i like to eat.

I had some leftover thinly sliced beef from hot pot night. The perfect way to use this type of beef was to cook it with udon noodles.

I let Jason take the reins to cook our dinner. He cooked the udon noodles with toppings of kamaboko (Japanese fish cake), Shitake mushrooms, tofu and green onions, along with the beef. To make the broth, he used store bought Memmi soup base. For even more authenticity, we topped our noodle bowls with nanami togarashi, seven flavor chili pepper.

It was delicious, easy to make (one pot meal) and great for chilly nights.

Thanks Jason! :)

     

Click here to download:

Udon_at_Home_tag_food_japanese.zip (733 KB)

It seems like awhile since I've had hot pot, the act of cooking meats and vegetables in a simmering pot on the table. I love it. It's the best when you have a lot of people because that means you'll be able to have a lot more variety of food to cook.

I went to my aunt and uncle's to enjoy this high calorie dinner. My family goes all out whenever we have hot pot or anything related to food, come to think of it.

We had a wide assortment of food to cook. From fish balls, scallops, mushrooms, Chinese broccoli to udon noodles. It was endless and as always, delicious.

         

Click here to download:

Hot_Pot_tag_food_chinese_dinne.zip (1081 KB)

When I was younger, my parents would make a Chinese dish with eggs and shrimp over rice. The eggs are slightly scrambled, but are "runny," creating a soft, liquid-y consistency.

I wanted to replicate this dish one night for dinner. I couldn't remember the Chinese name, so Googling the recipe was tough. Come to think of it, why didn't I just call my parents? haha, next time, I'll be smarter with my resources. :X

Anyways, I couldn't find the recipe or anything close, had to experiment and cook this dish blindly. Long story short, fail.

The end result looked and tasted like scrambled eggs with shrimp. The eggs should be more runny with a slight broth. It wasn't bad tasting, just not what I wanted.

In hindsight, I think my ratio to chicken stock(?) was off. I'm sure there's chicken stock involved. I'll definitely have to ask my parents to get the exact recipe! Stay tuned!

Oh my. I made it. I seriously made it.

I managed to follow a week of dinners without any glitches or spontaneous weeknight dinners with friends. Well, actually, a friend did invite us to dinner and we had to decline. I was committed to finish this personal challenge!

The last meal, on Friday night was spaghetti with sweet potatoes and ricotta.

This was my least favorite dish out of the entire week. Kind of disappointing, since I wanted to leave with a bang.

The pasta was dry, even though I added extra butter and oil into the dish. I was hoping the ricotta would melt more and create some sort of sauce, but nope, it didn't. The flavors of the sweet potato, ricotta and spaghetti were fine, but I personally like more sauce on my pasta dishes.

This week, I was able to broaden my (non-existent) culinary skills and try new flavors. I'm quite happy with all the dishes. Out of all the meals, I liked Monday night's the best. It's something I'd usually cook and maybe that's why I liked it the most.

The article in Real Simple was actually for a month's worth of easy dinners, so technically, I have three more weeks of this, if I really want to step it up. haha. I'll take it one week at a time, for now. :)

My second to last day of this week long dinner challenge! Yay!

For Thursday night, I made spicy orange-glazed drumsticks with green beans.

The recipe called for corn bread muffins. I thought I had a box of Jiffy in my pantry. Whoops, nope. A quick replacement was some left over rice from Tuesday night.

I usually hate eating off the bone (too much work), but these drumsticks were tender and the meat easily fell off. I didn't taste too much of the orange flavor and I think it's because the chili sauce I used was pretty spicy. Next time, I'll use less hot sauce to bring out the orange flavor more.

And the perfect cold drink to compliment this meal?

Tripel Karmeliet, my favorite Belgium beer.

   

Click here to download:

Weeknight_Dinner_Part_4_tag_fo.zip (470 KB)

I'm half way there! Yay. Wednesday night - roasted pork with Brussels sprouts and apricots.

I like Brussels sprouts. The first time I ever had them was at Houston's in San Francisco. They were so good. I couldn't believe all these years, I was missing out on a yummy vegetable. I tried to cook Brussels sprouts once and it was a disaster. I couldn't even finish it and had to throw it out. The main culprit could have been because I didn't use fresh sprouts. I was crossing my fingers that this dish would turn out good.

I've never cooked pork tenderloin before, so I was excited to cook something new. It took my oven slightly longer (an extra 10 minutes) to cook. I wasn't sure if the pork was thoroughly cooked or not, so I was paranoid that I was going to poison my boyfriend and I. But, I kept checking the meat and it was finally cooked all the way. The pork was extremely tender and moist, no dry meat here! I was pretty proud that I nailed it my first time.

The Brussels sprouts and apricots were a nice compliment to the pork. This time, the sprouts were fresh and delicious.

I wouldn't mind cooking this dish again. Maybe I'll make some sort of apricot sauce for the pork next time.

Related: Weeknight Dinner, Part 1, 2

Tuesday night was beef and boy choy stir-fry, as part of my challenge to cook every day of the week and to follow a menu in Real Simple magazine.

Another easy recipe to follow, although I accidentally over cooked the bok choy. I was doing too many things at once, there's a reason why most chefs have a mise en place (everything prepped before hand and reachable)!

The flavor of the flank steak was actually pretty good. It was marinated in rice vinegar, soy sauce, ginger and brown sugar. I'd use this marinade again and next time, I won't over cook the veggies! :)

   

Click here to download:

Weeknight_Dinner_Part_2_tag_fo.zip (417 KB)

Related: Weeknight Dinner, Part 1

I was reading "A Month of Easy Dinners" in the October issue of Real Simple magazine a few weeks ago. I never follow these types of planned out dinners or menus because my week's pretty spontaneous and I can rarely commit to cooking for an entire week. Plus, I usually pick out just one dish in a menu that looks interesting to try out.

Was about to make some dinner, opened a container of leftover rice and saw.....purple rice?! Don't know how only a few grains turned purple..and from what? I thought rice would turn green or just smell bad if it's rotten.

Needless to say, into the trash it went! Unsolved mystery.

Woke up to the random noise of thunderstorms.The previous day was gorgeous and out of nowhere, thunderstorms?!

I have one of those satellite clocks and I couldn't believe the icon I saw. I've never even seen that icon before!

I was feeling gloomy and wanted to make something to keep my body warm. I had some mushrooms left from the previous meal, so I decided to make a quick soup.

I first cooked some whole wheat pasta and warmed up some chicken broth with mushrooms and sugar snap peas. When the pasta was done, dumped that into the broth and viola.

Nothing complicated, just a simple warm soup on a gloomy day.

   

Click here to download:

Chilly_Saturday_tag_food_home_.zip (341 KB)