Recipe: Sloppy Rice Patties

Okay, so I made sloppy rice and had leftovers. [It's quite a filling dish!] It felt blase' and I didn't want to waste it so I just changed it up a little. :)

Ingredients:
Sloppy rice leftovers [doesn't matter the quantity]
2 eggs
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil


Blend the eggs in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper. Heat up the leftovers and dump blended eggs right into leftovers. Mix it well. Heat up the pan to a little over medium and pour very small portions of the concoction into the pan. Fry it like you would tiny pancakes. [tip: make sure that the leftovers are globbed together as a whole and are not mountain shaped in the pan so it cooks evenly and doesn't fall apart.] After flipping once, set it on a napkin covered plate to soak up excess oil. Done!

It was interesting. Reminded me of hash browns? Eating this with some ketchup is awesome!

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I paired this with some nuked potatoes covered in margarine, paprika, salt and pepper. A couple chopped up and fried mushrooms does it wonders. [my mouth is watering just thinking about them P:]

I'll show you how I make my nuked potatoes another day. :)

When I ate this, I thought "Wait! Where's my vegetable side?" And I realized, it's ALL vegetables. Hehe. Fooled the cook. :P

Recipe: Sloppy Rice

It's a weird name for this dish but since I used sloppy joe mix, I thought it was fitting. :) This dish has a smokey, hearty taste to it. You could easily substitute the rice with pasta or another starch. I just happened to have leftover rice.

Ingredients:
1/2 an eggplant
1/2 a zucchini
1/2 an onion
handful of mushrooms
about 2 cups of rice [I used leftover rice]
sloppy joe mix
can of tomato sauce [you're supposed to use 2 but I only had 1 on-hand :s]
2 T. garlic margarine [I mince garlic and mash it with margarine. I make it prior and refrigerate it.]
salt&pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil


Heat pan to medium heat. Throw all the vegetables in a big pan and fry it up! Add garlic marg., salt and pepper. [tip: adding seasoning after cooking the vegetables for a little bit helps it absorb the flavor better]


Turn up the heat to medium high. Add the rice. This part reminds me of fried rice. :)


Add sloppy joe mix and tomato sauce. Cook it all together until it looks good. Add salt and pepper as needed. Eat!

*I couldn't help but notice that it would make an awesome soup. Since I was already using a pan, I opted not to. But you could easily cook this in a pot and add vegetable broth and maybe some legumes.

Recipe: Straight-to-the-point-no-b.s. Broccoli

Well, that's what my roommate called it when he had some. Haha! I thought this was how everyone made their broccoli, but apparently not. So, I'm sharing this with all of you! This is how my family eats broccoli! It's so tender and so delicious, I wouldn't eat it any other way. P:

Ingredients:
Broccoli [as much as you like!]

Sauce Ingredients:
2 T. Mayo
1 t. Shoyu [Soy Sauce]

First thing's first, you need to prep your broccoli. Tell it sweet nothings in it's ear... oh wait sorry, I've got valentine's on the brain (>_<`).


How to prep broccoli: Stand the broccoli with the stem side up and cut down with a small knife to get the "branches" of the broccoli.


Now skin the broccoli. [you heard me.] It's sort of like widdling wood. Try to get as close to the skin as possible so you don't end up with butchered broccoli :(. [It takes a little while to get it. I've been doing it since little kid time :P] Don't forget to skin the giant middle part [aka. trunk] too!


Next, chop them up into bite size pieces like this! Add a little water for steaming. [I call this amount, a 'sploosh'] In technical terms, I'd say about 1/4 cup of water. You don't want to add too much water since the water takes away the awesome nutrients of broccoli. Cover with plastic wrap and nuke it in the microwave for 1 min. 30 sec.

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Next the sauce! This is a must to add flavor to your broccoli. It's not necessarily the most healthy sauce but it's really good i swear! [got me to eat my broccoli as a kid ;)]


In a small container mix about 2 T. mayo and 1 t. shoyu [soy sauce].


The color should look like this. Don't make it too dark or else it gets too salty. Too light and it's not enough flavor.

Take out your broccoli from the microwave and drain some water out. [It's not a big deal] Then dip your broccoli into the sauce like it's salsa and chips! mmmm P: So good and so bad at the same time haha!

Read about broccoli nutrition facts here: Broccoli

Recipe: Vegan Curry

This is a good meal that pleases both carnivores and herbivores alike. It's pretty fast to make too. Please reduce or add vegetables to your liking for a bigger or smaller crowd to feed.

Ingredients:
2 carrots, diced
5 potatoes, diced [you can peel it, I keep the skin on because I like the skin :)]
2 celery stalks, diced
1/2 an onion, diced
2 stalks green onion, minced
curry sauce mix
4 cups water
2 T. mochiko [rice flour] or regular flour


The curry sauce mix looks something like this.


Boil potatoes. Before potatoes are completely done, add carrots. Then once they are pretty much done, add celery and onions.


