recycled food

remember that ketchup shrimp?
july 10th - the two minute meal


july11th - the last of the bugs


honey, garlic, vinegar, soy, zuchinni

continental breakfast

if toast, orange juice, milk, sausage, and little packets of jam are considered a "continental breakfast" in america, then would this be an american "continental dinner"?



salad, steak, bread. some turtle food (lettuce), a tomato, couple radishes (lightly cooked with lemon juice b/c they were too spicy!), basil, lightly seasoned with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, celery salt, pepper. "english muffin bread". suggested "deck of cards" sized piece of meat marinated with some mystery BBQ seasoning and beer.

who is simon??

while on a quest to find something (which ended up being too expensive) at the uppity fashion valley mall we found out that iron chef japan #3 was going to make an appearance. or rather, he just did and we missed it? i couldn't help but think of mall tours for n sync and brittney spears. and tiffany for the older crowd...



rice noodles tossed with lemon, some asian basil-y herb, and spicy XO style sauce. mix it up with some sliced up lettuce and lao shui eggs, beef, pig ears, and duck wings/tips (prepared from 99 ranch) and there's a quick meal. it doesn't sound like it would taste good together, but it did.



next week, i'm making some turtle soup, turtle jelly, and turtle on the half shell. (turtle power!)

ketchup shrimp

i'm not sure if there's anything quite like cooking for oneself. it's pretty satisfying to just create something, but then when it comes time to eat.. meh. it's a little boring.

my brother came down this weekend, and since he seems to like food tons more than me, there was a preponderence of it sitting around. he cooked up some chicken, potatoes, and onions with coconut milk in a dish we call "Portugese chicken" at home. it's like a light curry chicken without the curry. anyhoo, long story short, he went back up to LA and i'm left with a fridge full of food including some raw flank steak that needs to get cooked SOON and over a lb of shrimp. not wanting to waste fresh shrimp, i froze half and made the other half into "ketchup shrimp". i have no idea what kind of cuisine it is, but it's probably one of those home-cookin' conglomerations. it's probably in the top 5 of my favorite dishes--at least the way my mom makes it. i'll ask her for the recipe some day. until then, here's a variation of it:



.5 lb raw shrimp
couple tbsp rice wine
tsp sugar
few cloves of garlic smushed or diced
.5 onion diced
1-2 tsp oil
a sprig of geen onions cut into cm lengths on the diagonal
2-3 tbsp ketchup (lee kam kee brand--it taste a bit different from the heinz. sweeter and more spices)
salt to taste

rinsed the shrimp. sometimes i leave the heads and shells on b/c i'm lazy and the legs are fun to eat and sucking on the brains is tasty). this time, i shelled and beheaded them b/c they absorb more flavor that way. marinated them in the rice wine while prepared the garlic and onions. i poured a lil oil into the pan and tossed in the garlic and onions. when they started to get kind of aromatic, ~.5 a min later, i tossed in the shrimp and wine and stirred them around 'cause they cook rather fast. put in a pinch of salt. dumped in the green onions. when the shrimp just started to turn pink all over, i reduced the heat from med-hi to low and poured in the ketchup. not sure how long it took for that.. but it couldn't have been more than a min or two. shrimp cooks real fast if you don't want it to be tough. stirred around. just for a short while then put on a plate and garnished with some green onion.

this came out a bit different from my mom's version. i think she adds a bit of vinegar and uses different proportions. no onions too. they're a mess if the shells are still on. it's also quite a bit more saucy.. mm.. tasty sauce on rice..

spinach and tofu

curiously enough, i ate some horensou no shio gome ae (something like that) in a restaurant which turned out to be a very delicately flavored dish of spinach mushed up with tofu and covered in bonito shavings--quite similar to my mash up of two different leftover dishes here. what can i say? i'm a natural. corruptor of respectable dishes.

poverty pasta day 2

for dinner: some reheated pasta (yesterday, made a large potfull to last a couple of days) covered in trader joe's pesto sauce. the meat is some cut up stirfried carne asada (flank steak) that seasoned with salt, pepper, and some "BBQ" (onion, garlic, chili powder, etc) seasoning i found. i usually jsut use garlic salt, though. i also found some pretty fresh leftover lettuce and made a salad with radishes. the dressing for the salad was a squeeze of lemon, some salt, and beef juice from the carne asada. with the pasta pre-made, it was a 10-min meal.

gobbled down a slice of pizza and some strawberries for lunch. was in a hurry, but i love perq meals. when i only have to cook once a day, i'm more likely to make something tasty.

there's also a coffee machine here. found some abandoned coffee and have been making iced coffee to carry around with me in plastic bottles. it's sooooooo much better than instant.

poverty pasta

got sick of eating leftover okonomiyaki (that thing was a monster!) for dinner so made some pasta. i'm not sure where this pasta came from, but it says that it's not for sale or redistribution. i'm too lazy to fetch the package, but it's from teh USDA... i think it's poverty pasta? someone gave it to me, i didn't steal it! i had it with some asparagus bequeathed to me by The Estate's last occupants, sauteed in butter and capers. diced in a bit of marinated artichoke hearts and added some white wine (both abandoned). squeezed some lemon in. that tasted ok enough, so wanted to make a cream sauce now.. and uh, added some cream. it really didn't do much. i was too lazy and hungry to look up recipes on how to make cream sauces or what flavors go well together, so i kind of just tossed stuff in... also put in fish sauce and some oatmeal. j/k. also was too tired and lazy to bother with preparing meat, so there's two fried eggs too. sprinkled some parmesan/romano (def not from teh green can) on top. it tasted good enough 'cept that there wasn't enough sauce to coat all the spaghetti.