#dinner log

This was a bad one, folks. This is probably the worst one since I started this blog. We've got the trifecta here:

The internet lied to me

I fucked up on my own

Burnt one of my main typing fingers, which means writing this is already extremely fun

So let's get into it while I'm still filled with enough rage to post through the pain lmao. Fair warning, my anger is palpable throughout

Ingredients: bread, butter, eggs

Procedure: I followed this recipe to cook boiled eggs in the rice cooker. It said 8-9 minutes for medium boiled and 10-12 minutes for hard boiled. I aimed for medium, but hard would've been fine too. 1 cup of water was used, as instructed, and the eggs were left to rice cook in the steamer tray for about 8 minutes. At the end of the 8 minutes, I checked the egg doneness using the spin technique recommended by the fucking food network, thought it looked okay, but wasn't feeling confident so I put the bigger one I'd tested with back in with the other one. At this point, the bread was put in the toaster, the toasting cycle was completed, and then it was buttered. Once the toast was ready, the eggs were removed and spun again, still looking good compared to my control, raw egg

Results: I saved the pictures for here because this is how it fucking turned out

DOES THAT LOOK FUCKING BOILED TO YOU?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

I ate the toast at this point, feeling unbelievably pissed off and hopeless. The cherry on top was the fact that during this whole incident. one of the pieces of toast got a little wet, so not only was the toast starting to get cold, one piece was also soggy at the top! This would've been forgivable if it was the only issue but of course it wouldn't be. Otherwise, the toast was fine - my toaster kinda sucks (you can see the unevenness) but it's toast, it's fine, it's whatever

Ingredients, again: the same eggs, canola oil, salt, pepper

Procedure, again: canola oil was placed in frying pan and eggs were fried in it until they looked reasonably done. Salt and pepper was applied near the end of the cooking process

Results, again: And once again, here's a pic, cause even this was a fucking trainwreck

Some of the failure here was admittedly my fault, but I don't think I can be blamed that much given how close I was to just giving up and eating shredded cheese for dinner at this point. Firstly, my small frying pan is fucked - I need to replace it, which I haven't done yet because I can't find the same one I have, so I need to measure it and ugh, it's a whole thing. So for two eggs, the logical choice if you don't have a small frying pan would be to use a medium one. Well, the medium one is what I used to cook those burgers a few days ago and it is gross, so I haven't washed it yet cause I, quite frankly, don't want to deal with it. As such, my only choice was to use the large frying pan. Which was just fucking unnecessary and means I now have to wash TWO frying pans soon but it's whatever, it's fine, it's Fine. Incidentally, my spatula is also disgusting from the burgers, so I used a random ass extra one I found when I unpacked that actually worked fine, but now I also have to wash TWO spatulas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, because I was using the large frying pan, I used canola oil instead of butter, which is what I would usually use for eggs. I didn't have enough room temperature butter for the large frying pan and I didn't want to waste time on waiting for fridge butter to take it's time melting in the pan because of everything above. I didn't even wait until the oil was all the way heated cause I just wanted this fucking over with. Turns out, eggs cooked in canola oil are not nearly as good as ones cooked in butter! They're slimey. The salt and pepper doesn't stick. It tastes like oil rather than egg. Just ugh. Wasn't ruined enough to not eat, but probably the worst eggs I've ever made. Like genuinely in my entire life

And, when cleaning up some extra oil, I accidentally got some on the pad of my right ring finger, which of course burnt it. And!!! As the final, extra cherry on this shit sundae, I overcooked the yolks - they were solid and powdery as fuck. I blame the canola oil for this too, as it was harder to tell how far along they were compared to with butter

Fucking miserable experience. At least the piece of toast that wasn't wet was good

Most involved, lately- turning some milk into cheese, then the cheese into mattar paneer:

So full disclosure, I am having a Not Great brain day and that probably affected some of how this turned out lmao. But! I did in fact still cook so everyone clap

Ingredients: sole fillets, broccoli, salt, pepper, garlic powder, canola oil

Procedure: oven was preheated to 425 F and broccoli was cut from larger bunch into roughly equal pieces. They were then covered in canola oil, followed by salt and pepper. They were placed in a tin foil boat in the oven for about 17 minutes. Salt and pepper were also applied to the sole, as well as garlic powder, and were fried until they looked done (5 ish minutes?)

Results: several notes here lmao. Firstly, I have another half head of broccoli and I was debating whether I should add it or not, as I didn't want to make too much but I also don't want the broccoli to go bad - I should have added it. A little more broccoli would've rounded out the portion better, as sole is an extremely light fish. The broccoli was also a little overdone due to me fucking up the timing, but I don't mind it a little charred, so it still tasted okay. I think I STILL didn't use enough oil though. It seems no matter how much oil I use, it's never enough... I should start measuring it proper

