations attempted include cinnamon, cheese inside, and burned....). And while we were waiting for everything to cook, we quizzed each other on blood and watched the snow fall, so it was kind of productive! Oh yeah, special pancake ingredient - red and green smarties, just to get the Christmasy feel =)

Panda bear! 

Smartie Tic Tac Toe 

Pretty swirls! (I think she said she was trying to make it like dosa?)

Mmm pancake stack 

 Pancakes + French toast + blood notes + snowy day = yummy productive brunch?

Bringin home the bacon... to my stomach (Day 2)

So I should really be studying instead of thinking of fattening ways to feed myself, but I tried another new recipe today. Because guess what I still have in my fridge... more bacon! I'm pretty sure I'm not going to buy another package for a year or something. I think I've figured out my cooking philosophy - eat what's around with whatever else is around. It kinda sucks cooking for one person, because you eat so little that whatever you make, you have to eat it forever (ie, I bought one bunch of brocolli this week... and ate it for FOUR days!) So either you have to preplan your meals for a week and buy only those ingredients (which I highly doubt I will end up doing) or you buy semi-generic stuff and take a shot in the dark that you'll end up eating it (like brocolli and salad for me this week).Thank goodness you can divide up and freeze meat! 

Anyway the point of that was to say, I chose what I ate today based on those principles.

What do I have to finish? Bacon 

What else is around? Steak (but I ate that Tuesday), salmon (also ate recently) and chicken breast (winner!)

What else? Broccoli 

Rice or pasta? Had pasta on Tuesday, so rice. 

Google search: chicken breast + bacon (yeah I had no ideas on what to do with those two, so I thought I'd seek the internet's advice)

Hit: chicken breast wrapped in bacon with cream cheese and green onions inside. I have cream cheese, but no green onions... so I subbed those with fresh dill and yellow onions. And what a good call that was. So here is my meal! Definitely not as gluttonous as the steak, but still delicious. 

How to be efficient and gluttonous in one meal

At the beginning of every week, I take a peek into my fridge and make a mental note of all the "must eat soon" foods, and try to plan my meals accordingly. This week on the list is a pack of bacon we bought this weekend and didn't finish. Unfortunately I don't know a lot of bacon dinner meals, so I had to figure something out. Yesterday I defrosted a steak, but I didn't wind up eating it, so I figured that should probably work. You can put steak with bacon right? (Like a cheap knock off of a filet mignon?) So I fried up the bacon (my vegetarian roommate was amazed at how much fat comes out of bacon considering no oil was added), and threw in the steak and some Montreal steak spice. Yup, I fried the steak in bacon fat. =D I also made some pasta which I decided to fry as well (my mom used to fry pasta in butter to make it crunchy) .... so the pasta went in with the remaining bacon fat and steak juice. I know, it's pretty gross, but LOOK how many uses I got out of the bacon!! I also used the same water for pasta cooking and broccoli boiling... so all this came from 1 pot and 1 pan. I know frying with bacon fat and steak juice may sound disgusting, but I totally have no regrets. This tastes awesome. Also, check out how pretty pictures are on my new camera!!

So to summarize,

Efficiency = reusable bacon fat and boiling water

Gluttony= having all your food covered in bacon fat 

Pure satisfaction = eating this meal

Hopefully the elliptical will take care of the rest...

Squash anyone?

So 4 weeks ago when I was grocery shopping at Thanksgiving, I realized that I had never really eaten many of the autumn vegetables. I got the ambitious idea to try making some, even though I'd never really eaten them before. So here's my attempt to make acorn squash (though I'm not even sure if it counts as a vegetable...?). I kiind of let it sit around for a few weeks, so I was debatin whether it would still even be good to eat, but turns out it was!

It was a super easy recipe - ingredients = brown sugar, maple syrup (roommate's), margarine. The most interesting thing, I think, is trying to cut the damn thing open. I have this huge knife that I looooove because it cuts through carrots like cotton candy, but it took me FOREVER to cut the squash open! I think there must be a better (and probably safer) technique that I missed somehwere. Anyway, after cutting it, I made cuts on the inside so that the ingredients could seep in. And they also all sink to the bottom, so apparently you're supposed to drizzle the most on top (though it'll sink in anyway). 

So here it is, sitting next to a leg of chicken I made (but not very excitingly... with bbq sauce). I'm proud to say the meal was decent, and my hopes for making autumn food weren't squashed =)

Salmon to the rescue!

Thanks to some rather fun activities this weekend, I proudly woke up at 1 this afternoon when my mom called me (and I tried my best to fake having been awake for hours). So I went to defrost a chicken around 3 (thinking there's no way its gonna defrost in time for dinner), then realized that we're cooking together tomorrow night (stay tuned for INDIAN night!!). So there wasn't a point in making an entire chicke...back up plan? Salmon!! I have to say, sometimes my parents can get to me, but when I remember they do things like buy 2 for 1 salmon and then cut up and individually package it so it's easy for me to cook, I remember how much love they have. So I defrosted a piece and made salmon with a mayonnaise/mustard/spice mix on top, some brocolli and the remainder of the cheesy bread sticks from Friday, and voila! A decievingly balanced meal... to contrast the 4 pizza meals I've had in the last 2 days. Anyway, I don't think the picture does it justice, but it was delicioiusssss. 

October recap

Ahhhh it's been so long since I posted! Okay I'm gonna use busy-ness as an excuse, but I also know that deep down (maybe not that deep down), I'm lazy. So here goes... a 2 week summary of everything I've cooked! Unfortuantely I've also kind of been lazy with cooking, but there are some epic feasts in here. 

1. SUSHI NIGHT! 

(Thursday October 7) 

What happens when 10 hungry Asians get together? Sushi!! Not just sushi, but 3 kinds of sushi - California rolls (I think... crab meat, cucumber, avocado right?), salmon cream cheese rolls (with on-sale-"pseudo" smoked salmon...) and candy sushi (best idea ever)! All I can say is... make sure the rice cools! And it's a lot stickier than you think it is, so it's hard to make it really thin. Otherwise, this was friggin delicious =)

 2. Thanksgiving!

(Sunday, October 10)

I loove Thanksgiving because it means apple picking, turkey, latkes, and lots of family!! So we went to get apples this year like every year, and I made apple pie/crumble, just like every year. It's a super easy recipe that I found in a grocery store flyer when I was like 8, and probably the only recipe I have memorized by heart. On top of that is my mom's turkey, my yummy but smelly to fry latkes, and this year I tried making yams au gratin and the stuffing too. After this meal was over, I ate pretty much the same 4 items for every meal for a week in an effort to finish it. But it was still yummy!

3. Tonight's junk food fest

(Friday October 22) 

Coupons make me do things like order the following just for myself: 1 extra large pizza, 1 cheesy bread, 1 large bottle of coke. Yup, I know, the cure for the cold is gluttony.