White Mushroom Spaghetti

This was my first attempt at making a pasta dish that didn't have any tomato related ingredient in the sauce. It sauce pretty much consisted of white mushrooms, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper, oil, and butter. It's a shame I'm not old enough to get some white wine, it would have been perfect.

The mushrooms looked amazing so I decided it would be a good idea to get some. Sorry, but I forgot to take pictures of them before I sliced, diced, and cooked them.

White Mushroom Pasta:

12 oz. of White Mushrooms, about (or more if you like)

5 cloves of garlic, minced

Quarter of a small-medium onion, diced

1 tsp dried oregano

2 tbsp of Olive Oil (or any other kind you have)

4 tbsp of butter

1 tsp, or more, of salt (to taste)

1/2 pack of regular length spaghetti, roughly

Black pepper (optional/to taste)

Basil, roughly chopped (optional)

Rinse and wash the mushrooms under cold running water. And set aside to dry, or you can pat dry. Then slice them into thin, approx. 2-3mm, even slices. Set aside. (The slicing can all be done while you wait for the water to boil)

Bring a large, covered, pot of water to boil. Once boiling, uncover and throw in the dried spaghetti. Stir in and let cook as package directs. Stir occasionally.

While the pasta is cooking, heat oil in a large, raised sides, pan. When heated, cook garlic for about 30 secs or until fragrant on medium-high heat, then throw in the onions and oregano and cook until browned and softened slightly, maybe about 3 minutes on medium-high heat.

Once onions are browned and softened, throw in the sliced mushrooms. Saute for a a minute or two and then cover, turn heat to medium, and let the mushrooms release their moisture. After about 5-7 minutes, check and stir. They should have lost a lot of their opaqueness. Now uncover, turn heat back to medium-high, add salt, and saute untill some moisture has evaporated, but not completely. Add the butter and stir in until all melted. Lower heat to medium-low.

At this point the pasta should be done. Drain and add pasta to the sauce. Mix well until the pasta is well coated. Add basil, and pepper (if using). Serve immediately.

Serves ~4

Enjoy!

New Template, and Guacamole

So I was browsing the template choices and decided that this particular style was easier on the eyes in style, color, and layout. Hopefully those of you who read my blog, thank you, find it better as well.

I actually made some guacamole tonight because I had way too many hass avocados that were already ripe (about 10-ish in all) and I needed to clear out my fridge before I ran out of space for leftovers, or something along those lines. Sorry I don't have any picture, but I do have enough to make it again so I can probably just put those up with this post ^^.

I made a mental note to myself to get a lemon while at the super market today, but, as my brain is always full of other useless information pushing the more important things out, I forgot. Solution? White vinegar! It actually added a nice pleasant zing to the guacamole without adding some kind of overbearing flavor or taste, since it was white vinegar, which has a cleaner taste than others, I feel. I could almost go as far as say that it tasted better than when I had made guacamole with lime or lemon juice as the acid. Other ingredients included some garlic, a little yellow onion, a pinch of salt, and a jalapeño pepper (since my sister can't take a lot of heat =_=, which is a complete opposite from my mom and me. Though I can't take a lot either, I still like the feeling and taste spice adds to foods ^_^). No cilantro this time either, since my sister is going to be eating this too >_<. I like my guacamole creamy with some chunks in it. I mean, how fun could it be to eat a completely smooth guacamole, right? But if you insist on smooth, just smash it into a pasty oblivion @_@! And, depending on how you look at it, you can either release stress, or you could end up getting really frustrated with trying to cream it.
Recipe: Chunky Guacamole

• 3 ripe medium hass avocados, cut in half and pitted


• a little less than 1/2 tsp of salt (I don't feel it's necessary to put a lot of salt since whatever you eat this with would probably have more than enough sodium to compensate)
  
• 1 medium jalapeño, seeded and finely minced
  
• 3 medium cloves of garlic, finely minced
• 2 1/2 tbsp white vinegar
• 1/4 medium-large yellow onion (or any other kind of bulb onion you prefer), minced (makes it easier to mix and keeps people from suddenly stumbling upon a large cache of onion flavor x_X)
• cilantro, roughly chopped/minced (optional)
  
  

1. Spoon flesh of 1 avocado into a bowl (or whatever your using to mix). Add the salt, 1 tbsp of vinegar, garlic, and jalapeño. Cream/smash into a smooth consistency with the spoon and a fork. Set aside.
2. With a knife, score the rest of the avocado halves into ~1/2" vertical and horizontal lines, making a grid pattern. Then, using your trusty spoon, scoop the scored avocados into the bowl with the creamed avocado "paste". Add the 1 tbsp of vinegar (if using), cilantro (if using), and the onion. With your fork, or spoon, mix until combined, being careful not to destroy the cubed avocado pieces; however, you can mix it until it reaches the chunkiness...or smoothness, you prefer). If the taste isn't "tangy" enough, add the rest of the vinegar (or more to taste).

Done! Simple, yes? At least I would hope it was relatively simple @_@;

This makes a good amount. Enjoy it with your favorite party chip, spread on toast, on your bagel, on your burger, in a sandwich, in your wrap, by itself ^_^, etc...

