By now y'all know I like to experiment in the kitchen, especially with leftovers, frying pans, and eggs.
So it shouldn't shock you that I'm coming up with weird egg fried rice knockoffs.
I promise, guys, this tastes really good, so don't be afraid to try it out!
Start with your basic ingredients!
For this Eggy Rice, you'll need:
Leftover rice
2 slices Canadian bacon (sliced into bite-sized pieces)
2 eggs
salt & pepper
ketchup
If you have veggies, definitely add those too, because this? This is pure cholesterol right now. Oops.
Step 1: Slice everything non-rice-or-egg and fry it on low heat.
It's usually pretty good to start low with stuff like Canadian bacon. It doesn't have a high fat content, so putting it in too hot of a pan will cause smoking and smoking is bad for you. This is also when I'd add any veggies if you've got them - peppers, onions, carrots, even corn and/or peas! This would go well with basically any combo of fryable veggies. You could even use tiny cubes of potato or sweet potato.
Basically, you want these things to get a bit toasted on all portions. Feel free to increase the heat if you feel it's not cooking the way you'd like!
As that's happening, let's focus on our eggy rice!
The next thing you want to do is crack two eggs into the bowl (or other container) of your rice.
And then stir it up!
You want to make this into a slightly frothy, fairly homogeneous concoction, with each grain of rice coated in egg. You also want to season your rice with salt, pepper, etc at this time.
After combining the eggs, rice, and seasoning, you'll be adding your frothy egg mix to the pan with the meat and/or veggies! This can look a bit weird, but bear with it, and immediately begin mixing the egg-rice and veggies/meat together in the pan over low to medium heat!
And yes, it's quite... voluminous!
At this point, squirt a goodly serving of ketchup in there and mix well. You can use any kind of sauce you like (uh.. actually, maybe don't use ranch, that separates under heat and could be kinda gross unless you're using a dry mix...) like mustard, soy sauce, etc. Whatever you think would taste good hot with eggs and rice. I might add a few splashes of soy sauce and some gochujang next time...
Now toss it in a bowl and eat it!
Obviously, you want to make sure that the eggs are cooked if you live in America, since our eggs are washed and therefore more prone to bacterial infiltration than fresher, unwashed eggs in say, Japan. You may find that you prefer to cook this over a higher heat until the eggs are more separated from the rice. You may find that you prefer a slower, lower, creamier version making the dish more like a rice-egg-pudding. However you make this, feel free to leave me a picture in the comments or Tweet at me or something (@TheFilthyCasua8)!
And now, since you've been so patient, here's the video version (lol).
I know I've baked white bread on here before, but I did a video this week to go along with it!!! The video is embedded at the end, so if you need to skip the blog, feel free to just watch the nearly 8 minute long video at the end!
As ever, it's is wise to assemble your ingredients ahead of time - this recipe called for: Flour, sugar, yeast, salt, butter, and milk!
This is what you might call a "fortified" bread because it has milk and butter in it. Unfortified breads use water. So this bread had some calcium in addition to any vitamins from the flour :)
The first step was to take about 2.5 cups of the flour and mix it with the yeast.
Once my yeast was mixed into the flour, I measured out my milk, a tablespoon of butter, some sugar, some salt, and plopped them into a saucepan on the stove to heat. The optimal range for my yeast was 120-135℉ (48.9-54.5℃), so I took out my mother's cooking thermometer and kept an eye on the temperature!
Remember to keep your flame/heat low when heating milk on the stovetop. Burned milk smells nasty as heck.
We're not quite there yet in this shot...
By the time the heat was right,the butter was melting nicely!
Now came the messy part: I had to mix the milk mixture into my flour/yeast mixture! Time to feed them bread bugs!
And here we see my slurry coming together.
After the initial mix, I added more flour until the dough would accept no more.
As seen here.
At this stage, I had to knead, which is my least favorite part because I can never tell if I'm doing it right and no one was around to ask :| I'll say I did alright, since, spoilers, the bread was pretty good!
Basically, you sprinkle down some flour on a surface and flour up your hands, then you flatten your dough slightly, fold it, flatten it, turn it a bit, repeat folding, flattening, and turning your dough until it... feels like dough, I guess? Sometimes it takes longer than others.
