Kao Pad Tamada (Plain Red Fried Rice)

This year I decided I wanted to try and make every recipe out of a cookbook. Normally I just pick and choose things from them and I have a feeling I'm missing out on some interesting foods and cooking experiences. So I'm going to change all that by actually (attempting) making everything out of one book. And "The Original Thai Cookbook" by Jennifer Brennan is that cookbook. I like Thai food a lot, it should work out.

The first recipe I made is actually one I've done before. I'm a fried rice fiend and have tried dozens of different recipes for it. This one is different than most because it includes ketchup and fish sauce as opposed to soy sauce and mirin (sweet cooking sake). It has a sharp, vinegar-y taste, with an underlying fish-y flavor.

The ingredients included long grain white rice, tiny canned shrimp, ketchup, fish sauce (Nam pla), white onions, and green onions. The recipe actually called for a cup of normal sized cooked shrimp, but I thought it would be easier to use canned. I think this was a mistake, as the shrimp were mushy and broke up a lot so you couldn't really taste them (plus TheBoyfriend mentioned he thought they tasted "a little off"). I won't be using them again. The green onions were included in the recipe as a garnish, but I went ahead and mixed them in when the rice was almost done stir frying. I love green onions, but prefer them slightly cooked.

This rice was okay, but a little boring. I'm looking forward to trying the next rice recipe from the cookbook, as it includes a lot more ingredients such as pork, eggs, and green peppers. It should be exciting.

Sausage and Cheese Omelet

This, obviously, is not an Asian inspired dish. It's just a plain old omelet with cheese, onions, and spicy sausage. But since I love making and eating omelets, and since I'm always so proud of myself for making them, I'm including it anyways.

One year for Xmas my family chipped in together and got my dad a G5 Next Grilleration George Foreman grill for my dad. This awesome machine came equipped with five interchangeable plates, including a grill plate, two waffle plates, and a baking plate. You can make just about anything on this crazy thing (believe me I've done it) including brilliant omelets. Because it cooks on both sides at once, you don't have to deal with all the flipping over business you have to do with regular omelets on the stove.

I made these babies by mixing up six eggs with some milk and pouring in the baking plate on the grill. It cooked up in this fluffy rectangular shape. Once it was solid, I put shredded medium cheddar cheese, chopped up white onion, and pieces of sausage along one edge. I cut it down the middle with the spatula and folded the top edges over, making little rectangular omelets. I grilled for another minute or so to make sure everything was cooked and then slid the omelets onto plates. Since there was some shredded cheese left over I used that to top them off.

This is not the exact method for making omelets that was given in the cookbook that came with the G5, but it is the one that works the best for me. I've learned it over time and have now been informed (probably less than reliably by TheBoyfriend) that I make the greatest omelets ever.

Beef Yakiniku and Sesame Noodles

I am a freelance writer working from home, so I don't take lunch with me very often. TheBoyfriend is now also home most of the day, as he is doing part time jobs at the moment. This means I'm not making very many bentos lately. However, I do cook dinner at least four nights a week, and most of those are awesome Asian or Asian-inspired dishes. So I'll continue to post those for a while, and if a bento comes up I'll make sure that gets a shout-out as well.

Tonight for dinner I made one of my fave recipes - beef yakiniku. This is a type of stir fried beef in an extremely tasty sauce. I first had it at Sushi.com a couple of years ago and fell madly and totally in love with it. It took a while to find a recipe to make at home that was just as good, but I think I've finally managed to get it right.

Green peppers and onions are cut into small pieces and then stir fried with oil in the electric wok. Flank steak, also sliced into thin pieces, is added in and cooked until brown. A sauce made up of soy sauce, mirin, garlic, and a few other ingredients is added in and allowed to thicken.*

While I was cooking up the beef I also made large pot of easy sesame noodles. I've mentioned them on here before. I like this particular recipe a lot because it is so easy to make, even if my brain is focused mainly on something else at the same time. And the end product is super tasty. I haven't had a single complaint yet, at any rate, and that works for me.


*I never include full recipes because I'm working off ones created by other people usually (except for with fried rice) and I don't want anyone getting the idea that I made them up myself. If you want to know the exact recipe for something that I've used, leave me a message and I'll forward you information on where to find them.

Ramen Foo Yung and Fried Rice

Once again this was a dinner that I made as opposed to just a bento, but I'll put the leftovers in a lunchbox for tomorrow so it basically counts.

Tonight I tried a new recipe I found on this awesome website called MyFridgeFood.com. You select all the ingredients you actually have on hand and it spits out recipes that you can make with those ingredients. I find it pretty amusing, especially since most of what is in my house are condiments so it just keeps suggesting sauces at me. Oh well.



