Slow Cooked Italian Sausage and Peppers Rotini

By demand, I will put this recipe up so people can try it themselves. To be honest, it's not my recipe. I bought a little booklet a couple of years ago called "Slow Cooker - come home to comfort" by Pillsbury. It's a collection of 42 quick meals and I haven't really tried many of the recipes from it. The few I did make before, I took the liberty to change the proportions a little and it didn't turn out as great as I thought it would... so it's been sitting on the shelves for a loooong time. This time I decided to give it another go with a simpler recipe and tried to stay as faithfully to the proportions as possible with given my nature... and it turned out to be a success! :D I'm very excited. It was also very quick, very simple, not many ingredients and all can be found with reasonable price. Not to mention one pot will probably last you all week if you're dining solo. So without further blabbing, here is the recipe:

http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/slow-cooker-italian-sausages-and-peppers-with-rotini/c0e2ac85-a7d3-4992-917a-8a5a3d6251ce/

It can be easily changed to be vegetarian or vegan by removing the sausage or replacing with some veggie substitute to add flavor.

Now go try it yourself! And let me know how it turned out, post some pictures and share your experiences.

Summer 2010 - Cuban Cuisine in Key West

To continue with backlogging my summer foodventures, I have to admit, taking a cruise is probably one of the best and easiest ways to experience some wonderful food while doing absolutely no work (and come back several pounds heavier). Over the summer, I took a short 4-night cruise to the Bahamas. Best decision ever! Except maybe it could be longer, but who has that kind of money? Not me. I cruised Royal Caribbean because I've gone on their weekend Mexico cruise before and I remembered the food was absolutely

Summer 2010 - Mom's food

Sooooo much backlogging!!!!! I will have you know that, yes, I'm still documenting my foodventures (albeit not as well or as much), and yes, I'm still alive, if only barely. I think I will be more review and documentation focused rather than recipe focus, unless otherwise requested by imaginary readers. Anyway, over the summer, I took some pictures of the food my mom made, which I will just throw it all here. I should've taken more because now I don't remember everything she made, so I can't imitate them when I crave home food... but don't know which ones. My life is so confusing. Alright, "stop talking, show me the pictures!" I know, I know. Here they are.

Little Shanghai Restaurant - San Mateo

So I'm terrible at updating this blog, although I've had quite some food adventures this summer with my vacations and all and taken a number of pictures. I'll try to get them up as soon as possible since school has started and I doubt I'll have much time to cook, post recipes, and try new places to review. Now is as good of a time as ever to wade through the loads of backlogs, even though I'm suppose to be paying attention to my lecture right now.

Over the summer, while I was in SF Bay Area visiting my mom and my grandmother, who came over to US for the summer, we went to a Shanghai restaurant in San Mateo. It's one of my mom's favorite restaurant, and understandably so, because it's one of the more authentic Chinese, particularly Shanghainess food we've found. They have weekend morning dim sum (Shanghai style), and has fairly extensive menu, of course, you'll know what to order, but isn't that the case with most ethnic cuisine?

Mapo Doufu/Mabo Tofu

Mapo Doufu, or Mabo Tofu as is known in Japanese, is when tofu is cooked with ground pork in a soy sauce based spicy sauce. It's fairly simple and quick to make, and it has enough flavor to sit on its own if you don't feel like making anything else with the meal. So far I've made two version of this, one with a pre-packaged sauce and one with my own sauce/seasoning blend.

Lazy life

I've neglected my blog for over a month. Shame. Since my trip to Bay Area I've been back and forth traveling places. I finally got to be with my kitty after I got back to SD last time! She's the most adorable cat ever. Very pretty and playful. A little stubborn and spoiled, though, because we love her too much.

I've been taking time away from this blog also because I started knitting & crocheting, mostly making cute toys. I will post some pictures later. I'm becoming an old lady with the cats and knitting. Oh well.

Summer is almost over. I'm currently in Hawaii on the second part of my tropical vacation (after cruise in the Bahamas with my boyfriend) with my family. Start of Pharmacy school is fast approaching, making me both excited and apprehensive. I'm optimistic, though, because we will make these four years awesome.

Japanese Curry

Japanese curry, although originally supposed to be inspired by Indian curry, is something else completely. It bares no resemblance to Indian curry. It is, however, apparently now a staple of Japan, and understandably so because it's so easy to make in large batches and stores for a good while.

Hal Mou Ni Grandma Soon Tofu & Korean BBQ

Geez, that's a long name!

This is one of the newer Korean restaurants on Convoy that opened up about a year ago, they recently expanded to take over the next door property so now there's two next to each other? I don't know. Anyway, the HES (my bf) found this on a blog and alerted me to this. We decided to try this since we haven't had Korean food in San Diego for a while now.

