Pot Luck!

Here is a picture of a recent pot luck I had at my place. I did not get a pic of all the amazing food but here is a sample: 

There is..fried rice, sesame chicken, paella, spicy Korean rice cakes, my roommate's awesome chocolate cake, fruit salad and not pictured, fondue and mac and cheese. I loved all of my friends creations and ate enough for 2 or 3 people.


My dish is sort of in the middle, which is cold spicy noodles. I don't know if everyone else loves it as much as I do but if I were dying, I'd request this dish as my last meal. It is my mom's recipe and I loved it so much as a kid, it was the first thing I learned how to make. It's carbalicious (my fave), cold, spicy, salty, vinegar-y. All it really involves is making the sauce which consists of heating some chili flakes in hot oil, pouring the hot oil over some minced/sliced garlic and adding about 2-3 parts soy sauce to 1 part vinegar. My mom also adds shallots but I don't care for it nor do I usually have shallots around. The noodles are just rice noodles, boiled til soft and washed in cold water. I drown my noodles in the sauce and can eat many bowls all by myself. 

My version of Chicken Satay

Who doesn't love chicken satay appetizers at Thai restaurants?! I decided to make something like it, but I was sans grill and sans bamboo skewers so I just tossed some diced chicken breast in a pan with minced garlic, ginger, curry, S+P. Then I made some peanut sauce from this recipe and...voilà!  

The peanut sauce was very lime-y, probably because I used one very plump lime but it was sort of a nice acidic contrast to everything else but I would still prob use less lime in the future. Not quite the same grilled/satay restaurant goodness but an okay at home alternative. As a side note, peanut sauce is also really good with pasta. I love carbs. 

Egg souffle

I bought ramekins at least 2 years ago, because I love creme brulee (have not attempted it yet), and since then I've only used them once for French Onion Soup. So this recipe was a good excuse to use my ramekins and eat asparagus. I made many substitutions and it ended up being a small bed of onions+mushroom topped with some plain scrambled egg and lightly sauteed asparagus. I'm not actually even sure if it counts as a souffle anymore since I didn't add cream. Nonetheless, I figured I couldn't go wrong since I used some of my favorite ingredients and at worst it'd be a gamish of some good stuff. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually puffed up although it was more soupy/savory than creamy/bready which was fine IMHO. 

Egad I am awful at photo editing

Before...

After..poofy goodness!

w/ a little hawt sauccee

lamest post ever!

so here are my excuses for not cooking:

1) I've been at parents for xmas and eating mom's food

2) I came back to my apt with more of mom's cookings

3) one word..Robbins

but i did make a sandwich for lunch which i know is about the lamest thing i can write about. but look how huge the bread is! fit 2 slices of cheese length-wise!

well there you have it. my sandwich. whole grain bread, spinach, turkey, and pepper-jack cheese.