Takeout with the Tos #16

There's no real takeout menu this week. I just wanted to write about one dish. My mother made a version of this growing up. The Chinese literally translates to "cold noodles." We ate it in the summers because it's eaten cold. Growing up, our sauce mix was peanut butter and oil. I remember my mother pouring the oil into the bowl of peanut butter and then my job would be to mix it together. She probably added some green onions to the mix and that was our meal. 

I've never made this dish until now. It was "too simple" and often overlooked. But after our Asia trip and two weeks of not having to cook or meal plan, I kind of forgot how to do it. I didn't actually forget, but my brain wasn't used to working so hard when it came to planning meals anymore after taking a two week vacation. I got a bit lazy. But in my laziness, I remembered simplicity.

This is a fancier version of noodles compared to the one we ate growing up. My sauce includes peanut butter, soy sauce, sesame oil, neutral oil, and some Chinese barbecue sauce. I had mentioned this sauce in my very first post this year. 

This photo is from the second time I made it for my family. I had shredded carrots, sliced spam, and julienned cucumber. This would be what I call a "fancier" version of this dish. Everyone in my family loves it when I make this so it will probably be a rotational staple in some form or another, especially in the warmer months. 

Other potential vegetables to mix in or rotate for variety: broccoli, spinach, spiraled vegetables, kale

Other potential proteins to mix in: scrambled eggs, grilled chicken/pork/beef, ground chicken/pork/beef, shrimp, grilled fish

I'm listing these out both as a way to share ideas for others but to catalog them for myself so if I need recipe inspirations, I can look up this post. Also, I meant for this to be a simple, fast meal to pull together, hence the spam. Other mix-in options may not be as fast or easily prepared, but could still work well for a tasty dish. 

I love the versatility of Asian flavors because I can sub so many things. I think this sauce would work for almost all combinations of the above mentioned ingredients. It's true that certain spices or sauce flavors would be better for certain ingredients, but I don't think any combination of the above would taste "bad" together. 

Cold Noodles: $8.99/serving at 6 servings: $53.94

Tax: $4.45

Grand Total: $58.39

Takeout with the Tos #15

Officially, this is the second takeout post for this summer. We've survived our jet lag and are back on a normal schedule. I'm excited to bring some new dishes this week from our takeout menu.  If you're new joining in, don't forget to check out the first post which explains where this series came from. We're not actually order takeout....

1. Pressed Tofu, Snow Pea, Fried Dace Stir-Fry: $21.99

2. Chinese Broccoli: $16.99

3. Pork with Garlic Sauce: $20.99

4. Pan Fried Pork: $9.99

5. Beef Noodle Soup (calculated from 6+ adult-sized portions): $59.99

Take Out Total: $129.95

Tax: $10.72

Grand Total: $140.67

1. Pressed Tofu, Snow Pea, Fried Dace Stir-Fry

I was inspired to cook with fried dace because Woks of Life posted a recipe earlier this year. I always thought I grew up eating sardines. This statement is true. However, we also grew up eating this canned fish and black beans. I incorrectly associated this fish as sardines as well. Now, I know what it was. It's deliciously salty straight from the can. I'd eat it with plain rice if I could, but being a reasonable and healthy person, I can't let myself do that. I haven't read the nutrition on the can. I probably won't to save myself some sanity because I want to keep eating it. 

I didn't use their recipe but I wanted to try stir-frying this canned fish and black beans. I decided to mix tofu and snow peas instead. I've done stir fry with these two ingredients before, but it was my first time adding this fried fish and black beans to the mix. I was cautious not to over-season the dish because I knew the fish was salty. At the end of cooking I tasted one tofu and one snow pea. They still needed a little more umami in my opinion so I did add some sugar and salt to bring out the flavor. I think it was a very successful dish. 

2. Chinese Broccoli (bottom left) 

It was nice to cook my own vegetables again. We didn't order a lot of side dishes which is where the majority of vegetables come from overseas. It would have been too much food so whatever vegetables came inside the dishes we ate were what we got for two weeks. This was nice. I boil them quickly in salted water and then pull them out. I include the stems but peel the outside off to make it more tender. 

3. Pork with Garlic Sauce 鱼香肉丝 (top right) 

I've always loved this dish at the restaurants. It's saucy with this mix of savory and sour. I've made it many times before, but it has never been the same or even close to what I've tasted in restaurants. In my recipe binder, I had two different recipes. There was one I ended up throwing out because every time I made it, I didn't like it. I printed it five years ago and I've never enjoyed the result. This time, I followed the recipe from Woks of Life.  I will say my ingredient proportions are probably double their recipe which is why I personally doubled the sauce portion of the recipe. Mine never looks like their photo on the recipe because somehow I always end up short on the sauce. One of these days...I'll try to get it right.

Honestly, I haven't tasted it yet because since I've made this dish, we've been eating other things or leftovers from the previous week. So, ironically, I can't tell you if this version of the recipe is any more authentic in my opinion. You'll have to ask me personally about this one. It looks nice from the photo? I liked the smell of it when I finished cooking....

