staples

i generally really enjoy cooking. it's exciting to cut and chop things and put all the ingredients together in the hopes of making something tasty. in particular i'm a huge fan of cutting vegetables because it's such a lovely and sterile exercise compared to chopping bloody hunks of meat. i went through a phase where i was into cutting meat, but i'm back on a much more normal page and much prefer to slice its green and stalky brethren.

but sometimes, well, a lot of times, preparing dinner is a little bit of a headache. it's really only fair that i make meals because i'm home much much more than j, basically putting me within walking distance of grocery stores all the time. i have no excuse! and in a sparkly world that rains unicorns and skittles all the live long day, i would be whipping up spectacular stir fries and chinese soups and barefoot contessa galore every day. but it's not so sparkly and i have work and things to do and sometimes at around five thirty pm i peek into our fridge and SIGH because there is nothing in the fridge, and i don't want to think about dinner and hm isn't instant ramen looking oh so good there?

at any rate, here are three things that i make sure to always have in the fridge, for five thirty pm pinches:

1. frozen carrots and peas

excellent for making a quick fried rice; stir frying with an egg, some sort of ground beef, oyster sauce, garlic, and black bean garlic sauce; throwing in elbow noodles with chicken broth.

2. eggs

seriously wonderful. what can an egg not do? i can make a fried rice, i can fry it and make a pocket egg, i can poach it in instant ramen (have you ever done it? so next time you make a ramen, right when you put in the whole sheet of noodles, crack the egg right on top of the flatbed of noodles so that it'll stay supported. eventually it becomes solid enough that it kind of floats around like a poached egg. good times!) other than a slightly disastrous egg salad that came out all kinds of sad, the egg has not done me wrong yet!

3. lop cheurng

this chinese sausage basically peps up anything i have going on. vegetables are boring? chop some in. it really shines of course, in fried rice. it's like spam, totally versatile, awesome.