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...

I was able to make a trip back home. Like this baby koala hugging the tree there's a huge list of food that I would hug if not for the fact it would be better off in my belly... So I made a list and hit everything I could. I did miss a few pictures, like Pho at Pho saigon , Ramen at Michi and my very first meal off the plane BBQ at the salt lick . Breakfast tacos from Taco deli with Dona sauce.... with BACON. The bacon in Australia is made from pork back which includes that circular bit that we call Canadian bacon. Anyhow, tortillas are hard to come by and I thought about bringing back a tortilla press but I didn't find a source for masa. The only place I found breakfast tacos in Sydney cost like $8.50 (in AUD but still it's outrageous). Caldo de Res and Barbecoa taco at Vasquez . A favorite spot for my old team. This is what I get when I "want it all" and can't decide on barbecoa plate or the Caldo. You can't go to Texas without having c...

So in Austin we have two dedicated Ramen shops. To most of us growing up ramen was a 10 - 50 cent (depending if you go with the good stuff or not) package of fried noodles with a delicious hypertension inducing soup base. It's the mainstay of surviving on a budget in college so you can still have fun on the weekends. I hadn't had "real" ramen before trying it at  Freddy's truck Michi  (now a  restaurant ). It was a life changing event. I recommend the meat lovers in stout broth, on a cold winter day (heck even in the heat of summer) it'll do you good. To my delight Australia is apparently full of ramen shops, granted quantity doesn't mean quality but just like most things I've encountered "down under" things are just a little bit different. One of the things I learned is that a lot of the shops here serve "thick" style broth. Now, being a fan of Michi's stout I figured "ok thick that's the stuff I want". Thick...

As part of my next post I acquired a new toy! I've posted about a dinner I made with zucchini ribbons as part of the dish and later a bento using the ribbons. Zoodles (ribbons or spaghetti strings) have come into some popularity over recent years because of the low carb trend. Certainly a small plate of zoodles from one zucchini will save you quite a few carbs and calories than a similar plate of pasta. I figured with all the cutting calories and low carb-ing I've been doing it's high time I incorporated zoodles as a pasta replacement into a bento. Since I don't have my full kitchen here I had to find a way to cut my zucchini into noodles (or zoodle-ize them) enter "The Veggie Twister" There are many forms of this device, in the US there's plenty of infomercials that sell the "Veggetti", I personally went with a Paderno  spiralizer (it was on sale on Amazon once) back home, you can even use a vegetable peeler with a julienne blade. For ...

Growing up I didn't have much in the way of traditional "American" food, my parents owned a Chinese restaurant so we had a lot of Kung Pao chicken and Happy Family.  In fact we had so much happy family I started calling it "sad family". The days we got to go to McDonalds (or as they call it here down under "Mackers") or even to the Luby's and Furr's cafeteria were for me a real treat. My Mom would do her best and learn as many of the dishes we'd request (she does a killer lasagna) but I never got burned out on what most of my friends would complain about. So every once and again I would get a weird craving for what my friends would describe as they're versions of "happy family". Being away from home I've had a double craving for "American food" so I decided to do a little east meets west, healthy meets comfort American bento box. New format here. I'm trying to make these posts short but still useful. I...