1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup milk
1 cup corn kernels
4 scallions, chopped
1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 ounces mild cheese, grated
salt

1. Combine flour, baking powder, paprika, oregano, sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and milk and gradually incorporate into the dry ingredients, making sure the batter is free of lumps.
3. Fold corn, scallions and red pepper flakes into the batter and refrigerate for a couple of minutes.
4. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil and drop about 2 tablespoons of the batter into the pan. Repeat 3 or 4 more times, leaving space between each fritter.
5. When the underside begins to brown and the top has set, flip the fritter and continue to fry the other side. Transfer to a warmed plate and top with cheese when finished cooking.
6. Repeat with additional batter and cheese, adding more oil as necessary.

Makes 4 servings

1 pound flank steak
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dry mustard
black pepper

1. Marinate flank steak in soy sauce, red wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, oil, lemon juice, garlic and mustard overnight.
2. Remove meat from the marinade. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and dry fry the flank steak. Allow to rest for a few minutes, then thinly slice to serve with freshly grated black pepper.

Makes 4 servings

This is what I made for dinner tonight, Red Curry Spring Rolls and Asian Cold Noodle Salad. I more or less just ate the pork guts (that is, the guts from the
spring rolls, not actual pork guts) and made a huge pot of Edamame. I sloppily photographed
this whole mess before retiring to the couch.

The spring rolls weren't bad, they were just the kind of roll that required frying to be good. Some spring rolls can get by with that fresh, rice papery texture, but to me, they just have to be packed with crisp vegetables. Of course that would be my fault for not piling on the carrots and cabbage, or for not frying them, but I feel really lazy lately. The flavor of the pork, albeit spicy, is really pronounced. A nice hot Thai style dish that I gladly ate as a pork chop.

The cold noodle salad did absolutely nothing for me. The flavor of the dressing was unpleasantly potent until added to the
noodles, where it almost got lost. I'm undecided whether or not this was a good thing, so I wasn't particularly fond of it.
Perhaps this is one of those days where my taste buds are working against me. If nothing else, I got to use up (waste) the
rest of the Napa cabbage. I do like the idea of using tahini as a basis for Asian sauces, which prominently feature sesame
oil, since I've previously only considered tahini to be used for things like Hummus. Perhaps had I combined the noodles into the wrap this would have had a better payoff.

1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon red curry paste
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 pound pork tenderloin, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
8 rice paper wrappers
2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded
water

1. Combine garlic, curry paste, water, sugar, fish sauce and lime juice in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook until
2. gar dissolves, then set aside to cool. Marinate pork overnight in the prepared sauce once cooled.
3. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the pork until cooked through.
4. Soak rice paper wrappers until soft. Roll up with a portion of the pork and shredded carrots. Serve with your favorite
5. pping sauce.

Makes 4 servings

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon ginger puree
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon sugar
1 scallion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
8 ounces rice stick noodles
1 cup Napa cabbage or bok choy, shredded
2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded

1. Whisk together vinegar, tahini, soy sauce, oils, ginger, garlic, cayenne, sugar, scallion and red chili flakes and set
2. ide.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the noodles until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold water to prevent
4. rther cooking.
5. Combine noodles, cabbage and carrots and toss with prepared dressing. Refrigerate before serving.

Makes 6 servings

I accidentally threw out Shannon's lunch. It had been sitting in the fridge for a week, so I figured she wasn't going to eat it. It was leftover Sesame Beef that she had bought take out. I tried to duplicate the recipe as best as I could by comprising what I could find on the internet and what I remember it tasting like. She said it turned out better than the stuff she'd bought, except there was no gooey caramelized bits. I made enough so that she had some to take for lunch on Monday. My dinner is actually what I'm posting for Tomorrow and now I'm finally caught up on updates again. If luck would have it, there's no way I can possibly fall behind again with only two weeks remaining.

I thought this recipe would be kind of like Ginger Beef, because the flavor is sort of similar, but it's actually quite different. I really like the basis of the sauce starting from the orange zest and chili flakes, it definitely adds a lot of flavor to the dish. This will be taking place of the ginger beef recipe in my repertoire, for whenever Shannon wants me to make it. I served it just over some white rice. For some reason, the sweetness and orange zest reminds me of date squares and now I'm really craving one. I may have to whip up a batch for Christmas baking before the year is done. Despite not being able to come up with dinner ideas, I sure have a lot of dessert ones now churning in my head.

