#also think i don't know rice vinegar well enough to just use it no recipe

[confinesofmy]

for the first time in a long time, i threw together something to eat and it was actively bad. not because of parosmia or any other external thing, it just genuinely wasn't good. i barely finished it and was really glad it was one serving. #humbled

[1000-directions]

hello! i love seeing your spicy peanut noodle every time and they look SO delicious!

would you be comfortable sharing the recipe? it is completely understandable and ok if not! (in that case you can just delete this ask! i know folks are often like, ah actually this is a special recipe to me.)

hi! so this is a special recipe to me because it is @jedusaur's mother's recipe, and eating it makes me feel very close to my jed :))) with permission, this is the recipe for peanut sauce as told to me by jed:

fresh ginger, grated (about an inch) garlic (to taste, I usually do about 2-3 cloves, Mom uses like 8 and we all breathe fire for two days) 1 teaspoon chili paste (sriracha is fine) 1/2 cup peanut butter 1/4 cup soy sauce 3 1/2 tablespoons sugar 3 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar 3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil 5 tablespoons water

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. I usually crush the garlic first to prevent any chunks, if you don't make sure to blend long enough to get em all. Serve as a sauce over pasta or rice, or as a dip for veggies/eggrolls/etc.

note: I have tried decreasing the sugar and the sesame oil because it doesn't seem like it should need that much of either, and one time I used less soy sauce because I didn't have enough, and none of those experiments turned out well. the garlic and ginger are adjustable, possibly the chili if you want it spicier, the rest of it doesn't wanna be fucked with

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so i do not have a blender, so i microplane the garlic and the ginger, and then i whisk it all up really really well. i start some water boiling right away so that my rice noodles can cook while i'm making the sauce. then i prep whatever veggies i want to use, which in this case was green onions sliced thin, carrot shreds, and snap peas also sliced thin so they would cook quickly. then i cook my veggies in some peanut oil until they are the desired tenderness, then i add the cooked noodles and the sauce back into the pan and let it all warm up and cook together for a few minutes. then i put it in a bowl and add some garnishes (sesame seeds, chopped nuts, cilantro, whatever) and then i eat it!

one time, i had a bunch of leftover sauce, and i dipped apple slices in it, and it was so savory and delicious. i think it would also be very good to dip sweet potato fries into but i haven't had enough left for that yet! i am also planning to make it as a gyoza dipping sauce in the future :)

[imanes]

hi imane! do you have a recipe for the first dish in your february post? also maybe a difficult question to answer but how do you find good places in your city to eat? i never know where to go, i think most places that get social media exposure, for my city at least, are not that great at all. it’s probably just trial and error but i only get the weekend as i work full time 😭

hello :) i loosely followed marion's kitchen recipe but i'm just going to write down what i did (i made some today hehe) but i didn't use any measurements so i'll try to make sense of it and don't hesitate to adjust as u go!

ingredients to prep:

2 cloves of garlic + the same amount of ginger, both chopped

2 green onions, also chopped (keep the green bits for plating)

1 tsp corn flour + a bit of flour to make a slurry

1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of stock (depending on how dry or liquidy you want it to be) to make mine i 1 tbsp of granulated stock dilluted e in hot water (i used maggi mushroom granules, it says "nam huong" on the pack) but u can just use water if it's more convenient

firm tofu cut into cubes

ingredients to have on hand:

200 gr of minced chicken

1 big tbsp of doubanjiang (use more or less depending on how intense u want the flavour to be)

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp rice vinegar (or white wine/apple cider vinegar)

1/2 tsp ground sichuan pepper (or use w/e pepper u have)

1 tsp red pepper flakes (less to none if u don't want too much heat, but double if u are a hot food fiend like me)

first thing: heat some oil in a pan, enough to stir fry the minced chicken on medium heat. stir the chicken a lot so that it doesn't leave huge clumps. once the minced chicken is mostly cooked, add the ginger, garlic, and white parts of the green onion and stir it for a minute.

afterwards, you can add one by one the other ingredients, and stir in between. start with the doubanjiang, then add the sugar, soy sauce and vinegar. once everything is well combined, add the stock and then the tofu. once everything is combined and the tofu is heated through, add the slurry (cornflour + water). mix well and voila dinner is ready :-)

what i like to do actually is make the chicken separately. i cook it with the ginger + garlic + green onion trio and then whenever i eat it i switch around the seasoning. another dish i make often is with that basis + oyster sauce + fish sauce and some kaffir lime leaves. i don't subscribe to any type of meal prepping but it's the only meal prep adjacent thing that i do bc it's a solid basis that i can literally eat every day. hope this helped!

[minikarolina]

Throw everything leftover into one bowl.

