Takeout with the Tos #9

So this was totally unintentional, but I didn't go grocery shopping this week and ended up cooking a decent amount of food for us. Here's our take out for the week:

- Cucumber Salad: $9.99

- Seafood pancakes: $19.99

- Tofu Chicken Casserole: $29.99

- Instant Pot (Dry Rub) Pork Ribs: $22.99 

- Chinese Vegetable Stir Fry: $13.99

Take Out Total: $96.95

Tax: $8.00

Grand Total: $104.95

 

Cucumber Salad

 

I forgot to take a photo of this dish because I made it ahead and put it in the refrigerator to chill. By the time I cooked everything else, took my photos, and went on with the rest of my Sunday, the photo of the cucumbers was long forgotten. My kids ate quite a bit of it so what you see left in this dish is probably 1/3 of what I made to begin with. I had a recipe I followed a long time ago, but it's evolved to eyeballing the ingredients: soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper. I think sometimes I add a splash of vinegar but this time I forgot. This was about 1TB of everything except the white pepper for 1 large cucumber. 

Seafood Pancakes (right)

 

These came out more egg-y than pancake-y this time around. They're almost like a scrambled omlette in my opinion. I still like it. Easy to make, I practically make it by memory, and fast to cook. I've started cooking a lot more with my stainless steel wok, but this is the kind of recipe which still requires a good nonstick pan. It's just so much easier not having to think about the heating requirements and just putting food in and out as it cooks. 

Tofu Chicken Casserole

 

This is a first for this recipe in 2025! I was thinking to myself recently that I had started to repeat a lot of my recipes. Mentally, there are still some I'd like to share with you as dishes I've made which I love, but whether due to time constraints, ingredient prices, or simply lack of intentionality, I haven't made them. This is a recipe I learned from Woks of Life a while back. I saw them post it and immediately thought this would be a great recipe for me to make. One pot, easy ingredients, most that I have on hand all the time, and delicious. 

I made this recipe in the wok for the first time and it's great! Even if the chicken sticks when I'm browning it, I'm able to scrape it up later once the rest of the sauce components get put together and there's more sauce in the wok. The original recipe calls for shiitake mushrooms and peas. These are two ingredients my children complain about. Sometimes, I add them anyway and force them to eat it. Sometimes, I split the dish into two batches and add peas to one batch only. Other times, I add neither, like this week. Honestly, it tastes good however I choose to do it. So although the nutrition may change slightly, the overall integrity of the dish is kept. 

Instant Pot Dry Rub Ribs

 

We needed a protein dish this week and I couldn't think of anything else to do. We pulled out a pack of ribs from the freezer and my husband made the dry rub, stuck it in the Instant Pot, and let it cook. Super easy, super delicious. 

Chinese Vegetable Stir Fry (left)

 

I've only ever known the name of this vegetable in Chinese. If I literally translated the characters, it would be "oil vegetable." Not very enticing...I decided to look up what the actual English for this vegetable is. It's rape, also where rapeseed oil comes from. So while I won't be using the English terminology to name this vegetable...perhaps ever...I have now learned one new fact for this week. 

 Total Time Elapsed: ~2.5 hours

A Great Vacation

It's been a minute since I've sat down and typed up a blog at my computer. The last couple of weeks were a bit different from our normal routine because we had two spring breaks! No, unfortunately, this doesn't mean we had two weeks off of school or work. Instead, it meant my kid's spring break was one week and my students' spring break was the following week. Because of this, we couldn't really go out of town or do anything big. I didn't mind, but it meant finding other creative ways to have fun without going on an official vacation.

During the first week when my kids didn't have school, I took them out in the mornings for excursions. We visited IKEA, hung out with a neighbor, ate lunch with friends, and even had a sleepover one night! The following week when I didn't have to teach, we scheduled dinners at restaurants during the week we normally wouldn't be eating at because I hardly get to eat dinner with my family during the week. Honestly, not cooking is one of the best vacations I can give myself! It doesn't quite hit me as hard when we're away from home on a trip because we almost have to eat out every meal, but when I can relax at home and not have to cook, that's a real treat!