1/2 pound sirloin steak, thinly sliced
1 egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon cold water
3 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
1 tablespoon chili oil or sweet chili sauce
salt and pepper

1. Season beef with salt and pepper. Combine egg and sesame oil, then dunk individual slices of beef into the egg mixture, then the cornstarch, shaking off excess. Set aside.
2. Bring water, orange zest and red pepper flakes to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce by half, then strain and reserve water.
3. Return water to the saucepan, along with brown sugar, sesame oil, vinegar and soy sauce. Bring to a boil.
4. Combine cornstarch and cold water and gradually whisk into the sauce. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Stir in the sesame seeds and reduce heat to low.
5. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat and dry fry the beef until cooked through.
6. Combine with prepared sauce and drizzle with hot chili oil. Serve over white rice.

Makes 4 servings

Another restaurant dinner, much to my chagrin. Shannon bought me tickets to The Dears, one of my favorite bands and undoubtably the best live performers I know, for my birthday last week. The concert was tonight, so after work we both got cleaned up and tried to find a restaurant we could afford that offered a menu item I haven't already eaten. It amazes me how unbelievably difficult this is! Surprisingly, we settled on a 50's themed diner called Nickels, after seeing several locations on a single street we assumed they must have at least somewhat decent food in order to stay in business and went in to take disgustingly cute pictures of ourselves drinking a malt with two straws.

I've grown a little wary of any restaurant that says something along the lines of "Tourists welcome!" on their door, because it gives the aire of, "We don't care if you come back!" to anyone actually from here. This couldn't have been more correct with this place. It took a fairly minimal amount of time to be seated, but actually getting our order taken too far longer. I ended up ordering the clubhouse sandwich; actually, a smoked meat clubhouse sandwich, and Shannon had a burger. The malt we desired was not on the menu, so we had a chocolate milkshake instead, which was basically that quik bunny syrup mixed into what I'll assume was someone else's vanilla shake.

I assume this because that's what the assembly of the rest of our food tasted like. When the food arrived, surprisingly quickly considering our service and the amount of people in the restaurant, the fries were colder than my skin, soggy and dripping with grease. It was as though they had pre-fried them once and were waiting to fry them again to serve, but hadn't actually done so. The toast in my clubhouse was more like slightly toasted bread that had been taken from other sandwiches kicking around the dish pit; incredibly soggy and unmanagable. The smoked meat was not Montreal smoked meat (why would you sell anything else in Montreal?) but this sort of slimy corned beef concoction that might have resembled pastrami if it had any flavor other than salt.

Shannon ordered a pickle as a side to her burger. For the unbelievable price of two dollars plus tax she received a pickle sliced into four that was perhaps inferior to any pickle ever created. It was comparable to a week old cucumber soaked in a solution I use to clean my windows; just vinegar and water. The coleslaw was the only thing plated that was not horrible, but it was far from memorable. I went to the washroom and a little kid had been waiting to jump out and scare the next person to enter. It's a good thing I didn't have to go too badly or I would have just then. He ran off laughing as I went about my business.

I've been wanting to make cabbage rolls for ages now, but never really got around to it. I've always thought I make an exceptional cabbage roll because of one "secret" ingredient; cinnamon. It's funny that I never attributed this flavor to Moussaka before, but that's the basic idea. Cabbage rolls that taste reminiscent of moussaka with a very rich tomato sauce that sort of browns and crisped around them. However, since moving here I haven't been able to find the typical sour cabbage that I would buy to make cabbage rolls and did not feel like bothering with buying an enormous head of cabbage and making enough to feed the entire neighborhood, so I created what I'll call Cabbage Roll Soup, a culmination of all the ingredients I would have put in cabbage rolls, except in a soup instead.

I thought my heart was in the right place. When has anything gone wrong while trying to take the easy way out because of your certain laziness? However, the end result was not as appetizing as I had hoped. The pinch of brown sugar I added to take away from the bitterness seemed to change the entire flavor to one like vinegar. When your food tastes vinegary and no vinegar has been added, something has gone terribly wrong. Shannon agreed that perhaps the soup was too sweet, but otherwise delicious. Bless her heart for no wanting to break mine. I would otherwise just pretend this is an ingredient list for cabbage rolls and go that route instead of the soup. Actually, that wouldn't turn out too well, either. Perhaps just try adding cinnamon and brown sugar to your tomato sauce then next time you make cabbage rolls.

1 pound lean ground beef
2 medium onions, chopped
1 small head cabbage, cored and chopped
5-1/2 ounces tomato paste
6 cups beef broth
1/2 cup long grain rice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon brown sugar
salt and pepper

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and fry until no longer pink, then add the onions and cabbage and a pinch of salt.
2. Reduce heat to medium and cook until cabbage is softened, about 10 minutes.
3. Transfer contents to a soup pot and add tomato paste and beef broth. Bring to a boil and add the rice, cinnamon and brown sugar. Cook until rice is tender, then season to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes 8 servings