Vermicelli is Magical

Magically easy to make delicious!

Just the noodles:

1. Soak dry vermicelli for about 15 minutes in a bowl with enough warm water to cover the top.  As they soften, loosen the noodle-block by gently stirring and shaking it apart.
2. Start heating some broth (vegetable, chicken, beef, w/e you want) in a sauce pan, add the noodles, and then add enough broth to come even with the noodles, or just under.
3. Bring to a boil, then stir over medium or medium-low heat until vermicelli has absorbed almost all liquid.
4. Toss noodles into a colander, and quickly rinse with cold water; I suspect this rinses off extra starch or something, and I know it makes the vermicelli less sticky and easier to handle.
5. You're done!  Add a sauce, chill it for a while to eat cold (or rinse in more cold water), or follow me to the next recipe...

Curry Stir-fry Vermicelli

• Curry (I used leftover homemade green tofu Thai-style curry...it wasn't made very well, which was why I had leftovers)
• Cooked Vermicelli
• Any extras--extra veggies, maybe a little broth or water if your curry is really dry, or curry powder if your curry is bland (which is very, very unfortunate for curry, and partly why mine wasn't so tasty..)
  

1. Heat a non-stick frying pan (or wok or skillet, just something that will conduct heat, yeah?).
2. If your curry is cold from the fridge, heat it through first either by microwave or in the pan.  Pour curry into pan, and once it's warm, add noodles.
   
3. Heat curry and vermicelli to a food-safe temperature (steaming, hot, yeah yeah), stirring so that the curry coats all the noodles.  Add any extras while stirring so they can coat they noodles, too. :)
   
4. Pour onto a serving dish, yay, you have food!

Meat Bake a la Olaf and Meatballs

So I remember Olaf describing to me a meal that he had from time to time, a sort of personal comfort food. Here's my version of his meat bake, it was pretty good. I ended up mashing it all together on my plate and while it looked gross, was pretty delicious. I had extra meat so I made some meatballs for subs. Makes 2 servings and 6 meatballs.

Meat Bake!

• 1 large sweet potato
  
• 1/2 lb ground beef
  
• 1/4 c diced onion
  
• 2 cloves garlic minced
  
• 1 T dried thyme
  
• 2 T olive oil
  
• 1 T fresh parsley, and some extra for garnish
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 large tomato sliced

1. Poke some holes the sweet potato, and then microwave on high for 20 minutes.
2. While your potato is cooking, mix together the ground beef, onion, garlic, thyme, olive oil, parsley and salt and pepper. It's gooey but doing it by hand is more fun.
3. When your potato is done, slice it in half, and scoop out the insides. Mash this up and spread along a small baking dish. Layer your tomato slices on top, and finish with a layer of your meat mixture, about a 1/2 inch thick. You'll have extra meat leftover to make meatballs with.
4. Place your dish in the broiler at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or when meat looks done.

With your extra meat feel free to make some meatballs. I made six 1-inch ones which I just fried in olive oil for use in meatball subs later.

Pad Thai a la Martina

So instead of working on my essays, we decided to make Pad Thai. Martina, my german flatmate, and self-proclaimed Thai foodie, and I set off to make her recipe. This isn't the typical red Pad Thai you find in the states. Enough for 4.

• 6 T Fish Sauce
  
• 4 T Soy Sauce
  
• 6 T Granulated Cane Sugar
  
• 2 T Tamarind Extract
  
• 200g Thai rice noodles (the flat 1/4th inch type)
  
• 4 eggs
  
• 2 Cloves Garlic minced
  
• 2 Cups Bean Sprouts
  
• 3 Stalks of green onion sliced, with some leftover for garnish
  
• 1 Cup Shrimp
  
• 2 T chilli powder
  
• 3 T crushed peanuts, wish some leftover for garnish
  
• Vegetable oil

1. Soak the rice noodles in some hot water for 5-10 minutes until they are pliable. 
2. Start heating up a wok with some vegetable oil. Mix the fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar and tamarind in the wok, heating until the sugar is dissolved and the sauce is simmering. Move the sauce into some other bowl. 
3. Scramble your eggs in the wok, adding some fish sauce if you like. Move the eggs to another bowl. 
4. Drain the rice noodles and run through cold water. Heat up some more oil then add the garlic, stirring for about a minute. Add the rice noodles and bean sprouts to the garlic. Pour the sauce you made earlier over the noodles, and stirfry for about 8 minutes. Add the green onion, shrimp, chilli powder and peanuts and cook for another 3-4 minutes until the shrimp are done. 
5. Serve your meal garnished with green onions and peanuts on top.
   

