irreproducible

dishes that are in their nature somewhat impossible to reproduce because of the environment, ingredients or resources available at the time. click on the pictures for descriptions.

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It's been a while since I've posted but I'm really proud of my chicken fried rice tonight. I just wish it didn't take as many dishes as it did...

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Use the right onion.

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Needs more (than just) soy sauce!

I had/have been craving asian food, but after trying to make it on my own realize just how much sauce goes into it and how big chunks of veggies and tofu don't go well with small rice vermicelli noodles... I will get better, but now with gluten free soy sauce!

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The following was written months ago right after I had moved to Paris... I guess I forgot about it... oops... (I did buy spices, the first of which—granulated garlic—just ran out)

I need to work on my plating or maybe just my photography. Unfortunately as this was my first meal in “my” newest kitchen it was quite bland as I don’t have an accumulation of spices here.

The rice was seasoned with a bouillon cube but still needed more salt in my opinion. The salmon was season-less other than some garlic I had in the pan that all burned before I ate it. Fortunately the sieved tomatoes helped a little but in the end just adding salt was my only option.

I think “splurging” on a spice or two for the next couple weeks will be worth it.

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Best Breakfast!

This is of course reproducible, and will be replicated often if in fact I can't eat cereal, but I will spare this blog the repetitive pictures.

Also good with peanut butter minus the peaches.

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Never Again

Not only is this baked mac & cheese irreproducible—as a mix of unmeasured cheesey sauce, cheeses and leftover cheese tortellini—but it is also likely the last time I will be eating "normal" pasta. Tomorrow morning I have a test that will likely confirm a diagnosis of Celiac Disease.

But you bet that I will be remaking this with gluten free pasta and flour-less sauce because this is amazingly delicious! especially for my first time ever making it...

(sidenote: since I am so behind on posting my meals, I may post glutenous meals but yeah, they are dated)

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Some salads are better when one ingredient is mushy especially when you're a carboholic: red mashed potatoes, cherry tomatoes, red pepper and cucumber.

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I promise that it tasted better than this looks. It's shrooms and beans again but this time over mashed potatoes instead of baked. And to make them different I mashed them using the sieved tomatoes instead of milk which added a nice tomato flavor as could probably be expected.

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Mushroom, red bean and onions served over a microwave baked potato garnished with a surprisingly good chives cheese from a tube. Lessons: -For those without a toaster oven, baking a potato in a microwave is a great way to enjoy the classic without having to heat up the whole oven and subsequent kitchen/house. Just poke wholes all around the potato, wrap it in a wet paper towel and microwave for 5-10 minutes depending in size. -(processed) cheese spread with chives already mixed in was a nice way not to break the budget buying sour cream and chives that I would struggle to use all of. -only add pre cooked beans at the very end to heat them up without drying them out....

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Crunchy yellow peas in tomato sauce over rice. Although it would have been logical to read the instructions calling for the peas to be soaked 8-12 hours before cooking, I realized that I preferred them this way to add a little crunch to the meal that otherwise likely would have been fit for people who just lost their wisdom teeth.

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Not my best presentation but it's hard when working for the first time in a new kitchen and with a new ingredient (sieved tomatoes). Either way though, a two year old iPhone camera doesn't do food justice.

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Sometimes I forget to take a picture before taking a bite, calling for evasive photography, granted either way this two year old iPhone camera is obviously not the best for macro photography of food but it will have to do. This is a mash-up of previous dinners (but are blogged out of order): red mashed potatoes with red bean, mushroom, onion topping topped with not strong enough grated cheese (a seeming trend in the UK). Lessons learned: -potatoes even when sliced to a desirable 3/16" take a while to boil -starting the topping first was not the best idea -salvaged however by letting sieved tomatoes, butter and milk simmer with the topping before pouring into the potatoes for mashing -only to find however that not soft enough potatoes call for even more (unsimmered) sieved tomatoes, butter and milk. All in all though very delicious thanks to the copiousness of butter and my improving spice (salt) awareness.

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And with the face comes a new title. "Irreproducible" was actually the title of the YouTube (or tv) show I always envisioned my mom having if she were to ever document her cooking because she is the true master of creating dishes that would be practically impossible to reproduce. I have realized though that while my skills are not at par and my dishes often don't taste as good, many of them are pretty unique even if just because of the random kitchen they were cooke in, so since my mom never became the YouTube star I imagined her to be I am going to appropriate the name.

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A face to the what was faceless cooking blog, fit with a sandwich board for a cafe with a fitting name ;)

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Featured here: warm marshmallow guts that used out of my s'more and had to be caught on the tip of a piece of Hershey's chocolate ;)

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Special sauce chicken and stir fry try two. The sauce was a little too heavily creme de casis and the chicken got a little overcooked/dry but the veggies were a little more stiff and I will definitely keep experimenting with the recipe.

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Hostel cooking! So to avoid Norway's ridiculous prices ($30 for pasta at TGIFridays) I bought pasta and sauce to make for myself. I was happy to find that Norway is one if the few places where seafood is cheaper than most meat so I was able to get salmon! Fortunately it came preseasoned because the hostel kitchen, though beautifully modern, has no spices to share. I borrowed some oil and fried the salmon lightly before adding it to the simmering (also premise) basil sauce. I then did the obvious and poured it over penne and as you can see started eating its deliciousness before snapping the picture. It is enough for 2 very filling me-sized meals which makes me glad that I still have my timer ware to store the second half and not have to cook tomorrow. And it came out to 63kr (or about $10) which is great by Norwegian standards.