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...