Food in Film - Movie

This is a movie I have made, both for fun and for your entertainment.



I have decided to call it "Chicken - Man's Best Friend". It is an attempt to portray the typical college student's yearning for food. The scenes are eclectic and extremely abstract - on purpose. I put together random clips of food items that could showcase hunger. The toaster popping up with no toast, empty dishes, and empty water bottle, and scrounging around at orange peels. It is simply a look into the battle to satisfy hunger.

I am very interested to see what you think of the film, and what you get from it. Enjoy!

*IMPORTANT - READ*
My blog postings are in reverse chronological order. Most of my prepared dishes took quite a bit of time - grocery shopping, preparation, actual cooking, consumption, and blog postings. When I ventured out into restaurants to look for food, my friends chose to take part in my project. They knew I wanted to go out and eat in order to talk about my experiences - what I saw, felt, and tasted.

I hope you enjoy this blog! I have put a lot of time and effort into the entire project!

*Click "Older Posts" at the very bottom of each page, on the bottom right, to go back to older posts

Ivan

Fly Lice (?)

I like to call Fried Rice "Fly Lice". Why? Because, it is common of a Chinese person to speak like this. It is completely comical, however. I'm Chinese, in fact. This is why, I have attempted to make FRIED RICE!!!!!

I actually have experience in cooking fried rice. It all started with my Korean friend. His house was the hang-out spot, and when we got hungry my friend would make the best fried rice I have ever eaten. It usually consisted of onions, vegetables, spam, rice, egg, sesame seed oil, and a lot of cheese on top when it was finished. After that, we would top it all off with Sriracha hot sauce. What a great meal..

Since then, it has been one of my life-long goals to cook fried rice just as good as my friend did. I've tried numerous times, I'd say 20+. But now, I have created my own style of cooking fried rice. I used to imitate my friend's style. I used to observe what he did and why, and I copied it distinctly. However, due to a difference in ingredients I often produced different results, both visually and taste-wise.

My fried-rice consists of:
Half an onion
Minced garlic
Three eggs (scrambled)
Frozen vegetables, mixed
Whatever meat I have (spam, chicken, pork)
Old rice**
Soy sauce
Sesame Seed Oil (if I have it)
Lots of pepper
Garlic salt

Now, you can see how much preparation goes into making fried rice. However, the results are filling and admirable. **Why do we use old rice? We use old rice because cooking fried rice with older rice makes it crunchier, harder. Eating fried rice with soft rice just doesn't taste as good. Therefore, it is important to cook your rice the day beforehand, put it in the refrigerator, and let it harden.

The first step is to pour olive oil into the pan and let it heat up. First, cook your eggs - not completely - and pour it into a separate bowl when finished. Next, we will cook the frozen vegetables, meat, onions, and garlic all together. Cook until brown and soft - everything. Add the rice. Mix well. Pour sesame seed oil and soy sauce into mixture. Add eggs. Now, we will cook the entire thing in the saucepan for about 10 minutes. This is to ensure everything is coated well with sauce, and that the rice is hardened. Add pepper and garlic salt to taste.

The final result is delicious! It can usually serve up to two very hungry people.

TACOS TAKOS TACOS

Today was my attempt at making home-made tacos. For the past few weeks I've had trouble deciding what to cook at home, so I figured tacos sounded easy and fun.

1 lb Ground Beef
Taco Meat Seasoning
Onions
Salsa
Flour Tortillas
Sour Cream (for fun and flavor)

Dice onions, prepare Ground Beef

Brown ground beef and onions

Add taco seasoning!!!!!!!

Heat up tortillas.


Final product!!! Added sour cream.
The whole process was fairly easy. The one pound of ground beef made enough food for two people. I double layered my tortillas just so it would be more structured, strong, and filling. I ended up eating four tacos total.

The taco seasoning was great! The only thing was, when all of the items in the saucepan were fully cooked, there was a CRAP-load of grease sitting there. It was and looked really disgusting.

