Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Things to Cook With (Non-Bookish Freebie)

Hey everybody and Happy Tuesday! It’s been a couple of weeks, but I’m participating in Top Ten Tuesday again.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Non-Bookish Freebie. Since it could be just about anything, it was a bit difficult for me at first, but I ultimately decided on Favorite Ingredients to Cook or Make Food With. I’m also defining “ingredient” very broadly here: as in anything used to make any kind of meal.

Anyway, without further ado, let’s get started! In no particular order, here are my ten favorite things to use whilst making food!

#1: Butter

Butter is fantastic. You can use it to grease pans, complement bread, as well as in cooking and baking.

#2: Brown Sugar

I didn’t know that brown sugar could be so versatile until recently. I used to mostly use it while baking, but I’ve discovered that it also has an excellent use in creating sauces or marinades.

#3: Onions

I add onions to a fairly decent amount of stuff that I cook. They just have a flavor that I love, and they complement most things very well.

#4: Tomatoes

Though I don’t use them nearly as often as onions, I still like how useful they can be. I mostly use the sauce or paste versions of them, but I also find small tomatoes to be excellent additions to salads and such.

#5: Cinnamon

I love cinnamon. Particularly in the fall, which is coming up. I’ve found that it’s mostly useful for baking or seasoning, but I also love how it’s a great scent for your house, too.

#6: Cream Cheese

Cream cheese is something else that I really love. I love putting it on bagels and bread, as well as dipping stuff into it. It’s also a great ingredient for baking – particularly cheesecake as well as some cookies.

#7: Eggs

You can put eggs in so many things. They’re great on their own, in whatever form you prefer to eat them, but they’re also great for baking.

#8: Milk

I love milk. It’s great for both baking and cooking, and the heavy cream version of it can be even better.

#9: Noodles

Noodles are awesome. I love using them in pastas, as well in stir fry.

#10: Bread

Bread is so useful. You can eat it on its own, or you can smooth stuff on it like butter and cream cheese. You can also toast it and add these things. It’s also crucial if you want a sandwich of any type.

Do you like to cook or bake? What are your favorite things to cook or bake with?

As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Reading & Recipes #4

It’s been a bit. But I love this post, so it’s definitely not going away! I love to read and I love to cook/bake, so Reading & Recipes is the culmination of two of my favorite things!

If you don’t know what Reading & Recipes is… Well, for this post, I’m going to be posting a recipe I used recently along with a picture of the finished product, as well as discussing a book I was reading the same day a little bit. Annnd that’s it, that’s pretty much the post.

Recent Recipe: Baked Salmon Fillet w/ Garlic Herb Butter & Bay Seasoning

This is another Mar original. It’s a bit of a pricier meal than we usually have, but we saw a giant salmon fillet at Sam’s this past weekend and I was like 👀 to my spouse. I prepared it last night and it turned out wonderful. Which is especially cool, because I’ve never made salmon before.

(Sidenote: I’m sorry the picture sucks – I didn’t think to take a picture of it before we cut it up and divided it, lol. ☺️)

INGREDIENTS:

one large salmon fillet (because this is what we got, but you can get smaller ones – you’ll just need to adjust the cook time probably)
some garlic butter (I just kind of winged it)
a little salt and pepper
Bay’s Seasoning

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, spray the foil with nonstick spray, and unwrap salmon and lay it on top.
Lightly season the fillet with salt and pepper. Heat up garlic butter in microwave until completely melted and drizzle atop salmon. Then season salmon fillet with as much Bay’s seasoning as you’d like.
After oven is heated up, place baking sheet with salmon inside and bake for 20 minutes. (Make sure it’s cooked – all ovens are different! If you have a food thermometer and you like to make sure your food is cooked perfectly, use it to make sure salmon is internally 175°F (~87°C).)
Take salmon out of oven and enjoy! If it still has skin on it, be careful while eating not to eat the skin.

Recent Reads: One Piece (Skypiea 25 – 26 – 27)

One Piece (Volumes 25 - 26 - 27) by Eiichiro Oda

Join Monkey D. Luffy and his swashbuckling crew in their search for the ultimate treasure, the One Piece.

