I made...food

Instead of making paper things, I made food today. I gave myself a pat on the shoulder. I don't think I've made any food in the past eight years... Both Mom and Mama are such great cooks that I either get chased out of the kitchen for my clumsiness when trying to help, or don't get a chance to try. Plus, my landlady basically only allows me to steam and microwave, which does great for inspiration, add to that my crazy schedule and no one else to cook for... When I'm by myself, I've basically been eating out when I have extra money or eating junk when I don't since I moved to Taipei.

Hankering for broccoli and wanting to work on the Kewpie (a creamy, vinegar-y Japanese mayonnaise) sitting in the fridge (I like to keep a high turnover of food in the fridge), I picked up broccoli on the way home from work the other day. Well, broccoli and Kewpie seemed awfully sad, so I also got carrots and a red and a yellow paprika. But in the end, I did all but dipped broccoli in Kewpie...


Tonight, I made:

Salad of broccoli with paprika, carrot, apple, dried cranberry and mixed nuts with a red wine vinegar, lemon, salt and olive oil dressing. The vinegar + lemon makes the sour flavor more interesting.

and

Salad of broccoli with shiitake mushroom, carrots and soba (buckwheat noodle) with a soba tsuyu dressing.

and

Veggie sticks of carrot and paprika with a Kewpie dip.

and

Mung bean and job's tear soup (mildly sweet).


They were edible. I'm still alive. However, steamed or cold or raw food just doesn't really appeal to me. Anyone have a good recipe for the steamer to breathe life to my sad, sad kitchen? You know, I used to make my own pasta from scratch when I was in college. And sauce too. And all other kinds of things back in the days when I had a usable kitchen, tools and friends to cook for on the weekends. These days, I have hardly a kitchen, few friends around and no weekends. Ah. Life isn't perfect. But mine's still pretty good. :)