4. Pan Fried Pork

This turned out amazing. I wish I had more actually. The irony is I can't even actually tell you how I made it. I thawed a frozen pack of 18 oz of pork. Half of it I used in the previous recipe above. The other half I cut into boneless chops and marinaded before throwing it on a nonstick and pan-frying. I added a mixture of corn starch, rice wine, soy sauce, and sugar. It sat in the bowl for about a half hour on the counter and then I threw it in the pan. 

It's really delicious. I will need to attempt to recreate this another time. I wish I had more descriptive instructions to share with you but I really don't. This was one of those cooking improvisations which resulted in very tasty food. 

5. Beef Noodle Soup

We came back from Taiwan and were missing the food there. On one of my grocery trips, I saw stew beef on sale and decided to buy a pack with the intention of making beef noodle soup. It's not the most ideal cut of beef but it was quick and easy. (In all honesty, it was too lean. You need a fattier cut of beef for this to be at its richest flavor.) I did an overnight broth in the Instant Pot. My recipe inspiration was from Woks of Life again. I don't actually have all the ingredients so I didn't follow it to a tee, but what I made wasn't half bad. 

The next day, I threw in the beef and the carrots and slow cooked everything in the broth on low for about 6 hours. We boiled some noodles on the stove and the dish came together pretty easily. The amount of soup I made ended up lasting 6+ adult-sized portions of soup.  

The original batch I made did not include the quintessential bok choy. We used boiled carrots instead. I'm a little surprised I've never tried to make this before in the past. It's such a warming meal, perfect for a cold winter night. 

I'm surprising myself right now with what I'm cooking. Hoping to include some new recipes soon. Will need to brainstorm with my family what everyone wants to eat/try this summer. 

Saving Seeds

My son loves to help. But, he's a little too helpful for his own good sometimes. One afternoon about a month ago, our doorbell rang. Immediately, he was at the front door opening it faster than I could open the doorbell camera to see who it was. I was asking myself in my head what kind of white lies am I going to have to tell to get rid of this door to door salesman. 

Fortunately for both of us, it was our neighbor from down the street. She was holding a big box which turned out to be bluebonnet seeds. She had asked if we wanted some and I elatedly accepted. We had seen this neighbor grow bluebonnets before and she had told me about one of the houses across from our side of the street which used to have bluebonnets blooming in the spring. She was inspired to buy bluebonnet seeds and plant them. Since the transferring of ownership multiple times, that house no longer has bluebonnets, but hers does! 

She scooped up a bunch of seed pods, gave them to me, and told me how to grow them from her experience. The first step needed was to dry them. I was thinking, "Great, we're going to be gone for two weeks. Let's let them sit outside under the patio to dry and when we get back, I will deal with them."

I set them outside to dry and our trip came and went. When we got back, I had seen some of the seed pods outside burst open by themselves to release seeds. For the rest of them, we manually opened them and removed the seeds. 

These are what bluebonnet seed pods look like. My children and I sat outside on the patio one morning and opened a lot of them. These were the pods we couldn't finish before we got tired of the chore. I'll finish them another day. My neighbor said to scatter them in the summer, let them grow and die away in the winter, and then they will come back naturally in the spring after the rains. 

This is actually the second time my children and I have removed seeds for a plant. The first time was when we plucked coriander seeds off my plant. I realize they naturally dry and fall off when they're ready. However, we were going on a trip and it was going to coincide with when most of them would naturally dry and fall. As a result, I manually removed the majority of them before our trip so I could save them instead of having them fall all over our patio or blow away and start growing in random locations around our yard. 

Coriander seed is on the left and bluebonnet seed is on the right.

I'm not sure how much of my outdoor hobbies my children will pick up on, but they've sure experienced a glimpse of what it's like to be a farmer/grower. If anyone local wants coriander or bluebonnet seeds, let me know and I'd be happy to share some with you! I can't guarantee the efficacy of growth, but nature hasn't disappointed me too badly with all my growing experiments. I don't recommend this coriander for eating because I've handled it with outside/dirt-ridden hands, but if you'd like to use it for cooking purposes, you're on your own 😅. 

Please note coriander is a cool weather plant so please don't plop it in the soil and expect it to grow well right now. I don't think I planted mine last season until September or October. 

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. 

A Decade of "Home"

We're celebrating 10 years in our house today. The previous owner only lived here for 4 so we've been in this house 2.5x longer than they were. We bought this house as our forever home with the intention to stay here until we died. That's stayed true until recently when we saw a house that was almost "perfect" on paper. Larger square footage. Has a pool - this one gives me mixed feelings. Completely updated. 

We contacted our realtor who scheduled a showing for us. She showed it to us and we walked around. 

Kitchen - almost every single cabinet had slide out drawers. Storage galore.

Living area with built-in shelving. I love built-in shelving.

Guest room with murphy bed and Elfa wall shelving which was going to stay with the house.

Enclosed sunroom. 

I was so torn after seeing the house. It was definitely bigger than our house, but it didn't "feel" bigger than our house. My kids loved the pool. I've always wanted a pool since I was a little kid (and I've never gotten it), but it's a dream I'm willing to relinquish because after seeing the cost of pool maintenance, I would like never to own one. The fact that the pool came with this house...was a neutral aspect to me. 

