Pesto!

Pesto! That's my basil plant. It didn't grow all that big, possibly because it's indoors. That doesn't make it taste any different though.

Basil Pesto is one of my favorite pasta toppings, but I don't have it that often because I have to wait for the plant to grow. Maybe this year I'll try a different type of basil that grows faster and has bigger leaves.

Valentine's Day Dinner

Our first Valentine's day as a married couple (awwww).

Mac&Cheese with bacon (I used an extra sharp cheddar in a rich bechamel sauce)




and a heart shaped Jell-O!

What did you eat on Valentine's Day?

Taco night!

Originally I was going to make some baked ziti type thing, but that'll have to wait for another night. Instead, we made Tacos!

the fixins

The baked ziti will have to wait for another day. Maybe this weekend. But here's how I did the tacos. They're pretty simple.

How many of these "Kitchen Essentials" do you own?

The folks over at popchartlab.com created a fancy infographic about "kitchen essentials". I thought I'd go through their list and see which of them I actually own, and maybe interject a couple of my opinions about them.

Starting from the top, left to right:
At the bottom (in case you want to just skip to there), I have a list of the top items that every kitchen should have.

Step-by-step: Sushi, part 2: Rolls

As promised in Step-by-step Sushi (part 1), here are some details on how to properly form an inside-out sushi roll. Last time, we prepared our rice with the sushi vinegar and allowed it to cool.

Take a sheet of seaweed ("nori"), cut in half (it's square, so cut it in either direction. It doesn't matter). Place it on the edge of your rolling mat (which is covered with plastic wrap to prevent the rice from sticking to it).

Take a handful of rice and use your fingertips to gently spread it across the nori. Wet your hands lightly in a bowl of water first, so the rice doesn't stick too much. The goal is to keep the grains of rice separate, and not to mush them together.

Flip the nori over so the rice is on the bottom. I don't know why people think this is tricky. If you covered the bamboo mat with plastic wrap, it won't stick, and you should not have any problems. Start lining up all your ingredients in the middle of the nori. We usually use strips of salmon, cucumber, and avocado. Don't put too much in there, or it will be difficult to get it to close. If you're just learning how to do this, err on the side of less.

As you start to roll it up, the trick is to keep using your fingertips to keep everything inside.

Before you get to the far edge, look at the roll to make sure that all the fillings are still inside. If anything is sticking out, push it back in with your fingers. Then complete the roll.

those are not my fingers. They belong to my assistant.

Give the roll a light squeeze, just enough to get it to hold together, but not enough to squish it. One of the goals, according to some high-falutin' Sushi guy i talked to, is that the rice grains should stay whole and loose enough to fall apart when it goes into your mouth.

Put it on your cutting board, and with a very sharp knife (dip it in water first, so it slides through a little easier), cut it into six pieces.

you can sprinkle it with black sesame seeds too. It makes it pretty.

Enjoy!
What's your favorite type of sushi?

Mystery Log

February is always a really busy time of year for us. Our kung fu school puts on a lot of Traditional Chinese Lion Dance shows in celebration of the lunar new year.

This past weekend we did the craziest of them all, at the Eden Center, in Seven Corners, VA. One of the reasons it is so crazy is that the people and store-owners have no sense of personal safety, and they explode massive amounts of firecrackers right at people's feet, in enclosed spaces.

it was difficult to breathe through all the smoke and
ash in the air

In return for all of the danger we are placed in, the Lions are rewarded with gifts, usually monetary. One of the stores though, instead of giving us money, gave us this object. Nobody was really sure what it was. It was fairly heavy for its size, and a little squishy.

I think the label says "mystery food"

We decided to take it home and try it out, as we had a guess as to what it was, fairly certain that it was some sort of food. My grandma makes something that is similar, a Chinese dish that we call "doong" (no idea how to write that without it looking gross). It is basically sticky rice, stuffed with various pieces of meat, all wrapped in leaves similar to the mystery log. We love my grandma's version, so how different could this one be?

I decided to find out.

I steamed it to heat it through, just as I do with the doong.

After about 30 minutes, I decided it was hot enough, and it certainly smelled enough. It was emitting an odor that was not familiar. A little sweeter than I was expecting. I unwrapped it from its leaves, and the smell only got stronger. It was not coming from the leaves, but from within.

The color was the second warning sign. Usually green would indicate "Go", or good, but this was not where my head was going at this point. Undeterred though, I proceeded. At this point, the entire kitchen (and probably most of the main level of our house) smelled like this odd concoction.

There were some strange black things embedded in the rice which looked like either raisins or black beans. It was hard to say for sure. But doing my duty for you readers, I soldiered on and decided to cut it open and see what was inside.

I have no idea what that stuff was. Perhaps some sort of refried bean paste? I tasted it. Chalky, not very pleasant. The rice also, was not right. I tried another bite, with a (mostly) open mind, and decided that it was not going to be our dinner that night. Something else would be quickly scrounged together, but this would not be it. It was wrapped up, placed gently in the trash, and taken out of the kitchen, to remove the source of the vile odor.

Have you ever just thrown food away because it was so gross? 
Also, does anybody know what this actually is?

Crazy blog award!

So one of our friends at the blog It's a dog lick baby world gave me a blogger award. It seems less like an award and more like one of those silly Facebook things, but I'll do it anyway because I'm bored.

So here's 7 random facts about me.

1. I'm a twin, but opposite from my brother in almost every personality trait.
2. I have two wedding rings, one for the winter and one for the summer.
3. I used to be able to win the expert level of Minesweeper in under 70 seconds.
4. I have an Optimus Prime lunchbox that I take to work almost every day, and it's awesome.
5. My license plate says "SU5HI" and has the "Wildlife conservationist" fish logo on it.
6. I didn't drink alcohol until I was 24.
7. I like to kick people in the head during practice sparring. 

Thanks for the blog award, Kara!

Sweet Potato experiment!

So I've never cooked with sweet potatoes before, and the times that I've had it they were covered in marshmallows and I was not a fan. But, my wife read somewhere that some tribe in Africa eats lots of sweet potatoes and has a high incidence of twins, so she wants to eat more of them (sweet potatoes, not twins).