I met some great local bloggers at an event hosted by Casey from TasteStopping. Held at HomeCooked, it was to learn about Picnik, which is a free online photo editing tool. We had a couple samplings of some of the dishes that HomeCooked offers, including the pretzel-crusted chicken tenders with honey mustard and some kind of delicious buffalo dip. Both of these were quite delicious, so if this is any indication of the taste and quality of the food that you can pick up at HomeCooked or prepare yourself, then they definitely get a thumbs up from me!

Casey also brought some of these spinach pinwheels that she makes. These were not only tasty but also incredibly beautiful! They were almost too adorable to eat. But don’t worry, I ate them up!

Casey also runs Kitchen Witch, so she baked up some of her amazing cookies. The oatmeal cookies are at the top and they don’t have raisins. They’re are chewy and delicious! In the middle are the peanut butter cup cookies, which is a peanut butter cookie with peanut butter cups and semi-sweet chocolate. Man, these were beyond decadent! Lastly are the ultimate cookies. They are chocolate chip cookies with semi-sweet and milk chocolate, homemade toffee, and crunchy pecans. Well really, these are fairly decadent too! It was a fun afternoon of eating and learning with ladies who love to do the same!

I love getting drunken noodles or drunken noodle-type of dishes at thai restaurants. I’m a sucker for any dish with thick rice noodles and a sweet and savory sauce. I decided I was ready to make my own! After scouring countless recipes and watching youtube videos, I was ready for my experiment. And hey, it worked out really well! Surprisingly well. I had no idea it would actually be this easy!

Thai Style Drunken Noodles

2 cloves garlic chopped
1 small shallot chopped
2 eggs
Veggies of your choice
Meat of your choice
1 pkg of fresh thick rice noodles
2 tomatoes
Thai basil
Chili pepper, if you want
1-2 tbsp soy sauce
1-2 tbsp oyster sauce
1-2 tbsp fish sauce
1-2 tbsp sugar

So this particular “recipe” was what I used to make one package of the soft noodles. But really, you can make as much or as little as you want and just experiment with the ingredients. If you don’t like certain things, just leave it out. If you want to add things, go right ahead!

In some hot oil, cook up the chopped garlic and shallots until cooked and fragrant. What does “fragrant” mean anyway? Scoot them over to the side of the pan and add your eggs, and scramble them.

Add veggies of your choice, I used red bell pepper, onion, and broccoli. Since these are crunchy veggies, you’ll need to cook a bit longer. Cook these as much as you want, to the crunchiness that you want. If you want to take this mixture and put them aside in a bowl, go ahead. I had to because the pan I was using was just too small.

You can use whatever meat you want. I used cooked shrimp (again, because due to sheer laziness) so I didn’t really have to cook these very much. But whatever meat you use (pork, chicken, shrimp, etc) once your meat is cooked, add the noodles and heat up until the noodles get soft. If you had set aside the veggie mixture, put it back into the pan now. Mix the sauce ingredients together (the three sauces and the sugar, however much you want, just use a one-to-one ratio of all) and then pour it over everything. Stir everything together so that the sauce coats everything. If you like spice, add whatever chili that you want.

The last thing to add would be the chopped tomatoes (which I totally forgot to add) and the basil. If you have fresh basil, add that. I’m not sure how much, maybe like a handful. I cheated and bought a jar of chopped thai basil and added just about a teaspoon or even less. It worked just as well.

Now eat! Just a note about the noodles… I’m sure you could use dried noodles too, but I just don’t think it would be as good. I love these type of noodles because they’re thick and chewy, and I just don’t think a dried rice noodle would work all that great. It just wouldn’t have the right texture and probably wouldn’t soak up the flavors as well. So if you can find them at your asian market, try to get the fresh ones!

After eating out for pretty much four straight days, it was definitely time to cook at home. We stopped by Duc Loi (asian / mexican mini-mart in the mission) to grab some ingredients for a quick shrimp stir-fry dish. We picked up some brown rice too, so we could pretend to be healthy.

For the stir fry some garlic, shallots, and onions were browned in a pan with some olive oil. Add sliced bell peppers (we used yellow because that’s what looked the best at the store). Add shrimp, either raw or cooked. We went with cooked because we felt lazy. After these are all heated through, add broccoli, and cover so that the broccoli gets steamed through. Add whatever sauce you want to aid in the steaming process. We just added a little bit of teriyaki marinade. It’s truly that easy. Who says cooking has to be a pain?