Penne with Roasted Eggplants and Tomatoes

20. May 2008 Pasta + Noodles + Rice 0
I started my Saturday famished. The last of my wisdom teeth was extracted and the only thing I could eat was soup for my last two meals. The Vicodin didn’t quite affect me the way I wanted it to so I was left to fend for myself when I woke up. There were only a ...

Dirty Rice with Brussels Sprouts and Tofu

Southern cuisine’s “dirty rice” gets its name from the offal pieces they add in their rice. Comfort food often contains more than its fair share of fried stuff as well as heavy starches and some people say “dirty” is also taken from that. I honestly fucked this dish up so I had to literally scramble ...

Spinach Potato Gnocchi

These came out looking more like mini-sausages than authentic gnocchi. I’m sure any Italian grandmother will freak out if they saw how I made these at home. It seems like a lot of work but after you mash the potatoes, they kind of form themselves with just the help of some extra flour. It’s helpful ...

Very Garlicky and Very Shrimpy Pasta

26. March 2008 Pasta + Noodles + Rice, Shellfish 2
They key to this dish wasn’t as much as the garlic as it was the shrimp flavor from the head and the shells. I spent some time shelling and deveining a pound of shrimps, and my arm hurt from pressing them to get the juice out, but all the work was worth it. I used ...

Dduk Bok-kee, Korean Beef Sauté with Rice Cake

28. December 2007 Beef, Pasta + Noodles + Rice 0
Koreans usher in the new year eating dduk, or what we non-Koreans refer to as rice cakes. Rice flour is used to make dduk and the end product is dense and sticky, like the Japanese mochi and the Filipino kalamay. I can only assume that Koreans eat dduk during the new year for the same ...