Updates

Ok, so I've been lagging on updates... mostly because I'm lazy... but also because we're in the process of adopting a rescued kitten! I had to work out the details, research how to take care of a cat since we've never had a pet before, get all the supplies, and set up the kitty corner in my apartment. On top of that, I'm now in the Bay Area to visit my family (my grandmother is here from China) for three weeks, but we won't even get the kitty until this Wednesday... which means: HES is going to have to pick it up from my friend (who rescued it), and take care it... and he has allergies. Oh dear. I hope it's going to work out.

Ironically, after I got back to Bay Area yesterday, my mom said I smelled like cats... which is weird because I haven't even gotten it yet!!! Not to mention I don't smell anything?! Maybe my nose is deadened from all the chemicals in Chem lab... oh the wonders of science.

Anyway, new post soon! I'll also be following, watching, and photography my mom cooking! Which will be awesome because I can never cook like her... maybe now I can. Or not.

Spicy City Chinese Restaurant

Nestled somewhere in the China Max complex surrounded by Honda dealers, between a karaoke place and a pool hall is Spicy City, one the a few rare good Chinese restaurants in San Diego (don't even mention China Max). I didn't even know of its existence until an old friend of mine enlightened me to it. We met here Thursday night around 5:30 to grab dinner, having not really seen each other in years, despite being in the same school for so long (I blame the vastness and soulless-ness of UCSD). Apparently this is one of her favorite restaurants, the waitresses knew her when we went in.

Wednesday night outing: Buca de Beppo

This shall be a short post, most because I only have one picture of the food we ate that night because we were all too hungry by the time we got food and I forgot to take picture of the things we ordered until about 1/3 way through... I'm so smart. Anyway, the HES and I met our friends and old roommates for dinner because we haven't really seen each other since we moved out. I proposed to go for something more expensive since it's been a while (and we also had a coupon). Buca de Beppo, a Italian chain restaurant of above average quality, portions, and decent prices, that is, if you go with a group. In fact, the more people you have the better, since it's all family style dinning.

Anyhow, enough blabbing, here's what we ate:

From left to right: Chicken Parmesan, Spicy Chicken Rigatoni, Chicken Carbonara. All were nicely seasoned, with great portions, and very filling. I love the prosicutto in the carbonara. The cream sauce was rich, a little heavy, but not too much. And did I mention I love prosciutto?

Chinese Borscht (罗宋汤)

The first time I had "Western" food in China was when I was very little. They served me this tomato-y soup, fried pork cutlet (which resemble Japanese katsu, come to think of it), and fries. Although everything in that meal tasted awesome like nothing else to my young unspoiled tongue, I've been chasing down a perfect version of that soup I've had in my childhood to no avail. Although many places "Western" food places in China serves some version of this soup, they're all subtly different. Thinking that it's "Western", I continued my search in America when I first came over (which I thought the closest incarnation was Minestrone), and in truth, my quest didn't stop until recently when I finally googled the recipe about a week ago using the only thing I know about it, it's name: 罗宋汤. It is, apparently, a bastardized version of the Russian soup, borscht. At that point I was not all together surprised. I've heard about borscht about a year ago, a traditionally beef-flavored beet soup with a characteristic red color. I didn't put the two and two together until recently though,

Chinese Cucumber Salad

Another fast, simple, healthy fix. I've got not much to say about it except that not everyone may like the taste.

Here we go:

Avocado Romaine salad with homemade vinaigrette

Most of the time, I prefer not to eat salad. Especially if I'm at a restaurant and I can make the same $8-9 salad for less than $3. When I need my greens (which is pretty often), I generally make stir-fried Chinese vegetables. With that said, making a salad is just so easy sometimes that I've been making it with increasing frequency, especially when I'm feeling lazy. That, and I've recently bought a salad spinner, which makes it that much easier to make a salad. Since I only make salad once in a while, it's pointless for me to buy a bottle of dressing because more often than not, I only use it once or twice before it goes bad. Now I make my own very simple vinaigrette. This salad is especially good to make during summer when avocados are abundant. Avocados, of course, is a crucial ingredient. I love avocados.

Here's how to make it:

Japanese Yam and Nagaimo Soup (山芋山药汤)

I grew up eating Japanese yams and nagaimo soup (山芋山药汤) that my grandmother always made. For all intents and purposes, it's a Chinese dish through and through, despite the fact that the names of the two ingredients are both Japanese. The irony. It's a lightly sweet, porridge-like soup that's good for breakfast, desert, as a snack, or light dinner. It's also very healthy, using only the two primary ingredients and water, no additional sugar, no oil. It's filling but low calories and has good fiber. I love this recipe because it's so simple. It's a perfect recipe for busy hungry students - a time and money saving solution to breakfast.

