Umakacchan Japanese instant noodles
This was a box of 10 individual packages of 5 types of soup purchased through Amazon, here.
I've had only the American versions a couple of times. Then I watched a video of two dudes comparing cup of noodle types and that made me look on Amazon. Presently these have only 5 reviews but they all rave 5 stars saying this is the best. It's also the most expensive I've seen X3 more than the others.
You'd think delicate brittle noodles would rate some protection, but no, they're just thrown into an oversized box. The whole thing weighs only a few ounces. It seems.
Nothing in English. Not for English-speaking market. You have to judge by the photos and frankly they all look the same.
I saw later that they call for 550 grams of water, and I added only 2 cups. I think I shorted it 1/5 cup.
They're good.
This was experiment. I think that I chose chicken and I do have deli fried chicken that I could add but I wanted to test this on its own to see if those rave reviews were mere idle hyperbole. I think they probably know what they're talking about but I have no real basis for comparison. I liked it. It'd be even better enhanced as they show on the packaging.
Mashed Yukon Gold potato and sausage gravy
I'm so impressed with the instant versions of both mashed potatoes and all of the gravies that I decided to try duplicate their excellent flavors without all their chemicals.
Obviously, the Yukon potato is very yellow.
How's that for marketing? Your mixed starchy/waxy potatoes come out unsightly yellow so you sell them as Yukon Gold.
Both gravy and potato cooked in the microwave for speed and convenience. The potato is already cooked. It was too large. This turned out too much to eat.
Next time I'll add sausage after the roux is made and before the milk is added to boil. Starting it out cooks it too long and it welds itself back together into hard chunks that are not pleasant to eat.
Guesstimate the amount of butter and milk, heat it in the microwave and add it to the riced potato.
Add milk to the cooked roux and boil. Stir while cooking in pulses. It goes very fast.
In my humble opinion, even better than the packages which are surprisingly good.
The main difference is now I have to clean out a ricer. But there are no chemicals that I know of.
Orange vanilla sugar cookies
Easy enough. These turned out a two-day ordeal.
See all that butter? Two sticks. A pound is four sticks. So eight ounces is two sticks. A cup is eight fluid ounces, but butter is measured by weight.
Well, so what. Let's pretend they're the same things.
It means these cookies will be short. Because they have a lot of fat.
Let's just go ahead and call them what they are, shortbread sugar cookies.
This sugar is not ordinary. Oh no. This sugar is less refined than that cocaine-sugar you buy all over the place. This sugar is rough.
Three cups of flour were estimated. But this batch has two sticks of butter, not one, and two eggs, not one.
Did you know that butter is 20% water?
Well, it is!
Plus an extra egg make this dough have a little bit more liquid than ordinary.
So three cups of flour wasn't enough. Another cup was added. And that turned out to be a little too much so the dough is extremely crumbly and difficult to manage.
But I don't care. I'd rather have it be too dry and too tender than too wet and too tough.
That's the choices we baker-types make based on a million years of experience.
That's collective experience, personal experience would be fifty years.
Remember back at age nine when you used to follow directions?
I was thinking back then, oh man, when I grow up and internalize all this, I'll be like a wizard.
Eye of newt and breath of dying python, 1 pound of dragon scales, and three ounces hen's teeth. Bat wing and 1/2 teaspoon of grasshopper barf, that stuff they eject when you catch them. Thirteen lizard tails that break off when you grab them. One hundred eighty-two butterfly antenna of any kind. Five hundred aphids that get on your tomatoes. One and one-half kitten ears, the wild kind that don't like humans.
That's what I'll be like when I grow up. A wizard who knows all the recipes.
No dough was wasted in the production of these sugar cookies.
For I am not a dough-waster. No. I am a dough conservationist.
We baker-type dough conservationists respect the value of butter. Squeezing all those cow udders and churning the cream. Bottling it, keeping it chilled and processing plus transportation and timely marketing. And the trouble gone through to extract vanilla the whole thing is outrageous, and process of refining sugar. And all those eggs that get squeezed out of chicken holes. That's a lot of pain and suffering and toil all around. Extraordinary when you break it all down. So it's not to be wasted. No matter how rich a wizard you've become.
OMG, how high does this stack go?
It's a veritable tower of cookies.
Psych!
It's really not that dramatic.
This took two days because my body broke down.
My head was held on by a thread.
And that thread hurt like a sumabitch.
Whatever that is.
I had to keep laying down.
And recover, then boom, there it is back again.
Over and over and over.
Remember when you were a tall skinny teenager and you stood up too quickly and go, "Whoah, whoah, I'm going to pass out." The edges get dark and your world closes in, so you sit down again and recover. You're all light-headed and wondering if you dare try to continue.
So you do.
Then your head hangs on by a thread again. You cannot hold it up. And it hurts. So you lay down again. And the whole things starts all over again.
Stand up nearly pass out, get to work, neck forces you down again. Stand up nearly pass out, get to work, neck forces you down again. And so on, over and over and over. And you go "Damnit, Janet, these cookies are taking all day!"
So I call the grocery and schedule a delivery because I'm way too out of it to drive and do all that hard stuff like walk around throwing crap into a basket. And bringing it all upstairs.
My whole place is a total disaster area, like a tornado hit it. And I've still got things I must do.
It's times like this that require prioritization.
And help.
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