The overall taste of the tacos tasted great!! It only took me..I'd say about 30 minutes to prepare and cook the whole thing. My roommate enjoyed it. Sorry for the horrible pictures, some are from my roommates phone and some are from my phone. The crappier ones are from my phone haha!

What I really liked about this meal was the relatively small clean-up. All I really had to wash was the cutting board, the pan, and the plate that I used to eat on. The meal was relatively cheap too. The ground beef was around $2.50, the seasoning around $3 (but it definitely lasts at least four meals), the onion was around a buck, and the sour cream was $2-ish (also lasts a couple of meals). Oh yeah, tortillas were probably the most expensive part, it was a little over $3, but it will last us maybe another taco meal or so, so it pays off in the end.

What I would wanna try next time is maybe putting chicken instead of beef? Chicken just seems healthier, leaner, more clean. I could just bake the chicken and tear the meat off the bones and put it in the tortillas. This sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, I'm sure we'll run out of tortillas before I get the chance to try it out, so maybe next time.

I actually finished watching Super-Size Me. I watched it at home on YouTube (they uploaded the film in its entirety). I will post about that tomorrow. I am posting a lot this week! It is the last week.

Venturing Into College-ness

Today was my journey into preparing a standard and typical meal of a college student. I'm fairly used to preparing more elaborate ones than this, however, I felt like it was important to experience why college students chose to dine so poorly, yet quickly.

I made my way to Stater Bros in an attempt to look for an instant meal that was filling and fast. As I walked around aimlessly looking for this, I stumbled upon Hamburger Helper. This looked enticing. All it required for me to buy was the box, and one lb of ground beef. Done.



The process was surprisingly simple, although it did require a measuring cup which I didn't have. The first step was to ground the beef and then drain the water out when fully cooked. This was simple. Next was to pour in 2 3/4 cups of milk, and 1/4 cup of hot water. I had to boil our tap water in a pot because we don't have a hot water dispenser. Next, I eyed the milk measurements. I think I poured way too much, but I would see if it would affect my dish in any way. Then I was to pour the sauce mix and uncooked pasta into the entire concoction. Heat to boil.

It took a really long time to boil, just cause I poured so much damn milk. It took like, 6 minutes I'd say? Next was to lower the fire and let simmer for 10 minutes. It kept burning at the bottom, so I made the fire extremely small.

The end result was extremely delicious! The sauce was a little too watery though, probably because of the excess milk. I would definitely make this meal again. It was quick and cheap. The ground beef was about $2.50 and the boxed Hamburger Helper was just 99c (on sale).



The whole cooking process took about..25 minutes. Quick meal!

Noodles and Poodles

I took a shot at a video blog this time around, just for fun! Hope you enjoy!


Mom and Sister


A cool talent I have :)


A lot of noodles!


The milk tea was super good!!!


K, the video blog didn't turn out too well. The sound isn't in sync with the video....fail.

A Trip to Uncle's Restaurant

Every Sunday morning my parents go out together to eat at my Uncle's restaurant (my dad's younger brother). There are two of them, one located in Rosemead and one in San Gabriel. Once in a while I'll go with them. I guess it could be comparable to Eat, Drink, Man, Woman and how we as a family have this brunch every Sunday morning. Some days I'll choose to take part, some days I won't. They usually go around 9am but I'm still sleeping, being the lazy person that I am.

Today my parents were busy with running errands, so my friends and I decided to take a trip to the Rosemead location and eat there. I was eating with three other friends. One of the three eats there occasionally, while I am familiar with the place naturally. The other two have never been and were both Korean. I thought it was going to be interesting to see if they liked the food or not. It is always difficult to get another Asian culture to enjoy the other. I think a lot of people like Chinese food though, so I hoped for the best.

