lj gets a new image
it seems everyone around me is "blogging" up a storm, assuming that people actually care what they have to say about one thing or another. Since I feel like this journal has gotten a bit stale as of late since I don't really have that high school-like urge to record my day in and day out activities like i used to, I should use up this wasted cyberspace for something more useful. namely, I think I will start (trying to) document some of my culinary adventures. As many people know, I have this pesky habit of photographing meals, particularly restaurant meals and special occasions but lately its spread to my humble creations at home too, so those pictures have to go somewhere. Instead of just letting them take up space on my hard drive, I think will try to post the recipes and thoughts along with the photos here. Also, since cooking has sort of become my only real hobby anymore (aside from sleeping, watching TV, and whatnot), I should make it a bit more legitimate, right? So, here we go. I'm playing catchup (ketchup?? hehe) too, so we'll go back a few meals for this first entry.
This is some chicken karaage I made for a christmas party way back in december but it was pretty tasty so I thought it was worth posting. The recipe was basically taken from japanesefood.about.com.
Meijer was having a sale on fried fish fillets, so I made pseudo-fish tacos. I even made Baja-style sauce with cumin, chili and mayo, which you can't really see in the picture. I just sort of made up this recipe though, can't remember the quantities.
My attempt at a Japanese meal given limited resources. Buta no kakuni (except I didn't drain the water to cook the pork in and just added the other seasonings right away), blanched chopped spinach with a splash of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and about 1/4 cup of ground, roasted sesame seeds (aka goma-ae), and miso soup with LOTS of big chunks of daikon and some wakame for color.
Chile Chicken Enchiladas since I had a lot of sour cream, a weird "spanish" rice recipe that didn't really work out too well (but I left out the green peppers and was looking for a recipe without tomato paste, so that could be part of it, i've made better), with a side of corn with butter and pepper and garnished with lettuce and green onions. The enchiladas are made with flour tortillas since Mike doesn't like the corn ones, so they were a bit on the soggy side but otherwise tasty.
A funny seafood alfredo recipe I found while looking for the enchilada recipe. I subbed peas for the mushrooms, and a bit of mozzarella for the parmesan since the little we had left had gone moldy (!) and I forgot the chili flakes. I also used Healthy Choice Clam Chowder which Mike says is kind of gross and not very clammy, but it was ok nonetheless. I think it would have been better to just eat the soup and make my own cream sauce but I gave in to curiosity I guess.
Baked potato soup. Don't really know why I felt like making this one but it was pretty tasty if not a bit rich. I microwaved the potatoes before making the rest. Too much basil for sure (who eats basil on baked potatoes anyway?), and I forgot the cheddar, but I paired it with:
Cheddar Biscuits. These were very easy, but the dough was too dry to drop into muffin cups really, and it definitely needed more fat to give it a biscuit texture rather than just muffins. Also, they stuck to the paper and made WAY more than the recipe said. I doubled the recipe since it only said it made 5, but I ended up with 18 biscuits. I like the idea of mayo as the fat source though.
Whew, that was a lot of....food. Maybe I have it out of my system now so the next posts wont be so bloated.
This is some chicken karaage I made for a christmas party way back in december but it was pretty tasty so I thought it was worth posting. The recipe was basically taken from japanesefood.about.com.
Meijer was having a sale on fried fish fillets, so I made pseudo-fish tacos. I even made Baja-style sauce with cumin, chili and mayo, which you can't really see in the picture. I just sort of made up this recipe though, can't remember the quantities.
My attempt at a Japanese meal given limited resources. Buta no kakuni (except I didn't drain the water to cook the pork in and just added the other seasonings right away), blanched chopped spinach with a splash of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and about 1/4 cup of ground, roasted sesame seeds (aka goma-ae), and miso soup with LOTS of big chunks of daikon and some wakame for color.
Chile Chicken Enchiladas since I had a lot of sour cream, a weird "spanish" rice recipe that didn't really work out too well (but I left out the green peppers and was looking for a recipe without tomato paste, so that could be part of it, i've made better), with a side of corn with butter and pepper and garnished with lettuce and green onions. The enchiladas are made with flour tortillas since Mike doesn't like the corn ones, so they were a bit on the soggy side but otherwise tasty.
A funny seafood alfredo recipe I found while looking for the enchilada recipe. I subbed peas for the mushrooms, and a bit of mozzarella for the parmesan since the little we had left had gone moldy (!) and I forgot the chili flakes. I also used Healthy Choice Clam Chowder which Mike says is kind of gross and not very clammy, but it was ok nonetheless. I think it would have been better to just eat the soup and make my own cream sauce but I gave in to curiosity I guess.
Baked potato soup. Don't really know why I felt like making this one but it was pretty tasty if not a bit rich. I microwaved the potatoes before making the rest. Too much basil for sure (who eats basil on baked potatoes anyway?), and I forgot the cheddar, but I paired it with:
Cheddar Biscuits. These were very easy, but the dough was too dry to drop into muffin cups really, and it definitely needed more fat to give it a biscuit texture rather than just muffins. Also, they stuck to the paper and made WAY more than the recipe said. I doubled the recipe since it only said it made 5, but I ended up with 18 biscuits. I like the idea of mayo as the fat source though.
Whew, that was a lot of....food. Maybe I have it out of my system now so the next posts wont be so bloated.