By now, it should be a well known fact that I’m a fan of food. I’ve shown y’all my favorite meals, what I eat in a day, and everything I ate in my favorite cities, but I haven’t yet tapped into the potential of a whole week of eating. That’s 21 meals, people. I’m not going to showcase all 21, but I thought it’d be interesting to take y’all along for a week in my life, except the food does all the talking. This is the best food I’ve eaten this week. Many carbs included.
Sunday: Breakfast
We’re starting off this week very strong with some youtiao! If you don’t know what youtiao are, they’re essentially Chinese fried dough sticks. They’re amazing, but I haven’t had one in probably over a year. My dad picked them up from Lotte yesterday after looking for them for months, and these were the bready chewy crispy deliciousness I always remembered they were. You can never go wrong with youtiao.
Sunday: Lunch
We’re keeping up with the fried theme for lunch because we made some homemade spring rolls! They’re really easy to make at home; you can buy the wrappers, and the filing is just meat and veggies. You basically just put the filling on the wrapper, fold in the ends, and roll it up. This video explains it better, but it’s so simple once you get the hang of it. We don’t put too much oil in the pan when frying to keep it relatively healthier, but these are definitely a nice indulgence to have every once in a while. Chef’s kiss.
We also made some guo bian hu, which is another traditional Chinese dish that is essentially flat rice noodle-like things in soup. They’re called guo bian hu because guo bian in Chinese means “side of the pot”, and you make those rice noodle things by mixing up your batter and then pouring it on the side of the pot. The soup cooks in the center, and after a bit, you can scrape down the sides of the pot and you get these real cute lil noodle things. Rinse and repeat ‘til you get a pot full of them. I’ve liked them more and more as I’ve gotten older, and they’re something I definitely want to learn how to make.
Sunday: Dinner
I didn’t expect to be including so many pictures from one day, but today we made dumplings, so I mean, I had to. We don’t use the dumpling wrappers from the store; instead, we make our own dough with flour and water. Then, we just roll it out into circles, put in the filling (pork + veggies), and make lil dumpling tacos. It’s kinda therapeutic, and you can get out all of your anger when rolling out the dough. I always like the boiled dumplings better than the fried ones, but both are absolutely delicious. Now, we can just freeze the extras and have fresh dumplings in 10 minutes whenever we want! Alo pictured: delicious air-fried chicken wings. Not pictured: steamed broccoli because we’re all about that balanced diet.
Tuesday: Breakfast
There’s been avocado toast in almost all of my food posts, and I intend to keep it that way. Here’s a cute pic of my avo toast ft. cherries and golden kiwi, which are so much sweeter and tastier than normal kiwi. 10/10. Classic. Delicious.
Tuesday: Dinner
Here’s the spread for today’s dinner. Starting from 12 o’clock and going clockwise, we got steamed broccoli, leftover fried rice, scallion pancakes made by yours truly, pork with carrots and peanuts cooked in the pressure cooker, squid, and home-grown bean sprouts because my father is a garden man. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but the scallion pancakes were top notch. I’m really proud of them because they turned out so good and they were all flaky and layered. Someone make me the head chef at a Chinese restaurant already. Overall, very tasty and definitely one of my favorite meals this week.
Wednesday: Breakfast
Today for breakfast I had some very very good banana pancakes that my mom made as well as a few peach slices. First, let me just say that these pancakes are heaven on earth and honestly, anything banana incorporated into a breakfast food is bound to be delicious. Second, peaches are one of the best summer fruits, aside from mango obviously. Third, I used to be on the waffle side of the pancake vs. waffle debate, but after many very pleasant pancake experiences and many not-so-pleasant waffle experiences, I may have to change my alignment. These pancakes make me want to go team pancake.
Wednesday: Lunch
I was tasked with making lunch, so I made the same thing I do every time: pizza. I used pizza recipe 1 from my food faves post, and rolled it out into this weird oblong rectangle because we don’t own a circular pizza pan. I topped it with tomato sauce (because that’s the superior sauce option), shredded mozzarella, onions, tomato, bell peppers, celery (we had too much in the fridge so it goes on here), ham, and turkey. Quite a loaded pizza, but everything tasted really good! This post goes out to all the crust lovers because pizza crust should never be abandoned and left uneaten on your plate. Pizza crust is delicious.