The laundry room was so much larger than our current one, probably double. Much more storage space with room for a second refrigerator. Also, you won't believe it. This house had FIVE TOILETS. Yes, you read that correctly....five toilets. Every single member of my family plus a guest could use a toilet simultaneously. 

So what was stopping me from immediately buying this house? You'd be surprised, there were some things.

The largest setback was the master closet. The bathroom was updated, and it was nice, but the closet was about 1/3 of the size of our current master closet. For such a large house with so much square footage, I was severely disappointed in the size of the closet. The owners had added a wardrobe into the room which was going to remain with the house, but it still wouldn't compare to what we currently have at our house. 

The second largest setback was the garage. It was a nicely done garage, but still only a two-car garage. Our garage fits three now. My husband really loves our garage and it would take a lot for him to give it up. I don't blame him.

So did we buy the house? Are we leaving our "forever home" after a decade of renovations and memories? Did the kitchen with slide out drawers in 95% of the cabinets convince me it was worth the trouble to move? 

Nope. 

Revisiting these pictures still makes me think what a beautiful house it was. It was move-in ready. There were so many things I liked about that house. But there are still things I like about our house which that one lacks. I don't think we'll ever be leaving this house without a reason of necessity, but you can never say never with absolutely certainty either. 

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

I'm taking a short break from Takeout With the Tos for a while because our summer schedule is different so I'm not entirely sure how the cooking is going to fit in. I'm working on thinking through how that's going to work. Next school year I will also have more time during the week so I may not need to cook on Sunday afternoons anymore! That's still TBD though. The series will come back after a few months but it may look a little different.

A couple weeks ago, I made chicken nuggets by scratch. Have you ever wanted to make them from scratch? Chances are, your answer is "no." For the longest time, it wasn't on my radar either. But then, I was scrolling social media and came across a post on how to make homemade chicken nuggets.

I made them. 

I saved it just out of curiosity thinking I may or may not make it. A few weeks after I saved this recipe, my kids were hungry when I was teaching so I made their requested food really quickly. My son requested chicken nuggets and my daughter requested something similar to a burrito. Long story short, I put everything on one plate, handed it to my daughter, and my son never got his chicken nuggets. 😭 I was very upset for him because those were the last chicken nuggets in our freezer. As a result, I decided to make homemade chicken nuggets and try this recipe.

If you want the TLDR version: I'm never making homemade chicken nuggets again. 😂 And I'm someone who goes through the trouble of cooking because I enjoy it. But chicken nuggets....never gonna happen. And here's why:

I followed the recipe shown above loosely. There was another recipe I looked up and kind of combined the two together into my own version of chicken nuggets. Here's the part that ruined the recipe for me: the ground chicken. I didn't have pre-ground chicken but I had plenty of chicken in my freezer. I used my food processor to blend it down. Don't get me wrong, I love chicken nuggets because of that ground up texture vs the fibrous meat strands of meat pieces. But physically making it yourself and dealing with it/cleaning it up? That is a whole other monster.

Mixture consistency. Love the food processor for stuff like this. Hate the cleaning. 

Then there was the frying process. Again, I'm not against frying food. I love frying food, and especially having our wok to fry in. But boy does it make a huge mess. 

My big mess.

I tried a few after I made them, and I definitely skimped on the salt/seasoning. Oops. It wasn't intentional. But with some barbecue sauce or ranch, these would be some yummy chicken nuggets. 

I'm never making these again because Costco sells freezer chicken nuggets from $3/lb all the way up to the fancier $6+/lb all natural chicken pieces. I'm for all of them. I'm going to compare my nuggets to the $6/lb ones because I used chicken tenderloins and there are no preservatives in my nuggets. These definitely already cost me $3+/lb to make at home due to the cost of the ingredients, the time it took to put everything together, and the hassle of cleaning up after myself. I'm glad I did it once....but never again.

For all its glory, here they are again. My homemade nuggets. 

Takeout with the Tos #13

I'm including this week's takeout menu and costs but the real story is going to be about one dish in particular.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce: $17.99

Bok Choy: $14.99

Mushroom, Bamboo, Carrot Stir Fry: $14.99

Braised Pork and Tofu Puffs (not pictured): $20.99

Baked Drumsticks (8 ct): $12.99

Take-Out Total: $81.95

Tax: $6.76

Grand Total:  $88.71

 

My husband baked these drumsticks. My kids really liked it. They turned out well!

These were my two main vegetable dishes this week. I cut the bok choy into strips to create a different texture. I liked it, but I'm not sure the extra time was worth the result. But I'm glad I tried it once.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce

 

 

My picture doesn't do the dish justice. My kids also don't eat peas so there's nothing green. I completely forgot about this dish until I was flipping through the Woks of Life cookbook and saw this recipe. I've always loved that slurry-sauce texture for this dish and anything similar. I don't actually follow the recipe anymore because I just make it the way I want to, but this recipe is still special to me.

My mother died 21 years ago. My dad hired a nanny to watch us after school and cook for our family, but that arrangement lasted a mere month. Maybe only weeks. The memory is hazy now unless I go back and flip through the journals. After the nanny had to quit, my dad had to figure out a way to feed us. He ended up cooking on Sunday afternoons for the entire week.    `

Yup, that's right. I follow the same routine now that my dad did for many years. He would cook multiple dishes and we would eat it as long as it would last through the week. Sounds familiar, right? I remember packing lunch my junior and senior year of high school. I went out and bought myself a glass Pyrex dish with a red lid. 