I Actually Used the Stove!

Man, I actually had a "real" dinner today. Rice with side plates of stuff! Had a few problems with it though.

1. Spinach, according to my sister, had a slight dirt taste to it. I could have sworn I washed them thoroughly too! Well, I guess it can't be help sometimes. Maybe I'll go for baby spinach more. Personally though, I couldn't really taste anything seriously different about it. Is it because the last few times I sauteed spinach I used baby spinach instead of flat-leafed? or is it because I failed to add enough salt...which happens a lot to me too 'cause I still have problems figuring out the right amount of salt =_=, but I'm getting better about that!.
2. I took a while to finish everything though so things were a bit cold (understatement) when we ate. The only thing that was hot was the rice, lol.

All-in-all though, she liked everything but the spinach, and the temperature, of the food. Oh well, I guess I'll have to pick up the pace next time. Guess I should really consider cooking more again ^^;


Well, I wanted to have a few things with my rice; actually, my sister was the one who kept asking, "what else?" x_X.

A few days ago I went to the super market with my mom and they had these spicy tofu veggie thing ( I think it counts as 素雞/vegetarian "meat", but it still tasted like tofu with a texture of firm, chewy tofu) on sale so we decided to get some. I guess this counts as my experiment for the day. The tofu was pretty much ready to eat, but that would be so boring! I mean, cold vacuum packed tofu, how appealing is that, right? Therefore, I decided to saute it with some sliced green onions. I also cooked some shrimp and eggs (蝦仁炒蛋). The nice thing is I didn't have to add more oil since the thing was packed in chili oil and it was already marinated so I figured I didn't need to add more salt, which was true, I didn't! Yey!~ Couldn't have gone wrong with this one! ^_^v

This meal had a few short cuts, like frozen unshelled and de-veined (thank goodness) for the egg dish and my ready to eat tofu stuff, I admit, but its definitely easier and more time efficient than having to buy fresh stuff everyday. I mean, can you imagine how much time and money (both for food and gas)? Craziness~~~

Do keep in mind, however, what you should and shouldn't have as a freezer substitute. Make smart choices! Like a don't is having a million pre-made frozen foods in the freezer!

I don't even want to include picture of that spinach catastrophe. It's just too terrible to think about =_=.

Easy Dinner ('Cause I'm Lazy)

XO Sauce Noodles （XO 拌麵）

Okay, so my sister, who is also my roommate, didn't do the dishes last night like she was supposed to so I had no space to really work on something for dinner. Such the case, I just decided to make an easy dry noodle thing for the two of us.

Nothing can be simpler than this (of course, exaggerating a little bit since cereal is way easier than this, lol). Fast, easy, and delicious.

So this XO Sauce is this really tasty Cantonese seafood sauce. I'm not talking about fish sauce! You might have seen this before at some dim sum restaurants (the ones that have it) when they have the small plates of soy, mustard, sauce condiments on the table. Its comprised of dried baby shrimp, scallops, and...peppers I'm sure marinated in an oil of some sort. I like Lee Kum Kee's brand of XO sauce (according to my mom, its also the #1 brand for XO sauce, though I'm not sure if thats really true or not ^^;).

The base sauce for the noodles is just a little light soy sauce, light black vinegar, how ever much chili oil you like, diced green onions, minced garlic (I add them when I really don't plan to go out for the rest of the day), a nice tsp or so of XO sauce, some cilantro, and anything else I feel like adding that would, I feel, taste pretty good in the mix (like julienned marinated tofu, you know those darker block type tofus).

I like cilantro so I added some in mine, and since this is supposed to be easy I just ripped them up into the sauce instead of pulling out my cutting board and mincing them. My sister doesn't like the herb as much as me...if fact, I think she detests it, so hers is the white bowl with none in it. Seriously, she is so picky. Sometimes makes me wonder how she ever grew up.

The noodles are just your everyday, regular dried noodles you can get in any Oriental or Asian supermarket. I used oil noodles (油麺) this time, but ramen (拉麵) or any other dried noodle you like works just as well.

Yummy noodles!
Recipe:

This is mostly about ratios, so...the main thing here is

• soy sauce : vinegar --> 1:2 (I sometimes prefer going a little under the 1:2 for the soy and make it 1:2 1/2 since the type of vinegar I use has a nice sweet and sour taste to it. Also, I think the noodles taste better when they have more tang to it)
  

Now, the amounts I usually use for 1 serving is more or less:

• ~2 cups of cooked noodle.
• 2 1/2 tsp of soy/vinegar mix (I usually just use the spoon I have on hand to measure it out into the bowl)
• 1/4~1/2 tsp or chili oil (I find it pleasantly mild which just enough of the chili oil flavor)
• 1 1/2 tbsp of diced green onion
• 1 1/2 tsp (or more) or so of XO sauce (I don't use a lot because this amount, to me, is just enough to flavor the noodles with all its wonderful seafood goodness ^^)
• + Anything else you want.
  

Anyway, these are really just guidelines. You can play around with all the ratios as much as you like.

I'll put the actual ratios of stuff I used later on. Now, it is time to do calculus!