Then you grab some cooking spray - I learned the hard way not to trust myself with oil - and grease the inside of a bowl, deposit your dough lump, and cover it. Leave that puppy in a warm area of your house (like next to the stove or heater). It's best to use a damp towel to cover the dough if you're in a dry house. Otherwise, stick with plastic wrap or whatever you use in its place.
Once you've waited a while and your dough looks twice as big as it did before, deflate it by putting your fist in the middle and pressing down. It will fart on you a bit. That's fine. then you just... gently shape it back into a ball. At this point, you can divide your dough if you're making multiple loaves. How you do this is up to you, but if you have a big knife and some flour on your counter, that's probably the best way. I don't recommend clutching the dough ball with one hand and eyeballing what "half" is while gently slicing away at it with a dull paring knife...
Which is what I did. Which is why they're uneven...
Let your new twin blobs rise again. I like to leave them on the stovetop while I preheat the oven to 350℉(175℃), but here's a word from the wise: don't leave plastic wrap near the vent at the back of your stove, because it will melt from the heat. Thankfully I caught it early, but I still had to switch it out for some damp paper towel!
Also, grease yourself some loaf pans while you're waiting.
Once your balls have expanded - and yes, I've got the sense of humor of a crass child - you can shape them into loaf-like shapes. My mother's cookbook recommends gently patting and pinching your dough into the shape you like or rolling it out into a puffy sheet before rolling it up. I may do that one day just to make cinnamon roll or cinnamon raisin bread... mmmmmmm.
Anyway, once your loaves are assembled, let them rise again. Another ten minutes or so. Then it's time to bake bake bake! Slide those pans into your oven and bake them for anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes! They may take longer or shorter depending on their size, moisture content, and the weather. You'll know they're done if they make slightly hollow thunking sounds when rapped with a wooden spoon.
Remember to toss them out of their pans when you get them out of the oven and cool them on wire racks so they don't keep baking in the pan! Also so that the bottoms don't get soggy...
Behold! White Bread!
Now, the reason these loaves have an odd marbled effect on their tops is because I spilled probably 4 Tablespoons of canola oil into the initial bowl and had to dump it out, blot it, blot the dough, and generally just made a mess. It did not change the flavor of the bread, so I must've done just well enough that it didn't botch everything lol!
Regardless, these loaves were gorgeous, and when eaten, they were firmer than your average storebought loaf (which I really like, especially for eating warm with butter!).
Have some Glamour Shots!
If you want to know how I did that, I just basically carefully slashed the top of the loaf as it rose. I used the same dull paring knife I'd used to separate the loaves.
The final slice of bread nestled in its sandwich bag. I miss it already...
Would I recommend white bread as a beginner's bread? Absolutely. Am I spectacular at baking it? Nope, but it sure tasted alright! You'll probably have just as much luck as I've had, so go for it! Find a recipe online and bake away, brother!
Remember: Start your baking experiments with as few ingredients as possible, work your way up, and don't get too frustrated if you mess up. Timers are your friends, so are thermometers, and you don't need too many appliances to make good food. You've got this.
It's crunchy, it's cheesy, it's easy, it's a quesadilla!
My mother was awesome and made a whole roasted chicken last week, which meant that I had access to leftover chicken. Since we also had leftover veggies from burger-making on Labor Day (well, the day before, but close enough), I decided to use the onions, tomato, and peppers to make up a delicious chicken quesadilla.
Everything you need for a quesadilla. Except oil. I couldn't fit the oil in the shot.
First things first, prep your veggies! I fried mine up with a little pepper (since I couldn't find any of the taco spices I thought we had but didn't).
The way you know they're done is if they smell really good and they're softer than when you started!
Next, you want to pick your chicken apart into bite-sized pieces or shred it, depending on your preference. Some folks prefer to cube their chicken before they add it to their quesadilla. That sounds like more work than I'm into.
Also, I like the control of hand-separation. It means less veins.
Next, you re-oil your pan so that nothing sticks and put down your first taco shell/burrito shell/tortilla. I like to let my tortilla toast a tiny bit before I put the veggies and cheese down. I strongly suggest using a Mexican cheese like queso fresco or a fun cheese like jack, but we only had cheddar, so that's what I did. I also suggest putting a thin layer of cheese between your veg and your shell so that it anchors the veggies and chicken to the first shell. I didn't do this.
