Hi! My name is Mira, and this is my cooking/baking/recipe blog. I have written a couple of blogs in the past (none of them notable, so don't worry about them), and since my main hobbies are cooking, baking and cake decorating, I thought I would dedicate a blog to just that.
It's summer, so I'm home right now. Meaning, I'm not allowed to cook because my mother does not like me "making a mess of her kitchen." But that's okay, because this meant I could just sit around and be lazy for the couple of weeks I spent here. I'm going back to school on the 20th to do research in the chemistry department for the summer. So, until then, I'm just chilling at home, not really doing much of anything.
Future posts will likely include pictures, recipes and overall cooking and baking suggestions. For now, I'm just sitting around at home, blogging out of boredom.
When I lived at home (basically, before college) I would occasionally help my mom cook, but for the most part, she found it more efficient to just work by herself. I theoretically knew how to make a number of dishes, but I would mostly just do my homework at the kitchen counter, and watch. Occasionally I would make a pot of spaghetti, or my mother would ask me to put a pot of rice on the stove (no rice cooker here! In fact, I am still not skilled at using a rice cooker), but I rarely did much "real" cooking.
I first started really cooking my sophomore year of college. I had a small apartment with a kitchenette-type thing (really tiny, but included an oven and stove and sink and basic kitcheny stuff for cooking). This was also the year I decided, "eh, meal plan. Dining hall food. I know! I can totally cook my own food, and forgo a meal plan altogether! It would save money, and my food would totally be better anyway!"
My parents were a little skeptical, but in the end, they (for once) let me do what I wanted. So, they sent me off to school the next fall with a few pots and pans, as well as boxes of spaghetti and a bag of Basmati rice, confident that I knew at least how to cook that much. My roommate, Emily, also had a decent amount of cooking skill (more than me and my spaghetti), and the two of us managed to survive the year without starving to death.
Some of our staples included: stir-fried ramen noodles, boxed macaroni and cheese with canned corn, and pasta (our staple) with either red Ragu sauce-from-a-jar or Emily's alfredo sauce. Oh, and grilled cheese sandwiches. Grilled cheese is your friend.
I actually learned most of my cooking and baking basics from Emily that year. She taught me how to crack an egg (no, seriously! I went from not knowing how to crack an egg to practically having my own bakery in my kitchenette in a mere semester!), how to make alfredo sauce, how to use an electric mixer (the one she ended up losing by taking it home for break, then not being able to find it when coming back to school) without making a colossal mess and covering the kitchenette in chocolate cake batter, and several other basics.
So, now that I have rambled quite a lot about my cooking history, I may as well share a recipe.
Mira and Emily's Stir-Fried Ramen Noodles
Makes 2 servings
2 "bricks" (packs) ramen noodles
Oil (Olive, Canola, Vegetable... whatever your general preference is)
1/2 cup frozen peas and carrots (maybe a little more or less, depending on how much you like your vegetables)
1/4 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 eggs
Salt
Black pepper
Soy sauce
Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce (optional - and use very carefully in moderation! This stuff is spicy.)
Boil the ramen with included seasoning packet in a pot for a few minutes, until almost done, but not quite done. (If it's too well-cooked, it will just turn into mush when you attempt to stir-fry it.) Alternatively, cook in microwave for 2-3 minutes, until not quite done. Strain out liquid. Set aside.
Scramble eggs in pan with a little oil. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Peel, crush and mince the garlic. Mince the onion. Sauté garlic and onion with some oil in pan on stove.
Add frozen peas and carrots, and cook until they are not frozen.
Add cooked ramen noodles and stir, adding a little more oil to the pan if necessary. Add scrambled eggs. Add some pepper. Take off heat and add soy sauce and hot sauce to taste.
Other seasonings you can use if you happen to have them in your pantry and like them: poultry seasoning (chicken powder), seasoning salt, garlic powder (if you are too lazy to use actual garlic cloves), crushed red pepper, ginger, stir-fry sauce. If you are really ambitious, you can even add other vegetables.
Eat noodles (and vegetables, no matter how much you dislike them). Attempt to eat with chopsticks to make yourself feel Asian. Eventually give up and settle for fork, since that means you are more likely to actually get the food into your mouth.
Enjoy!
Mira
P.S. If you click on the title to this blog entry, you will be taken to the page where I originally posted the Stir-Fried Ramen recipe (essentially, my other blog).
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