This is what my "lunch container" looked like in high school. Microwave friendly so I could heat it up at school. 

I knew it had the possibility of leaking, and I didn't have a lunch box so it had to go in a plastic bag into my backpack. I was ingenious enough to pack and store it correctly in my backpack. Half was rice, the other half were the meats and vegetables. I'd make sure to put it in my backpack with the rice side down. That way, if the juices started to run, the rice would absorb it and nothing would leak. 

I had two favorite dishes he made. The first was a shrimp and green peas stir fry. Simply done, maybe added some soy sauce. It was yummy. The second was a dish made with frozen mixed vegetables and ground beef. He made a sauce to go with it which was the slurry-sauce I loved. Whenever he made this dish, I got really excited to pack it for lunch. 

During my last year of college, I lived in an apartment with three other girls. I did my own cooking that year and made simple meals for myself. The first dish I wanted to cook was this dish my dad made with the ground beef and mixed vegetables. I did exactly that - stuck ground beef and mixed vegetables into a pot and cooked them. However, I couldn't get the sauce. My dad didn't follow any recipes so there wasn't anything to share with me. At the time, I had no idea about the powers of corn starch and water and how it changes when heat is added. So I made....ground beef and mixed vegetables with no sauce. That was the moment I realized cooking was a lot harder than I thought it to be.

Fast forward 14 years later, and I understand much more about cooking than I did when I first started in college.  This dish, shrimp with lobster sauce, will always remind me of the years my dad cooked, and the dish which instigated my love/hate relationship with cooking.  My dad doesn't cook much anymore if at all. I've shared some of my cooking with him. He doesn't share his thoughts or even express opinions, but I hope he's impressed. What he started 21 years ago, I continue today with my family.

The "Free" Garden

I knew I wasn't going to be able to garden much this year because we had planned a trip during (what I believe to be) a crucial growing window. Because of that, I didn't buy a single plant or vegetable start this year from the store. My sage recovered from the winter. As did my green onions, citronella, and rosemary. My cilantro is flowering and going to seed. My kale is still going, purposely planted in the back of my raised bed to get some shade from the summer heat.  I'm excited to harvest more seeds to grow more cilantro in the fall. 

Cilantro flowers

As for any edibles, I wasn't planning on growing anything significant this year. I had pole bean seeds from a while back which I wanted to plant and experiment so I planted a row of six. That was it. So why does my garden look like this?

April 17, 2025

It's...a funny story. So I planted my row of six pole beans, but while I was waiting for those seeds to germinate, I decided to dig a trench around the front edge of my garden bed and dump in some incomplete compost into there to continue composting in the ground. My actual composter is a bin so it is not in the ground. Well, after a few weeks, I started seeing sprouts pop out. A lot of sprouts. I ended up with six tomato plants and two cucumber/squash/melon plants which have been yet to be correctly identified. This doesn't include the numerous tomato plants I had to pull due to natural selection to allow the six I wanted a better chance at thriving. 

Fast forward 10 days, and here's what my garden looks like currently:

April 27, 2025

Nature is pretty amazing. When I look at these two pictures next to each other, I'm still in awe at how much growth can happen in 10 days given a balance of moderate heat, good rain and sunshine. 

When I said I didn't buy anything for the garden yet this year, I really meant it. My net spend this year is $0 and that includes the water! I'm even impressed myself, but it's the truth and here's how I did it:

I didn't spend money on any plants this year. The bean seeds I planted were from a free seed box found at our local environmental center. Every single tomato plant was a compost sprout. Every single cucumber/squash/melon plant was a compost sprout. The kale was free from an event hosted by Central Market last fall. The broccoli from that same event has since bolted for the summer and been removed. 

My kale is still growing.

I didn't spend money on any soil this year. The leftover soil in the raised bed was kept and I added to it from last year's pots of tomatoes and pepper plants which didn't survive the winter. I've tried various overwintering methods and been unsuccessful now for two consecutive years. I probably shouldn't try anymore, especially when my compost sprouts tomatoes and I have a never ending supply of pepper seeds. 

I didn't spend money on fertilizer this year because I still have garden fertilizer leftover from last year. The efficacy of the fertilizer probably goes down over time, but I'm not at the point to care or to want to buy a new bag. Also, for my purposes, it works great. I mixed it in when I topped off the soil into the bed for this year and everything has been growing wonderfully.

I haven't spent money on water to water my raised bed this year because all the water I've been using is recycled! (Just for clarification, yes, we water our lawn with the sprinklers and that is not recycled water. But all of my potted plants and raised garden bed have been watered with recycled water) Ever since we moved into this house, we've been collecting the cold water as we wait for the hot water before we shower. Each evening, we collect about 3 gallons. I have 4 giant laundry detergent jugs (approx 2 gallons each) to catch the water and I empty them each day so I have space to collect more water that evening. 

