Takeout with the Tos #23

It finally happened. I forgot to take pictures of all of my food this week. Oh well. I guess this is what happens when I don't cook everything on the same day. There are no photos of ketchup shrimp or my snow pea tofu stir fry, but I made them on week 12 of this year and it's pretty much the exact same dish. 

Pork Belly Tacos (2lb pork belly): $25.99

Homemade "Ramen" Bowls (4 servings): $35.99

Ketchup Shrimp:  $16.99

Snow Pea Tofu Stir Fry: $14.99

Asian Marinade Chicken Tenders (1.5lb): $20.99 

Total: $114.95

Tax: $9.48

Grand Total:  $124.43

 

Pork Belly Tacos

 

One of the chefs I enjoy watching on television (and is still airing new episodes) is Pati Jinich. There's many recipes in my collection which are from her cooking shows. We were watching an episode of her show one evening and it was all making us hungry. When meal-planning for this week, we thought about using pork belly as a protein since I had some in the freezer. We also had leftover tortillas which needed to be eaten. I picked up some vegetables from the grocery store and we were able to use our Kewpie dressing.

 

We found this dressing on clearance at the store. I'd never used it before but I do enjoy other flavors of Kewpie dressings. We decided to buy one to try. I used a little in a recipe last week but decided it would make a great taco condiment. 

 

I winged the pork belly marinade. It's a combination of soy sauce, sugar, cooking wine, sesame oil, honey, and a little salt. I wish I had actual amounts to tell you....I don't. I literally just grabbed ingredients and poured some in. For two pounds of pork belly, each ingredient was probably between 1-4TB. I bet you could mix and match between the ingredients I listed above and it would still taste good albeit a different "stronger" flavor. That's one thing I love about Asian cooking. When you have the main staples, any combination of them is going to give you a nice flavor. You just have to know how to control the amounts based on the flavor you actually want.  

I had some pickled banana peppers in my fridge which made a great sour addition to the savory taco.

 

 

Homemade "Ramen" Bowls

We have lots of instant ramen at our house....despite all my cooking with fresh meats and vegetables, we still love a good late night instant noodle when the time calls for it. 

This meal came about on my lightest day of work. We were starting to run low on food - middle of the week - and I thought of something quick and easy with some ingredients I already had on hand. 

The protein for these noodles came from an egg and some spam. Yup, I cook spam. I had frozen broccoli in my freezer so I pulled some out for a quick blanch to reheat and added them in. I cooked the instant noodles and used the seasoning packets from our Mi Goreng. I didn't season any of the add-ins because there would be enough flavor from the instant noodle seasoning and spam. 

My kids ate this so quickly all by themselves with no need for coaxing. I realize it's not the most healthy meal I've ever made, but as a mom, a self-fed meal with no fuss about finishing is a huge win.  

Everyone got their own bowl of this.

 

The ketchup shrimp and snow pea tofu stir fry I made were delicious. Unfortunately I didn't get photos of them. I did use my stainless steel wok  which I had written about earlier this year. I spent a few months away from the stainless steel and back to my nonstick because I got scared after a few bad tries with the wok. The unfortunate part of learning is that you have to keep cooking in stainless steel, even if it means messing up dishes. 

I got brave this week and tried again. The last three dishes - ketchup shrimp, snow pea tofu stir fry, and my chicken tenders were all made using stainless steel. These attempts were much more successful. I think I need to remind myself not to use too high of heat. 

Asian Marinade Chicken Tenders (1.5lb)

This is all that was left when I remembered to take a photo.

Originally, I pulled this chicken out of the freezer to thaw in order to make curry. By the time the chicken thawed, I wasn't in a place to make curry and if I let it stay in the refrigerator for another 15-20 hours, it would begin to go bad. I realize not everyone enjoys freezer meat because they can taste the difference from fresh meat. I don't notice it. However, I do use my thawed meat immediately because the longer it sits in the refrigerator after thawing, the more likely it is to go bad. 

So instead of making curry, I took my chicken and marinaded it - and then put it back into the refrigerator for 36 hours. Once you add something with salt and sugar, the marinade serves as a mini "cure" for the meat which is why it will not spoil so quickly after that. Simply leaving raw unseasoned meat in the refrigerator will go bad after an extended amount of time. 

The seasoning for this chicken was very similar to the pork belly. I think I used the exact same ingredients for the marinade, probably in slightly different proportions because I just dumped everything into the bowl. I like making this because it's a quick, easy protein with lots of flavor that goes well with rice and a vegetable for a balanced meal. 

That's all for this week!