There were a few dinners during my week off where I made more extravagant meals instead of eating out because it was still tasty and slightly more cost effective than eating out.  

Sunday -  8z New York Strip Steak with broccoli 

broccoli not pictured.  this was very tasty. My husband had fun cooking steaks in his cast iron pans for the first time - he even used my fresh rosemary while basting with butter!

Monday - smoked salmon, cream cheese, bagel, side of kale salad 

Tuesday - Sausage Calzone and Chicken Parmesean

Wednesday - Chicken Curry with Rice

Thursday - Sushi

Friday - Pho 

Although a mixture of home cooking + eating out at restaurants, if I estimated the cost of all meals counted as restaurant cost, it would have cost us $250+ for six dinners.

I enjoy cooking for my family because it's a huge way I show my love for them. At the same time, cooking is work. A lot of work. Although I cringe at how much eating out can cost, it is really nice to sit down, be served food, and not have to do the dishes after. Or pick up the food my kids have slowly scattered all over the floor. So all in all, I had a great vacation, both from my salaried and non-salaried duties 😁.

Takeout with the Tos #8

I didn't cook too many things on Sunday because we did some cooking on Saturday as well. To keep consistency, those dishes will not be included in my take out total. 

Cabbage Cilantro Stir-Fry: $12.99

Tofu Noodle Stir-Fry: $20.99 

Snow Pea Leaves: $18.99

Beef and Green Bean Stir-Fry: $22.99

Take Out Total: $75.96

Tax: $6.27

Grand Total:  $82.23

 

Cabbage Cilantro Stir-Fry (top right)

I enjoyed this dish so much last week I wanted to make it again this week. I normally don't repeat identical dishes two consecutive weeks, but I really wanted to eat this dish again. I love cilantro but I realize some people don't share in this sentiment. 

Tofu Noodle Stir-Fry (bottom right)

This past week, I pulled out my scrapbook from my year living overseas. We flipped through it and I was able to share my experiences with them as well as reminiscing on them myself. In the back of the scrapbook, I did a few pages with photos of food I had cooked myself.  One included a dish made with strips of tofu. 

I had forgotten the use of tofu strips over the years, so this week when we went grocery shopping, I put it on the list and made this dish. It's similar to the vermicelli dish I've made in the past, but I just added the tofu strips in with the noodles. My sauce was a mixture of Chinese barbeque sauce, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Snow Pea Leaves (top left)

These were on sale at the grocery store for the cheapest I've seen them this season - $2.99/lb. As always, we love these. Simple stir-fry with garlic, salt, and sugar. 

Beef and Green Bean Stir-Fry (bottom middle and left) 

This dish ended up being two containers because I ran out of my large containers. It's a bigger portion than I normally make. I didn't intend on using this many green beans but there was the tiniest bit left in the bag that was only 1-2 servings worth and I didn't feel I could do much with it on its own. I agree there's a lot of green beans, but I think the meat to vegetable ratio is still acceptable.

I can't remember which cut of beef I bought but I'm guessing it was a top round. My preference is for flank steak but prices have almost doubled since I first started buying them 6-7 years ago so I've found other alternatives. The key is to marinate in just a bit of corn starch to tenderize the meat. I've also learned the velveting technique with baking soda but it's not my preference because you need to rinse the meat to remove the baking soda before cooking. I find corn starch works well in small amounts because then you don't get goopy meat in your pan.

Honestly, the real star of this week's cooking adventure was the pan:

Our new wok.

 

We purchased a new stainless steel wok a few months ago and finally pulled it out to use. Stainless steel has always scared me for stir-frys because of the fear of food sticking. I think it scares a lot of people for the same reason. However, as convenient as nonstick pans are, the coatings wear down and eventually they lose their nonstick quality and need to be replaced. In the past five years, I've worn down over 3 nonstick pans. I agree: the better you take care of your cookware, the longer it will last.

