Sesame Noodle with Steamed Veggies and Egg

I was hankering for a nice sesame-sauced noodle dish. I googled around and saw that there is a lot of different ways to make sesame sauce. I tried to synthesize my own.
Prepare Sauce:
-Roughly chop a couple hot chilies, 3 cloves of garlic, and a bit of ginger
-Prepare 1 tsp each of olive oil, sesame oil, Chinese 5-Spice, black pepper, red wine, honey, and fresh chives-Prepare about 3 heaping tablespoons of good unsweetened peanut butter and another tablespoon or two of tahini
-Mix all the above in a food processor with about 1/4 cup of warm water
Prepare Dish:
-Soak any sort of noodles that you like in some water or cook them until they are just ready
-Chop/prepare any vegetables that you like steamed. I used broccoli, cauliflower, and bok choy
-Toast a tbsp of sesame seeds on a pan
-Roughly chop some cilantro and chives
-Ready a couple eggs

Cook Dish:
-Steam vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower take longer than bok choy)
-Crack 2 eggs on a warmed pan with olive oil over medium heat, after 1 minute of frying, roughly mix together

-Once vegetables are steamed, mix noodles through and leave for a couple minutes

-Mix in eggs and sauce, sprinkle with cilantro, chives, and sesame seeds

Tips:
-You can change this sauce anyway you see fit. I put in 3 chilies and it had a lovely amount of heat to it. I think next time I may add a bunch of cilantro to the sauce itself to give it a bit of that nice flavour.
-Substituting eggs with tofu or chicken would be a very welcome addition.

Cauliflower Popcorn

I like raw cauliflower so much that, besides for throwing it in stirfrys, I don't do much else with it. Well, I had an excess of cauliflower and bread crumbs from previous cooking, so I decided to give cauliflower "popcorn" a shot. It would make a good appetizer or side dish to a meal.

Prepare:
-Cut cauliflower into bite-sized pieces, brush with olive oil (alternatively, beaten egg)-Prepare bread crumbs. You can use plain but I decided to make it more flavourful and so mixed in Korean pepper powder, cumin, turmeric, salt, dried basil, and shredded Parmesan-Spread on a baking panCook:
-Preheat oven to around 350
-Place in oven for 10-15 minutes, mix up, then bake another 10 minutes
Tips:
-I had extra bread-crumb mix and so decided to not be wasteful. I cracked an egg into the crumbs, and mixed it to make a batter. Then, I sauteed some garlic and onion in olive oil (med heat) and threw the batter in, flipping it after 5 minutes. It made for a nice and tasty patty

Lime and Vanilla Pound Cake

I had some leftover sour cream in my fridge and since I don't like sour cream, I decided to make a cake with it. I found a decent recipe on allrecipes. Well, I hesitated for too long and the sour cream went bad, but I decided to go with the recipe anyway, substituting vanilla yogurt instead. It turned out fantastic: moist on the inside and nice and crispy on the outside and not too sweet!
Prepare:
-Preheat oven to 375F (190C)
-In a large bowl, mix 1/2 cup (115g) of butter with 1 1/2 cups of sugar, blend until smooth
-Add in 3 eggs and 1/2 cup yogurt (or sour cream)
-Mix well
-Add 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and a pinch of baking soda
-Add the juice and zest of one lemon or lime
-Pour into greased loaf pan
Cook:
-Place pan in oven, bake for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out dry (it took me exactly 1 hour)
Tips:
-I also added some mandarin zest in my cake mix
-I used vanilla yogurt, but plain yogurt would also be nice. Adding a bit of vanilla essence would make it more vanilla-y. Also, you could nix the vanilla and add poppy seed for a nice lemon-poppy seed cake. I love chocolate and was thinking of adding it, but I thought it wouldn't work with the citrus. If I make it again, I'll cancel the lemon and add chocolate chips
-Fresh strawberries on top would be great

순두부찌개 & 계란찜 (Soondudu Chiggae: Tofu Stew &Kehranjim: Omelette Soup)

Continuing with my Korean tradition of soup-loving, here are two more dishes that my girlfriend made for me one Tuesday afternoon. The soondubu chiggae is along the same lines as the kimchi chiggae I made earlier, except the main thing is soft tofu. To go with it, I had her made for me one of my favorite side dishes, which is typically served in a barbecue-meat restaurant, a kind of omelette soup.

Prepare Soondubu Chiggae:
-This one starts a bit weird: mash some dried anchovies and seaweed to make a great stock base. I know that this may be out of the range of most Western kitchens, and so dissolving some regular stock powder would be okay. Mix with 3-4 cups of water-Dice some carrot, zucchini, hot pepper, green onion, and any other vegetable you like (it's blasphemously inauthentic but I love throwing in broccoli and cauliflower)
-Prepare your Asian spices and sauces: sesame oil, soy sauce, hot pepper paste and hot pepper powder (고추장 and 고추가루)
-Own soft tofu - this is very different from the regular firm tofu that we find. It's sometimes sold in tubes and should not hold shape on its own well at all
Cook:
-Set the water/broth to boil. Throw in some garlic, pepper powder and paste, a bit of soy sauce, and a hot pepper, as well as some ginger and sesame oil
-After a couple minutes of boiling, add the tofu and vegetables-A couple minutes later, crack an egg into the soup
-Let simmer for a long time, till it reaches a nice red level

Prepare Omelette Soup:
-Very finely dice green onion, garlic, carrot, and mushroom - about a tbsp of each
-Whisk two eggs with the vegetables, add a bit of salt and pepper, as well as some milk to fluff itCook:
-Set a bit of water to boil in a small pot. You can add a bit of the stock powder that you used above. The volume of water should roughly be equal to the volume of the omelette solution-Once its boiling, pour the egg in. You can mix. Lower the heat, cover, and let cook for about 7 minutes
Tips:
-For the water for the soups, a Korean trick is to use the water that's had rice soaking in it. It's supposed to up the flavor.
-Enjoy with rice (obviously), kimchi, and a nice cold beer.