Pumpkin Mochi

I ♥ Daiso's $1.50 SUPERcute cookware~

Mochi is delicious. Cake is delicious. Pumpkin is delicious (and wonderfully appropriate to the autumn season~).

Something that combines all three? 3x the deliciousness! Plus, it's really easy to make. :D

Recipe from Allrecipes.com : http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Mochi/Detail.aspx

I followed the recipe nearly exactly--my only two changes were:

1. I added the mochiko (rice flour) mixture to the liquid-y ingredients; ever since a certain experiment with making nian gao (rice cake), I realized it's a lot easier to mix stuff when you add the dry to the liquid. There may be times where you shouldn't do this, but mochi is not one of those times.
2. I baked some of the batter in little star-shaped souffle dishes (see picture); these took about 30 minutes in my toaster oven @ 375°F (temp. from recipe). There was still pleeeenty of batter left for the 9x13 pan.
   

Scones

Cranberry Scones

This scone recipe is really easy to make, really easy to modify, and yields results most delicious when eaten warm from the oven (or microwave)~ It only takes [me...and I'm slow..] about an hour (20 minutes of that being bake-time where you can wash the dishes or finish last homework or something), so you can bake them in the morning for a fresh breakfast. To speed up the process, prepare the mix of dry ingredients the night before.
Reference: All Recipes - Blueberry Scones

Servings: approximately 12 three-inch diameter scones

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/8 cup white sugar, plus a little more for later
  
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup butter, chilled
• 3/4 to 1 cup dried cherries, cranberries, some kinda small fruit pieces
  
• 3/4 cup half-and-half cream
• 1 1/2 tbsp almond OR vanilla extract
  
• 1 egg

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
2. Mix flour, sugars, baking powder and salt in a medium-large bowl. Cut the butter into these dry ingredients (I use two knives and just kinda chop at it until it all looks very crumbly). Stir in the fruity bits so that they're distributed somewhat evenly in the mixture.
3. In a separate, smaller bowl, beat together the cream and egg, adding in the flavoring extract when almost mixed. Slowly pour these liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients, and gently stir until the wet and dry are well mixed. At this point, it'll look and feel pretty sticky.
4. Take a spoon and start dropping spoonfuls onto a parchment-covered (or else ungreased, but hopefully nonstick) baking sheet. Space the blobs apart a little because they do spread 1/2" to 3/4". When done dropping the scone batter, sprinkle the tops with sugar, then pop them into the oven to bake for about 18 - 20 minutes.

And that's it~ Eat them warm with butter, jam, etc. They keep for at least 3 - 4 days (perhaps more in a refrigerator?). Microwave cold scones for about 10 seconds to bring back to original tastiness.

Cherry Almond Scone

Rosemary Potatoes

Quick and Easy! Don't worry about peeling the potatoes just wash them well. Chop up potatoes into wedges. Each potato should make around 6. Enough for 1 person.

• 3-4 small yukon potatoes 
  
• 1 T Rosemary
  
• 1/2 t salt
  
• 1/4 t pepper
  
• 3 T Olive Oil

1. Toss all ingredients in a ziploc bag or mix in a bowl.
2. Place in a microwavable bowl in the microwave on high for 15 minutes.
3. Put in the broiler if you wish for 2 min at 400 degrees.

Makes a good side dish :D

Tofu a la Peter

Similar to Ma Po Tofu without the meat.  Enough for 2 people.

• Tofu - 1 package
  
• Peanut Oil - tablespoon
  
• Oyster sauce-1/3 cup
  
• Red Hot sauce with the rooster on it - 2 teaspoons
  
• Rice Vinegar- tablespoon
  
• Soy Sauce-tablespoon
  
• Sesame Oil-3 teaspoons
  
• Green Onions- 2
  
• Peanuts-as much as you want
  

1. Cut up the tofu into 1/2 - 1/4 inch cubes.
2. Then put tofu in a pan with some peanut oil and cook it until no more water comes out and the tofu is a little browned remember to keep stirring it.
3. Mix oyster sauce hot sauce rive vinegar soy sauce sesame oil together and  pour that on the tofu. Make sure the tofu is evenly coated then take it off the heat and add peanuts and green onions.