Takeout with the Tos #14 : Post-Jet lag Edition

As I stated in my previous post, I wasn't sure how summer cooking was going to go or how it was going to align with the original parameters I set when I started this series. I still don't have all the answers thought out, but this post was inspired from post-trip food necessity as well as being awake at random hours of the night. 

After coming back, we did one grocery store run at an American grocery store. We picked up milk, eggs, bread, rotisserie chicken, broccoli, and green beans. Basic enough to get by but not enough to make complete meals with only these ingredients. This is where my freezer stash came in handy. I had ground pork at home and pre cut beef strips for stir fry in my freezer already as well as some containers of tofu in my refrigerator. This is how this week's food was inspired.

Teriyaki Tofu: $11.99

Stir Fry Green Beans: $14.99

Green Beans and Ground Pork: $14.99

Beef and Broccoli: $18.99

Chinese Beef and Eggs: $18.99

Chicken Karage (2.5 pounds): $29.99

Take-Out Total: $109.94

Tax: $9.07

Grand Total: $119.01

I want to take a minute to talk about my tofu first. Someone posted about a tofu press on my local Buy Nothing group. I thought about it for a while and wondered what I was going to do with a tofu press or if I even wanted it. My mind instantly went to homemade tofu, but that wasn't what I wanted to do. I did a quick search online and found that it could be used to press out water from other things as well such as shredded potatoes or homemade cheeses. Now this started to get my mind churning. I messaged the person giving it away and went to pick it up. It looked basically brand new and unused. 

I've not used it for anything other than pressing tofu yet, but I press a lot of tofu in this. I already buy firm tofu from the store, but when I use my tofu press, it removes even more water out of the tofu which makes pan-frying so much easier and faster. Who knew? 

I doubled up on my ingredients for the next four dishes. Each one was integrated in two different dishes. I cut my green beans two different ways and cooked them slightly differently. The first green bean dish I cut on a bias and made a stir fry with garlic. I could have slightly steamed them more during the process but my jet lag brain wasn't functioning at 100% so they came out more on the crunchy side. Oh well, variations in cooking happens. 

The second was a dish I've always made with green beans and ground pork. However, this time I cut the green beans into half inch dices and did not parboil them. It actually worked out great and I still ended up with a very nice texture of green bean and made the whole entire dish easier to eat because of the uniformity of sizes. 

Beef was the next ingredient I doubled up on. The first dish I made was my beef and broccoli. I still parboiled my broccoli as these are larger pieces and I want to make sure my children will eat them so I need them on the softer side. The second dish was a first-time dish for me. While on my trip, I had seen Woks of Life post a Chinese beef and egg recipe. These ingredients seemed simple enough so I wanted to give it a try. My portion of beef I defrosted was twice as much as I needed for one recipe so it worked out I could make a second recipe with the remainder. It turned out really well. I hope to include this recipe in my meal rotation because the ingredients are basically and it's simple enough to pull together quickly. I still dislike cooking eggs in my wok unless it is a freshly washed, clean wok because a layer, no matter how thin, always ends up sticking. I'm still a one-pot-cooking kind of person and if I have to clean my wok in between every dish I make, it becomes impractical and lengthens my cooking time immensely. It may just be a pitfall of having a stainless steel wok instead of carbon steel. That dilemma is to be pondered another time. 

Karage was the last item on my cooking list to get us through some more days of food. After coming back, my homemade chicken nuggets made a meal. They were not, however, the most tasty chicken nuggets. I'm pretty sure I'm the only member of our family who will eat food because it's there and not because it's tasty. The other three members are much pickier. I didn't follow a recipe this time for my karage but I've read recipes before for inspiration. I love making karage because it's such a convenient freezer food to have and pull out during times when I need an extra protein boost in the weekly rotation. I've done minor experimenting with seasonings and coatings, but honestly, potato starch and a good marinade goes a long way.