daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
The karaage that Mariko makes is always oishii, but tonight we had fresh lettuce leaves too! It was a really nice complement to the savory chicken. It reminded me of eating Korean barbecue with the lettuce leaves. 💗
I hope you had a nice day!
Tonight we had carnitas tacos for dinner, which is one of my favorite foods. In fact, whenever carnitas is on the menu at the restaurant, it immediately jumps to the top spot among the other dishes. 😀
I used this Instant Pot Carnitas recipe today, which is a new one for me. It’s similar to others I’ve used, but it adds a decent amount of lime juice to the meat before cooking which was something that I hadn’t done before. The rest of the family said they didn’t taste the lime, but I think it added a little something extra which was good. Overall, I liked this recipe a lot, and will use it again. It’s not too heavily spiced, so the flavor of the pork comes through nicely. A previous recipe had me add a can of chipotle peppers to the meat, and while it tasted good, it overpowered the meat and is not what I was used to. So I prefer this simpler recipe. And the Instant Pot makes it incredibly easy to make!
We enjoyed the meat with corn tortillas, Serrano peppers, cilantro, onion, lime, and avocado. We also had a jar of homemade salsa from a friend, which complemented the dish perfectly. It was a yummy meal for sure. 🌮💗
I hope you had a great day!
Tonight Mariko had two friends over for a girls’ nite. We set up the table and spaced the benches on the deck apart enough to have a safe distance for the three of them, and they were able to catch up and enjoy some yummy drinks and food at their leisure. While they sat outside, the boys and I enjoyed the food indoors. And yes, I ate way too much. Especially the amazing sashimi. I love it!
I hope you had a nice, and safe, day!
またね～
Here are a couple of easy dishes that I made for dinner. The spinach recipe is super simple, with only a few ingredients. The fried chicken is a little more involved, but still at a level that I can handle. 😀
One comment about the chicken is that it is not spicy, even though I used a few large peppers. If you want to add some kick, make sure you use a fiery pepper! And one other thing, Maangchi fried the wings for 12 minutes, but I did it for 8, and next time, I think just 5 minutes for the first fry would be sufficient. YMMV of course!
Recipes:
Once again, Koa wanted to cook dinner for us, and the suggestion was to dig into our large supply of frozen salmon. So, a creamy pasta with salmon and asparagus was made by Koa and Mariko. It’s a dish that we’ve had several times and always enjoy. We also had yummy homemade bread and white wine (adults only!) while breathing in the fresh air out in the backyard. Not a bad way to spend another stay-at-home evening. 😀
In other news, Bay has finished up his first year of architecture school and can now relax a bit until classes start up again in August. The plan at the moment is for the university to re-open with restrictions on class gatherings… we’ll see how it all pans out, but regardless, Bay will be moving back down to Houston to room with three other architecture students in a couple of months. I hope the environment is safer by then…
Koa is almost done with his sophomore year, with just one more test to take. Of course, band is a still a big part of his life and the band program is continuing on as best as possible with remote activities. In addition, he’s a part of Inception Orchestra, where he is learning about music composition and getting mentored by musicians who work in the movie and television scoring industry. It’s pretty cool! He’s all set up with Bay’s old electric piano (to use as a midi-controller), and music composition software. Staying busy!
Koa offered to make some chicken sandwiches for the family for dinner, which was a nice surprise, and we gladly helped out. He and I measured out the spices, made the wet and dry ingredients for the batter, while Mariko cut and prepped the chicken breasts. She also made some delicious poppy-seed buns, cole slaw, and a side of rosemary potatoes. Koa battered the chicken and put them in the deep fryer, and of course was the taster.
The sandwiches turned out great, but Koa said the taste was a little lacking. I told him that it’s a good start, and he can tweak the spices to his liking or try another recipe for next time. All-in-all, it was an excellent meal.
Here’s the recipe for the “Almost-Famous Chicken Sandwiches” in case you’d like to give it a try!
We live near an H-Mart Korean Market so having yakiniku at home is a convenient dinner option. The market has many different kinds of meats, sliced and/or marinated, ready for the grill-pan. For tonight’s dinner, we had thinly-sliced fatty pork belly, lightly-marinated beef, and mini smoked sausages. Veggies included lettuce, kimchee, zucchini, onion, jalapeno, pickled cauliflower, and salad. So yummy!
I hope you had a nice day! 😀