The restaurant focuses on Taiwanese style noodles. They have a huge variety of noodle dishes. Today there was a special, "Curry Soup Noodles with Lamb". This has always been a favorite of mine, so I ordered it. The other three stuck with the first page of the menu, which was a chicken broth noodle soup with meat varieties. The place is usually packed on the weekends, but for some reason it wasn't that filled up today.


Our food conversation was typical. We did start talking about a hot sauce known as Sriracha though. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's cool too cause their factory is based in Rosemead (the city we were in). What a great sauce to accompany any type of food! I'm proud to be Asian cause of Sriracha haha. I kept turning around to the table behind me because there were 'non-Asians' enjoying the food. One of them was eating a dish called "Sate" which is a very, very spicy noodle dish. When you eat it you can just see all the red peppers in the dish. I like it, but a lot of the time I need a lot of water to drink after. The guy eating it wasn't even drinking water though, it was cool. I took a picture of their table, but I guess the guy saw me so he's looking at the camera.


One of my Korean friends didn't really enjoy it. He kept picking at the meat and said he didn't like the 'texture'. He finished all the noodles and a lot of the ligaments and random meat types were leftover. He liked the soup a lot though. The other Korean drove out from Hollywood, so he met with us when we finished eating already.


And here I am holding up my empty bowl and a cup of iced tea. It was good and I'm still full!

AYCE SUSHI

I had tried this sushi place out in Hacienda Heights called Katana Sushi with my family a while back. We had AYCE (All You Can Eat). It was delicious!

This is why I proposed to my friends we all go there and eat, grab a beer, and just have fun. I went with Edric, Devan, Howard, Chris, and Emily. We ordered tons of food. This was only my second time eating AYCE Sushi (I actually plan on going to Asahi Sushi in Riverside this Friday). I feel like AYCE Sushi is well worth $25. I mean, if you don't get AYCE and just eat sushi with the normal prices on the menu, you end up spending $20 anyway.

Our favorite was the Dynamite Roll, which is pictured above. It was SO good!

Just looking at these pictures makes me hungry for some more, even though I just ate a crapload! Everyone enjoyed the experience. Some were initially hesitant because of the price, but that blew over once they realized that it is important to eat with your friends once in a while. We all took time off our busy schedules to get together for this lunch.

If you ever have a chance to get out to this area, eat at Katana Sushi. It is between Hacienda Blvd and Colima Rd. Such a great place to dine, and the waitress is really nice! She really wanted that tip though...

Boba Party!

This week's film was The Gleaners and I. Hmm, I really don't have much to say about it. I would say that I enjoyed the film, but that would be a lie. I mean, it was interesting, but the whole thing kinda just tripped me out. I thought the music was hilarious, and I thought that the whole documentary was produced in a really wacky way.

However, there were more eventful things that happened this week for me (food-wise). I have a sister that currently lives and works in San Diego. She has this extreme addiction to boba (not in a bad way). Anyways, she has always talked about trying to make boba for her friends and stuff for fun.

The funny thing is, I actually have experience in making boba and the milk tea that goes along with it. I worked at a cream puff store called 'Beard Papas' a couple of years ago. Although I could talk about my experiences there, and although this would make for a great blog entry, it was much too long ago to discuss. However, I can talk about the boba and milk tea making process. You see, in the 'asian' culture, there is a love for boba milk tea. The milk tea, you could say, is sort of derived from iced coffee. However, it is sort of a mix between tea and coffee. The boba balls are sweet little balls made of 'tapioca' and are placed in the milk tea. It's a very sweet drink overall, but it makes you happy.

At Beard Papa, I had first-hand experience in making this product. The boba was simple. It came in a frozen package and you just put it in a rice cooker for however long and mix it with sugar water. Done.

The tea, however, was a long process. It is very unhealthy too. You start with making black tea (which is healthy). But you destroy the healthiness by adding a whole carton of coffee creamer and tons of sugar water in it. You mix it and ice it.

