Paaaaastaaaaa~!

My dear lovely beloved took me to a supermarket in Laurel, and I will FOREVER adore S for the favour. There were lots of cultural food items there-- mainly Korean and Hispanic, but there were some Chinese products too. Anyway, I bought:


Firm tofu
Imitation crab (my suitmate K is gonna teach me how to put it in soup!)
Salmon roe (My guilty pleasure!)
Gala apples (the perfect size for my tiny appetite)
A salmon fillet
Some beef cutlets (for stew, btu Imma make curry)
Pasta~
Vodka sauce (I prefer it to the traditional tomato-in-a-jar)

SO naturally the first thing I did was make a whole batch of pasta with the remains of some asparagus leftovers. :D Simple enough, boil, drain, and nom nom nom with some vodka sauce. S and I had an adventure opening the sauce jar.... Naturally.

TODAY I took some of my leftover pasta (of which there was plenty) and made, with some leftover beef from one of my suitemates, and tomatoes and herbs from the Language House Garden Club (yum! I'm not inclined to buy either of these things, so it's nice to have the garden handy)...

This! (If it looks similar to the Penne Rosa from my brother's beloved Noodles & Company, that's because I thief'd the recipe from recipelink.)  I made a lot less, obviously since I was just trying it out, and I didn't do the chili flake, and substituted my vodka sauce for the marinara. 

1 lb penne cooked al dente
1/4 cup of your favorite marinara
Spring onions sliced
2 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
Crushed chili flakes to taste
1/4 cup mushrooms, sautéed
2 Tbsp cream
Olive oil
Balsamic
Kosher salt to taste
1 bunch fresh Sweet Italian basil leaves, sliced
1 bunch of fresh asparagus
Shaved Asiago cheese

Cook pasta to al dente then chill in ice cold water. Drain, toss with olive oil and set aside.

Chop garlic, slice the onions and mushrooms, de-stem basil, slice and set aside.

Drizzle olive oil and balsamic on asparagus. Toss well. Grill lightly and set aside.

Heat a large sauté pan. Add the olive oil, garlic, mushrooms and spring onions. Stir well. Add tomato sauce when the mushrooms, garlic and onions are sizzling and lightly caramelized. Add salt and crushed chile flakes to taste. Add cream, then the pasta and toss to coat. Pour onto a platter. Finish with fresh sliced basil. Garnish with grilled asparagus spears and shaved Asiago cheese. 

 Guess what. It's delicious. :D

More later. Gonna nom and then shower. 

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Rained Out Bento

SATURDAY
It was a sunny Saturday, the kind of sleep-til-2 Saturday that so often draws college students into its lethargic grasp. Our heroine awakes to the sound of her cellphone buzzing beside her head-- too tired to sit up, she gropes about until her fingers close around the technological demon, and answers in a voice hoarse and muddled from sleep. 

It is time to wake up and go to the thrift store, her friend informs her, and she rubs at her eyes and makes a feeble attempt to sit up and look at her list of assignments to do. The never-ending scrawl of hurried after-class handwriting glares back at her, and she lies back down amongst her poké-pillows and stuffed animals, and apologises for having to miss the trip.

After hanging up, she drags herself out of bed and begins to attempt to memorise dialogues in far Eastern tongues, but the syllables are stranger than usual on her tongue, and she grows quickly frustrated with memorisation. Her head on her desk, our heroine falls into a light sleep, waking only when her phone, again, buzzed insistently in her ear. A familiar voice informs her that he has an extra ticket to go and see the Lord of the Rings in IMAX. Our heroine is instantly awake. She has seen the film many times, but never in IMAX. But the screening is in Virginia, and attending would mean skipping the trip to the Asian food market with the friends who had called earlier. 

And then, she is informed that this screening of the Return of the King is accompanied by a live orchestra and choir.

Food could wait. I got the hell off my desk (ten points for a Rocky reference!) and ran to the kitchen to start working. I had only 3 hours to make bento for Sunday, get dressed and clean, and fed in preparation for the most AMAZING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE.

First thing I did was start a batch of rice. I used a rice cooker, because we have one and I like the ability to just turn it on and leave it alone until it's done. (*cough*lazy*cough*)

Finished product.

Then I got out a frying pan. Throughout the process of making the bento, I tried to use as few dishes as possible. While the pan heated up, I sliced up some stalks of asparagus-- three sets of three thin-ish stalks. After cutting off the tips and ends, I sliced the remainder into halves, so I had six bundles of about two inches of thin stalks. I put a little bit of EVOO into the pan, sprinkled in a tiny bit of salt, and dropped in the asparagus. While these were sizzling, I got out the sliced ham-- tore each slice into halves so I had six half-slices. When the asparagus was cooked (two minutes or so, with some intermittent nudging around with a spatula), I took it out and put it on a plate to cool a little and dropped the half-slices of ham into the pan for about two seconds, picked them out with chopsticks, and then wrapped them around bundles of asparagus stalks.

You can see our giant tin of rice on the floor!

The finished product was a little oily from the pan, and I should have let them dry a little on a paper towel to get some of the excess before I wrapped them up, but I didn't think of it in the moment, and I was rushing a little.

Then I sliced up a bell pepper. Simple, boring stuff- two portions, about six slices each. I liked the color a lot, and I'm drying the seeds now for my friend's garden.

There were a few extra slices-- I dipped them in ranch dip and nibbled on them while I wiped down the cutting board and knife. (I'm a sucker for peppers!)