Drain water from vegetables into a colander.


In a large pot, add 4 cups of water and one pack of the curry sauce mix. (It comes with 2 in the box) Let it desolve, stirring occasionally on high heat.


Once melted, bring down heat to a medium and add the vegetables and green onions. You can stop here if you like and let it simmer, but some may find it to watery to their taste. So, let's thicken it!



Add about 2 T. of mochiko. It's basically flour made from rice. You can use other thickening agents if you like.


Put it in a small container and add a little bit of water so that it becomes a sort of paste. The wetter it is, the better it will mix. And since our curry is bubblin' right now, adding it without mixing water first will cause it to form little pockets of powder making it quite lumpy :(.


Pour this mixture slowly into your curry and mix it real good. If your curry is already boiling then just keep stirring it until it thickens. Turn down the heat 'cause you're done! :D Eat with rice. mmmm.

Recipe: Salmon Croquette & Recipe: Onigiri

I'm going hiking tomorrow and cooked a lunch for it. (From left; Salmon Croquette, under it is Tonkatsu Sauce. On Right; Onigiri. Center of onigiri; steamed cabbage, seaweed and fishcake.) This recipe is a little more prep but it's still cheap and oh so tasty!

Recipe: Salmon Croquette
Croquette Ingredients:
1 can salmon
3 potatoes, diced (i leave the skin on but you can peel it)
2 T. onion mix or real onions
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
(This amount makes about 15 patties. Double the recipe for a bigger group to feed!)

Batter Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup panko
1/2 cup flour

Boil potatoes until cooked. Put in a large bowl and mash really good. (I use the underside of a cup) Add The rest of croquette ingredients into mixture and mix well.
Shape mixture into small patty shapes, about the size of a squished golf ball.


Should look something like this.

Next, Prepare your batter!
In 3 containers, put flour in 1 container, 1 beaten egg in 2nd container, and panko in the 3rd. (My containers are re-used tofu containers :P)


Looks sort of like this. (I didn't beat my egg yet :P)

Now we're ready to cook!
In a pan, add some oil and turn the heat to a little above medium. Put your patty in the flour and lightly coat. Next, put it in the egg to coat, and lastly put it in the panko. Shake the container to evenly coat the patty with panko. Cook patty on both sides until golden brown. (Add more oil as needed. Sometimes you run low on batter, so restock as you need.) Place cooked patties on a napkin covered plate to soak up excess oil. And you're done! It's delicious with tonkatsu sauce.


Here they are cooked next to my onigiri that goes with it. mmm.. P: Here's that recipe.

Recipe: Onigiri
2 cups Cooked rice
2 T. rice vinegar
2 T. sugar
1 T. salt
2 T. furikake (I use my favorite, nori!)

Mix ingredients in a big bowl. Shape rice. (In this one, I've shaped them into cylinders using a sushi rice mold.) Stick a roasted nori on the outside. Yummy! P: See , that wasn't so hard to make ;).


My boyfriend kept me company nearby playing wow.


I also cleaned the kitchen after all that too. Gee, I was full of energy!


Ah yes, I also walked the dog earlier.


Here was the sunset. So tranquil.

Recipe: Delicious Pasta

It's one of those days where I'm running out of food and have to make a meal out of nothing. Yea, I know the name is gay but I couldn't think of anything else to describe it. If you think of a better name, let me know :P. Sorry, no picture for this post (gah! what in the world?!!) Yea.. I didn't take a picture of it, but I just had to share this recipe with you :). It's cheap, fast and very, you guessed it..delicious!

Recipe: Delicious Pasta
Ingredients:
1 box of pasta noodles (I used vermicelli, it's a thinner noodle than spaghetti)
1 block o' butter/margarine (I know it's a lot, but I used a whole box of pasta!)
4-5 cloves Garlic, minced
5 T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 T. Basil
Shredded Cheese (I used an Italian blend, about 3 handfuls of it)
Your choice of meat product. The best thing for this meal would be shrimp, but I used 1 can of tuna. It's cheap :P. But you could use chicken, I suppose.
Salt and pepper to taste
*note: I guesstimated the T. as close as I could.

Directions:
Cook your pasta noodles. (directions on box.)
In a big pot, melt the butter and add the oil on med. heat. Add minced garlic and let it sweat (it means don't burn the garlic please). At this point, add you meat product and let it cook until done, should be a few minutes. (If you're cooking chicken, cook it on a foreman grill or something separately to speed up the process and then add it to this mix to soak up the flavors P:) Bring down the heat to low. Add salt and pepper to taste and the basil. Now, put in the noodles! Mix it all together real good! I used tongs to get a better mix on it. I found it necessary to add more oil so that it would mix better. Then, sprinkle your cheese on top, mixing it gently as you go. After 3 handfuls, you're done! voile! Delicious pasta. mmmm... P:

Next time I make this, I'm going to try it with a little lemon in it. :D