Macaroni Meal

My mom makes this dish and growing up, it was one of my absolute favorites!

Serves 2

1/3 box of elbow pasta (macaroni)
1 box of frozen peas and carrots, defrosted
2 potatoes
1 or 2 scallions
salt
water

Start boiling water in a pot for the elbow pasta. Meanwhile, wash the potatoes and scallions. Peel and cube the potatoes and chop the scallions. In a heated and well-oiled wok or pan, throw in potatoes and add some water. Cook covered for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Add peas and carrots and mix it together. Add more water if necessary and cook covered for a few more minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the wok or pan and stir fry everything together. If the mix is dry or the potatoes are hard, add some water and cook covered for a few minutes longer. Add salt to taste and once everything is cooked through, it's time to serve and eat!


Tips/ Variations:
- Bits of ground pork can be added if you eat meat
- Minced garlic are also a wonderful addition

My favorite eggplant dish!

You have to use chinese eggplants for this, also known as japanese eggplants or more politically correct, asian eggplants. I prefer asian eggplants in general because it contains less seeds. This is supposed to be made with a small amount of ground beef, but since I'm vegetarian now, I leave it out. Anyways, the recipe is below:

Serves 2

Ingredients:
3 asian eggplants
1 scallion, chopped
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
2 cloves garlic

These eggplants are cut in a particular way. You are going to make approximately 2 to 3 inch sections. Place the eggplant on the cutting board in front of you and at the part where you are going to cut your piece, hold your knife at a 45 degree angle away from you and slice down. Turn the eggplant a quarter turn and cut another piece at an angle. So you are slicing straight down each time, but turning the knife at an angle away from your body. Repeat until all the eggplants are cut up this way.

Heat up the oil in the pan or wok and toss in the garlic, followed by the scallions, then the eggplants. Eggplants soak up a lot of oil when cooking so make sure you use enough. They will eventually "spit" the oil back out when they're just about done. Add the soy sauce to taste and toss the mix until the eggplants are soft and mushy.


Tips/ Variations:
- Add some bits of ground beef
- Make sure the wok or pan is not too hot when tossing in the garlic and scallions or they'll burn
- This is a rather oily dish, heavy on flavor because it was meant to be eaten with plain rice.

Fried rice

Fried rice is how we, Chinese, like to deal with leftovers. Whatever leftover dishes is tossed in with whatever leftover rice and cooked with some scrambled eggs and scallions. For added flavor, you can add some soy sauce to the mix, which will darken the rice. Personally, I like making fried rice without using leftovers because the flavoring of leftovers interferes with my penchant for eating it with lots of ketchup! Here is my favorite fried rice recipe:

Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 cups rice
2 to 3 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup of milk
1 to 2 scallions, chopped
1 to 2 roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup ham/veggie ham, chopped
salt
water
cooking oil (I use olive oil)

Combine the eggs with the scallions and milk. Scramble the eggs in a heated and well-oiled pan or wok. Throw in the rest of the ingredients. If using leftover rice, the mixture may be too dry, in which case you should add some water. Mix everything up well and if the tomatoes and rice still seems rather hard, add a little bit of water and cook covered for a few minutes. Salt to taste and mix everything up a little bit more before serving.


Tips/ Variations:
- I love ketchup with my fried rice, but I usually add it to my bowl after I've scooped out my portion. You can add ketchup while cooking, but it means everyone else has to like it too!
- You can add little bit of sesame oil if you like that in your fried rice.
- As I mentioned before, you can use soy sauce instead of salt for your fried rice, but I don't like adding ketchup after if it's been prepared that way.

Ginger ale/ ginger beer

This first recipe is the one I used in my first successful attempt at making ginger ale, or ginger beer.

¾ tbsp grated ginger
Juice and Zest of one lemon
½ cup sugar
Tap water
1/8 tsp. yeast

Combine the first three ingredients and shake to dissolve the sugar. Fill the bottle with water, leaving 2 inches of space at the top. Place in a warm place for 24 to 48 hours until bottle feels really hard when you try to squeeze it. Place in fridge to chill and serve!



Subsequent attempts have led me to something that looks more like the one below. I like strong flavors in my food and drinks.

1 to 2 tbsp grated ginger
Juice and Zest of 2 lemons
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
Tap water
1/8 tsp. of rapid rise yeast

Combine the first four ingredients with some tap water that has been warmed and mix well. Add the yeast and pour the mix through a funnel into a 2-liter soda bottle. Fill with cold tap water, leaving about 2 inches of space at the top. Cap the bottle and shake until sugar is dissolved. Place in a warm place for about 24 to 48 hours, or until bottle is really, really hard. Place in fridge to chill and stop fermentation. Once the drink is chilled, serve and enjoy!


Tips:
- Warm tap water helps to dissolve the sugar, honey and yeast, which is why I like to make a warm mixture first. It cuts down on the amount of shaking time required to dissolve the stuff once it's in the bottle.
- I've round that rapid rise yeast works faster than regular yeast and being impatient, I prefer to use something that works faster.
- Opened packages of yeast does not last. Either refrigerate or freeze the leftover yeast to keep it alive longer. I believe the refrigerator will allow the leftover yeast to last between a week to a month and freezing the yeast will allow it to last up to 6 months.
- To see if your yeast is still active, put some in a cup of warm water and some sugar and see if it foams and expands in 5 to 10 minutes.