Thus concludes 2 parts veggies/fruits for a proper bento! (I follow the more nutrition-based rules, instead of the aesthetics, althoguh keeping the 'colors' in mind made it easier to shop for ingredients.) At this point, S came over to chill in my apartment while waiting for A to answer her phone. I let my crazy Aristo friend in and then got back to work.

Because it was a breakfast, and the ham was just an accent on the asparagus (I didn't need it, but I'm aware not everybody loves asparagus stalks as much as I do), I fried two eggs to fill up the 1 part protein. I broke the yolk on mine and drained it out and ate it on the spot, because I prefer the whites anyway, and wanted my bento to adhere to my picky tastes without wasting food.

By this time, the rice had finished, so I whipped out my cute little onigiri shapers and made onigiri! I put pork sung into mine, and katsuo furikake into S and A's. A's were star shaped-- but I think I like the heart mold better, because things stick together better in it. Here they are!

Thus ended my bento rush. I packed everything away in tupperware or aluminum foil-covered plates and put them in the fridge and rushed off to put on pants and make myself look a bit more presentable, and not like I'd just rolled out of bed, promptly fallen asleep at my desk, and then caused a whirlwind of cooking smells in my kitchen. I also made a repeat of the previous day's sandwich and wolfed it down so I wouldn't get too hungry at the screening:

Awesomeness ensued.

SUNDAY
Our heroine awakes after an exhausting night of fun to, once again, the angry buzz of a cell phone. It is 9 o'clock-- time to get up and wash up in preparation for the lolita meetup in DC.

But wait-- it has rained outside, and the picnic may be cancelled after all! A later call confirms it-- there will be no picnic today.


Our heroine drifts back into sleep.


So yeah, no picnic today, but I ate the asparagus and pepper slices and my fried egg for breakfast, along with two onigiri. The rest I will feed to my suitemates, I suppose, or nibble on for dinner.


Even though there was no meet-up today, I am still satisfied. This has been a really good weekend, and I'm not at all upset about having to get back to my work before class starts tomorrow. I do feel bad that A didn't get to go to her first meet-up. ): I know she was looking forward to it, and S and I were ready to be her moral support... But I guess if it rains, it can't be helped, right? And I did make some yummy food. The asparagus recipe, especially, was really quick and easy, and I think I'll be making lots of it in the future.
 

Grocery Shopping!

So last night I went grocery shopping at the local Shopper's market. It's just your generic grocery store, you know, like Shop Rite or Giant or any of the generic big-name markets wherever you live. I got there pretty late (the only reason I could go at all was because my dad was stopping over briefly in the area on his way back from SC), and the fish counter was closed, which was my major disappointment of the night. Hopefully I will be going to an Asian market tomorrow where I can get some salmon and maybe some fish-paste? Possibly some catfish to throw in the freezer?

My second disappointment was that they didn't have any of the individually wrapped chicken breasts that my mother suggested. I really want to make curry chicken, but I don't have enough room in my stomach to eat a whole pack of chicken breast by myself unless I eat the curry chicken for breakfast, lunch, and dinner sans rice. SO, I suppose the curry will have to wait. Maybe the Asian food market will supply me with chicken, too.

What I did purchase is as follows:

• three bell peppers (for tomorrow's bento and some snackage)
• a pound of asparagus (but there's nobody to eat the tips and trade me for the stalks! D: How sad)
• Kraft cheese slices
• Honeyed ham slices
• A loaf of whole-wheat bread
• Granny Smith Apples (I hear B cringing)
• Grapes
• an apple slicer
• Eggs

Now, tomorrow night I'm going to be making bento with A so that we can eat something at the Lolita Meetup I'm being dragged along to by my darling Aristo and Loli pair. (I actually have an outfit and everything... I think those two enjoyed playing dressup with me entirely too much.)

As for today, I had leftover juk (my favorite and only comfort food) with pork sung for breakfast, pepper slices and a little bit of ranch dip for lunch, and just now, a grilled cheese sandwich with ham for dinner. I didn't take pictures, nor did I do anything incredibly special to make it, but here's a breakdown for those of you who can't even figure out out to toast bread the cool way...


Pour a little bit of olive oil (extra virgin?) into a heated frying pan. You can tell it's hot enough by splashing a couple DROPS of water onto the pan-- if they sizzle, it's good to go. I didn't use a lot of olive oil-- just a dime-sized amount and then (I learned this trick from my dad) brushed it around with the edge of my clean-up paper towel to cover the area where my bread was gonna fry. A tiny little bit of salt (because I'm planning on offing myself via sodium poisoning) and then plop! In goes the first slice of bread. When it was nicely golden, I flipped it over and dropped some cheese on the freshly grilled side. Waited a couple seconds, then pulled it out and set it aside on a plate. I did the same with the other piece of bread, and then I dropped four slices of ham (they're pretty small and thin) into the frying pan just to heat them up a bit and use up the rest of the EVOO, and then...

GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH... ASSEMBLLLLLE!

I didn't like sandwiches, originally-- I don't like bread, normally. But last semester I was turned on to grilled cheese sandwiches with peppers and onions, and since then, sandwiches had been my go-to food when I want something light to eat that won't make my mother cluck her tongue in consternation. (Because my idea of a light meal is a mini-bag of microwave popcorn and a handful of M&Ms. Ask anyone who plays video games with me.)

I didn't take any pictures, unfortunately, but I'll try to document the bento tomorrow, and the future curry when it happens.

Also! My mentor and one of my suitemates and I decorated our living area today. Pictures of that are forthcoming.

Peace out, homefries.

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