Category: Uncategorized

On Sunday I went to the grocery store for this week’s meals. Now, I know I bought too much, and I didn’t have any idea of the menu. I just haphazardly shoved stuff into the cart. I knew I wanted to make a salad. I left the groceries with romaine, red cabbage, onions, plum tomatoes, and carrots.

I made a salad earlier in the week which featured these ingredients. It was delish! But now I have too many vegetables in my fridge. I need something different.

So with the cabbage and carrots, I made a coleslaw. I’ll have some for breakfast, some for lunch, and maybe some for dinner. Now I have too much coleslaw in the fridge! (And still too many vegetables!)

I followed the roasted carrot soup on Food52 to make lunch tomorrow. I didn’t follow it faithfully. I used it as the guide to making the soup. Why?

I thought I had enough carrots in my fridge. I was wrong. The recipe calls for 6 to 8 large carrots. I had 5 small carrots! I tried to cut down the amount of broth to fit, but I still kept to the steps.

I broiled the carrots in olive oil for about 20 minutes. I boiled the stock (chicken stock in the fridge!) with piece of ginger and a pinch of dried thyme leaves. I sautéed the onions and garlic until transparent. When the carrots were done, I threw it into the sauté then dumped stock into the pot. I brought it to a boil then backed off and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Finally, I puréed it in my blender.

Now I’m letting it sit to cool before putting it in the fridge to keep over night until lunch tomorrow.

The recipe says it’s a serving for four. Tonight it came out to be about 3 cups. Is that a serving for three? Tomorrow it will be a serving for one!

I did taste it during the puréeing process. It tasted good. Let’s see tomorrow.

Over the weekend, I made some chicken stock for soups. Basically, I used my new pressure cooker’s slow cooker function to craft some chicken stock. It’s a standard stock of whatever I had in my fridge: leeks, celery, carrots, onions, garlic. I just threw them into the slow cooker with 1 1/2 lbs. of chicken wings, set it to 10 hours on low, and let it cook overnight to its heart’s content. Afterwards, I pulled out the chicken and shredded it, cooled the stock and removed the fat. That’s it.

For the soup, I’m just going to sauté onions and carrots, because I still have some on hand. Then throw in the chicken. Now the chicken was shredded so the chunks aren’t really chunks of chicken but small particles of chicken. Unfortunately, this doesn’t look to appetizing, but it is the chicken I got from my stock. I added 2 quarts of the chicken stock and another quart of water.

For seasoning, besides a pinch of salt, I added 1 tsp of thyme and dried basil, 1/4 tsp of white pepper, and a 1/4 tsp of fish sauce (patis).

For noodles, I’m using whole wheat fusilli. I know I put too many in so that it turns into a mushy stew. Hopefully not. (Cross my fingers.)

I took this to a boil then dropped it to low to simmer for an hour. I’ll let you know if it is any good. (Cross my fingers.)

Tried my hand at making onigiri, rice balls. It’s a simple thing to make — cooked rice, a savory filling, a piece of seaweed — formed into a ball.

First the rice. It’s a Japanese rice usually sold at the supermarket as sushi rice. You should use this style because it balls up really well. Somewhere I read that using another type of rice like jasmine or Chinese rice won’t do, because those types don’t ball up well.

Second the filling. Usually there is a filling, if you must know. You could make it without one, but then it won’t be as satisfying. I used tuna. Just a scoop.

Finally the seaweed wrapper. It’s nori! They come in a package of 10. I won’t get anywhere close to using the entire package. It may take me years. I snipped a sheet into 2 small pieces then wrapped the rice balls.

How to shape them? I followed a trick that I read on the net. I used a tea cup and some plastic wrap. I put some plastic wrap on a tea cup then placed some rice on it. I put some filling in and enclosed the rice in my fist. Then shaped it. I shaped it into the traditional triangle. Or at least I thought I did.

One final thing, I used some furakake to add some flavor.

That’s my onigiri. I hope you try it too one day.