Tandoor-a-India

I love Indian food. If I were to ever become a vegetarian, I'd have to eat Indian food, not that all Indian food is vegetarian, they just have the best since they've been doing it the longest. A great Indian restaurant we visited while in LA is called Tandoor-A-India, located in Playa Del Rey. From the outside, it's not very striking, but once you go inside the door, the decor is breathtaking.

Ramen rampage: Yakyudori Ramen

I know, ramen again. I've been eating it a lot recently. It doesn't help that we woke up Fourth of July morning starving, lazing, and craving noodles and it's apparently the only store open. It's one of the three ramen shops we have in San Diego, on Convoy street. Its mother store is a yakitori (grilled chicken/meats) store located in Hillcrest. The yakitori version was excellent but expensive like all Japanese foods. We go there for special occasion or when we have some money to blow (which is never). Anyway, Yakyudori ramen shop opened around the beginning of this year. The menu, shown above is a one-pager. They only sell ramen and a few appetizers. Normally, they wouldn't be my first choice when it comes to ramen, but they do have the lowest price and fastest service, an exceptional advantage for busy students.

Korea Tofu House, Cupertino, CA

This is a super back-post because I went to this restaurant June 16th. My posts are all out of order. Oh well.

The Hungry Engineering Student and I were in Bay Area for about half a week post-graduation to visit my mom. It happens that HES's old suitemate, who also recently graduated, were back home in San Jose so we decided to meet up for lunch.

Located in a large Asian store complex, the restaurant is simply called Korea Tofu House. Yelp reviews seemed mediocre at only three stars, but considering the overall high quality of Asian cuisine available in the Bay Area, it's still probably better than anything we get in San Diego. It's a decent sized place, not too crowded for lunch on a Wednesday. The menu consisted of typical

Simmered pork belly

On fourth of July, when most people are barbecuing, I decided to make simmered pork belly. This is what happens when you live in an apartment with no public bbq grills available. Since I fell in love with the Kakuni ramen at Tajima (review soon), I decided to make my own simmered pork belly. After some considerable research on the interwebs, I narrowed down a few recipes that seemed pretty legit here, and here. Mainly going off of the first recipe, I dared to buy a (frozen) slab of pork belly at 99 Ranch, the only Chinese market in San Diego, apparently.

Ramen rampage: Santouka San Diego

If you're a hungry college student, most of the time you'll be strapped for cash. One of my favorite student eats is a nice bowl of ramen. It's a fast, yummy, and relatively healthy choice (healthy compared to regular fast food). There are only a few (like three) ramen places in San Diego near where I live. All of them around Convoy, the "Asian" district. The region mostly cater to college kids from UCSD, which, if you don't know, is mostly Asian (like 40%), myself included. One of the "better" ramen shops is

Ramen rampage: Hakata Ramen Shinsengumi

This is a bit of back-post, which I will have a few more later, because of the places I went to during the first week after my graduation. You see, near the end of the last quarter of my undergraduate quest, I went (and still is) on a ramen rampage. For some inexplicable reason, I developed a really bad ramen craving. Going to my usual ramen shop only fueled my quest to seek out more. Knowing that there is a significant Japanese population in Gardena/Torrence area, and that I will be passing by there on my way to my boyfriend's family in LA, I yelped the best ramen places in the region. Hakata ramen Shinsengumi came on top with 41/2 stars and over 500 reviews. Logically, I had to go.

Our first visit was right after my graduation, driving from San Diego to LA, we arrived in Gardena around 7pm on a Saturday. There were already many people outside of the establishment, and despite being really starved college students,we waited around 30minutes to be finally seated. The wait was well worth it!

It's a medium-small sized shop, crowded (understandably), and charmingly noisy. The menu was

Bolognese/meat sauce

This Bolognese sauce recipe was originally developed by one Hungry Aspiring Actor, the best friend of my boyfriend. It was very meat heavy made with light white wine, small amounts of vegetable base and tomato paste - in essence, a "manly" sauce (and apparently, more authentic, according to Wikipedia). But because I'm a sissy and I like my veggie and tomato flavors, this recipe is like the illegitimate love-child of me and Bolognese sauce...so I don't know if I can still call it "Bolognese" but it is certainly still a very good meat sauce.

Summer project

This is the first summer in the past four years where I have no productive goals whatsoever!

I should be glad... and I am, but I'm also horrendously bored! After four years of packed schedules and endless running back and forth between obligations, I've somehow gotten used to having a full to-do list. Therefore, in order to occupy myself in my transition between undergrad and another four years of Pharmacy school, I've decided to take on this lame and insane project to record the recipes and food reviews that fed two hungry college students in my four years here at San Diego.

Nom on, foodies!