When we switched to an induction cooktop 3 years ago, there was a new learning curve finding the right heat settings to cook what I needed in the pans I was using. High heat kills nonstick pans. This is a universal truth and even the instructions on the packaging say to use medium/medium high heat only. The feeling of cooking on a brand new nonstick pan is incomparable. It really makes me feel like I know my way around as a chef. The difference from cooking on an old nonstick that is on its way out vs switching to a brand new one is night and day. 

But the feeling doesn't last. Eventually, the nonstick pan will start to stick and need replacing. 

I've cooked minimally on stainless steel over the years. The majority of my stainless steel is for pots - soups, stews, and braises. Sometimes there's an occasional deep fry. But I've shied away from stir-frying in nonstick. I've watched cooking shows and looked up videos on how to cook in stainless steel to make it nonstick. There are various methods out there.

After cooking all 4 of these dishes in our new wok, I've come to the following conclusions:

1. Heating up the pan properly helps to keep food from sticking to the pan. This includes heating up the pan to where water "dances" on the pan instead of evaporating into steam. 

2. Add enough oil. Stainless steel cooking is not meant for the health-conscious. No, we're not trying to drench food in oil, but you need oil for food not to stick. Dry heat = sticking.

3. Our stove is flat. We don't have gas and we most definitely don't have a wok insert for a gas stove.  The wok is rounded. Even a flat-bottomed wok like what we have is still rounded on the sides. Therefore, the heat is strongest on the bottom and will taper as the sides go up. This means we will have cooking limitations even with the most skilled of chefs. 

After cooking our four dishes in the same wok one after the other, this is what it looked like on the inside:

 

I cooked the tofu noodle stir-fry last because I knew there was going to be a starchiness in my noodles which makes sticking more likely. With a delicate balance of changing the heat as I was cooking as well as monitoring my ingredients during the cooking, I was able to prevent a lot of sticking from occurring. As you can see, there is some food stick to the bottom of the wok, but it is not much at all. I didn't scrape the bottom at all to remove the food. This is what was naturally left. There was minimal scrubbing needed to clean this pan. Some hot water and dish soap did the trick easily. 

My conclusion for now is that this stainless steel wok is our best frugal option. It does a decent job cooking food without needing to purchase a $70+ pan every 2 years or so. I'm hoping to be able to improve my cooking skills in this wok so I don't need to rely on nonstick as much. If it doesn't happen....then at least I tried. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Takeout with the Tos #7

This week was another non-grocery week. I didn't blog last week's food but we did grocery shop a week ago. Similar to last week's ingredient breakdown, everything I used this week was either surplus, freezer, or shelf stable:

Dried tofu sticks. Dried mushrooms. Frozen edamame. Leftover cabbage. Leftover green onion. Cilantro from my garden. Frozen shrimp. Leftover eggs. Frozen green beans. Frozen ground pork. Frozen pork shoulder. Potatoes.

Here's what I made with these ingredients:

 - Tofu, Mushroom, Edamame Stir Fry: $16.99

- Cabbage and Cilantro: $12.99

- Shrimp and Egg: $12.99

- Green Bean with Pork: $16.99

- Dry Rub Pork (2.25lb cooked) : $22.99

- Mashed Potatoes: $9.99 

Take Out Total: $92.94

Tax: $7.67

Grand Total:  $100.61

 

Tofu Mushroom Edamame Stir Fry (top left)

I really enjoy the dried tofu sticks, always have since I was a kid. So as an adult, I'm glad it is a pantry item I can use to cook with at any time. Cooking them by itself gets boring - I have done it before - so I try to do a mix with something else in a stir fry. This week's lucky ingredients were shiitake mushroom and edamame. My kids don't eat the edamame so I don't overload it. But I like when my food has a mixture of color. Things like baby corn and canned bamboo are great choices, but they're all in the same color palette and it makes for a boring dish aesthetically. 