Wednesday: Dinner
Today’s dinner was particularly nice because it featured jasmine rice as the main carb. Jasmine rice is so unbelievably good, but we don’t have it that often, so when we do, it tastes even better. In the center of the table we got this big plate of pork with glass noodles, cabbage, and winter melon, as well as some sauteed greens and fish on the other plates. The big plate was the star of the show, and the sauce from that dish plus the rice was heaven in my mouth. I would also like to give a shout out to the glass noodles because I can never turn down a good glass noodle. A+.
Thursday: Breakfast
Let’s give a round of applause for my mom, who always makes the best breakfasts. Today she made a breakfast burrito with egg, lettuce, avocado, and youtiao (the same ones from Sunday’s brekkie). This burrito was really good because it had such a nice mix of textures: there was the chewy from the youtiao, crunchy from the lettuce, and soft from the egg, avo, and tortilla. There were also some cherries on the side, which are always great. Great way to start off this fine Thursday.
Thursday: Snack
It’s our first snack feature in this post and you best believe it’s a good one. We had some overripe bananas, so I threw it all the way back to season 1 of quarantine by making some banana bread. Because quarantine is a TV show and it probably has 9 seasons by now. I used my favorite recipe by Cookie and Katie, and it was phenomenal. It’s so easy to make that you only need one bowl and less than half an hour to pull the batter together. You’re also getting in your fruits and nuts by eating it! One of my favorite bakes by far (Katie’s carrot cake is also up there), and it’s safe to say that my family enjoyed it.
Thursday: Dinner
Tonight for dinner I present to you steamed pork buns made by a family friend (contactless delivery, don’t worry), soup with pork and white carrot, salmon with potatoes and onions on top, and home-grown bean sprouts. My dad grows these bean sprouts in our kitchen sink, and they taste and look just like the ones you get from the grocery store. You probably can’t see the salmon in the picture because it’s buried under a pile of potatoes, onions, and sauce, but I assure you, it’s there. The sauce for the salmon was slightly spicy, but my weak taste buds could take the heat (with a few sips of water). Loved this meal.
Friday: Lunch
I was really surprised that we had wontons for lunch, because it’s been a minute since I’ve had wontons. These were just meat and veggie wontons in soup with bell peppers and cucumbers, and on the side there was some leftover pizza from Wednesday. The wontons tasted great, so I’m hoping we have them more often (hi mom if you’re reading this; wontons are good). Also, is it just me, or does cold pizza taste really good? I don’t really know why, but cold pizza’s a good snack.
Friday: Dinner
Nothing like a good ol’ sushi night. It was a tad unconventional, that’s for sure, but it was like make-your-own sushi but with a little Chinese flair. On the table was seaweed, white rice, scrambled egg with turkey and celery, beef and onions, this seafood that’s bei ji bei in Chinese (I forgot what the English translation is), and winter melon and cucumber. Definitely a very stacked sushi filling spread, but I usually filled the lil seaweed squares with rice, egg, beef, and one of the bei ji bei. It was kind of like a mini sushi burrito, and it tasted really good too. Would eat again.
Saturday: Lunch
Today’s lunch is a favorite of both my dad and myself: rice noodles, which in Chinese is chao mi fen. My mom added some carrots, onions, and pork to go with the noodles, and the flavors were just immaculate. It’s not as heavy as other Chinese noodle dishes, like the ever-famous lo mein, since the rice noodles are so thin and the actual dish doesn’t have that much sauce. It’s a pretty dry noodle dish because of that, but according to my dad, the drier the better. Just because the noodles don’t have a lot of sauce doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of flavor. A great way to start the weekend eating, and fingers crossed we eat this again soon.
Saturday: Dinner
We’re ending the week off strong with a spread of (starting from the soup bowl and going clockwise), soup that was essentially really good boiled lettuce, pork with soy beans and potatoes, leftover salmon from a couple nights ago, fried fish (but they’re actual mini fish), and sauteed greens. Today’s carb of choice was brown rice, which I am such a fan of. It’s good for you and tastes great, which is definitely optimal. My dad actually started growing potatoes in his garden, but I’m unsure whether these potatoes were home-grown or store-bought. Regardless, they were delicious, but they’re potatoes, so what’s not to like?
That’s it for my week of eating! Hope you enjoyed seeing all of the good eats and fun dishes, and stay tuned for more food in the future!
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