Month: November 2024

Just as much work as a fully cooked meal.

First I washed and spun the lettuce and pulled some ingredients together

The salad dressing was about a Tablespoon of mayonnaise, half a cup of plain yogurt, and then I went in with the salsa but it wasn’t giving me either the texture or intensity of flavor that I wanted – so I switched to three packets of Taco Bell’s fire sauce. I don’t often eat from Taco Bell, but I have to every now and then because I haven’t found a better set of for sauces than their sauce packets for giving my lunches a variety of easy flavor boats that are each a bit different. Anyway – I also added some Penzey’s southwest seasoning, and that was it.

Also in the picture you can see that I’ve got some (1/4 lb) ground beef going in a skillet with sliced onions and orange bell pepper. The ground beef was marinated in Southwest seasoning, corn starch, a little baking soda, soy sauce, shaoxing wine, and some water.

I added some dressing to the lettuce and then added a sliced jalapeño and two sliced tomatoes #frommygarden . Also some sliced cucumber and cheddar cheese. Then I added most of the rest of the dressing and stirred everything together.

When I added the hot toppings (beef, onions, and peppers), the cheese got a little soft and the flavors came together. A drizzle more of the dressing, and it’s time to eat.

My mother had a dish she would make when we were very hungry and very low on energy or interest in cooking – it was like a casserole you make in the microwave

Take 1 can of condensed cream of chicken soup, 1 drained can of tuna, and a random amount of leftover rice. Mix them together, microwave for 2 minutes, mix again, microwave for two minutes again, mix again, and then top with sliced american cheese and dust with paprika (cause that makes it fancy!), and then finish with another 2 minutes in the microwave.

Well, I didn’t make that tonight because at the moment I don’t have soup in my pantry or canned tuna, but I do have a pint of cooked rice, half a jar of leftover alfredo sauce, and canned sardines!

So I started off with a random bit of onion on my fridge waiting for a purpose, and I diced and sauteed that until soft (mostly just to give myself something to do so I would Wait until the pan was properly hot before adding the rice). Then I added the rice!  I cooked the rice until it was properly hot, but I wasn’t patient enough to wait for toasty bits.

I added some minced garlic and then all the alfredo sauce I had. Drained and added the sardines, mixing them to get them broken up and evenly distributed. I added half a teaspoon of ground chilies for fun.

Then when everything was ready, I put it on a plate, topped it with a slice of american cheese, dusted with paprika, and put it in the microwave for 40 seconds so that I could preserve the traditional presentation!

Throwing together a few dinners I’ve eaten lately

A pretty amazing hamburger

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Stir fry of beef, mushrooms, and mini red bell peppers

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Dried (reconstituted) wood ear mushrooms and scallions sliced and put together with some broad rice noodles. I pulled out a chili oil packet from a previous meal like this and made a small amount of salty/sour sauce to balance it out

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Ramen made with water I’d boiled hot dogs in (and I also dipped to hot dogs in the broth a bit) with scallions and radish in the soup, plus an egg added and a slice of cheese on top

Hot dogs. So I hate buying hot dog buns. I don’t eat hot dogs often enough to get through a package, and honestly it’s a lot of tasteless bread. So I’m making hot dogs with a lightly toasted (just because I keep them in the freezer, fresh if you’ve got it) whole wheat bread. And then I put the dijon mustard on the bread, a line a fresh parsley – and then I let the freshly boiled and steaming hot dog warm up and soften the parsley and wrap the bread around. It’s much more suited to how my pantry works.