Tag Archives: Cooking

A few years ago I became obsessed with taco trucks, or food trucks in general. I went on a road trip to Ohio for some exploring with Alex, and we stopped in Columbus just so we could stop at a taco truck. I was advised, probably by Carolyn, to make sure I knew what I was ordering so I investigated various menu items before we went. I decided I wanted to get al pastor –  a gyro type meat concoction – even though gyro terrified/terrifies me. Well it was DELICIOUS, so now whenever I find al pastor on a menu I get it.

I was looking on pinterest for some new crock pot recipes in preparation for 10 more weeks of working 4-midnight and needing dinner to be ready when I get home when I found a recipe for al pastor. What? Because it’s a meat conglomeration that’s usually cooked on a spit and then carved off with a big knife, I wasn’t too sure how that was going to be done in a crock pot but I clicked anyway. http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/slow-cooker-tacos-al-pastor/

So, it’s imitation al pastor but I thought I’d try it. I’ve never cooked any pork before. Pork terrifies me, because you can get so sick, and get weirdo parasites from undercooked pork. Typically I stick to chicken. But this really seemed pretty easy.

Carolyn had to help me and explain what kind of pork I needed to get, and wow, it’s a good thing it’s pulled pork in the end because I massacred that sucker. It was on the bone, since the boneless pork shoulder was 3 times as much money. I am still uber grossed out by touching meat but I did better than I thought I would. I probably wasted a ton though because my knives are not sharp, and I eventually gave up because I just didn’t know how to get any more off the bone. Oh well.

The rest was easy – chop up the pineapple and onion, throw everything in the food processor.

So it slow cooked for 4 hours, I shredded it, and there was a whooooole ton of the “sauce” left in the crock pot. I made myself a taco with the meat and some salsa, and it’s ok, but it wasn’t spectacular and it didn’t taste like real al pastor. I didn’t know what else to do with all the pork, because I wasn’t gonna make more tacos from it, so I decided to turn it into a soup. I used a few ladles of the left over pineapple sauce, a bunch of broth, sauteed another small onion with some jalapenos, and added a can of black beans and a bunch of frozen corn. Turns out way better than just the pork plain. Made some guac to go with it on the side (cuz I have a weird thing where I have to eat more than one thing in a meal, and prefer 3 things, and one of those things should be crunchy – so usually it’s chips and hummus/dip/salsa.) Food for a week now!

i have a billion tomatoes (262 cherry tomatoes and 10 big tomatoes picked yesterday), and i needed something to do with them so i decided to try making pasta sauce. looked up stuff on line, cassie sent me some, and mom. i did just a real easy one mom made herself yesterday. 2 tomatoes (which i took the skins off by putting them in boiling water, then cold water, all fancy like a real cook haha), jalapeno, garlic, onion, spices, olive oil, tiny bit of sugar, and some red wine. cooked for about 40 min by the end of it all.

it’s pretty good. a little bit too sweet, my tomatoes are fairly sweet. i probably would leave out the red wine, cuz that’s all i smell now and after last week in Hammondsport i decided i don’t like red wine. it’s pretty spicy, which is good (for me). and the best part of all, IT WASN’T TOO HARD! hahaha

ok i’m not so cooking impaired that i can’t make corn muffins. i’ve made them 100s of times with no problem. until today. and really it’s not my fault. i turned the oven on to preheat, 400 degrees, as i mixed the muffins together. then the oven started shaking or something, the pans i had left on top were vibrating and i looked at the oven and it’s smoking. so i turn it off real quick and there is a bubble of something burning on the coil…except my oven is the cleanest oven you’ve ever seen outside the show room, and i’ve only ever used it to make biscuits…no pies or anything that could possibly boil over and drip. so i have no idea where this scum came from.

anyway…i’m out of luck, no oven because i’m too scared to turn it on and a bowl of muffin batter. well i have a toaster oven, it goes to 400 i’ll use that. i forgot how much toaster ovens completely SUCK ASS and turn off the heat in cycles…so the first 10 minutes the heat was on, enough that the back muffins started to burn…but were still raw and they all erupted like volcanos, which i’ve never seen before. then the heat turned off so the lava kept spreading. it turned on again after that for the last few minutes, allowing the lava to cook and the muffins to continue to burn…

mom came over to look at the oven and now it doesn’t heat up at all.

i ate 2 of them anyway.

i cooked!!! omg. i didn’t make any formal new years resolutions, but i really really SHOULD eat better. so i bought real food yesterday. some ground beef and thin sliced pork.

one thing i can make is chili, which is what the ground beef went to. easy, no problem, made it during the sabres intermission hahaha. after we lost the game (again) i brought out the pork. i have no idea how to cook, honestly. i am super paranoid about under cooking things, which means i over cook everything and then it’s half burned and bad. i tried to spice the pork slices with garlic and oregano, which of course, didn’t really stick. i managed to cook them fine, and they tasted ok (tho not highly spiced). complete with corn and a salad. but now i’m freaking hungry already!!! wtf. when i eat carb loaded meals like pasta and mashed potatoes i’ll be all set for hours. i eat a real complete meal and i’m hungry after an hour. arg.