Cabbage and Cilantro (bottom left)

This was a dish I made up spontaneously. The leftover cabbage was sitting in my fridge for a while and I knew I had to use it. There's a version of salad we've done before with cilantro, scallions, and a vinaigrette dressing. We have a bottle of Kewpie dressing that's expiring in approximately 10 days so we did a version of the salad and used Kewpie. It was quite good. In planning vegetables for this week, I thought, why not stir fry the same cabbage and cilantro as the salad and then season like a stir-fry? So I tried it. It's not bad. I wouldn't say it's anything spectacular. But considering I got a vegetable dish without special grocery shopping and my kids will eat it, that's a win for me. 

Shrimp and Egg (bottom right)

I literally cooked shrimp, added scrambled eggs in, and threw in some scallion at the end. It's a very straightforward dish. While menu planning, we were trying to find another dish with some protein and this is what we came up with considering the ingredients we had on hand.  

Green Bean with Pork (top right)

I've made this before, but I tried a different sauce combination this time. I've always loved my hot pot dipping sauce I make. It's a combination of Chinese barbecue sauce which I mentioned in my first post, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sesame oil. I thinned it down with water for this dish to mix with the pork and green beans. 

Dry Rub Pork

 

 

This is the second time we've made this recipe this year.  It's really easy because after you put the seasoning in, the whole cooking process is done in the Instant Pot. My husband really loves this recipe. I enjoy it but I think he likes it more than I do. It goes great with mashed potatoes in my opinion which is why we made some mashed potatoes!

 

I'm not about the froufrou food styling. These are what my mashed potatoes look like. They taste great.

 

The sauce from the pork mixed with a good from-scratch mashed potato makes a great pairing. I did reduce the sauce from the pork in a sauce pan, refrigerate overnight, and discard the congealed fat the next morning. 

 

Approx cooking time: 2.5 hours

Everything was so delicious from the menu this week, and it wasn't protein heavy. As a result, we were running out of a protein a little sooner than expected. My husband was telling me that our bread was about to expire soon so we needed to use it quicker. I told him I could make shrimp toast with it.

As you read this blog, there's a strong possibility I'm in my kitchen making it. There might be a mini blog on shrimp toast by itself later...

Basic

I remember being in high school and going to a friend's house to hang out. There was food - I think it was some kind of potluck but the specifics escape me now. One of my friends there whispered to me before we were getting food:

Don't eat what ****'s mom cooked. It's not good.

The dish was pointed out to me. As we piled food onto our plates, I took a bit of everything, including the dish my friend told me not to eat. After all, I was curious. How bad was this "not good" food? I ate the food on my plate and when I tried that specific dish, I remember thinking it wasn't bad. No, it wasn't restaurant food. It wasn't food to die for that I'd remember for years and years to come. But as a teenager who couldn't really cook for myself at the time, it was food I'd eat.

I grew up eating pretty plain food. I don't remember my mother being a fantastic cook. I don't actually think she was. I remember her cooking Chinese vegetables, spaghetti, sardines from a can, seaweed soup, peanut noodles, ramen noodles, something with hot dogs, tv dinners, and probably dumplings. My memory is definitely not complete, but this is the span of food I remember eating growing up. Compared to the dish made at my friend's house? Pretty consistent if you ask me. That's why I wasn't phased. 

I loved eating these "TV dinners" as they were called. I even remember the quintessential flattened look of the mashed potatoes from the plastic covering. This image is quite accurate when it came to the texture of the food. 

My friend wasn't a mean person, but he ate well. I have no doubt his mom cooked delicious food, perhaps even similar to what I cook now myself. I would assume he told me this about our friend because he felt like he was helping me avoid food he wouldn't eat himself. While kind in one sense, I think it slipped his mind that I grew up with food much more basic than him. I grew up with food just like the dish he told me to avoid.

My own cooking now is a luxury even to my own standards. I really hope my children don't grow up 20 years later and tell people all they remember eating is spaghetti, chicken nuggets, and dumplings. Unlucky for them, the internet exists and will continue to exist so there's a trail of proof as to how they ate as children in the year 2025. My kids eat everything on the spectrum from boxed macaroni and cheese to homemade dim sum. I wouldn't have it any other way because I want them to still appreciate simple food.

