Tommy Joe wrote:
> On Jan 4, 4:32 am, projectile vomit chick
> > wrote:
>> On Jan 3, 6:07 pm, Tommy Joe > wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> That's what I'm on right now. The stove in this furnished
>>> apartment is like 50 years old, maybe more. The burners are
>>> inconsistent. So about two weeks ago I got into bringing restaurant
>>> food home. I'm proud of what I manage with it.
>>
>>> I go to one particular Chinese takeout spot and get two meals at
>>> a time. From those two I can easily make 4. But I have taken it a
>>> step further. I ask for a dollar's worth of extra meat in each box,
>>> usually pork no matter what kind of meat is already there, then add
>>> my own veggies later - fragile stuff that cooks down easily.
>>
>>> Here are 2 examples. Yesterday I bought some stuff called
>>> Singapore sumptinorother with pork and rice noodles and some veggies
>>> mixed in. I also bought a container of beef with bell pepper and
>>> onion with some carrots in there.
>>
>>> When I get home I slice some fresh napa cabbage into two
>>> containers, same amount into each. I also slice the green and white
>>> parts of a bunch of scallions into the mix along with a few cloves
>>> of smashed garlic. Some cilantro. A few hits of black pepper and
>>> cayenne pepper. And then the juice of half a lime into each mix.
>>> Then I pour the take-out food one apiece into each container and
>>> gently mix it up. I get 3 meals from each - that's 6 total lasting 3
>>> days at 2 meals a day. Not only do the added veggies and spices not
>>> screw up the meal, it actually improves it. The lime not only adds a
>>> pleasant zing, it also serves to moisten the food enough to make
>>> mixing in the fresh veggies easier. I microwave a plate at mealtime.
>>> The fragile veggies melt down easy and the other stuff does not
>>> overcook.
>>
>>> The lazy good for nothing chef of winston salem north carolina (nice
>>> break, no cooking)
>>> TJ
>>
>> LOL! We live in proximity of a small private college and the take-out
>> is fantastic (cuz of all the pot-smoke ya'll). We just don't do take-
>> out often, but yeah we got a great Chinese joint up the road. The
>> problem with Chinese food is yer hungry all the damn time. The best
>> Chinese joint ever was the one put up on the boulevard by a bunch of
>> Mexicans. They had a little Chinese guy in the back. It was, quite
>> simply, the BOMB.
>
>
> The "hungry an hour later" thing comes I believe from not enough
> protein. I ask for extra meat, a dollar per serving. I don't want a
> lot anyway, but I think buying the meat and adding veggies is better
> than the other way around as I use fragile veggies that need little
> cooking and blend into the sauces and soak up what's in there as if
> they had been cooked right in there. Hey, when you say Boulevard, you
> don't mean Hollywood Blvd, do you? I mean, with a name like
> Projectile Vomit Chick, you sound like you could have some Hollywood
> blood in you.
>
> Mr Hollywood,
> TJ

I don't really buy that. We went out for Chinese on Christmas Eve and it
was a restaurant I wasn't familiar with. I got the tomato beef and although
the flavor seemed right, something just wasn't super appealing about it.
And the rice didn't seem quite right either. I ate all of the rice and only
a few bites of the rest of my meal. I was sick at the time and didn't have
a really big appetite but still was hungry enough by the time that we got
home to want to eat again. And so was my daughter because her meal had too
much garlic in it for her and she is a garlic lover.

So about a week later we ate at the place we had *wanted* to eat at but we
thought they were closed because their website said they were closed on
Monadays. But no they were open. But I had already told the other place
that we would be back so... We just decided to try it.

The better restaurant did not have tomato beef listed on the menu but
tomato, pepper beef. Fine. Close enough. They even put some baby corn in
it. Score! Loved, loved, loved the stuff except for the meat. I don't
know what it is about meat from Chinese places but it just seems chewy and
fatty to me. I only ate two bites of the meat, all of the rice and most of
the vegetables. It was a huge platter of food. Felt stuffed and some hours
later still felt stuffed. Daughter had a chicken and pea pod dish. She did
the opposite of me. Ate a couple of bites of her vegetables and all of the
chicken. She was stuffed too.

I have a recipe for tomato beef that came from the most unlikely of places.
A neighbor kid was selling things for his school and they offered a little
Chinese cookbook. I bought it and wasn't very hopeful because the looks of
the book didn't make it seem overly authentic but the end result was just
like I had gotten in the restaurants in the International disctrict here and
in San Francisco. But I used Spencer steak and my meat was actually edible.
Sadly, nobody in this house but me likes this dish so I quit making it. But
I did make it for a potluck at work once and everybody loved it.