Anyways, this recipe was Ramen Foo Yung - a basic Egg Foo Yung recipe combined with Ramen noodles. I whisked eggs together with chopped white onion, chopped green onion, soy sauce, sesame oil, the Ramen seasoning packet, and a little baking powder. At the same time I cooked up two packages of Ramen noodles. When they were done I fried them up for a few minutes in melted butter. Then I added in the egg mixture. I used the big George Foreman grill to make my Egg Foo Yung as that is what I use to make omelets and it is the best way I know to make any kind of egg/cake/whatevers. I cooked the whole mess for about five minutes and it poofed up nicely. I was impressed with the variety of flavors the Ramen Foo Yung had. It was way tastier than anticipated.

To go with the egg mess I made fried rice. It was pretty basic. Long grain white rice, scrambled egg with a little Teriyaki sauce, white onions with a dash of chili oil, and frozen vegetables. I used a mix of red, green, and yellow peppers as I think they add a lot of flavor to the dish. Mirin and soy sauce were mixed in with the whole business and it was stir fried until done. Not my most exciting fried rice mixture but it works well with the egg dish.

Sesame Noodles and Gyoza

I make gyoza a lot. I'm determined to be able to make it as easily as I make awesome fried rice. Which means I make it a lot in order to learn how to make it without needing a recipe. I haven't quite managed that yet BUT I'm getting there. I can almost remember all of the ingredients to mix in with the ground turkey/pork.

Basically the gyoza is just ground turkey or pork (whichever I can find without too much trouble) mixed with soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, ginger, and chopped green onions. The recipe actually calls for chopped cabbage as well but I never really use it. I think I did once and just ended up with a lot of leftover cabbage that I didn't know what to do with. Anyways, the meat mixture is put in small amounts into gyoza wrappers, fry them up for a minute or so until they turn brown on the bottoms, and then steam them until they are done. I have no idea how long this takes, as it seems to depend on what burner I'm using, the burner temperature, and how often I stop to check on them.

I found this really awesome and simple to make recipe for sesame noodles online. I'm sorry I can't remember the name of the blog they popped up on cause I totally recommend them. I used Chinese egg noodles the first time I made them and they were awesome. Today I didn't have those but I did have regular egg noodles so I went ahead and used them instead. The sauce is made of sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar, garlic, soy sauce, and a bit of chili oil. I added a little more chili oil than initially recommended because TheBoyfriend loves spicy stuff. The noodles are tossed in the sauce and sprinkled with some white sesame seeds. Normally chopped green onions would be included as well, but I was being lazy so I just skipped them.

Once again not exactly a super impressive bento box, but the food is tasty and TheBoyfriend likes it, so it works out. By the way, the actual lunchbox today was a prize he won for being Employee of the Month at Petco. It was pretty cool. I like the box cause it has compartments so I could put in homemade sweet and sour sauce (made with rice vinegar, ketchup, sugar, and something I can't remember, I found it on the internet and it tasted good so whatever).

Green and Yellow Fried Rice

This wasn't actually a bento, just what I decided to make for dinner. But the leftovers will serve as lunch tomorrow so they got placed in one of the bento boxes.

For the last five years, I have been on a mission to make the best fried rice EVER. First I found dozens of existing recipes to try, and after that I began altering recipes to make it the way I thought it was best. Now I've gotten to the point where I can basically guess amounts and ingredients and still come out with something incredibly tasty and awesome.




That is how I came up with tonight's delightful recipe. I started with long grain white rice, cooked up in my rice cooker. I scrambled up three eggs with a dash of Teriyaki sauce. Once those were done I stir fried some white onion and green pepper in some Chili oil (for a hint of heat). I mixed together the eggs and veggies and also added in some canned sweet corn and lightly blanched broccoli. Luckily I have a large, electric wok, so I had room for all the ingredients as they began piling up. I sprinkled soy sauce over everything and continued to stir fry. After a couple of minutes I added in a can of chicken and sprinkled with a bit more soy sauce.

Now that all the mix-ins were cooked, it was time to add the rice. I put it in a heaping spoonful at a time and mixed well before adding another spoonful. Once all the rice was in the wok I put in soy sauce and mirin (two parts soy to one part mirin). I stir fried for a couple of minutes until everything was thoroughly mixed together. And viola! Green and yellow fried rice was made (green for the pepper and broccoli and yellow for the corn - not terribly creative I suppose).

Chicken Sesame Noodles

Another simple bento today. It is late and I'm not feeling as motivated to do something big and special as I probably should be. This is a really basic sesame noodle recipe, with thin spaghetti noodles and a sauce of peanut butter, soy sauce, and sesame oil. I cooked some chicken on the stove, marinating a bit with some teriyaki sauce, and adding in some white onion as TheBoyfriend loves onion. Once the chicken was cooked I added the noodles, mixed it all together, and stir fried for a few minutes until the sauce thickened. This was the first time I had tried this recipe and I was a little worried about how it would taste, but it turned out really tasty. We ate a bunch of it at the stove before I even got it in the bento box.