people at work are doing a “biggest loser” type contest. $100 entry, whoever loses the most weight wins all the money. i guess the target is 10% of your weight. i happened to be in the office, where they have a scale for weigh in and for shits and giggles i weighed myself. i really should have taken bets, because no one could believe i weigh 130lbs. i’m like, “look at the scale, 130!!” so now they want me to enter the contest, since the goal would be for me to lose 13lbs in 10 weeks, and it’s a sure bet that i’d lose. hahah.

clinical was weird again, cuz everyone was uncomfortable after the lil outburst from the proff last class. you could tell he was all uncomfy, and i know i was. cuz i always feel guilty as if i’m the one who spurred his annoyance, even tho i wasn’t. so we got our tests back and senior surveys. so i filled out the scantron part and now i have to write a lil thing about what i liked best and least about geneseo. don’t worry i’ll be nice. 🙂 got 58/60 on the test as i already knew the day i took it. too bad he won’t tell me to just skip the exam. just don’t want to have to waste my time taking it when i’m going to get an A no matter what.

anyway. i defrosted this little steak thing i brought back after break. no idea how to cook it. mom told me, but that was months ago, and i’ve forgotten what she said so i’m going to have to call her or something. but i figured i better start using up the frozen food. i have chicken strips left. wish i had a deep fryer tho, because they’re icky in the oven…one side is always kinda mushy instead of crispy. oh well.

so tired. dunno if i’m gonna nap or not. i need to do laundry tomorrow. and since i didn’t really do my reading this weekend, need to catch up on that still.

this is why i don’t cook….
attempted the whole steak thing. carolyn told me some stuff to do. so i did what she said, and i started to cook it. cooked 1 side on medium for 5 min, 2nd side on medium for 5 min… it’s sorta smoking like when i set the fire alarm off (but not as bad)…so i cut it open, yeah still completely alive. meanwhile both sides are nice and dark crispy…so keep cooking it, cook my easy mac cuz i have nothing else for a side. mom calls back about my message on how to cook the steak. tell her that i’ve cooked it for 10 min and it’s still alive. so she says put oil in the pan, cover it with the lid and turn down a few so it doesn’t smoke, it’ll cook the inside. do that, 10 min later STILL ALIVE! not AS alive, but still bleeding and alive. so i cut it in half put the 2 halfs face down, cook some more. then i said screw it. and i stopped. i ate it. it was still pink. i HATE pink meat. but it wasn’t bleeding so i guess that was a plus. but it didn’t even taste all that good even tho i spiced it, AND i’m still hungry. screw cooking.

i am never cooking again. yours truely set off the smoke detector today. AND I WASNT EVEN BURNING ANYTHING! NOTHING WAS ON FIRE! i was cooking a hamburger…and well smoke detector went off. apparently if only one goes off, only your unit’s fire stuff goes off. but if 2 go off, it’s thought to be a bigger fire, and so the whole set of units goes off. well the whole unit went off. BUT SERIOUSLY! NOTHING WAS BURNING! we didn’t know if it went off by itself once the place aired out or not. well i guess they don’t. someone called UniPolice on the emergency phone (since our smoke detectors brilliantly do not ring into UP…that’s so smart) and this police lady came. she looked in our house to see that nothing was on fire, and happened to see the “No Parking” sign on our window sill. great. so she’s like, is that our sign. and me and danielle can’t lie. so we’re like yeah. she’s like can i have it back, i won’t report it. THANK GOD CUZ I REALLY DONT NEED TO GET IN TROUBLE AGAIN! so anyway. she went and turned the alarms off, and then came back to file a report and shit. and took our sign.

never. cooking. again.

from yahoo news – “Study: Living wage reduces urban poverty rates” – gee…is that something that really needed to be studied to be known? cuz that’s a big HELLO to me…if you’re getting a living wage, that means you’re not in poverty. dingdingding!!

i look dead. like seriously. my eyes have no shine in them whatso ever. they’re not dry tho. they’re just really…greyish. and i have no color in my face. my head just feels really really weird. i went to the summer job fair in hopes that maybe places other than summer camps would be there, and i could maybe find a permanent job. no luck. there was a table with employment stuff, so i took stuff from there. and they had a basket looking for resumes dealing with graphic design, web design, and a few other things. so i asked the guy if they were looking for people with degrees in webdesign, since i’m self taught i don’t have one but i know how to do it. he’s like, send me your resume. so i’m gonna do that. i guess. he probably thought i was on drugs, cuz of this whole weird eyes thing, and they’re half closed cuz i can’t open them any more than that.

we’ll it’s really beautiful outside. i need to go to aldi and the postoffice. i can walk to the post office. but if i need to get food so i should drive. i’ll probably just not go food shopping. we have milk and i have cereal so i guess i’ll just eat that. i wish i could not go buy food until i go home…maybe i’ll eat at the dining hall alot next week.

yesterday i was looking up flights to europe again. i could go to ireland for break in a week from sunday to sunday for 450$…leaving from buffalo…including a connection in NYC…CHEAPNESS!!!! but if i wanted to go to ireland from friday to friday it’d be over 2000$…how does that work?! i could go to London in June for 250$!!!!!! but june is the supposed road trip…

and speaking of that, our study got approved for the conference in new orleans. so definitely going. i think i dreamed about new orleans last night. walking in the streets, really sunny, thinking i really need to put sunblock on. lol.