As for the fish, last time I used garlic powder on something (also broccoli), I found it a didn't add much, so I made sure to add more this time. But I think sole is too delicate a fish to do with garlic - it was okay, it just kinda... well I could taste it this time, but I don't think it's the right combo. As for the cook, I think it was okay. I'm pretty sure it's over every time I make it but I'd rather over than get sick lmao so it's whatever. Just a little dry. The other problem is halfway through the cooking, an oil spit got me like, RIGHT on the corner of my eye and I panicked because I couldn't tell if it was on the corner or actually in my eye. So there was an eye washing interlude because I was freaking the fuck out about it but it seems to be fine now so. Hopefully I don't wake up blind on the left side tomorrow lmao. This also contributed to the overcooking and the fucking up of the timing, which was already fucked, but everything got worse due to this incident. Although! The one plus is I think this is the first time I've done sole where it didn't crumble into tiny pieces during the flipping process, so yay for that

As for the food itself, the taste wasn't bad. I've definitely done better but I've definitely done worse too. I wish I was better at telling when meat is done. You can never know exactly how long it (or most vegetables, but they're less concerning to be under or over) will take because every individual piece is a different size and thickness. It's frustrating. But in the end food was made and I have a pastry for dessert (I didn't make the pastry lmao) so there's that

So given the recent stomach issues, I decided to continue playing it safe and make grilled cheese (is that much cheese really a good idea? Well I did it so lmao). I also noticed the salmon container was left slightly open in my fridge and that makes me suspicious of it, so I am opting not to finish it given everything. I feel bad but let's not take any chances. This is something I already know how to make and make reasonably often so technically there's no reason to detail it here, but in the interest of consistency and keeping up the habit, I'm going to do so anyway

Ingredients: Bread (white), cheese (medium cheddar, pre-sliced), butter

Procedure: Bread was buttered on both sides, with inside being buttered less than outside. One and a half slices of cheese were placed each on two slices of bread, with the half being torn up to try to centralize it. Second piece of bread was placed on top of each sandwich and then both sandwiches were put into the hot sandwich maker, which had been preheated. Some extra negotiating was required due to the size of the bread (large). The sandwiches were allowed to cook for about 5 minutes until they looked done. A few checks were done during the cooking process to scoop any escaping cheese into the centre of the sandwich

Results: Everything turned out great, as expected. A hot sandwich maker really is useful, because it can make more than grilled cheese too. And if you don't like how crunchy grilled cheese is, don't butter the outsides and cook for a little less time and you can have a softer toasted cheese sandwich, which is also tasty. All hail melted cheese and bread!

Today I made chicken burger with the remainder of the broccoli I didn't make on the weekend

Ingredients: pre-made breaded chicken patty (frozen), hamburger bun, pre-sliced cheese (medium cheddar), BBQ sauce (bottled), broccoli, canola oil, salt, pepper

Procedure: broccoli was made the same as previously, except cooked for a few minutes less due to small size of florets (14 minutes + however long it took me to assemble the burger because they didn't look quite done yet). I was also more generous with the application of oil. Chicken burger was cooked according to instructions (10 minutes on one side, 8 on the other) and the cheese slice was placed on top when ~4 minutes remained in order for it to melt. The sliced and open bun was also placed in the oven around the 5 minute (EDIT: 3 minutes remaining) mark to toast. Before eating, BBQ sauce was applied to the lower bun

Results: this is something I eat semi-often, or at least both individually are, even if not always together. You can see from the plate arrangement that I really do regret not just adding this broccoli to saturday's portion lmao. It was a silly amount to eat on it's own. I did include a bit of the stem in order to beef up the portion a little (also I don't mind eating it). The consistency on the cook was... pretty bad though. I had tried to get them to roughly equal sizing, but I did a worse job than usual I'd say. It was difficult as the central florets were just naturally small though, so I'm not sure how much better I could have done. Still edible though. I think the extra oil helped at least

Chicken burger turned out fine - last time I fucked up on the cheese timing but this time I got it right. The only downside is it doesn't matter how little you add or how late you add it, near the end of the eating experience the BBQ sauce will soak through the breading and make it mushy. Which is Not Good as I have a texture thing. I always try to mitigate it as much as I can and it remained edible, but it is still an unfortunate thing that seems to just be a natural consequence of whatever kind of breading is used. But it's better than being bone dry I guess, so it is what it is. There wasn't quite enough room for the bun in the oven (I was using 2 baking trays) so I ended up putting it on the baking tray with the chicken burger, which is why the top is a bit more cooked than would be ideal, but again, not much could be done to prevent that. Still turned out better than last time lmao (last time being the pic that is currently my avatar)

Today I got groceries, which means I often pick up something pre-made from the grocery store to eat, as the last thing I want to do after the trial that is groceries is the trial of making food lmao. In this case, it was a wrap

However, it does remind me of when I thought, oh, wraps, those are easy - I can make those at home. The one I most often get is chicken caesar salad. Seems simple enough, yes? And... it was not a complicated procedure, no, but it was still a disappointment in my eyes

Firstly the tortilla situation was... not good. I needed toothpicks to get them to stay together. Upon consulting the chat (discord server), it's unclear if the issue was 1) I am too white to operate tortillas properly, 2) the tortillas were of poor quality and thus more prone to damage, or 3) the tortillas were too small to handle the weight of my gluttony. If I try again, I can at least trial other options for the second two points