During the winter, we don't use as much so I empty it slower. During the summers, we empty faster than we collect so there's no surplus. In addition to recycling water inside, we have a rain barrel outside which collects rainwater. I've been making sure to empty it before every storm so it can fill up again with new water. As the hot summer months approach, I know we're going to have to supplement with more water to keep the garden thriving.

Honestly, I'm busier than I intended with the garden, but the joy I get from growing my garden is really a fun adventure each year. Not sure what kind of harvest I'll get this year, but it might be the only year my garden is "free". 😊

Takeout with the Tos #11 and #12

It's been a busy few weeks so I haven't been able to write about the food I've cooked. Cooking has also been a little strange because I've cooked in little pockets of time throughout the week which don't fall on Sundays. For the most part, I still cooking on Sunday, but sometimes, I end up cooking on Saturday for a few hours too if it's more convenient.

Week #11

Pre-Seasoned Beef Tips $14.99

Chicken Karage (2 lbs) $25.99

Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry $18.99

Green Bean Stir-Fry $14.99

Take-Out Total: $74.96

Tax: $6.18

Grand Total: $81.14

Chicken Karage

I've made this karage before, but the last time, we fried it using our deep fryer. This time, I fried it in the wok. I have to say, frying in the wok was much easier than I expected. Yes, it makes a mess of the kitchen but this is why our backsplash is covered in paper. When the day comes that we or our children or extended family sell this house, the stove and backsplash are going to look pristine and it's not from lack of use. It's from diligent cleaning and covering to protect from things like oil splatters. A gross kitchen is a gross kitchen....and I've seen my fair share at open houses and when we were house hunting. We're always going to have our house secrets from disasters which only we know about, but if it looks clean as far as you can tell, it's clean enough. 

This entire batch from last week went into the freezer, but I have a feeling it'll be pulled out (maybe today!) as a supplement to this week's food.

Green Bean Stir-Fry

I've done stir-frys with green beans before but never in this way. I've gotten into the habit of blanching my green beans before stir frying so they wouldn't be hard and fibrous at the end of cooking.  One day when scrolling, I came across this recipe and took a screenshot of it. 

In her video that accompanied this recipe, she said cutting the green beans on the bias would take extra time but it would be worth it. She wasn't wrong. It took a lot more extra effort to cut, but they were very tasty! I would do this again. Thanks Mama Tea!

Pre-Seasoned Beef Tips

I hardly ever buy pre-seasoned meat from the grocery store because it's more expensive and usually not worth it. However, H-E-B really got me last week for groceries because they sent me so many coupons. I saved 31% in coupons on that shopping trip and it included almost 13 pounds of meat. Win for them for getting my business and win for me for saving money. Did I mention they did it all with free curbside pickup and I didn't have to push a cart or walk around a store? And here I am giving them free advertising...😆

Beef and Broccoli

This is the first time beef and broccoli has made it onto my cooking rotation (and blogged.) I have a feeling I may have cooked it one week and not written the blog. But here it is! This is a favorite for me to make because the meat texture and the flavor of the sauce is good. My kids will also eat it and don't complain about the greens.

I don't follow a recipe for this so it is a rustic version of what they serve at the restaurant. I parboil my broccoli in salted water first so it becomes soft.  Then I marinate my beef in corn starch and cooking wine. The actual sauce I use for my beef and broccoli is a combiantion of LKK black pepper sauce and LKK sweet bean sauce. I used to make it with just the black pepper sauce and I found it was missing the sweetness I craved. I could probably use sugar instead of mixing sweet bean sauce into it, but I haven't experimented. And since I found these two sauces work well together, I've not departed from this mix. Maybe next time, if I remember. 

Then I saute the beef in my wok about 80% of the way cooked, add in the broccoli, and then add in my sauce. I do add some water to the sauce to make it more pourable to begin and then thicken the sauce during the last few minutes of cooking.

Week #12

Egg and Tomato $15.99

Mushroom, Snow Pea, Tofu Stir-Fry $17.99

Snow Pea Leaves $16.99

Pork Cutlet (not pictured) $10.99

Ketchup Shrimp $16.99

Soup (5 qts): $20.99

Take-Out Total: $99.94

Tax: $8.25

Grand Total:  $108.19

 

I forgot to take a picture of every single dish this week until Tuesday so that's why everything looks partially eaten. Pretty sure half the shrimp and half the soup was already gone by the time I remembered.

Egg and Tomato (top left)

I hadn't made egg and tomato in a while so I decided to buy tomatoes and make this dish this week. I am growing my own tomato plants this year, but they're not close to being ready, so I had to buy them from the grocery store. With the rise in egg prices, eggs have been more valuable and don't get used as quickly anymore either. But it was a nice change to add this dish back to the menu since for a lot of us it's the common "go to" dish to make since it's so easy.

Mushroom, Snow Pea, Tofu Stir-Fry (top center)

This was an impromptu dish I decided to make. The snow peas were on sale, mushrooms were on sale, and I picked up a pack of pressed tofu. I've always loved the flavor with the thick sauce you get from a corn starch slurry. I season with some soy sauce and chicken bouillon and then add cornstarch and water. It turned out well.

