Own it.

Inspired by my friend Amy from a few weeks back, I made the culinary “leap of faith” to make a dish that is well known to so many people. It was “okay” as my dough was thick. Lesson learned: butter and flour when mixed don’t need to be kneaded. They mold to whatever surface I choose.

Admittedly today was an off day. Usually when I don’t have inspiration to cook, I tend to skip eating a full meal for fruit or snacks in the evening. But today was a different story. I was NOT inspired and was VERY hungry. Pair those two and I could have thrown away my ladle for a wrapper-packed hamburger. Thankfully I was lazy to bike my ass all the way up to the local McD’s. 

So this had some partial cop-out. While I did saute the leeks, used bok choy stock, and added diced red bell peppers and potatoes to the concoction, the dish was completed by a can of Campbell’s chicken and rice soup. 

Truly it was not bland as I expected nor was it horrible to ingest. You can tell that I’m very inexperienced in soup cooking. But because today included a mix of both fresh and artificial ingredients, the dish salvaged itself. In any case, it sure filled the stomach with something for tonight. 

Oh and why was it called the “WTF” soup? Well I didn’t know wtf I was going to do with the assorted collection of vegetables I had in my fridge. 

New ingredient used: leeks

Yesssssss, I finally did it! Because I began amassing a good number of empty Nutella jars earlier this year, I needed to figure out a solution to get rid of them without throwing away plastic jars. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my own version of the chocolat-y, hazelnut-y, oh-so-foodgasmic-y Homemade nutella!

New ingredient used: Ghirardelli 60% baking chocolate bar, fresh hazelnuts

I tell you- it may not look appetizing, but my gosh was it worth today’s lunch. 

Last weekend, I craved a Filipino-style brunch. Known as “Tocilog,” it would have included garlic fried rice, tocino-marinated chicken, and sunny-side up eggs (or whatever way I preferred). But because I had a handful of potatoes, I finally had the curiosity to switch my brunch u pa bit. Rather than the typical fried eggs, I instead opted for my very first Spanish-style omelette. 

As you can tell, I burned one side of the dish. It was still delicious, but gosh did I learn a quick lesson- never leave your eggs cooking to answer a call. For the rest of the meal, here’s how it looked:

Oh man, I’m hungry again. 

I stir fried vegetables and tofu. Oh and I tried a new side dish, sauteed garlic and braised Swiss chard. May has come roaring in with 4 dishes back-to-back. 

New ingredient used: Swiss chard

Okay so this is my first, full-fledged Filipino noodle dish. The pancit canton has tofu, Chinese chorizo, shrimp, and a mix of assorted vegetables. Lesson learned- red cabbage and red onions make the dish look darker. Oh and I put more broth than needed, hence the “sloppy” look. 

New ingredient used: Chinese chorizo and dried yellow noodles

It reminded me of home. :)

And to complete my Easter blast, I made pizza. The last time I made pizza, I bought the crust. This time I wanted to to make the dough. With the help of a very patient roommate, she guided me on kneading. It’s been about 10 years (since middle school) since I made anything with dough. 

My intention was to make pizza that closely resembles those made in Naples, Italy. It’s not easy to make my dough as flexible and thin as they do there. Mine came out thicker, more closely resembling those made here. Still It was such a filling dinner. Pizza sauce came out great with a little sweetness to the sauce. This was my first time using pancetta and I’m glad I used it sparingly. It’s very salty! The other toppings included roasted yellow peppers and garlic cloves.

I’ll definitely do this again. New ingredients used: pancetta, Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

When I visited San Francisco two weeks ago, I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and ordered a Vietnamese omelette. As you can tell from reading the previous entries, I’m driven by my cravings. “Filling” and “hearty” describes my diet. “Healthy” doesn’t. Anyway this entry was inspired by that visit in San Fran. What I didn’t have which I think would add more vibrancy to the dish were cilantro and sprouts. From what I’ve seen in the past, that seems to be one of the regular ingredients in Vietnamese cooking. But hey, I just wanted to taste how fish sauce in an egg batter tasted. It came out sweet afterward- a delish brunch.