Secondly, and the more annoying problem, this was not a fast process. The only ingredients were lettuce (romaine), cheese (parmesan, pre-shredded), chicken (pre-cooked, pre-shredded), and caesar dressing (bottled). You think, oh, this is easy, everything is already made, it's just an assembly process. No actual cooking. EXCEPT. It took me 25 minutes? To assemble??? And that was on the second attempt, the first one took even longer. And that is an obscene amount of time and effort (because it's not like, oh, pop it into the oven and flip once but otherwise don't touch it, which requires almost no effort even if the time is long) for what you get in the end

Were the wraps good? Eh, they weren't bad. I think I distributed the chicken and cheese more evenly than the grocery store deli area does, but that's not surprising, as I'm making them for myself and they're probably on minimum wage lmao. Can't blame them for that. But the time/effort to returns ratio for food preparation is typically very low and that's kind of my whole issue with it? I spend all that time, where 100% of my brain is being directed towards it, and for what? To get something that's not bad, at best? Iirc I got hungry again like. Pretty quickly afterwards too so. That really doesn't help

So today I wanted to answer a question: why are there so many rules about which pasta shape goes with which sauce? Is there a reason for these rules? Or is it all just a vibes thing that everyone has agreed upon for no apparent reason? Why do so many recipes have a "any long pasta will do" when really, why couldn't a short pasta work? Why is the only macaroni recipe in existence just endless variations of macaroni and cheese? And while I don't know if this answered it definitively, it at least gave me some more data

Ingredients: macaroni (1 cup), garlic alfredo sauce (jarred), pepper

Procedure: cup of macaroni was boiled until cooked. The sauce was poured into a container and microwaved for at first 45 seconds uncovered (though the microwave was paused with about 5 seconds remaining due to scary sounds) and then 30 seconds covered. Once all was complete, they were mixed and pepper was ground on top

Results: this was very Just Fine (tm). Like it really was that and nothing more. It was edible, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. It left me feeling a bit wanting, but not in the sense of physical hunger (that at least was satisfied). Maybe the sauce I bought was mediocre (it was on sale), maybe I don't like alfredo as much as I used to, maybe it needs something else added to it to make it satisfying (but what?). Regardless, it was food and I suppose that's all it needed to be

That being said, I don't think the pasta shape was the problem. I don't see any reason why one can't pair macaroni with alfredo (and yes I know alfredo does contain cheese so technically this could be considered a variation of macaroni and cheese, but they're distinct things in my mind). So it supports my hypothesis that pasta shape/sauce pairing rules are all bullshit. Further testing will be needed to confirm though

Also I really hate that I have to buy an entire jar of sauce to learn whether it's good or not. I now have 2 jars of sauce in the fridge that I've used once and that I feel no desire to use again because they were Just Fine (tm) and nothing more. I suppose I can't get too mad as at least this is a very easy dinner, but I really wish they made single serve jars of sauce so I can at least find out if it's good or not before I commit to the whole damn thing

I made the curry again! And it didn't go wrong this time lmao. I did it the exact same as the first time except 1) used a yukon gold potato instead of the normal ones, as I did the second time, because they're more conveniently sized and 2) added 1 tbsp of onion powder. I also let it cook a little bit longer as the potatoes didn't seem quite done at the ~45 minute mark, so it was closer to an hour (I didn't note the exact time). That's probably variable though

I wasn't sure at first about the onion powder, as 1 tbsp seems like A LOT (KTP lore for those unaware: I don't like onions or any of their cohorts, but I can deal with the powder or when they're cooked to absolute oblivion. Like the shittiest, most greasy ass diner onion rings you can think of? That's the only kind I'll eat lmao. It's too onion-y otherwise. This may be a minor allergy, several people have told me it probably is, but I'm not sure tbh. Anyway, the point is that the powder is fine). And it sure made things smell onion-y at first and I got scared. But it turned out actually good? Like it adds a bit of savoury-ness to it (umami I think is what fancy people call it?) and tips it away from the sweet, kind of the opposite of the apple. There's still a touch of sweetness, but it's definitely more savoury than without. I liked it! I think I'll keep adding it going forward

I was also concerned that I either didn't add enough water (maybe adding an entire tbsp of powder would mean it needs more) or over-reduced it, but I think what actually happened is the liquid just immediately absorbed into the rice when I plated it lmao. The rice to curry ratio was basically perfect, so I think it only appears to be lacking in liquid due to my plating choices. It's easier to eat this way though so that's why I did it

I also didn't peel the carrot, as you can eat carrot peel if you wash it and I'm lazy, but this was like, the first time ever that I noticed a difference in taste? So I think I'll peel them for curry going forward. The earthiness was a bit much

Anyway, all in all, this was a win! Onion powder does good things to curry. Maybe if I'm feeling brave, I'll try it with chicken next time 🤔 tbh the only downside to this recipe is even though it's much easier than making curry properly, between the rice, the prep, and the actual cook time, it's like a 2 hour thing. A lot of that is rice cooker time, yes (and you could make the rice the day before), but that's still a long time imo lmao. But hey, I get 2 dinners out of it too so at least there's that