Anyways, I passed my experience onto my sister at our attempt to make boba at home. I went over to her apartment in SD and told her that this would be a great project to do for my weekly food fix. She invited a few friends over and we started our own little boba shop.

This is our attempt at making our boba seem legitimate. "Cash only" is common within boba shops. We offered both green and standard (black) boba for the milk tea.




This is the boba we made. We bought the frozen packages from 99 Ranch Market, which is a popular Chinese based supermarket. I used the method I used at Beard Papas. They came out a little too chewy, but it was still good.


This is our finished product, and a few shots of people having a good time!!!




Overall, it was a fun experience. It's not something most people can say they've done. However, it really wasn't worth all the hassle. It took a lot of time, and there was a lot of clean-up. I mean, all those cups we had to wash and all the tea we had to make. I probably won't ever do it again to be honest!

The "Dinner"

As old as I am getting, what we discussed in class is true. Dinner is still one of the few things friends and family can do. Although many of us are extremely busy with school and work, we can still always find time to get together with the people we love and share a cozy and social dinner!

College is taking up a lot of my time. In addition, it is increasingly difficult finding ways to meet up with your friends on the weekends. Goodfellas inspired me to do so. Although I do argue that it isn't a 'food film', the fact that Italian families in general I assume eat together in large groups made me want to grab a dinner with my friends. I told my friends that I was a part of a food class, and that it would be fun to grab dinner together. We could document it and experience this fancy restaurant we heard about from a friend. This is why we took a journey West to Beverly Hills to dine at the infamous:

The Stinking Rose

The Stinking Rose is a restaurant that focuses on one main ingredient: garlic. Every item on the menu is doused in garlic. I love garlic! Anyways, the first thing that caught my eye on the menu was 'The Slab'. It is a $45.00 prime rib served with yukon gold mashed potatoes. I wasn't entirely sure if I should order the thing. I mean, $45 is enough to buy dinner for a whole table at a normal restaurant. I was extremely hesitant because it was so expensive. But, I figured if I'm going to eat at a famous restaurant like this, why not go big? I knew I would regret not experiencing something like a huge prime rib.

We asked the waiter how big 'The Slab' was and he tried showing us with his hands. He said it wasn't very big, but it was very thick. He said about 4 inches thick. Wow, that is insane. When the food finally came, the thing was massive! We had no idea what we were getting into. I will let the pictures speak for themselves!

But first, the appetizer. Yummy bread and cloves of garlic. I assume they baked these cloves of garlic with olive oil, because the cloves were falling apart and very flavorful.


Finally, pictures of 'The Slab'





The group picture!


No one finished 'The Slab' by themselves. The couple at the bottom of the table finished it, but they shared the dish. I decided to take it home with me. It sucks though, because the next day, after microwaving it, all the juices were gone and the meat was overcooked. Sad, sad day. But, I ate what I could at the restaurant. I guess I could've finished the whole thing, but it wouldn't have been enjoyable up to a certain point.

Like Water for Good Food

Like Water for Chocolate wasn't that good of a film for me to watch. I really wouldn't call it a 'food film', more or less I would call it a romance. This is probably why I didn't enjoy it so much..not a big fan of the romance movies.

Anyways, so far every week I've taken an excursion to find food. Well, I cooked a couple of times too! This week I felt like grabbing a nicer meal in the LA area. I haven't been spending much money and I heard about this great restaurant in Los Angeles called 'Artichoke'.

I went with a friend and she told me that their food is extremely fresh. It is supposed to give you that healthy, clean feeling after you eat it. I guess kinda like after eating Subway, but then again Subway's ingredients are definitely not fresh. I mean, their meat and stuff is just sitting there with all this plastic and paper. Nasty.

