My Sweet Potato <3

I love sweet potato. So I had one for dinner.

I actually made tomato sauce with red peppers, onion, and green onion, but I had so much fun with it that I didn't actually need to eat it to be satisfied with it. So it's in the fridge, waiting for me to make it into pizza or pasta tomorrow. Yay!

Usually when I go to Sadako's, the same waitress always caters to my food needs and is very kind and considerate when doing so. To me, when she's there, it feels like I'm eating something cooked by an older sister and being taken care of by one, because she has that sort of ...aura about her. She was professional as well, but knew how to balance courtesy and the warmness you look for especially on a windy, cold day (which is usually when I go to Sadako's to eat). But today, I went and she wasn't there. Oh well. My waitress today was quite brusque and didn't refill my green tea after I finished. And my miso soup was cold, though it tried desperately to maintain its tinge of heat.

But I got what I went for, which was a full tummy, a nutritious meal, and someone else cooking other than me.

The Simple Things in Life

Y'know, when you're a college student, you really appreciate the simplest recipes and the entire flavor of a single ingredient, lightly seasoned to augment its flavor. And when you're dieting, you appreciate how good they taste without too many calories...

Such as good quality chicken broth, heated with vegetables and seasoned with a little salt and pepper on top. And when you eat the vegetables with quality hummus, you get the protein needed along with the creaminess balanced by the light broth.

I wonder how many days I could survive on this meal. Well, seeing as I have a tub of hummus in my fridge and a whole Costco-sized box of cans of chicken broth, I'd say around two weeks.
Of course, I'd have to eat more than that, but let's see how it goes...

Somewhere between high school and college, I lost my patience for writing long, 10-page papers. I mean, how do you maintain focus after 2 pages, much less 8?!

Ugh. Darn the writing requirements! And darn my own writing talents :( that say that I should be able to write 20 pages in a breeze (which I have done before). Why must I excel most in my writing class, but not the classes that I have more interest (albeit less knowledge) in?!

The overly sweetened chocolate pudding I ate a couple of bites of isn't helping either. It's making my head reel with the sugar overdose.

DARN PEOPLE WHO MUST CONTAMINATE THE WONDERS OF CHOCOLATE WITH TOO... MUCH... SUGAAAAR!

See, I've clearly had too much sugar.

Results of the Turkey Pot Pie

I forgot to add salt and pepper. But it was good and vegetable-y. I usually just eat vegetables without anything, so this was pretty normal for me. The sauce was a little watery (and too hot!) while the pie innards weren't evenly distributed. However, the uneven distribution made for some pretty interesting bites. Each bite was different and unique. I bet it would taste even better had I put in some curry powder and ...saltandpepper. I should've put my mom's hot sauce on top, too. Yum, pure unadulterated red peppers!

I'm totally giving off the wrong impression here. I'm not a crazy eater, I'm pretty finicky by standards. And I have good taste buds; I just can't be bothered to please them when I have stuff like, oh, college, college, COLLEGE. With my lack of cooking expertise and technique, I can't incorporate the ingredients I know would make the dish taste perfect. That's why I always cooked with my mom, because I'd tell her what needed to be added, and she'd know HOW to add it. We've made some pretty great dishes like that, especially the dark chocolate curry. Yummy. Bittersweet, spicy, creamy...

*wanders off into dreamworld*
-T.F.

Hello!

This is Tea Fiend, known from now on as T.F.
I'm a college student, who's been forced to learn how to cook in her first year because I preferred to live in the luxury of an apartment and not be subject to horrible dorm food. Unfortunately, this means that I'm subject to eating my OWN horribly cooked food, which is sometimes unhappy and leads to overeating when I'm invited to dinner. I thought that perhaps if I recorded my meals, I'd be able to:
1. Know what I eat
2. Know what does and doesn't work
3. Lose weight!
Plus, it's fun, and I've always envied the writers of food blogs.

So my first adventure on this food blog? TURKEY POT PIE.
Yes, it's no coincidence that this pot pie was made after Thanksgiving! I took home leftovers last night (which was marvellously tummy-hurting from eating and laughing).
I took the recipe from the KQED Food Blog and, uh, roughly modified it according to what I have in my cabinets and refrigerator.

I chopped up two stalks of celery, 1 green onion, and some broccoli. I stir fried those veggies with peas and turkey (with some stuffing). The first mistake I made while cutting up veggies was leaving the pan to heat up on the stove. I forgot that you need a fan and a window nearby and NOT be in a two feet square kitchen space to stir fry the Chinese way. Once I put the butter in, the kitchen evaporated into smoke. Uh-oh. Having done this before (hence, one of the reasons I'm forcing myself to write this blog so I actually LEARN from my mistakes), I rushed to open the balcony door and fan the smoke detector. I don't feel so horrible, though, for having made that mistake, because the expert Taiwanese upperclassmen that live down the hallway did the same thing.

After that, I made the sauce from 1/9 of a cup Bisquick flour (I was modifying like crazy...), and eyeballed how much chicken stock and milk I put in. I made it in the same pan I made the innards of the pie in (PIE INNARDS! heh heh heh...), so there was a thick brown crust on the bottom of the pie. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be like that or not, because I was pretty sure the turkey didn't have THAT much juice in it, but I just went ahead and stirred the brown stuff into my sauce. I poured everything into a medium-sized ramekin and put mashed potatoes on top. Everything then went into the toaster oven and now I'm waiting for it to be done, even though it's only 10:15 in the morning. I tend to get lunch and breakfast confused when I wake up late, so I'll just have a huge brunch and eat vegetables for dinner.

Thinking about it right now, this blog isn't working as well as it should be. I'm screwing up mealtimes again...

Oh well! I will persevere!
-T.F.