Author: Livia N

My friend Asa introduced me to rib flap meat, which has a bunch of contractive tissues but is very richly flavorful. She made it for me with some miracle of pan frying and it was amazing.

But when I found some intercostal beef fingers, I knew I would play it safe with braising.

I had also recently bought a seasoning mix for beef soups and some mushroom seasoning granules, so I used both of them with some beef broth to because the meat for a few hours (with a diced onion).

The end result was incredibly tender pieces of meat, which I pulled out of the liquid and refrigerated it separately. The next day, I popped the fat that had separated and solidified of the top and froze it separately.

For the first meal, I was very tired and hungry, so I made instant mashed potatoes, reheated some of the meat to go on top.

Then I made gravy from the reserved fat, pre-toasted flour, and some of the braising liquid. I then seasoning it with salt, soy sauce (at the end), black pepper, and some thyme.

Second dish – I had some wide and thick rice noodles, and I used them to make some soup.

I diluted a little more than half of the remaining braising liquid with water. To make sure the small potatoes were cooked through, I parboiled them in the noodle water while it was coming up to a boil. Then I sliced the potatoes in half and put them in the soup. I also cut up a carrot and a radish and cooked them in the soup.

When the noodles were ready, I filled the bottom of a bowl with them and laid out all of my soup components on top of the noodles so I could take a pretty picture (also so that I wouldn’t splash everywhere when filling the bowl).

Then I poured in as much of the liquid as would fit and had a delicious meal. (And saved the amount that didn’t fit)

A few days later, I tried the same soup with a few modifications. I melted a little of the reserved fat and started by cooking some ginger slices. Then I added a generous spoonful of tomato paste and melted that into a little bit of the reserved liquid. Once the tomato paste was smooth, I added in the remaining braising liquid and topped up with water. Then I did the same parboiling with the potatoes, but sliced them a little thinner. I had put the rest of the carrot and radish up in my refrigerator with some vinegar for a quick pickle so I used the vinegary vegetables in the soup.

I assembled everything with the wheat noodles and poured the soup over.

So now I have left about half of the fat and about a pint of mixed leftover gravy from the first meal and leftover broth from the third meal. Everything was tasty. Would make again.

So I don’t have a lot of experience with rice paper wrappers. I think I’ve maybe worked with them once before. And what I’ve learned is that you should not trust me to be the one wrapping your blunts.

Ingredients – I have some romaine lettuce and vermicelli rice noodles. A few days ago when I was making something else with a daikon radish, I went ahead and cut up the whole thing – here’s some I cut into thin strips with some carrots and dressed with a little vinegar so it would keep. There are also the rest of the jalapeños from my garden. And some fatty sliced beef that I marinated in soy sauce, a spice blend for Chinese beef, and some lemongrass.

I browned the beef and boiled and drained the noodles. And then I tried assembling some summer rolls. And the results… were not particularly professional.

But they held together well enough to make it into a hot skillet and get toasted. Even though my heat was pretty high, it took much longer for the rolls to become crispy than I was expecting.

The results of my impatient cooking? Even with the completely amateur attempt, the rolls were still delicious and I ate all of them. I would try again and hopefully level up in skills.

The dipping sauce is not any one authentic thing, but a random concoction of oyster sauce, lime juice, and a version of chili crisp that is actually bad on its own (but worked mixed with the stronger flavor or the oyster sauce). Oh, and the juices that were released from the beef strips after they were cooked and waiting on the plate for assembly.

So I made roasted aloo gobi a few days ago. This is the post about the leftovers!

It was very good, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I thrive on variety. So I wanted to change them somehow to make it feel like a complete different dish.

Luckily, I’d recently bought some quick heat meals and some sauces from Tasty Bite , so I pulled that out.

Vegetables cooked in the sauce, rice reheated in the microwave, some yogurt, and a couple toasted parathas – and I had a whole new meal in about five minutes.

I am still working through the two heads of romaine. The lettuce is washed, and cut, and in the salad spinner.

For the salad dressing, I’m thinking lime juice, a little mayonnaise, a little sesame oil, and some yogurt.I sometimes order groceries on delivery. So sometimes you have to expect that you’ll be surprised by a daikon radish that doesn’t even fit in your produce drawer. And here’s a chonky carrot, too!

I sometimes order groceries on delivery. So sometimes you have to expect that you’ll be surprised by a daikon radish that doesn’t even fit in your produce drawer. And here’s a chonky carrot, too!

so while I was cutting up radish for the salad, I also cut it up into a few other configurations for future meals (thin slices like for banh mi, rounds of mostly carrot, and not pictured was the rest on long batons like you get Lebanese turnip pickles with beets – and now I have to harvest the better from the garden before I finish munching on the radish.) But those three containers got some vinegar and went in the fridge, and then what was left on the cutting board went into the salad.

On the far right of this picture you see what looks like a jar of Laoganma. It’s actually a mostly finished jar that I then filled with 2 sliced Persian cucumbers, some peanut butter, some soy sauce, a little bit of hoison sauce, and some black vinegar. That’s been hanging out in my fridge for a couple days and it’s now delicious and also going on the salad.

And then in the foreground of the picture you see me cutting up some king mushrooms into strips to cook until nice and brown and then add to the salad.

Sauteing some strips of beef that were marinated in soy sauce and rice wine. That also goes on the salad! You can see the partially assembled salad in the background next to the dressing.

Look at that beautiful salad! It does have some dressing thoroughly mixed in with the lettuce, but as soon as we’re don’t taking pictures, all the rest of the dressing is getting dumped on top! (not photogenic, but tasty)

This recipe inspiration is from The Delicious Crescent. I don’t follow them, but it seemed like a clever Idea when I tripped over it on the internet.

There’s the rest of the one cauliflower I grew!
And small yellow potatoes from Aldi’s
And all of the ripe Juliet tomatoes left from my garden
And an onion

They get tossed with vegetable oil, grated ginger, grated garlic, powdered coriander, garam masala, chili powder, cumin seeds, turmeric, and some salt

Everything gets tossed on the roasting pan (lined with a silicone sheet to make cleanup easier).

After it had been roasting at 400F for almost an hour (30 minutes and then I stirred everything and tasted. The potatoes were still pretty firm, so I stirred everything and put it back for another 25 minutes), the potatoes were creamy all the way through and the tomatoes had some lovely caramelization.

Then I put the aloo gobi on a plate with saffron rice. And for some reason I felt like it was missing a secondary vegetable dish, so I heated up a microwave packet of Indian tomatoes and eggplant (and after I put like half a cup on the plate, I put the extra in the refrigerator). And then I toasted up a couple parathas cooked from the freezer and put some yogurt in a bowl.

I think I liked the roasted version better than the times I tried to make aloo gobi using the recipes on the DVD extras from Bend it Like Beckham. I will definitely make this again.