Wooohoooo! It's been a week today since I've got off furlough and fully gone back to work. Am I happy? Yes and no. The past week was hard work for me as I was struggling with coming back. The routine I had developed in a past couple of months has been long gone, got hurting fingers and fingertips from all the chemicals and scrubbing. Even my feet did feel a bit harsh. But now I can be on board and put all of my experience I've got during the lockdown into my shifts right now.

In the past couple of months I've come a long way to start to love food again. Started this whole lockdown period with ready pasta dishes, frozen pizzas and garlic bread. Food that's easy to deal with is ideal for a person that works 40+ hours a week. The only time I actually cooked something on my own used to be my days off, which I only had one a week. Those days where I cooked something healthier than a frozen pizza were rare but really precious and proud days. But suddenly those working hours were gone and I had to force stop my brain from going at full speed constantly. For the first couple of weeks of this lockdown, my brain couldn't think of a way of how to start a new forced break. During the hours I was meant to work, I did eat or snack a lot. During the work breaks I was meant to have, I did take naps. My whole day consisted of snacky eating and napping all day long. My coping mechanism of my little brain told me to eat. And I did, but I've never looked at what I was eating. Until sudden motivation burst inside of me and my brain went full 360° and said "from today you is cooking something new, healthy and delicious every day" as I had enough of this boredom of eating same food all over again. It was a little challenge that kept me just a little bit more sane and less bored.

During this past time, I've managed to do my first sushi, cheesecake, Lithuanian potato pie and more! (And kid me not, my first sushi was amazing and I'm going to tell you all about it in my next post soon coming up!) I'm a person who barely cooks anything unless it's my day off. Me cooking a proper something is rare. And that was a challenge of mine. I had to come up with a routine and a new something I could do that I barely did before. So, here we are. Me was challenged to fight against the impatient myself. Cooking is something that takes time and it was something I had to learn to love.

As I'm going back to work, I know I'll be having less time for cooking. BUT, I've set myself a challenge again to keep on going. Cooking for a couple of days in advance is a way to go. I usually cook without a recipe, unless it's something new I've never cooked or baked before. This week I keep finishing my last bits of food I have got, emptying my fridge. As my goal is to set up a food prep sessions for the week and I'll need to do a full bulk shopping for this.

So, what I did this time was to chuck every little of leftover things I've got and cook something quick and easy. I don't even know what kind of creation this is, but it's really filling and the mixture of a cold and warm, sour and refreshing did good. And I want to talk about it! I've had one bag of long grain rice, as well as couple of already cooked chicken sausages left. Rice pack of 10 bags and sausages, a pack of 10, were from Lidl and both full packs did not even cost me £4 in total. Super cheap! Also, I know that already cooked sausages are not the best but there is a better option for you to chose from. I'm a person that tries to avoid the red meat and tried to eat chicken or white fish only (such as scampi or cod) due to my own health reasons. But if you dislike already cooked sausages you can swap them for a vegetarian option, such as vegetarian sausage range from Linda McCartney Foods, which you can find at Tesco, Lidl or Sainsbury's. These are the places I've seen them so far. The Linda McCartney sausages are between £2-£2.20 and they are the best vegetarian/vegan option for foods like this. The pack consists of 6 frozen sausages and some of you might think of it as pricey, but believe me, they are sooo filling you won't need more than 2 sausages per meal and the taste of them ohhhhh GURRRLLLLL! They are literally the best vegetarian/vegan sausages I had ever tried. And for someone like me, who can't really eat red meat or try to avoid eating the red meat, is definitely the option you can find on a retail market. If you are vegetarian or even vegan - go for Linda McCartney Foods! I can't even praise them enough.

The only thing in this I had to wait for it to cook was rice. I usually buy rice in bags as it's an easier option for myself. Recently, I've been enjoying adding rice vinegar into my rice after cooking it. It keeps your rice firm and stops it from being loose. Especially the long grain rice. Also, it adds a bit of a flavour as I don't use any kind of seasoning or salt, while I'm cooking. The thing I did was to cut my last couple of chicken sausages and mix it with chopped cherry tomatoes, which had to go today or be thrown away. I mixed chicken sausages, cherry tomatoes, spring onions, mixed herbs (just a little sprinkle), soya sauce (1 table spoon) and olive oil (1 tea spoon) all together and boom, I had this sour and refreshing mixture that did go well with rice. Also, I added some sesame seeds and little bit more spring onions on a top to make it looks pretty and boom! We have a creation of a leftover thingies I needed to use before the due date. Add something you live if your own? Yes! Add some red onion instead or even some rocket or baby salad. Even some herbs of your own liking! I recon some parsley or coriander would go miles with this all!

It's definitely healthier and takes as long to cook as a frozen pizza with garlic bread.

I've tried doing maths for for this bowl and believe me not, it costs just a bit up to £1 for this one. It would be just a little bit over a £1, if you would be choosing different sausages or rice option.