Mexican Pasta

A lot of the same ingredients as the Minestrone Soup but in different amounts and with some spiciness.

Ingredients:

• vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 leeks, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1 cup of tomato sauce
• 2 cups of pasta, mostly cooked (it will finish cooking in the sauce)
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
•  Parmesan cheese (or Cotija cheese if you can get it)

Directions:
1) Heat the oil in a pot.
2) Add the onion and cook until it is translucent, about 3 minutes.
3) Add the leeks and carrots until they soften a bit, about 3 minutes.  Add the salt and pepper.





4) Add the jalapeno, pasta, and tomato sauce and bring to a boil.
5) Allow to cook until the pasta is cooked and carrots soften.
6) Serve with cilantro and Parmesan.

Crusty Potato Fingers

The ingredients sound odd, but it was great, especially with lemon juice on top.

Ingredients:

• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut lengthways into strips
• water
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1/2 inch of ginger, chopped
• salt
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 TBSP corn starch or corn flour
• crushed corn flakes
• oil

Directions:

1)  Heat water and boil the sliced potatoes near to the point where you can puncture them with a fork.
2) Remove from the water and let drain. 
3) Mix the onion, green pepper, garlic and salt. Their directions say to a paste, but I'm not sure how to turn a onion into a paste without a blender, masher or something similar.
4) Add the flour, corn starch and 2 TBSP water.
5) Heat oil in a pan.
6) Dip the potato in the onion and flour mixture, then the corn flakes, then place in the oil.

7) Flip when it is starting to brown on one side if necessary.







8) Remove from oil and place on a paper towel to drain the oil.
9) Serve with sauces, or just lemon juice which had the perfect amount of acid.

 look at the crisp!

Spicy, Garlicy, Lemony Mushrooms

This recipe is supposed to have sherry and be Spanish, but I left that our since I couldn't find it, and added more lemon and hot pepper.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup oil
• 8 button mushrooms, quartered
• 6 garlic cloves, diced
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• juice of 1 1/2 lemons
• 1/4 cup water
• salt, pepper and hot pepper powder

Directions:

1) Heat the oil to high heat.
2) Add the mushrooms and cook for 4-5 minutes, until tender.







3) Add the garlic, red pepper, lemon juice, water, salt, pepper and hot pepper powder and cook for 2-3 minutes.
4) Serve either alone or with rice or with bread.

3-types-of-cooking stir fry

I had left over vegetables so what else to do other than make a stir fry. For this I braised the tofu just like here, fried eggplant and cooked the rest of the veggies in a pan.

Ingredients:

• braised tofu
• vegetable oil
• 1 eggplant, sliced thin
• salt and pepper
• paper towels
• 1 carrot, sliced thin
• 1 cucumber, sliced thin
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 3 tomatoes, chopped
• rice

1) Cook the tofu as directed.









2) Heat vegetable oil in a pan, with enough oil to cover the bottom and go up about 1 cm.
3) Once the oil is hot but not smoking, add the eggplant. Depending on the size of your pan you may need to do this 2 or 3 times as you do not want to crowed the pan.





4) Flip the eggplant when it is brown on one side.
5) Remove the eggplant when it is brown on both sides and place on a paper towel.
6) Remove from the paper towel and add salt and pepper





7) Heat 3 TBSP oil in a pan.
8) Add the carrot for about 3-5 minutes.
9) Add the cucumber for 2-3 minutes.
10) Add the jalapeno and red onion for 2-3 minutes.
11) Add the tomatoes for 1-5 minutes, depending on how you like them cooked.
12) Serve the tofu and vegetables on top of rice with the eggplant on top to add crunch.

Noodles with Tofu and Greens

Recipe taken from here.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz noodles
• 1 block tofu, cut into slices
• salt and pepper
• 4 TBSP peanut oil OR 3 TBSP sesame oil mixed with 1 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1 bag of greens (cabbage, spinach, mixture...) (I used spinach)
• bunch of green onions
• 1 TBSP red pepper flakes
• 3 TBSP soy sauce
• pinch of sugar

Directions:

1) Cook the pasta and reserve 1/3 of the water.
2) Pat the tofu dry and season the tofu with salt and pepper.







3) Heat 2 TBSP of the oil in a pan.
4) Cook the tofu for about 3 minutes on each side, until starting to brown.
5) Heat 1 TBSP of the oil.