Snow Pea Leaves (bottom left)

Snow pea leaves randomly went on sale again so I bought a bag. I always remove 80% of the stems now. They're just so much more pleasant to eat without the stems. I used to think it was so wasteful to just pluck the leaves off, but since I compost all of my fruits and vegetables, I can justify removing any non-pleasant edible parts. It just helps me save money on my soil amendments!

Sidenote. I did this experiment weeks ago with snow pea leaves and I'm just now getting around to share it. At the grocery store, sometimes I'll see wilty leaves on the vegetables. This used to be a turn off for me, but then I realized, as long as the stems are intact and the leaves aren't bruised, there's a way to bring the leaves back to life - just soak them in water. I weighed the snow pea leaves I bought before and they weighed in at 518 grams. Then, I soaked them in water to let them revitalize. After, I weighed them again: 565 grams. That's almost a 10% increase post soaking. So don't be afraid of the wilty leaves at the grocery store!

Pork Cutlet (not pictured)

I had bought a 9 pound bone in pork shoulder last week which I cut and saved into multiple packs in our freezer. There were some pieces leftover that weren't large enough to make into a portion by itself so they ended up in a bag I labeled "cutlets." I think my original intention was actually to pound them into pork chops but I forgot to pound them when I actually cooked. So they ended up like pork...pieces.   

I browned them in a pan and they turned out nicely. There was no official crust on it, but they were still flavorful because I marinated with corn starch, cooking wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Ketchup Shrimp (bottom center)

My daughter loves ketchup shrimp, as do I. It came up in the rotation again because I was looking for a protein to make as a stand-alone dish. This was my first time making it without measuring each ingredient (I've gotten pretty good at eyeballing...) and also my first time making it in the wok. It turned out well. Our wok has really proven itself in the last five weeks ago since we debuted it.  Really happy with this recipe and I should try and make it more often.

A note on the shrimp: I always use head-on shrimp for this recipe because I love the extra juices I get. I do make sure to use scissors to cut open the side of the shell which helps the sauce seep into the shrimp as well as make peeling the shrimp much easier. And yes, I remove the intestinal tract. 

Soup - 5 qts (right)

This was a random throw-together soup. I had extra broth leftover from cooking my pork shoulder bone so I figured I'd make a soup with it. I had leftover napa cabbage to throw in, some chopped up carrots, tofu puffs I keep on hand frozen in my freezer, and some frozen meatballs. I season the soup with soy sauce and chicken bouillon. That's really it. We eat it with rice because we're lazy, but you could definitely cook some noodles to go with it. 

I hate to say this because it's a little embarassing, but putting together this blog of two weeks back to back was more tiring than when I cook a week's worth of food. On the flip side, it means I use less brainpower to cook than I do to write now...which means I must be pretty good at cooking. 😅

 

The Power of Failing

My youngest turned 5 recently. Part of me is dying inside because age five just seems too old for it to be the age of my youngest child. At the same time, I'm loving this new stage of life we're in. I don't have to carry around a diaper bag, there are no baby food pouches, my kids can get in and out of the car by themselves 90% of the time (certain car seats are harder than others), and I can feel like an adult again instead of someone's mother. Don't get me wrong - I love being a mother and I wouldn't have had two children if I didn't and serve them in all the ways I have - but it's really nice to have adult conversation, be able to read books, and not be called on for miscellaneous help every 5 minutes.

But, there are still hard moments. Even though he's 5, he doesn't verbalize as much as he should when he needs help due to his shy personality. When he plays, he's super verbal. Otherwise, for the big things, he needs to be prompted in order to elicit a response. I'm trying to get him out of the habit because I need to know he can survive if he's not next to me. Could I just send him off to day care/school and force him to interact with others? I could and I can, but that's my choice not to. So these lessons need to be learned in other ways.

He asked for a snack last week and I gave him a cheese stick. Everything was going fine, but he couldn't open it, so he shoved the cheese stick in my face. Of course, I knew what he wanted me to do. I could have easily opened it for him, given it back, and life would have gone on. However, that's not what I did. I told him to tell me what he needed. He didn't. So then began a half hour ordeal of crying, pouting, and me putting the cheese stick back into the refrigerator.

I went over to him and told him: we, he and his mommy, had a special bond, and mommy could read his mind and figure things out without him needing to say anything. But not everyone had this special ability. And I needed to know, if it was required, he could verbalize what he needed to get the assistance or help he needed. He proceeded to cry on his bed and I left him alone and started to write this blog. 

Just under ten years ago, I remember having a conversation with my aunt. My husband and I had driven the few states over to visit her and it was the first time I truly sat down and had conversations with her as an adult. We didn't have children yet at the time, but we were talking about kids, how to raise them, and some memories my aunt had when her children, my cousins, were younger. At one point, we were talking about one of my cousins and a difficult period for him. I had commented that sometimes you have to let them learn the hard way. 

She responded to me and said, "It's really hard to watch your own kids fail. You will know when you have your own children."

Fast forward many years, and indeed, I had my own children. I love them dearly and they are so special to me. The other day I just sat in the car and stared into my daughter's face for what felt like a minute as she stared back at me thinking to myself, how is my daugther so beautiful? And I've also had many hard times with my children which have made me yell, scream, and smack some tables. It's an imperfect journey that will never be mastered. 