I decided to start my meal off with tomato soup. It was delicious! Look at how fancy this is! This bowl of soup definitely inspired me to take a shot at tomato soup one day. I've made French Onion Soup, it was delicious. Tomato soup just sounds and looks more simple than tomato soup. $5


For my main course I decided to go with the turkey sandwich. My friend said that it was the best thing there (I highly doubt that), but it definitely was good. The sandwich came with a side salad of an assortment of spinach. The sandwich itself used grilled rye bread and some fatty turkey slices. Check out the pretty flower in the background. $8


Of course I had to get dessert. This was my ode to Like Water for Chocolate even though the film didn't really focus on chocolate at all. One of the cookies is a Blueberry Cream cookie, the other is a Cornflake Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Cookie! These were incredible. To top it off they offered us some of their soft serve ice cream. The cookies and the ice cream mixed were to die for!





Yup, this place was definitely a great restaurant to sit in and grab a meal. It was intimate and the food was amazing! The drive out to this place from Riverside was about an hour, but it was well worth it!

Sweet Tooth

KRISPY KREME!!!

The film Chocolat inspired me to grab some sweets this weekend. The closest Krispy Kreme I knew of was nowhere near Riverside, so I had to trot my way over to the Ontario Krispy Kreme.

The last time I had Krispy Kreme was when I was still in elementary. The one thing I remembered about the donuts were that they were extremely light, they were filled with air, and they were super easy to eat. I also remember the stores having the donut making machines. This is such a cool element to any food store. The fact that they are showing how the donuts are made is just phenomenal. I'm sure, however, some people would prefer donuts that were hand-made, but who cares! This company has got their donuts down to perfection.


The donuts halfway fried!

My craving for chocolate was so immense after watching the film! I'm really not a big fan of chocolate. I mean, I'll eat it every once in a while if it's available, but I'm usually not the one who buys it. Like, if a friendh as M&Ms or something I'll take a few. The one chocolate I really like are Toberlone bars. Those things are epic!





I literally stood there for a good 30 minutes watching the donut machine work. It was so precise. This leads to my belief that machines will take over the world one day, and robots will try to kill all humans.

I felt like it was important for me to go explore the sweeter aspects of cuisine after watching Chocolat. There aren't any true candy factories like in the Willy Wonka movies, but I think Krispy Kreme is as close to one as you can get. The donuts are so delectable and such a treat for everyone. If you take a bite out of one of these and say you don't like it, you're just plain weird!

My favorite are definitely the original. It's weird though, usually they are producing the original donuts, but today they were making the ones that you can inject with cream or fillings. I think the coolest part of the machine is the glazing waterfall. That thing is so epic.

What the Heck is Bún bò Huế????

This weeks film was Babette's Feast. Really, really great film! The most enjoyable part for me was when Babette was cooking her feast. Wow, I wonder if she can really cook like that. I think I remember Professor Bloom saying something about how she really is a chef in real life, but I'm not sure, maybe I just made that up.

I really have no access to that type of French cuisine. I'm sure they have French cuisine like that in the LA area, but I'm not going to drive over there and spend a bajillion dollars for some fancy French food. It sounds great though, but not now. I don't have the money for that! And no girlfriend to take! So that would be kind of lame to go there with friends or with my family. French cuisine just has this stereotype that it is very formidable and high-class. I'm not sure if it is or not, just saying.

I went home this weekend. In an attempt to try out something new, I convinced my parents to take me to a restaurant I've never been to. Boy was I in for a ride (literally).

My parents and I drove out 30 miles from Hacienda Heights to Westminster. I heard about a world famous Vietnamese restaurant here. If you've never been here, it is where many, many Vietnamese people live. Now I'm sure you have heard of a noodle dish called PHO. It is widely popular all over Southern California. It is a noodle dish patented by the Vietnamese. It is a type of beef noodle soup. However, what I was in West Minster for was my first attempt at trying Bún bò Huế! I've never tried it, didn't know what it looked like, and didn't know what it tasted like.



