Modified pasta sauce + ma po tofu

Yesterday, I made ma po tofu. My ingredients:

• Grind pork (80% lean; NEED to get a leaner pork next time)
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Soft tofu (cut in cubes)
• Chili garlic sauce (pre-made)

Most of the time for this dish was waiting for the grind pork to cook and dry out. I had to soak so many paper towels' worth of oil in order for this to happen. I also put lots of ginger to balance out the strong pork stench... meat is so gross sometimes.
After all the pork dried out, I added my garlic, then sauce, then tofu. The sauce was too salty for me to add any more.
Overall, super easy dish that came out tasting the same way that mom makes it back home. My only complaint is that there's no "ma la," or spiciness that ma po tofu is supposed to have. I need to get chili oil, or ma la seasoning, or something to make this in the future. However, considering that it's summertime, maybe it's not so bad that it's not spicy.

Today, I made linguini with modified sauce b/c I was craving pasta post-running. Ingredients:

• Barilla linguini (Parrotta's recommendation)
• Prego chunky garden - mushroom supreme & baby portobello (already bought by suitemate John)
• Grind pork (maybe 1/4 lb?)
• Garlic (5 cloves)
• Onions
• Jalapeno pepper (1/5)
• American white mushrooms (5)
• Sugar (tablespoon)
• Already cooked spinach & golden mushrooms (leftover)

I cooked the grind pork (same 80% lean one), then drained juices. Added garlic to the pork to help the flavor. Then added onions (which immediately sweetened up the pork stench).
Chopped up and added the rest of the ingredients in the order listed above. Spinach & golden mushrooms weren't chopped.
The sugar was an afterthought, after sampling the sauce. There were so many heavy, savory ingredients that I needed something to lighten up the sauce. I didn't have carrots left, so I just figured a bit of sugar would be fine. It didn't ruin the sauce, but looking back, I wish I didn't add it.

Sauce came out tasting okay; the fact that I used Prego sauce instead of standard tomato sauce meant that I was going to have lots of different flavors. Also, I wish I had fresh tomatoes, which would've helped lighten up the sauce and add more juice. My last complaint is that I couldn't taste the spice from the jalapeno. I guess I just need to be more bold with it, and add more. (considering doing that right now...)

Got lots more recipes from the mother by talking on the phone last night. Looking forward to making them! :D

Food beginnings + Sha Cha fried rice

Here's a place for me to keep track of all my cooking this summer, so that I can build upon what I've already done, and reuse some ideas.

Some things I've made so far:

• Added chopped vegetables (celery, carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, and more) to a Chinese take-out chicken with garlic sauce. Sauteed vegetables, then stirred in Chinese takeout in order to increase quantity (and balance out meat to vegetable ratio.)
• Beef broth (cooked for 3 hours) using...
• Beef (boil water, cook beef, remove yucky stuff, then add to big pot)
• Cabbage, carrots, radish, celery (roughly chopped; used for soup flavoring, not for eating)
• Ginger
• Hot pot sauce (using sha cha sauce, peanut butter, hot chili oil from Chinese takeout, soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic)
• Steamed/boiled spinach and golden mushrooms (to go with hot pot sauce)
• Fried firm tofu (corn starch for outside; to go with hot pot sauce)
• Bean sprouts (boiled shortly, then with sesame oil and salt)
• Brown rice

Today, I used the leftover brown rice to make a Sha Cha fried rice. My ingredients were:

• Leftover brown rice (~1 cup)
• Leftover fried tofu (chopped)
• Cabbage
• Garlic (minced)
• Onions (chopped)
• 1 beat egg (poured over, then mixed in the rice)
• Hot pot sauce
• Chinese pork sausage (2)
• Sesame oil, salt, sugar for seasoning

Overall, not too bad. I didn't like that there wasn't much color to the dish, because there were no carrots, green onions, corn, parsley, or cilantro. Also, because I added the pork sausage later (the fried rice seemed incomplete without it), the rice is now more cooked/burnt than I'd like it to be. Next time, I'll use more sausage, add more colors, add more sweet vegetables (this time, the only sweet veggie was cabbage), and not rely on the hot pot sauce for flavor. I plan to make another batch of Chinese fried rice using the rest of the sausage, and attempt Kimchi fried rice in the future.