But I've watched my children fail. In our latest cheese stick scenario, I watched him fail, grab his penguin for comfort, and go lay on his bed and cry. As a parent, this is hard. I sat on the couch listening to him cry while I opened the mail. And as much as I hated to hear his whimpering, I knew this had to be one step in the long journey of life he has ahead of him. Even if he doesn't learn from this situation, it's going to be part of the building blocks which make up his experiences, his personality, and ultimately, what his life will be like. *He never ate the cheese stick, didn't respond to anything I had said, and it felt like this situation resolved without being resolved.*

A few days after this incident, he chose a packet of crackers as dessert for finishing his dinner.  He and his dad went to get it from the pantry and then he came over to me as I was still sitting at the kitchen table. He handed it to me and asked me to open it with a complete sentence, and very nicely at that. I wish I could remember his exact words as I remember being in awe he had come up to me and said that. Many instances after, I've heard him ask me to help him open individually wrapped food (including multiple cheese sticks).

My son failing with regards to this cheese stick incident has small repercussions in the grand scheme of things. But less than a week later, he got it. Was my aunt right when she said watching my own children fail is really hard? Absolutely. And this may be a very small representation of what is to come in our future experiences. But the cost may be ultimately greater if we don't let them fail in healthy ways.

Takeout with the Tos #10

I never thought I could be someone to get excited about food, but the menu I cooked this week really excited me. If you're joining me at this blog for the first time, this is part 10 in a cooking series I'm doing this year, documenting the food I cook (almost) every week for my family.

This week's menu includes:

Pork Tonkatsu: $18.99

Cauliflower: $8.99

Bok Choy: $13.99

Tempura Shrimp: $12.99

Teriyaki Tofu: $12.99

Lion's Head Meatballs: $39.99

Take out Total: $107.94

Tax: $8.91

Grand Total: $116.85

The menu this week was going to include lion's head meatballs. Because I was going to cook them the traditional way and fry them, I figured I'd find other things I could fry as well to maximize my oil. This is where tempura shrimp and tonkatsu were added to the recipe. I had a pack of frozen pork cut into tonkatsu pieces from September 2024 so it was about time to use it. No, it wasn't bad by any means. I vacuum seal all my meats in the freezer for long-term keeping and for these instances where they get stored longer than six months and I don't run the risk of the meat getting freezer burn. 

 

Tonkatsu (top left):

I'm sure there are great recipes out there on the internet for awesome tonkatsu. I don't follow any because I just wing it. I love recipes I can "wing" because reading recipes and measuring ingredients slows me down. The more I can make by feel, the more efficient my cooking process can be. And as you all know, I spend hours cooking on my Sundays. For this tonkatsu, I had about 13 oz of pork cut into thin slices. I seasoned them with soy sauce, sugar, corn starch, cooking wine, and some salt. I added an egg to it for the coating and then dipped in panko before frying for about 2 minutes. These were very thin pieces of meat. 

Cauliflower (bottom left):

We needed some vegetables and cauliflower were on sale this week. I hadn't cooked them in a while so bought one to make for the week. I'm pretty boring when it comes to cauliflower. My favorite way to eat them is to roast in the oven with some seasoning. However, if I don't use the oven for anything else, I probably won't turn it on just to roast cauliflower. So we are eating boiled cauliflower in salt water. I don't mind. It's actually a great simple taste compared to the strong flavors of other dishes I make. So although it's nothing special, it's a healthy vegetable. My daughter has no problem eating this. My son...has developed a certain amount of finickiness lately. 

Boy Choy (top right):

This was a leftover green vegetable from last week's grocery run. Again, I've mentioned before how vegetables keep in the refrigerator for a week when kept away from excessive moisture. If they wilt slightly, that's not a problem as they can be submerged in water and rehydrated.  Stir-fried with my usual garlic, salt, and sugar. 

Tempura Shrimp (bottom right):

This may be my last batch of freezer tempura shrimp for a while.  They came out darker than usual because I had already fried other things in the oil before frying the shrimp. I don't mind. They still taste great. 

Teriyaki Tofu (top middle):

My current nonstick pan is a small one so I had to cook these in two batches. That was slightly annoying, but they cooked fine because nothing stuck. I'll take it for now. Eventually, I will need to pull out my pan with the larger diameter but that one is still brand new at the moment. Officially, I didn't add teriyaki sauce to this batch of tofu, just salt and sugar. 

 

Lion's Head Meatballs:

I follow the recipe from Woks of Life.  I've made this recipe many times and it's delicious every time. I've even baked them in the oven instead of deep frying in oil. The color and texture of the outside of the meatball is very slightly different, but the overall flavor isn't. I deep fried them this week as mentioned earlier so they are more true-to-the-recipe this week. I also figured out I don't really ever have to buy breadcrumbs. I didn't actually have breadcrumbs as the recipe called for. I ended up toasting two pieces of bread on low heat for an extended (15+ minutes) and then crumbling them between my hands into the mixing bowl. You could probably also smash them in a plastic bag before dumping them in as well. I was just trying to save on waste/dishes. I had fresh bread this time, but bread keeps in the freezer for a long time, and the only way to use frozen bread is to toast it. So I really never need to buy pre-made breadcrumbs ever again.