6) Add the greens and let cook for 2-3 minutes.








7) Add the scallions, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, sugar and reserved water and let simmer for a few minutes.
8) Mix with the pasta and serve with the tofu on top.

Eat Your Greens Stir Fry

I keep seeing things online that tell me to eat more green vegetables, so here it goes.

Ingredients:

• 2 TBSP vegetable oil 
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 green bell peppers, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1/2 a cucumber, chopped
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 a head of cabbage, chopped
• 8 green onions, chopped
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• rice

Directions:

1) Heat the oil in a large pan.
2) Add the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.
3) Add the bell peppers, jalapenos, cucumber, onion, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes.






4) Add the cabbage, half of the green onions and soy sauce and cook until the cabbage is wilted.
5) Serve on top of rice with the rest of the green onions on top.

Easy Egg Sandwich

Recipe taken from here where they call it a fried egg sandwich. I wouldn't call this a fried egg; its more like an omelet that you put on bread to eat on the go.

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of bread (or 2, I left mine open faced)
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• salt and pepper
• 1 slice of mozzarella cheese
• 3 green onions

Directions:

1) Toast the bread.
2) Put the oil in the pan and heat.
3)Put the eggs with the salt and pepper in a glass and mix with a fork.
4) Poor the eggs into the pan and heat until stiff.





5) Put the cheese and green onions on top.
6) Cook for 1 minute.
7) Fold the egg over the cheese like a 3 fold letter, and then the sides in.
8) Place on top of the toast.

Cheesey Scrambeled Eggs

Really simple one today. Inspiration from here, but then I misread the ingredients and ended up with just milk and already had sliced cheese.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 3 TBSP milk
• 1 clove of garlic
• 4 chives
• salt and pepper
• 1 TBSP vegetable oil
• 2 slices of Cheddar cheese

Directions:
1) Combine the eggs, milk, garlic chives and salt and pepper in a glass or bowl and mix with a fork. I prefer a glass because it is easier to mix.
2) Heat the vegetable oil in a pan.
3) Add the eggs and stir so it does not burn.
4) Cut the cheese into small squares. 
5) After the eggs are almost cooked, add the cheese.
6) Continue stirring as you cook until the eggs are done and the cheese is melted.

Leftover veggie fried rice

Have vegetables left over from making the stock here? You should, unless you used veggies that were going to go bad in a day anyway. Make more fried rice!

Ingredients:

• vegetable oil
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 1 tsp chopped ginger
• 1 cup cooked vegetables, leftover from stock (carrots, mushrooms, onion, leeks, tomatoes)
• 2 cups of cooked rice
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• 1 TBSP sesame oil
• salt and pepper

Directions:
1) Heat the oil in a pan.
2) Add the garlic and ginger for 2 minutes or so.
3) Add the vegetables and cook until heated through, about 5 minutes.
4) Add the rice, soy sauce and sesame oil and cook until heated through, about 5 minutes.
5) Add salt and pepper if necessary.

See photos of the fried rice if you need to!

Ramen Noodle Soup

I followed this recipe for the soup, and made a few changes due to liking green onions more than ginger. I thought it would be a bit difficult to find vegetable stock in Korea, so I made some following this recipe, loosely. It seems like you can throw any vegetables into water to make broth.

Ingredients:

• Stock
• water to cover
• vegetables
• carrot
• mushroom
• onion
• leeks
• pepper
• Noodle Soup
• stock
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• 1 TBSP sesame oil
• 2 TBSP fresh ginger
• 4 green onions
• 3 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1 block of tofu
• 1 package of Ramen noodles
• 2 cups of spinach

Directions:

1) Chop the vegetables for the stock and place them in a pot.
2) Cover with water.
3) Bring to a boil.






4) Add the pepper and stir. Cook for 1 hour.
5) Strain the vegetables out and put the liquid back into the pot.







6) Add the soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and green onions and bring back to a boil.
7) While it is boiling, heat the oil in a pan.







8) Add the tofu and cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side, until it is brown.







9) Add the Ramen to the stock and cook for 8-10 minutes, until cooked through.








10) Add the spinach and cook for 2-3 minutes until wilted.









11) Add the tofu and cook for 2-3 minutes until heated.