When the dish came, it looked like PHO. The difference was that there were big brown chunks of I have no idea what, and the soup was red. The soup was very spicy. However, wow, the entire meal was great. It was a complete 180 from what PHO was. It felt bold and daring. Great dish, but really not worth the drive! I don't think anything was worth that drive in the first place!!

In addition to this, if you have the time, I actually created a video about the Vietnamese heritage and culture back in high school for my junior English project. Just to make sure, I am not Vietnamese, but both of my parents were born in Vietnam. Enjoy the video!

Chinese Foodz

Wow! What can I say about this week! Eat, Drink, Man, Woman was an amazing film! Never have I felt so proud of the Chinese cuisine being prepared for me at home ever since I was a little kid.

I always wondered how both of my parents knew how to cook so well. They know so many recipes it is ridiculous! Sometimes they get lazy and just steam vegetables or pan-fry junk together, but when they're feeling really lively they can put together great feasts! There are a lot of times where my parents make these delicious meals and I wish I knew how to make them. I'm trying to think of one they've taught me right now..

Well, I can't remember. They did teach me how to make Thai styled curry, which isn't Chinese, but it is a staple in my mom's cooking. I don't remember how to make it though. My dad also taught me how to marinade beef Chinese style. The technique was grueling. I never knew they put so much time and effort into JUST the beef. I really give high respects to what they create! This is why, when I came home this weekend, I knew I was going to be really excited for the meal after watching the film.

I never eat Chinese food during the week at school. I don't really know how to make it. Even if I did, we lack the ingredients and seasoning, so it would be really hard and not worth the time. Besides that, no one in my house really eats what is cooked, it is a rare occasion. I told my mom, "Mom, you have to make some Chinese food!" and so she did.

I decided to give her a helping hand on this though. Three dishes, believe it or not, is A LOT to make by yourself. All the prep work and all the cooking is very hard to do if you're doing it alone. It took both me and mom maybe an hour and a half to complete the whole dinner.


Steamed veggies, Mabo Tofu, Sweet and Sour Pork. The steamed veggies were just seasoned with salt, pepper, and smashed cloves of garlic.


This is Mabo Tofu. It's a special type of tofu dish. It is usually prepared spicy. Yum! It is my sisters favorite, but too bad she is in SD and can't enjoy it with us!


This was my mom's first try at making Sweet & Sour Pork. It turned out great. The sauce tasted sweet, and sour. Haha, perfect.

A Craving Sparked From Frozen Food

You know, as college students living on your own, it’s increasingly difficult to find a way to eat during the week. Sometimes you’ll scrounge for leftovers brought back from the weekend from home, but most of the time you’ll eat out and waste money. It’s a typical “food” day today, meaning there is absolutely nothing to eat. I have with me here one banana and a bottle of water. The fridge is empty, but hey, maybe there is something in the freezer for me. There is! It’s a small box and it’s a Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie. It looks so good, even if it’s just a box. The only bad thing is, it’s not mine, it is my roommates.

Luckily, he is nice enough to let me eat the last one. As I microwave it I can already smell every single ingredient in the pot pie. I take it out and completely destroy it. Have you ever noticed how the best part of any pie is the pie crust? Man, the pie-crust on the pot pie was amazing. It’s probably made of a puff pastry or something; it’s ridiculously flaky (in a good way).

This is where the light-bulb went off. This is where I told myself “Wow, I think chicken pot pies are my favorite food to eat”. There is just something about the chicken pot pie. Maybe that’s why it has the label ‘comfort food’. It’s just as portable as a pizza, but it offers so much more. Every single ingredient put into chicken pot-pies are perfectly made for one another. Potatoes, vegetables, chicken, gravy, PIE-CRUST…WOW. I’m sold. I’m going to make my own.

There’s a web-site I always go to for my recipes: recipezaar.com. The recipes offered here are guaranteed to be amazing. The recipe looked relatively simple, and lucky for me I had almost every ingredient that I needed. A quick stop at the grocery store is all I need. I bought myself a bag of potatoes, pie crusts, half & half, and chicken broth. I had frozen vegetables and chicken at home already. Ready to cook!