 

Approx Cooking Times: 3 hours

Takeout with the Tos #9

So this was totally unintentional, but I didn't go grocery shopping this week and ended up cooking a decent amount of food for us. Here's our take out for the week:

- Cucumber Salad: $9.99

- Seafood pancakes: $19.99

- Tofu Chicken Casserole: $29.99

- Instant Pot (Dry Rub) Pork Ribs: $22.99 

- Chinese Vegetable Stir Fry: $13.99

Take Out Total: $96.95

Tax: $8.00

Grand Total: $104.95

 

Cucumber Salad

 

I forgot to take a photo of this dish because I made it ahead and put it in the refrigerator to chill. By the time I cooked everything else, took my photos, and went on with the rest of my Sunday, the photo of the cucumbers was long forgotten. My kids ate quite a bit of it so what you see left in this dish is probably 1/3 of what I made to begin with. I had a recipe I followed a long time ago, but it's evolved to eyeballing the ingredients: soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper. I think sometimes I add a splash of vinegar but this time I forgot. This was about 1TB of everything except the white pepper for 1 large cucumber. 

Seafood Pancakes (right)

 

These came out more egg-y than pancake-y this time around. They're almost like a scrambled omlette in my opinion. I still like it. Easy to make, I practically make it by memory, and fast to cook. I've started cooking a lot more with my stainless steel wok, but this is the kind of recipe which still requires a good nonstick pan. It's just so much easier not having to think about the heating requirements and just putting food in and out as it cooks. 

Tofu Chicken Casserole

 

This is a first for this recipe in 2025! I was thinking to myself recently that I had started to repeat a lot of my recipes. Mentally, there are still some I'd like to share with you as dishes I've made which I love, but whether due to time constraints, ingredient prices, or simply lack of intentionality, I haven't made them. This is a recipe I learned from Woks of Life a while back. I saw them post it and immediately thought this would be a great recipe for me to make. One pot, easy ingredients, most that I have on hand all the time, and delicious. 

I made this recipe in the wok for the first time and it's great! Even if the chicken sticks when I'm browning it, I'm able to scrape it up later once the rest of the sauce components get put together and there's more sauce in the wok. The original recipe calls for shiitake mushrooms and peas. These are two ingredients my children complain about. Sometimes, I add them anyway and force them to eat it. Sometimes, I split the dish into two batches and add peas to one batch only. Other times, I add neither, like this week. Honestly, it tastes good however I choose to do it. So although the nutrition may change slightly, the overall integrity of the dish is kept. 

Instant Pot Dry Rub Ribs

 

We needed a protein dish this week and I couldn't think of anything else to do. We pulled out a pack of ribs from the freezer and my husband made the dry rub, stuck it in the Instant Pot, and let it cook. Super easy, super delicious. 

Chinese Vegetable Stir Fry (left)

 

I've only ever known the name of this vegetable in Chinese. If I literally translated the characters, it would be "oil vegetable." Not very enticing...I decided to look up what the actual English for this vegetable is. It's rape, also where rapeseed oil comes from. So while I won't be using the English terminology to name this vegetable...perhaps ever...I have now learned one new fact for this week. 

 Total Time Elapsed: ~2.5 hours

A Great Vacation

It's been a minute since I've sat down and typed up a blog at my computer. The last couple of weeks were a bit different from our normal routine because we had two spring breaks! No, unfortunately, this doesn't mean we had two weeks off of school or work. Instead, it meant my kid's spring break was one week and my students' spring break was the following week. Because of this, we couldn't really go out of town or do anything big. I didn't mind, but it meant finding other creative ways to have fun without going on an official vacation.

During the first week when my kids didn't have school, I took them out in the mornings for excursions. We visited IKEA, hung out with a neighbor, ate lunch with friends, and even had a sleepover one night! The following week when I didn't have to teach, we scheduled dinners at restaurants during the week we normally wouldn't be eating at because I hardly get to eat dinner with my family during the week. Honestly, not cooking is one of the best vacations I can give myself! It doesn't quite hit me as hard when we're away from home on a trip because we almost have to eat out every meal, but when I can relax at home and not have to cook, that's a real treat!

There were a few dinners during my week off where I made more extravagant meals instead of eating out because it was still tasty and slightly more cost effective than eating out.  

Sunday -  8z New York Strip Steak with broccoli 

broccoli not pictured.  this was very tasty. My husband had fun cooking steaks in his cast iron pans for the first time - he even used my fresh rosemary while basting with butter!

Monday - smoked salmon, cream cheese, bagel, side of kale salad 

Tuesday - Sausage Calzone and Chicken Parmesean

Wednesday - Chicken Curry with Rice

Thursday - Sushi

Friday - Pho 

Although a mixture of home cooking + eating out at restaurants, if I estimated the cost of all meals counted as restaurant cost, it would have cost us $250+ for six dinners.

I enjoy cooking for my family because it's a huge way I show my love for them. At the same time, cooking is work. A lot of work. Although I cringe at how much eating out can cost, it is really nice to sit down, be served food, and not have to do the dishes after. Or pick up the food my kids have slowly scattered all over the floor. So all in all, I had a great vacation, both from my salaried and non-salaried duties 😁.