Behind The Kitchen

I've been saving orange and clementine peels for a few days and picked up some sirloin at McKinnons in Davis. I knew I wsnted to make this, so I also dried some red birds eye chilis on low heat and door cracked in my oven, since I always picture this dishblike in the restaurants. I played with the recipe a bit since I had some leftover marinade/dipping sauce. So the marinaded cooked beef was added to my orange sauce (I had all the usual ingredients: toasted sesame oil light & dark soy, rive vinegar, and a little cornstarch. The orange sauce was made with fresh-squeezed orange juice, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. Simmer the orange peels and a few dried red chilis or chili flakes. Then add a corn meal slurry (1 T of cornstarch/2 T water. Simmer softly until thickened and add cooked beef. I served it on coconut rice. If I wasn't so hungry I would have chopped up some scallions on top!

Classic Egg Foo Yung with diced roasted boneless spare rib, bean sprouts, red bell pepper, and red onion. The secret to the pork is starting with pork shoulder, a good marinade overnight, and turning/basting in the over every 15 minutes at 375° for an hour.

I am planning some scallion, minced shrimp pancakes, ground pork, shrimp, beansprout, cabbage, carrot egg rolls, and several salmon dishes. Do you get cravings and start to plot recipes?

Asian-inspired Chinese sausage, Shanghai Choybtips, and Korean rice cake pasta: Sorry for the long absence! I have been researching, practicing, and cooking up a storm, mostly asian-themed dishes. It takes a little while to stock the pantry with the repeated go-to items, but then you can easily whip up unique flavor profiles and play. I just added 2 Korean items that I combined with Chinese items and cooked last night. I was so pleasantly delighted! Thank you to the young Korean woman at H-Mart last night who gave me some generous tips! The thick, chewy rice cake pasta was a game-changer now that I know how to prepare it. The sauce sticks to it and it is such a satisfying texture along with the bother ingredients. OK, all I did was to first, prepare a sauce with minced garlic, ginger, green onions, and 3 red chilis; add soy sauce, dark soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, rice w**e vinegar, Shaoxing cooking w**e sauté, a little water, and some corn starch. Then I chopped 2 Chinese sausages into small pieces while boiling the rice cakes for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, I chopped the Shanghai choy tips (I was looking for baby boy choy, but this was a good substitute). When the sausage piece began to get crispy, I added the rice cakes, stirred them for a minute or so, and added the veggies, then I added the sauce, stirred, stirred in a Tbl of Korean goujugang (sp) chili paste and covered to steam for a few minutes until the veggies cooked but not overcooked. I stirred in toasted sesame seeds, poured it out in a nice bowl, topped it with curly green onions (cut 2" pieces, open flat, sut into thin matchsticks, and soak in cold water to curl, and then use at end)
and ate with chopsticks. The balance of flavors and textures was delicious & satisfying!

Had a lovely pizza party hosted by local Somervillian Mary Haoren and guests. My offering was broccoliRabe, garlic, red oepper flakes, prosciutto, and provolone cheese.,

Lunch: fresh, colorful, simple, beautiful variety ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 Salad w/mixed greens, carrots, walnuts, grape tomatoes, drizzled w/some Brianna's blue cheese dressing cut w/apple C***r vinegar with broccoli & carrots w/ginger lightly sauted in sesame oil and steamed in 2 TBL broth, w/soy sauce & toasted sesame seeds. Cucumber and ma daring orange as side dishes. Served with spice black English tea.

(*Lesson at end) Breakfast this morning w/black coffee: an egg, fried with sh*take mushrooms, and topped with provolone cheese, on a toasted pita w/avocado, home pickled onions, and cherry tomatoes. Seasoned with mushroom salt (see picture) & pepper. Fresh blackberries for dessert. Notice the variety, and the inclusion of a pickled veggie. Your gut biome LOVES variety! Remember to try a wide variety of healthy foods to feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut and make your stomach happy 😊

More successful experiments with homemade veggie black bean burgers. I also did some as cupcakes, the way I also do with latkes. These have black beans, sautéed onions, garlic, potatoes, parsley, cottage cheese, eggs, chickpea flour, toasted sesame oil, cumin, turmeric, red & black pepper, and Earth Prganic Mushroom Seasoning Powder (as a salt substitute).

No added oil in these delicious latke cupcakes. I made a big batch of potato/onion, matzo meal/egg batter for frying last night, and used up the extra batter to bake this morning.