Tag: BEDA 2020

Favorite Frozen Asian Foods

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Inspired by a post I saw on subtle asian cooking, the cooking offshoot of the famous subtle asian traits, I thought I’d share some of my favorite frozen items to get at the Asian grocery. I wish I had more of these in my freezer right now, but I’m glad that I started quarantine with a lot of these in my freezer already.

The most important and critical and essential item:

The Best Frozen Pork Dumplings | Taste Test | Serious Eats
Way Fong Chinese Brand Pork Dumplings

My family has been purchasing Way Fong Chinese Brand Pork Dumplings for as long as I can remember, and we’ve only ever ventured to other brands a handful of times. These are the best store-bought dumplings I have ever eaten, other ones pale in comparison, and they’re a high bar for many homemade dumplings to meet as well. I always have a bag or 2 (or 3… or 4…) in my freezer and I get quite anxious when I have one or fewer bags. (I currently have 5 dumplings left in my freezer and I don’t know when I’ll be able to buy more again. I learned later that the SeriousEats team came to the same conclusion after trying many dumplings, so I’m glad that I’ve really only ever tried the best.

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Pizza + Quesadilla = Pizzadilla [recipe]

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Did you hear chain emails are coming back into vogue? I got sent one the other day, but the intent was more wholesome than I remember them being when I was 11. It was a recipe exchange, and here’s the simple but satisfying one I sent as my contribution.

Pizzadilla! (Pizza + Quesadilla)

Pizza Quesadilla – Quick & Easy 4-Ingredient Recipe
Photo: Parade

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 tortillas
  • Sauce
    • I usually have some kind of pizza sauce just for this occasion, but you can use anything depending on the kind of pizza flavors you’re going for
  • Mozzarella cheese
  • Toppings of choice
    • Pepperoni and spinach are usually on mine
  • Oil (if frying)
  • OPTIONAL: Flavor garnishes of choice
    • I like red pepper flakes and roasted garlic/garlic powder
  • OPTIONAL: Something to dip the whole shebang in
    • Can be extra pizza sauce, can be ranch, go wild

Steps:

These depend a lot on how you prefer to make quesadillas. You can either do two tortillas stacked on each other OR fold over one quesadilla. I like doing the first way, so I’ll be focusing on that method, but you can more easily seal up the second way and I do like doing that for when I want a smaller portion. I’ll put those instructions in (parentheses)Read More »

Quarantine Cooking (1)

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Many of us have been cooking a lot more since we started sheltering-in-place, and I’m certainly no exception. Here is a quick roundup of a few of the meals I’ve made, some of which are new to me and some that aren’t.

I’ve very slowly gathered the ingredients needed for pasta carbonara, and with a recent lucky break allowing us to find a time slot for grocery delivery (it’s not easy), and for us to find eggs in stock at the time, I decided now was the time, before I ran out of one of my other ingredients. I like to use the method featured in this Bon Appetit video, because the sauce is cooked through completely off the heat by the residual heat from the pasta, so I am always confident that I won’t scramble my eggs. Read More »

(End of) Lent 2020

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As I’ve explained in my annual Lent posts, my lack of religious adherence has not prevented me from taking the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday to reflect on my life and my habits and try to change things for the better.

In the past, I’ve always eliminated a bad habit that I have trouble doing in moderation. (I’m an abstainer, not a moderator.) I’ve done this with a lot of success in the past but was having a hard time connecting with a bad habit to eliminate this year. I’ve seen folks do an additive Lenten practice rather than a subtractive one, but a former coworker really sold me on the idea when he told me he practices Reverse Lent every year. Every year, he commits to adding a new habit or practice every day of Lent. One year it was baking, and he committed to being a better baker (specifically of pies).

Originally, I thought I would try to add meditation as a Lenten habit this year. It’s something I used to be very good at but have gotten a lot less good at as I have gotten older and, to be frank, would benefit more and more from meditating. But it just didn’t quite stick. I told myself I would purchase a meditation app but got some analysis paralysis as to which one would be best for me.

One habit that has stuck, however, is daily journaling.

person holding on red pen while writing on book
Photo: fotografierende

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My Issue With Disney Live-Action Remakes (and Some Suggestions)

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After going off about the soon-to-be-released Mulan live-action adaptation, (and seeing that they are remaking the animated Robin Hood,) I do need to give credit where it’s due on that film because it does not have the issue that I most take with Disney’s live-action remake:

The live-action movies should be human stories. Any non-human characters are unsettling and live in the Uncanny Valley.

The example I get most heated about is the 2017 Beauty and the Beast remake. (I’ll talk about 2019’s Lion King in a minute.) When the movie was first announced, I’ll admit even I was excited, even about the casting of Emma Watson! (Who among us did not fall for that Tumblr rumor that she was cast years and years ago with Guillermo Del Toro to direct?) But then I saw the trailer… with the creepy live-action Mrs. Potts and Lumiere and Cogsworth…

NO THANKS

I can never unsee them. I actually stopped wanting to see the movie and only watched it on a streaming service much later because my husband is a big Emma Watson fan. (I can’t get into the music in this post…) It is just really unnerving to have so much time spent on non-human characters.Read More »