Tomatoes Stuffed with Crabby Mashed Potatoes

I've been feeling under the weather for what seems like forever. I'm not fully sick, but it does feel like maybe there are knives in my throat and some sort of roadblock in my sinuses. When I feel like this I want comfort food and nothing says comfort like not having to chew. Enter mashed potatoes, my old friend.

We were eating these while watching the new episode of The Office, as you do, and all of a sudden Kyle said, "Wait, pause it, pause it. ... This is so good. Why is this so good?" I explained that it was moderatly to extremely unhealthy, hence the delisciousness. But don't let that put you off, you can always work out later, right? Right?

Tomatoes Stuffed with Crabby Mashed Potatoes
4 or 5 smallish potatoes
half a medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
crab meat, however much you like
1 individual sized yoghurt
a squeeze or spoonful of mayonnaise
salt
pepper
parmesan cheese, as much as you can afford.
4 large tomatoes

Peel, boil and mash the potatoes. While they're doing their thing cut the tops off of the tomatoes and scoop out most of the insides (save this for pasta sauce or scrambled eggs or what have you). Sprinkle some salt inside and turn them upside down to drain some of the moisture. Next, fry the onions and garlic in butter or oil until soft and then add them to potatoe mixture. Add the rest of the ingredients, stirring to combine and then carefully fill the tomatoes up to the brim.

In lieu of an oven I cooked these in a water bath. Fill a large pot up with 2-3 inches of water. Carefully wrap each tomatoe in tin foil, making sure the edges or seams of the foil will stay above the water or this will all be soup. Settle them into gently boiling water for a few minutes until the tomatoe has softened. Unwrap and enjoy not having to chew!

I had another meat accident recently. It started innocently enough, it always does. I pointed to some pieces of pork in the grocery store and gestured the number two to the butcher. Simple enough, right? Of course not. He assumed I meant two stacks of pork, for a total of about 15 slices, otherwise known as 13 too many. Stellar. So now my freezer is full of pork slices that are unfortunately not quite pork chops or sam gyup sal or anything I recognize other than fatty. Fatty they are indeed.

I tried to mask this small fact with an apple, onion and thyme topping, but it was only a marginal success. I'd suggest trying this with a proper piece of pork, like a chop or even as a side with a roast.

Unfortunate Pieces of Pork with Apple, Onion and Thyme

- proper pieces of pork
- half an onion, roughly chopped
- about the same amount of apple
- few sprigs of thyme
- splash or two of chicken stock
- salt and pepper

Fry the pork in a pan with a little bit of oil. The length of time necessary will depend on the thickness of your meat (ooh, isn't that the truth?) Mine took about 15 seconds on each side.

Remove from the pan and drain the excess fat if necessary. Throw in the onion and cook until translucent. Add the apple and thyme and cook until they soften a bit. Add the chicken stock and scrape the bottom of the pan to get all those favour bits from the bottom. Add the meat back to the pan and when the stock reduces a bit you're done and done.

I ate this with some coleslaw as part of my 12 step plan to become better friends with cabbage. We're currently at'tolerate' and working towards 'frenemies.'

Vietnamese Two Ways

Before I got here I assumed that there would be more crossover foods in Korean. There's so many countries nearby I figured there would naturally be give and take between them. Kimchi pad thai, why not? Sadly no, Korean food is pretty steadfastly Korean and I've yet to even see a Thai restaurant. That doesn't mean it's impossible though, it just requires a bit of looking.

In the import aisle of Dong-A department store I found all of the fixings for Vietnamese rice bowls. I think they're actually imported from North America becuase there's English writing on them which kind of blows my mind and makes them a little more expensive but nevertheless, they're there.



I marinated a couple of chicken breasts in soy sauce, ginger and garlic and then grilled them while I chopped up the cucumber, carrots and lettuce and softned the noodles. Vermicelli is great food for small kitchens because it doesn't need a burner. Just pour boiling water in a bowl and let them soak. Then strain, throw everything in a bowl and douse with fish sauce. The bottle I found had chilies and onions in it already so it had a nice kick.

The next night I took the leftovers, added some grilled shrimp and made spring rolls. Just dip the rice paper in hot water until it's softened and then fill, roll and dunk in peanut sauce. I'm pretty bad at rolling them so they looked ugly but tasted good, which is really all that matters.