Eating in a box

Many people ask what the most important cooking gadget I have in my arsenal. Most of the time I'll reply, my Chinese cleaver, as a universal tool used pretty much every time I work in the kitchen it is in fact my most important tool. But if we're talking about actual cooking device/gadget I have to say my slow cooker. I've talked a lot about it in the past and even labeled my them "Slo-mo bentos". It's a magical device that's great for all sorts of applications and you can't have enough of them (I personally have four back home). So it's no surprise that the very first thing I purchased when I landed in Australia is a slow cooker. I was torn a bit, I like the simple off-low-high low tech version (great for a sous vide water bath when paired with a pid controller), but I opted for this multi function baby that has a removable non-stick insert that allows you to brown in the pot without taking up stove space. What to make? Pulled pork obv...

We had a long weekend and decided we needed to see more of Australia so we booked a flight and a inexpensive serviced apartment and landed in Melbourne. A portion of my coworkers were from our Melbourne office (we collapsed everyone into Sydney) and they had plenty of suggestions as to where to go. The way it has been explained to me, Sydney and Melbourne are very much like L.A. and San Francisco back home. Sydney, like LA, has beaches and warmer weather and people tend to hangout preferring more outdoor activities, Melbourne like SF is colder and it tends to rain so people tend to stay indoors and as a result there are better restaurants, arts, etc. From our short three day tour, I'm in agreement with generalized comparison. Here's what we did: Our first day we spent a lot of time walking around. Where we were staying (near Chinatown area) there are lots of narrow lane one way streets. Our first restaurant was Il Bacaro Cucina and bar tucked away in one of those narrow...

As a kid I loved those packages of instant stove top noodles. Not just ramen but the ones that were "broccoli cheese", "alfredo", where you just add milk and butter, maybe some ground beef or tuna if you were using a "helper" version and voila dinner at $1.50 an envelope. I particularly liked the beef stroganoff, something about that powdered sour cream I suppose. Over the years, whenever I have a chance I order the dish and some variation has made it into this blog whether it's meatballs or eating on the cheap . This time I'm going to make it my main focus. First the pasta. With my new Veggie Twister device I decided to go with a "zoodle" option. The pasta honestly is just a conveyance for the sauce and the beef. I figured using zoodles I could save a few hundred calories and guilt. Just using zoodles freshly cut there's just way too much moisture in the zucchini. I decided to salt the zoodles first and let them sit for 30 m...