It still looks pretty darn good, though, doesn't it?
Next you level things off with your spatula. After things are relatively flat, you want to plop your second shell/tortilla on top and prepare to flip. This is the most annoying part. I always botch something. This time, some of the filling escaped and started burning, despite my having the pan on low heat.
It still looked delicious, though.
Once you're pretty sure the second side is toasted and your cheese has melted, you can flip your quesadilla onto a plate! This part is usually much easier due to the cheese holding things together.
Lovely!
The final steps are cutting and garnishing. Obviously, you can eat whatever you like with your quesadilla, but I like to have some salsa and sour cream. If I can get some, I also like to add a layer of refried beans inside the quesadilla to help hold things together, but that's before I cook the thing, so... doesn't count. I also like to have some sort of salad with it, but like the salsa and sour cream, we didn't have any. I had to mangle the quesadilla with a pizza cutter (use one hand to hold your food still while you cut with the other and it'll come out fine!) only to consume it nude.
The quesadilla was nude. Not me.
Even naked, though, this combination was delightful!
Since it was a day where I had some free time, I was able to take a video of this adventure:
I hope today's blog was as fun for you guys to check out as it was to make :)
You know how some days, you're just really hungry? That was me the other day. I had three eggs left in a carton, a couple kiddie bowls of chopped onion and green pepper, and a stove that was calling my name.
If you want to skip the blog and watch the process, you can do so here:
Down here, though, is where the blog lives:
There were leftover peppers and onions in my fridge with no purpose.
I gave them a meal worth being chopped up for :P
A few days before this food was made, my family made a bunch of hoagies/sub sandwiches. Since I'm one of maybe two people in the house who legit enjoys veggies, there were plenty leftover, and I am not one to allow a vegetable to go to waste. I took a look at the onions and peppers and glanced up at the nearly empty egg carton in the fridge and thought "I could go for a veggie omelet right now".
I used Canola oil to lubricate the pan and fry the veggies with.
You can probably use just about any kind of oil that can be heated significantly.
I'm going to say right up front: Three eggs was probably too many. The resulting omelet was enormous, and as delicious as it was, that's a lot of eggs for one person!
But I hate leaving one egg in the carton, so I ate all three like a beast!
You may have guessed it by now, but I'm a big fan of cheese.
So finding that there was some sliced mozzarella in the fridge was awesome!
I got my ingredients together, tore two slices of the cheese into quarters so they'd melt faster, and drizzled some oil in the pan before turning the heat on and down to Medium-Low. If you want a fluffier omelet, you'll want the heat as low as it goes. I like a firm and hearty omelet, so Med-Low is how I roll.
I didn't notice the derpy face until now!
I didn't get to take many photos, unfortunately, since I was either filming or flailing (usually flailing, let's be honest), but here's what I did:
1) I fried the onions and peppers together in the pan until they were borderline-crispy
2) I beat the eggs together with a dribble of half-and-half before pouring them in the pan
Of course, since the pan was already hot from frying veggies, it was a bit warm for the eggs and they instantly began to heat through.
Flipping omelets is something I don't think I'll ever be amazing at, but it's not the hardest thing on earth? Especially when you allow for the possibility (probability) of failure. I cannot for the life of me get the eggs to fold in half the way my parents used to do. Instead, I kind of just... tilt the pan and flip the edges as far over the center as they'll let me. It's not always the easiest way to do things, but it gets the job done!
Sometimes the omelet will look mangled. It's still delicious. Looks are superficial.
To get your omelet out of the pan, you can either tilt the pan until your omelet falls onto a waiting plate and hope it doesn't bounce, or you can jam your spatula underneath and lift it out! I did the lifting method and it worked a charm.
For future reference, though, you're supposed to add the salt and pepper during the initial cooking, not at the end like I did, but that's life, I guess :P
I like to garnish my eggs with ketchup. I've done it since I was a toddler, and I don't intend to stop anytime soon. I like the vinegary zing it adds!
Also, I feel fancy when I wiggle the bottle back and forth trying to make zig-zag lines...