Takeout With the Tos #6

This week's menu is special because I didn't have to go to the grocery store to buy anything! This sounds too good to be true, right? It is and isn't. You'd be surprised how much you can cook from things that save well in the freezer, pantry, and even your refrigerator! Here's how I did it.

Ingredient List:

- Chinese broccoli: I bought these last week and didn't end up cooking them. Yes, they wilted a bit throughout the week, but I cut the ends off, rehydrate in water for about a half hour, and they plump back up like fresh greens. Toss out any leaves that turned yellow or started to spot.  

- Vermicelli: These are dried mung bean noodles from the Asian grocery store. I try to stock 3-4 packs of these in my pantry at all times. The link just shows you what it is. I don't advise buying from Amazon if you can avoid it. 

- Ground Pork: I buy this from the Asian grocery store or Wild Fork. Not sponsored. But their price is great! I keep these in the freezer and thaw overnight before I use.

- Edamame: I buy the bags of shelled edamame from the Asian grocery and keep in my freezer.

- Carrots: Bought these a week ago. Still good in my fridge. Storage tip: Peel and wash your carrots and then wrap in aluminum foil. Put back in your crisper bin. They will stay fresh for longer. I've done this before when I already have older carrots and we're about to go out of town. That way I'm not forced to use them super quickly.  

- Canned bamboo and baby corn: These are another pantry staple for me. I'm sad Walmart stopped selling baby corn or I didn't find it the last time I looked. I'll try to keep 1-2 cans of each in our pantry on hand for random dishes like this week!

- Tofu: I always have at least 1-2 packs of tofu in our refrigerator. 

- Chicken Tenders: We don't formally have a grocery budget. When I see meat on sale, I will typically buy it regardless if we are eating that meat during the week. When we don't eat it, I vacuum seal it and store in our freezer. I always make sure to label and date things so I can find them easily later. The chicken I used this week was from October 2024. Not too long ago, but definitely not recent. 

Takeout Breakdown:

- Chinese Broccoli: $12.99

- Vermicelli Stir Fry: $25.99

- Edamame, Baby Corn, Bamboo: $12.99 

- Teriyaki Tofu: $15.99

- Panko Chicken Tenders (23 tenders): $38.99  

Take Out Total: $106.95

Tax: $8.82

Grand Total:  $115.77

Chinese Broccoli (bottom right):

I've made this a few times now so I won't elaborate too much. This week's was blanched in salt water. I add about 1TB of salt to ~2qt water and blanch in small batches. That's my estimate but America's Test Kitchen did a whole study on cooking green beans in salt water and why you need the salt! I think their findings can be extrapolated in part to other green vegetables as well. Really delicious by itself! 

Vermicelli Stir Fry (top left): 

This dish is inspired by the Asian recipe Ants Climbing Up a Tree. Yes, that is the literal translation of the dish. I don't follow this recipe but the overall cooking method and flavoring runs along the same lines. My true inspiration was actually my friend's dad. I'd tasted some of his food and he makes a rendition of this dish. His is definitely better, and now I know why mine will never taste as good as his. 😂

Edamame, Baby Corn, Bamboo (top right):

If you're familiar with Asian restaurants, you'll know they name their dishes by the ingredients in the dish. Hence, the name of this dish. This is definitely a dish that was put together specifically because I knew I was cooking with ingredients I already had. As explained earlier, all of these are frozen or canned and easily available at any given moment as long as I've purchased it. I add chicken bouillon seasoning with water and then thicken it with a corn starch slurry to make a sauce. It turned out great. 

Teriyaki Tofu (bottom left):

This is another repeat dish that appeared in week 1. I think this one turned out more delicious than the previous time, but you'll see this dish pop up pretty frequently. 