José

In Minneapolis, there is a famous breakfast joint in the university campus. Al's Diner serves hot, tasty breakfasts to very few customers at a time, while a line of people wait. Biking there on Sunday mornings with my dad and brothers was a nice tradition growing up. One of their tastiest meals was the José: a poached egg and hashbrown medley mashed up with fresh salsa and cheddar. To get hash browns to be the quality and consistency of what's served up in a restaurant can be a complicated process. Mine isn't that hard and the results are scrumptiously decent.
Prepare:
-Boil some potatoes. Don't peel them ahead of time, just give them a nice wash and scrub. Once they're boiled, put them in the fridge or freezer until they are cold.-Grate some cheddar
-Make/prepare some salsa
-Eggs for poaching
Cook:
-Once the potatoes are cold, dice them up to the size that you like. Heat up a pan with a lot of oil (or butter... this is one of the few times I allow myself to cook with butter). Once these stop being clumpy and start being crispy, lower the heat and spread the grated cheese on top, cover
-Poach an egg or two. You can use the method I mentioned before. I happened to recently purchase silicon rubber egg poachers and they are amazing.
-Make a hole in the hashbrowns and put in some salsa. Serve on a plate with the egg on top and some toast on the side and some fresh juice. Enjoy!

Garlic Fried Rice

I was in Ho Chi Minh City with my older brother when we ate at a restaurant near our hotel. The menu was fraught with options be we went for a simple one that had high potential: Garlic Fried Rice. It was amazing. I believe we ate that dish at that restaurant 3 times. I set about to recreate this delightful meal. Fried rice is probably one of my favorite dish types (some people love dumplings, meat sandwiches, chicken soups, etc.) and this ranks in the top 5 of fried rice dishes I've had (#1 would probably have to be the chicken fried rice I got several days in a row from a cart with a portable wok in Bangkok for 25cents)
Prepare:
1-2cups of cold cooked rice. This is the key to fried rice: the rice cannot be steaming out of the pot. What I always do when I cook rice is cook more than I want, put some in a Tupperware and freeze it right away. When it dethaws, it tastes as good as new.
Lots of garlic. I used about half a thing. Crush it and set it in a convenient locale.Anything else you want: the dish can be only rice, garlic, and egg, or it can have other stuff. I consider it a sin to not cook with onion and chili pepper, so I added that. I also mixed in some fresh chives in the end to give it a moister, more vibrant garlickiness.
Cook:
Heat up your wok to about 80% highest level. Get it nice and hot and drop in a bit of oil, it should heat up right away. Add your crushed garlic and let it fry until it starts browning, then take out half of it and set it aside.
Throw in veggies and about a minute later throw in the rice with a little more oil. Let it fry around, stirring constantly. Add some salt, pepper, a tsp of sugar (it helps, trust me) and some soy sauce and sesame oil if you've got that around. Once the rice is almost complete, crack an egg into the pan.
Keep stirring (you can turn off the heat now) until the rice is completely separate and there are no huge pieces of egg left. At this point you throw in the previously fried garlic, as well as chives or cilantro or whatever else you want.
I ate it with some steamed broccoli, Bok Choy, and cauliflower with a nice cold beer.

Poached Egg Breakky

For the last 4 or so years of independence, come the weekend I would always reward my lazy and free mornings with a nice breakfast. This breakfast was, without fail, 2 sunny-side-up eggs, several pieces of bread, some cheese, tomato, and cucumber. That was until a month ago when, on a trip with some friends, Ben taught me about the gloriousness of poached eggs. See, I chose sunny-side-up eggs as a vehicle for the delivery of runny yolky goodness. But they could break upon landing, or get stuck to the bottom of the pan and never come out, not to mention they required oil. Well, poached eggs is an easier and healthier delivery system that I have come to integrate into my weekly meals.
Prep:
I use a small frying pan, since it is wide and short, and fill it with water and a splash of vinegar. I hate vinegar but it's not used here for the taste; rather, to help keep the eggs from being stuck together. Place it on medium heat.
Prepare a plate with some bread and veggies that you like.I like to dig a little hole in my bread, if possible, for better settling of the eggs. I also have cheese on the side to eat with the white of the egg.
Once the water is plenty hot, that is small bubble but not huge ones, I crack the egg in a little saucer.
Then, you need to carefully and slowly slide the egg into the pan. The slowness allows for it to keep together. If there are too many bubbles, it can break up the egg. So lift up the pan for a second, drop the egg in, then place it back down.
Wait as long as you like, pending on how runny you like your eggs. I wait about 45 seconds since I love them runny. Get the eggs out w/ a colander-ladle (whatever that's called) and place it on your bread. I always pray for 2 perfect eggs but sadly this doesn't happen as often as I'd like. I interpret the integrity of the eggs as a sign of the day... with two messed up eggs being especially forboding. Looks like today will be only okay.