Pad Thai (or, Why I'm not REAL white trash)

Hello all!

As you may have noticed, there have been two posts recently which were not written by me, Meg. Reema and Reema mk. 2 (aka Alex, the guy responsible for the major design revamp of this blog) have each written an introductory post, and they both feature disgusting-looking food (you both know I love you to bits). I promise I haven't developed a case of schizophrenia.

But since this is (er, was) my food blog, I'd better keep up with the Reemases. So without further ado, I give you Pad Thai a la Meg (actually, I totally stole the four-page-long recipe from Chez Pim, but shhhhh)!


Okay, so it didn't start out very glamorously. This is reconstituted tamarind... stuff. The lady at the asian grocery store didn't tell us exactly what it was, and the packaging was in some language that I am unable to read. Mom and I took pictures because we thought it looked funny. Okay, and disgusting.


Have I mentioned lately that my mom is a fantastic multi-tasker? Unlike Reemas 2 and 2, I get an awesome lady helping out in the kitchen. Here she is socializing and slicing chicken simultaneously.


Thankfully, the ugly-looking tamaring melded together with some fish sauce and a ton of brown sugar to make a very sweet and delectable coating for our Pad Thai. Now for the stirfrying!


Actually, it's very difficult to stirfry really quickly, even WITH an assistant on hand, so no pictures. But isn't it a beautiful end result?


Ta-da! Until next time, folks.

Meg is Lazy, So Here I Am.

Call me Reema Mk. 2, another of Meg's myriad friends that are aiming for internet stardom by posting on Teh Culinary Skillz. After months of work, I have passed Meg's rigorous examination in order to be accepted by a Food Blogging expert such as she. Like my predecessor, the lovely Ms. Reema, my food also looks like somebody vomited up a lung (you know I feel nothing but love toward you, Reema), but I assure you it tastes good.

Tonight's experiment was a result of dozens of minutes of negotiations between Meg and myself. The decision stemmed from the fact that my kitchen contains very few ingredients to put into anything, and so we came to a decision: let's make a quiche using every vegetable in the kitchen. Taking into account that I had no wheat for a crust or milk/cheese for it, a quick bit of googling yielded a wheat-less, dairy-less recipe called Sweet Broccoli Quiche, which was, in fact, nothing more than vegetables and egg poured into a pan and then baked.

The recipe:

A shitload of eggs
Three handfuls of frozen broccoli
A large amount of salt
A larger amount of pepper
One humongous potato
Perhaps one or more small onions
1 tsp. unsalted butter

Nevertheless, let's begin this simplistic experiment. On to the pictures!

From left to right: the container used to bake the quiche, onions, potatoes, eggs, and broccoli. As I said, I don't have much to work with here. I took out an extra potato and onion because I wanted to eat something while it cooked.

There's everything, pre-mixing. I rubbed butter all over the container and loaded the eggs with salt and pepper. The vegetables also received a brief two minutes in the microwave to soften up before being put into this unholy concoction.

I found some parmesan cheese at the last minute, which made it look even more like devil vomit.

After an hour of baking in a 350 degree oven, this is the finished product. I tested it by slicing at it with a knife, which is why it's sliced.

This is what it looks like on my plate. It resembles quiche in a way that makes me happy.

And there you have it: an easy, flavorful quiche that can be made with whatever the hell you have in the refrigerator. I'd recommend putting some more vegetables in it, or some bacon. I'd recommend covering the top with something so it doesn't look like shit. Don't believe me that it tastes good? Just look at this picture of my Dad, one of the satisfied eaters of my concoction.

This is my Dad eating it. We both enjoyed it. P.S. He doesn't look like a retard in real life.

Feeding the picky eater

As Meg has already told you, I'll be spending the summer with my picky eater boyfriend, Greg. Since he is such a picky eater, it is a challenge to find recipes that he will enjoy, and a game of manipulation by allowing him to choose from various recipes so he can't say "I don't like so and so", because he chose it. So, I decided to go with an old faithful recipe for my first post, Lemon Garlic Chicken, and a new veggie recipe, Cheesy Cauliflower and Broccoli.
Lemon Garlic Chicken calls for :
Juice of one lemon
enough olive oil to coat the skillet
2 or 3 crushed diced garlic cloves (depending on the size, if they're small use more)
2 chicken breasts
seasoned fine bread crumbs
2 eggs, 1/3 cup of milk
shredded cheddar cheese

First, you must beat the eggs and milk together, then you dip the chicken breasts in the eggs and milk batter, drop the chicken breasts in a bag of dry bread crumbs and shake until coated. In the skillet, over medium, heat the olive oil, lemon juice and crushed diced garlic cloves, then drop the chicken in the pan and brown both sides. I'm paranoid about cooking chicken so I usually turn down the heat so it doesn't burn, and let it cook for a long while.
Don't slice it open to check for pinkness, it lets the juices run and then you'll end up with dry chicken. Once you're sure the chicken is done, shred some cheddar cheese on top if you'd like, and let melt for a couple minutes. I feel the cheddar cheese is a bit pointless, so I don't usually use it.

Cheesy broccoli and cauliflower calls for:
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup cauliflower florets
1 can cheddar cheese soup
1/2 can milk
and 4 slices of cooked bacon, or more depending on your taste

First, you have to cook the broccoli and cauliflower, steaming it is healthier, but you can also boil it, only until tender crisp, so for a few minutes. In the meantime, heat the can of cheddar cheese soup with half a can of milk, then ad the cooked veggies to the soup, and ad crumbled bacon. Stir until all veggies are coated and bacon is mixed in.

And voila! Cheesy goodness with veggies and bacon, and lemony juicy chicken, fit for a picky eater.

I should mention that I used 3 chicken breasts instead of two because I didn't want the 3rd one to go bad in the fridge, so I used it anyway and split it in half for the two of us.

Be Our Guest!

Hi all! I've been back home for few weeks now, and I'm settling in well. Once I get a job, I'll be all set. I've cooked a few things since I've been home but haven't had a chance to blog about them between visiting friends and family, babysitting, catching up on 8 months' worth of missed sleep, and reformatting my computer. Twice.

But the reason for this particular post is to inform you about my dear friend Reema. She is currently living with her boyfriend and has plenty of time to cook, so cooking is what she's been up to. However, the boyfriend is a picky eater, so she's spending a lot of time searching for recipes online. I recommended the food blogs that I link to on my food blog, and then Reema had a brilliant idea.

"You should let me be a guest blogger on your food blog!"

And so, ladies and gents, meet Reema. She's a charmer, I promise. After all, she converted me from a girl who wouldn't touch seafood into an Alaska roll addict and sushi aficionado.


She's already promised some delectable posts, and soon I'll be sharing my Pad Thai story. Happy May, everybody!