YumYum

What's cooking, good looking?

I enjoy cooking a whole lot. If you get praise for something early enough in your life you sort of fold it into your identity(, at least if you're me). I actually got told I couldn't cook, and rightfully so. I made it a point to become good at making food to show everyone they were wrong. It took a long time to reach 'medicocre' but i have a hobby that I can share with others, use to nourish myself and impress people who have no skills in this area.

blue bento box showing rice with pickled plum and shrimp furikake and kiwi chunks in one half, and pan cooked scallops carrots and broccoli with rolled omlette chunks with sword shaped food picks

The bigger half of the bento has white jasmine rice with umeboshi and furikake on one side and quartered kiwi on the other. The smaller half has steamed, seasoned broccoli, tamagoyaki, and scallops with carrots. The colors all shine out of the sky blue lunch box in a nice way. One of the more visually appealing lunches i've made.

a glass bento box with cuttlefish meat balls, chunks of chicken with visible pepper specks, and a peeled orange with spinach pokeing fromunderneath it. decorate sauce containers are tucked between items

A bento made for the day of the 2024 Obon festival. shaoXing and ginger chicken takes up a corner of the box. A peeled orange rests on a bed of spinach. Cuttlefish balls rest atop fried mushrooms and eggplant. A thin layer of rice under the spinach keeps any meat juices off the fruit. soy sauce and steak sauce are in the frog and rabbit sauce containers.

Chicken Tikka Masala served on basmati rice

Some chicken Tikka Masala served over Basmati rice. A simple dish (when you have a premade sauce).

Hong Shao Yu or Chinese braised fish, was made with a hearty mixture of Shaoxing wine, light and dark soy sauces and ginger. Preparing the fish is somewhat laborious if you aren't used to cleaning a fish thoroughly. Scale removal was an adventure for me, the first time. It's more of a family dish if you use a larger fish, but worth the time for occasions. I prefer when made with Tillapia or Striped Bass.

Bibimbap. Gojuchang is liberally applied over a pan cooked mix of carrots, onions, spinach, seaseme seeds, chicken and cucumber. Jasmine rice is hidden under the spicy veggie-chicken mix, which is mostly hidden under a sunny side up egg. More work than Japchae, but better at using up your random veggies.

Three cheese Risotto with green onion & basil Sea Scallops. Perfect for a lighter lunch

A Snail Pie! I really like escargot, so when I heard people made Toriel's Cinnamon Butterscotch pie from Undertale I kept the idea of a snail pie in the back of my head. Turns out that SnailPie is sadly not too popular. Who knew? Thankfully there was one recipe for it here. Having had good results with lobster thermidor before I added some white cooking wine to the recipe. I doubled up the snails and the mushrooms and used shallots instead of onions. I don't eat bacon so that was discarded and I had no cream on hand so I ended up using cream of mushroom soup cut with the water from the snail can. Over all, I think it turned out great. If quality snails were not so expensive I would make this more often.
Here's the recipe incase the site goes down.

recipe

1 can helix snails (escargots), butter, 1 package frozen puff pastry, thawed, 1-2 cloves garlic, 10 oz mushrooms, 1 onion, chopped, 1/3-½ cup heavy cream, ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese, 1 egg, beaten, 4 slices bacon
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 2. Place snails in small bowl and cover with cold water for 5 minutes. Drain and pat dry. 3. Heat butter in skillet, add mushrooms, garlic, onion and escargots. Stir for 5 minutes, then reduce heat and add cream, cook for 10 minutes, remove from heat. 4. Place one sheet of puff pastry on well-buttered baking sheet, and pour filling over the top. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover with other sheet and press edges together to seal. Make holes on top with fork, brush with beaten egg. Top with bacon “hearts” if you’d like. 5. Bake for 40 minutes in oven or until golden brown. Serve with white wine or cider, and with mashed potatoes as a side.

A meal I prepared for a party. Mushroom risotto. Salad with kale, tomatoes, pea pods and herbs from my garden. Tomato parmesean scones, sadly not visible on the far side of the stand. Cucumber chive butter sandwhiches. sugar cookies by the boatload. One Strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry tart. The only thing I didnt't was the rosemary bread. (and the tart crust was a storebought leftover from making snail pie. ) I made an almond cake with almond flour in an almond shaped mold, but dropped it straight out of the oven so she was distributed amongst the members of the household who don't mind floor food.

The prettiest bread I ever made. Sadly, I am not good at making bread.

Dessert

A blueberry, pear and blackberry tart. Not agreat picture but plenty tasty. Very thick crust, but I'm always so nervous about making it too thin and it falling apart.

Sugar cookies, plain and simple. Half of the sugar was white, half was light brown.

A quick float made of lemonade, freeze dried strawberries, and sherbert. Quick and easy, I really liked it.