The Seasoned Noob's 1st birthday!

Well, today marks exactly 1 year since I started this whole deal and I just wanted to thank everyone for humoring me by reading my posts along the way, screwups and all. Just looking back at a few of the posts reminds me about how much I've learned just cooking different dishes and even though I'm still a recipe-based cook, I've experimented a lot more with different amounts of spices and whatnot to figure out how different tastes mix.

And as to the surprise...I'm unveiling a new, re-designed Seasoned Noob! I like some of the expandability that self-hosting a blog brings and after looking at what it would cost me for everything, I decided to finally bite the bullet. The price wasn't really all that bad and the other roadblock (read: my own laziness) was thrown by the wayside last week!

So I'm proud to present the new site but I'm still making a few tweaks (and there will be more in the future, I need a new banner, plus some other things) so I hope you all can bear with me.

The site is http://www.seasonednoob.com, please update your bookmarks and change your feeds/e-mail subscriptions!

Surprise on its way!

Ok well, maybe not a huge surprise to most of you that know me. But for those that don't, I can barely contain myself when I get excited so I'd probably have a tough time not letting the cat out of the bag if I saw you.

But anyway, big update coming, stay tuned :)

December Pot Luck

This post has been a little while in the making, I'd gotten into a little bit of a lazy bout and spent about a month without moving any photos off of my camera. But now they're moved and uploaded and it's time to post!

These pictures are from a pot luck I had in December, right after Frank's triumphant return from Asian subcontinent.

Mac & Cheese


Karen's Quinoa Salad


Karen's Other Salad


Jason's Chicken


Trung's Banh Mi

Atlantic Fish Co

I've been meaning to go to The Atlantic Fish Company for quite some time now, but finally made it out this past weekend! Every other time we attempted to go it was way too busy to wait. But this time, we planned ahead and made reservations. Atlantic Fish Company, by its name, specializes in seafood dishes, and all the dishes looked great. I was in the mood for scallops, and they turned out to be pretty good. They weren't very hot by the time the plates were served, but the taste was fantastic. The service was attentive, but I (and Dave) had a few gripes with the waiter because he was a bit pushy. The prices are a little bit higher than Legal Seafoods, but in general, I'd say that Atlantic Fish Co is a bit better, so worth the extra few bucks. Oh, and we did order a dozen raw littlenecks, but forgot to take a picture. Those were damn good. All in all, it was good fare!






Sea Scallops

I think this was cod with fish chowder

Blackened Striped Bass with pineapple salsa (special of the day)

Sea Bass and Lobster Ravioli

The Seasoned Frank

Hello Everybody! Dave invited me to become a contributor to this blog, and I accepted so here I am! Like Dave, I'm also a pretty big foodie, but I've been recently getting into eating healthy (when I'm eating at home/work). Of course, I still order anything I want when I go out to restaurants. I mean, if you're going out to eat, why limit yourself? I'll be posting lots of different things--of course all of them will be food related!

I thought I would post a couple of interesting videos I've watched in the past week or so. The first one is pretty much everything you need to know about bread, and the second is about American Chinese food. Both are from Taste3, which is a branch off of TEDtalks--a conference about Technology, Entertainment, and Design. Check out more Taste3 videos here.

Fried Rice

Fried Rice was one of those dishes I could never master, or even figure out adequately. The rice always came out a bit mushy and wasn't the fluffy mix that I'd gotten at restaurants. But after several failed attempts, I was given a couple golden tips that I wish I'd thought of before!

The first tip is that rice cooked the day before and refrigerated overnight is ideal. Refrigeration helps dry out the rice and makes it easier to break apart and mix well with the other ingredients. The other tip is choosing the rice itself. Jasmine rice or other long grained rice are best. I'd tried using japanese rice before and that did not turn out well at all. Reason is that the long grained rice tends to be on the drier side as well and doesn't stick together quite as much as the japanese rice.

With these tips in hand, I was able to create a modest copy of what you can get in most Chinese restaurants...enjoy!

Fried Rice

Serves 4-6
35 minute prep, 10 minute cooking

Ingredients:
- 4 cups cooked rice (refrigerated overnight)
- 1 boneless chicken breast, cubed
- 2 Chinese sausage (lap cheorng), diced
- ¼ lb medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, chopped
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- ½ tbsp light soy sauce
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp white pepper
- ¼ tbsp dark sweet soy sauce (Ketjap Manis)
- ½ cup frozen green peas/carrots
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 eggs, beaten

Method:
1. Heat a wok with the canola oil. Toss in garlic, sauté until aromatic.
2. Add chicken and shrimp, stir fry until more than half cooked. Season with salt, add the Chinese sausage and the onion.
3. Add in cold rice and stir well with the ingredients. Add in the soy sauce, fish sauce, sweet soy sauce, white pepper and toss well.
4. Quickly add in frozen peas/carrots, toss well with the rice
5. Clear some space in the middle of the wok and add in the beaten eggs. Wait for about 30-45 seconds, and then begin tossing the rice with the egg to get it spread out and mixed with the rice.