Panko Chicken Tenders 

I've been making chicken like this for years and years. Originally, it started out as my chicken for chicken and waffles. Recently, I've changed up the marinade to be more Asian as a stand-alone protein to match the other Asian dishes I tend to cook. In this batch, I used soy sauce, cooking wine, salt, cornstarch, and battered them with panko. I shallow fry these in about a half inch of oil between 330-350F. Approximately 3 minutes on each side, 5-6 minutes total. I originally thought I went heavy on the salt, but after cooking, I realized I could have used some more. They're still delicious and I've been dipping them in Kewpie. My kids love this chicken and when they see me cooking it, they tell me they want to eat it. Words can't describe how much it warms my heart to know my children love my cooking. 

I don't think frying food is unhealthy if you follow the following guidelines:

- fry at the correct temperature to minimize oil absorption

- fry in fresh oil for best results

- drain excess oil - I've set my chicken in a strainer so the oil can run down and out

- have fried food as a rotation with other cooking methods (I cook fried food probably < 1-2x/month)

I hope this week's menu inspires you to try to cook a week's menu without going grocery shopping for anything specific! It can be done. 😃

Total time elapsed: ~3.5 hours

Takeout With the Tos: Store-Bought Freezer Filler Meals

With the recent exception of last week's menu, we typically don't have enough food from what I cook on Sunday to make it through the week. So both as addendum food and variety, we eat fillers throughout the week. Fillers are foods we eat which I don't batch cook on Sunday afternoon. This can be a combination of store-bought freezer meals as well as batches of frozen food from homemade meals. Keep in mind any cooking which happens during the week is much more simple. 

In this post, I'm going to go over store-bought freezer filler foods we eat periodically. I know I make a lot of homemade food for my family, but I'm not above freezer chicken nuggets or dumplings.

Random assortment of what's currently in our freezer. Not sponsored. 

1. Chicken Nuggets - We love chicken nuggets. If there was a way I could get chicken nuggets to not be soggy in a hot food thermos, I'd bring them for my kid's lunch. I haven't found a way to do this yet. I've seen some youtubers stick paper towels in the thermos to absorb moisture and keep them crunchy, but I doubt the true effectiveness. So we save chicken nuggets for home when they can be eaten right after cooking.

2. Corn Dogs - My kids enjoy corn dogs here and there. My husband and I enjoy corn dogs here and there. We've done both the corn dog on a stick and mini corn dogs.

3. Frozen Dumplings - this category is anything that includes any brand of dumpling (we eat multiple), soup dumplings, or tiny wontons. Depending on how specific you get, you could almost lump them all under the category of "dumpling."

4. Frozen Noodles - I keep a small stash of premade noodle servings with vegetables. If it's convenient and I have some on hand, I will try to add a protein in since most are made vegetarian. Otherwise, it's a quick microwave and eat type meal.

5.  Tacos/Mexican - We do occasionally buy mini tacos at Costco when they're on sale and keep them on hand in our freezer. Currently, I have a pack of tamales I found on markdown. So those are on deck for a time when we need some food in a crunch. 

6. Fish Sticks - My husband and I love fish sticks. There's a guilty pleasure about eating breaded, crunchy fish late at night as a snack with homemade tartar sauce. My kids will eat it occasionally, but we seldom give it to them because somehow they end up smelling like a fish stick, even hours after eating! 

7. Lasagna - occasionally we find the frozen lasagna on sale at Costco or Sam's. This one isn't really a quick meal though since it does take a couple of hours in the oven.

#1, 2, and 6 are items we (the adults) tend to crave when we see our kids eating them. I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps it's because they're not our everyday food so they are actually more like a special treat. There are other items which make their rounds through our freezer so this list isn't all-inclusive. I actually enjoy a freezer food "treat" here and there because we don't eat it often. A number of these also turn into my dinner #2, especially when I eat dinner before 5 pm most days. These have also come in handy if we all get sick or after coming back from going out of town. If I'm feeling fancy, I'll usually pair these with some side dishes: mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, or broccoli with the American items or kimchi/seaweed salad with the Asian items. It ends up being quite a tasty meal!

Anyone else have guilty pleasure frozen food? 😄