The entire process was fairly simple and straightforward. The hardest part with the chicken pot pie was perfecting the gravy. All you had to do for the potatoes were peel them and cut them into chunks. For the chicken, I baked four chicken thighs at 475F for 40 minutes. They came out great. I cooked the onion, potatoes, frozen veggies together with some butter. Then I added the half & half along wit hteh chicken broth to create the sauce. You let it boil so that it's allowed to thicken. Add the chicken, and stir. Then you pour the mixture into the pie-crust. First-time around it was too thick, second-time around it was perfect. A funny story goes with the ‘first-time around’ though. I finished what goes inside the pie and I poured it into the pie crust. I guess the mixture was too hot, making the foil pan warm and forcing it to be a little flimsy. As I am carrying the completed pie to the oven, the entire thing just collapses on me and I drop the whole pie onto the ground. I should’ve taken a picture of it, it was such a sad sight. I was really bummed out, but I had extra of both mixture and pie so I made another one. Hey, you learn from your mistakes. Baked it for around 45 minutes at 375F and....voila!


Sorry, crappy phone picture.

It was delicious. After making it for the first time, I re-bought whatever I needed at the end of the week and made two more. One for me, and I personally delivered the other to a few good friends. They loved it!

Hmmm, I’m going to try to tie this in with Tampopo, however, it sounds impossible now. But I actually did grab ramen at a ramen shop back at home on the weekend after watching the film. I ordered the signature ramen bowl. The cool thing is that my friend works there as a waiter and usually hooks me up with free food!

Italian Food = Pasta = Yummy

Our first film was Ratatouille. I’ve actually seen this movie before, but who hasn’t? It was actually very entertaining to say the least. I’m not entirely sure who I saw the movie with when it was released. I think I took a girl out to see it with me. I don’t remember much about what I thought of it, though. The one thing I do remember saying is that it was too long, however, I didn’t feel this way after watching it for the class.

It’s funny talking about these animated films. I feel like one day we really won’t even need actors anymore. Animated movies are becoming ridiculously realistic now. Anyways, back on track.

After watching Ratatouille, I had a real craving for Italian food. I wasn’t about to go to Olive Garden and drop $20 though. Don’t get me wrong, Olive Garden is delicious. But don’t you ever notice how after you heat up your leftovers there’s that gross layer of grease at the bottom of your bowl? This is why I decided I would cook again this week.

This week’s attempt is much more sporadic in a sense. I’m not really sure how to create a pasta dish, but I figured I would give it a shot. What do I have in my refrigerator? It’s funny, this is what I always ask myself when I’m about to cook something. I went through the list, in my head:

• Pasta (big tubey ones)
• CHEESE (a big block of cheddar)
• Frozen Veggies (5 lb bag)
• Chicken (I love chicken)
• Onion (I’m immune to crying)
• Tomatoes (not a big fan)
• Garlic (THE BEST)

Ok, I guess I’ll make something out of this. I decided to sauté the onion, tomatoes, garlic, and frozen veggies. I baked the chicken, and after it was cooked, took it out and shred it up into shredded chicken. I threw that into the pan.
Cooked the pasta, poured that into the pan, and mixed everything together. I poured it into this big..I don’t know what to call it. Bowl? Box bowl? And then I shredded a whole bunch of cheddar cheese on top of it. Broil!

This was my final product. It was a little on the dry side (obviously because I didn’t make any sauce), but man it was surprisingly good! I guess it was good because every ingredient was just a good ingredient. I mean, there wasn’t much experimentation going on. What I did was straightforward. It turned out pretty nice. I would’ve liked the pasta to be a little smaller, but the big tubey ones were all I had. I decided I would share with my roommates! They liked it. Or maybe they were lying.