Luffy and team must figure out a way to get their ship, the Merry Go, to sail up—the Straw Hat crew’s next destination is an island in the sky. It may seem like an island paradise, but the interesting characters they meet there are hardly heavenly. Soon Luffy and the Straw Hats are on the run… and it turns out they’re on the path to a city of gold!

I haven’t read it in a few months, but I’m still enjoying One Piece. My spouse and I have been buddy reading it, and we’re planning on finishing it. But, I dunno, I took a bit of a break after November, but maybe I shouldn’t have. ‘Cause I’ve had quite the reading slump these past few months, and this might’ve gotten me out of it – as it’s a fun, easy read, with great world building, adventure and characters.

I will say that I haven’t enjoyed this super volume as much as the ones I’ve read so far. But that’s not that surprising, as I’ve noticed the beginnings of arcs have some slow parts, in order to establish and build up the rest of the current arc, as well as future plot stuff beyond it (sometimes waaayy beyond it).

But I’ve still been enjoying the rich world and hijinks, and I’m looking forward to the rest of this massive undertaking – One Piece currently has over 103 regular volumes of story published, and over 1100 chapters out. So it’s huge, is what I’m getting at. But I’ve been enjoying reading it between regular novels – between manga, books and fanfiction it all keeps reading very fresh.

So what books have you been reading lately? What have you thought of them? What’s your favorite food, meal or dessert?

Thank you as always for reading, and I hope you all have an awesome day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Reading & Recipes #2

Sooo… It’s been awhile. I know I kind of did this post for the first time right before Christmas and then left you guys hanging. Sorry.

But I’m finally back with another Reading & Recipes. For this post, I’m going to be posting a recipe I used recently along with a picture of the finished product, as well as discussing a book I was reading the same day a little bit. Annnd that’s it, that’s pretty much the post.

Recent Recipe: Stir Fry w/ Udon

Unlike the recipe in my last post, this one is entirely a Mar original. Stir fry isn’t something that I really grew up with, until high school when my dad started making it with rice. I love rice, but I love noodles even more, so use them instead.

Stuff I Put In It:

2 pkgs Kame udon noodles
1 pkg beef stew meat
2 chicken breasts, cubed
2 broccoli florets
1 yellow bell pepper
1 red bell pepper

I put this stuff in my stir fry this time, though it always varies. One time I did beef and shrimp, another I did beef, chicken and pork, and one time I did beef on its own. You can really put anything you want in it, even tofu if you want a vegetarian option.

You don’t even have to use udon if you don’t want to. Like I said, my dad uses rice. Either white or brown works great. But if you want to use noodles but not udon, a variety are available. You can use hokkien noodles, soba noodles or Thai ribbon noodles.

What I Put In the Sauce I Stir Fry it In:

Soy sauce
Teriyaki sauce
Sesame oil
Ginger (ground)
Garlic powder
A pinch of salt
A dash of sugar

I don’t bother to measure my amounts for my stir fry sauce. I just keep adding stuff I like, until I have a flavor I like. I typically use a lot of sesame oil and ginger though. You can pretty much put whatever you want in the sauce though.

How I Cook It:

Turn the surface heating on high
Put on the wok (I don’t have an electric wok – if you do, DO NOT put in on the burner!)
Pour in the sauce after it heats up
Put in your meat / seafood / tofu first
After they’re mostly cooked, put in your vegetables (if you’re using any)
Add the noodles last, mix them in and cook them for two minutes
Take stir fry off heating and ladle into portions

Like everything else, this can be super varied. You can really put in whatever you want to stir fry, and you can prepare it how you want. You could even cook it over a skillet or pan fry it, and it works pretty well (this is what I did before I got a wok).

Recent Read: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore—she just wrote the world’s first comprehensive of encylopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Folk on her adventures… and also from her fellow scholar and former rival, Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, and in search of a door back to his realm. So despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and danger.

And she also has a new project to focus on: a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by Bambleby’s mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambley’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart.

This has been my most anticipated read of 2024 so far, and it hasn’t disappointed. I love Emily and Brambleby, and I love their banter. I love the world that Heather Fawcett has created.

I know that the year has just started, but I think this is going to be one of my highest rated books over 2024. Of course, I’m also still excited about what other novels might be coming out soon, as well.

So what books have you been reading lately? What have you thought of them? What’s your favorite meal or dessert?