Good afternoon, lovely people! I've just finished uploading the video portion of today's blog to my YouTube channel as I type this! I'm pretty excited about this week's video, and the blog portion. Sadly, I didn't take many photos, since I had to use my phone to film and I hate stitching together video clips in my editing software. I may not have many photos, but I do have this:
Full Disclosure: This recipe was for the Lemon Pound Cake via Domino Sugar.
If you'd like to find the full recipe, it's here. I substituted orange juice for the lemon and it worked just fine! Also, I didn't make the sauce because I don't want diabetes.
Without further ado, here is today's video portion of the blog (forgive the random shot of my foot, please!)
And there you have it! A video with photos of me making a pound cake. It should tell you something that every time I went through the kitchen there was less and less of it. It's a dense, sweet, lovely cake, too, with a light orange fragrance and flavor that really brings summer into your mouth.
The next time I make this, I should also add some shredded candied orange peel and serve it with orange-flavored whipped cream and maybe even some tiny Mandarin orange slices! That would be delightful, I think :)
You may have noticed at this point that Z and I are absolute fiends for Asian food. Noodles, hot pots, sushi, Pad Thai, Korean BBQ... we love to eat. We also love to make our own recipes, somewhat. Last week, we went shopping together to gather the ingredients for an Oden Hot Pot from our Umai Crate. Here's how it went:
We got some hard boiled eggs, some smoked sausage...
some endive and daikon...
Some extra firm tofu, and...
The Oden broth mix!
We only vaguely followed the recipe provided in the crate...
First things first, we washed ourselves, our ingredients, and our cookware, then we began to cut things up. And by we, I mean Z, because Z is the best prep cook ever.
Here we see the endive and daikon cut together!
These are nice big cubes of tofu. Z did a great job!
The oden broth
That's how it looked inside the pouch! It smelled great, too!
Next, I put some water in the pot (I kinda couldn't figure out if they really meant only 1 cup of water per pouch, or if we'd want more so I added 2 cups or so). I got that up to a light simmer and added the daikon and endive to (eventually) boil. We wanted everything to go along with each other, so we started our veggies early. In the future, I'll probably add the endive with the meats & tofu, but here I added it early.
Veggies in a hot tub!
Next, we needed to get our proteins together to chuck into the pot - summer sausage and tofu may not sound like a fantastic combo, but they were amazing together!
These were nice, hefty chunks of sausage!
Once everything was prepped, I dumped it into the pot with the water, sprinkled in the Oden packets and let it simmer away!
I wasn't sure how all of this would work, but I was hopeful as I hunted down a lid.
The lid I grabbed was... maybe a size too big.
It worked, though, and the condensation only hit the burner a few times!
I hope this video A) works, and B) illustrates just how cool this was!
Wait... guys... is that... is that a FILTHY CASUAL YOUTUBE CHANNEL?!
YOU KNOW IT! I finally bit the bullet, since the upload was taking a million years on the blog, so I set up a YouTube for it! Now, there may not always be new videos, since I'm not a YouTuber, really, I'm a blogger, but I might throw a video or two up on there every so often ;)
But how did this food come out?
I mean, look at it!
It's beautiful!
I would change very little about this - all of the veggies and meats went together beautifully, the eggs maybe got a little overdone, so maybe I'd actually hard boil the eggs in the broth rather than place pre-boiled ones on top, the tofu was perfect, the daikon was boiled down to a really soft, turnip-like texture that I really dug, and everything was wonderful. I'd maybe add a little more water, since the broth was super salty, and I think it'd taste great with something bitter and something very sweet - like umeboshi and a nice sweet carrot or some sweet corn... and maybe I'd add those konjac noodles, too, for a weird, almost crunchy texture, but overall...
I loved this and would 100% make it again.
If you have proteins, veggies, and broth (of any kind), you, too, can make one heck of a meal! Just keep in mind the order of operations for optimal ingredient cooking: Crunchy but needs to get softer goes first, then soft but needs to heat through, then crunchy but needs to stay crunchy, and finally garnishes! You can add spices as you go, but the basic rule of thumb for that is to consider whether or not you want it to dissolve. If it needs to dissolve into the liquid (like a bouillon or a curry powder or salt) then it goes in early. If it's okay as-is or if you might add more at the table, it can go in later (like pepper or something like that).
