Confessions of a Food Blogger

A lot of my friends ask me how I manage to find the time and the energy to cook dinner every single night when I get home from work, which is often pretty late if I go to the gym after work.  The truth is that I don't.  Yes, I love cooking, eating and writing about food but sometimes I am exhausted and don't feel like getting my hands dirty or getting creative with different ingredients.  Now that I've made this confession, here are some other things that you should know about me as a food blogger:

I save a lot of my lengthy or multi-step recipes for the weekends, which often get written about and posted during the week.  If I tried these recipes when I got home from work, I'd be eating at 10 PM every night.

I'd say that one out of five my attempts in the kitchen aren't successful.  Whether it is because they don't photograph well, doesn't taste great or what...I make lots of mistakes in my kitchen.

I do try to use recipes during the week that take forty-five minutes to prepare and cook.  If it is any longer, I tend to save it for the weekends.

A lot of dishes result in leftovers, which we either bring in for lunch the next day and/or eat the next night.  If I am making something big like a lasagna, a huge batch of soup or a casserole, I divide it up into individual servings and put them in the freezer.  This makes for easy leftovers when you don't feel like cooking.

And my last confession is probably my most honest one - sometimes I eat instant dinners.  Yup, you heard right.  Sometimes I want to eat something that has already been prepared because I quite simply don't feel like cooking or waiting for take-out.

Last night was no exception.  I have had a really long and stressful week at work.  I was preparing for a big deposition today that got postponed at the eleventh hour (which is actually more the rule than the exception).  And the cold weather and non-stop rain had me wanting to put on sweatpants and a comfy t-shirt...and, well, be lazy.  I looked in my pantry and found my favorite instant meal - Shin Ramyun Instant Noodles.

These are Korean instant ramen noodles are super spicy.  It is really easy - just boil some water, add the noodles and packet of spices and dehydrated vegetables, and serve.  Since these noodles are hearty and delicious but contain zero protein, I looked in my freezer and found some mini chicken dumplings that I had purchased at Ming's Market for under a dollar.

Made at Boston's Chinese Spaghetti Factory, I've heard great things about these frozen dumplings.  The instructions to fry, boil or steam these dumplings were written in broken English but I decided to take the safe and no-fail route and steam them for about fifteen minutes.

The end result?  A delicious dinner in under twenty minutes consisting of ridiculously tasty mini dumplings and Korean instant noodles.

Mini Chicken Dumplings

Spicy Korean Instant Noodles

When the noodles were very al dente, I added two eggs into the pot and let them cook for a few minutes.  And even though they were served on top of instant noodles, my heart still skipped a beat when I broke into my egg.

I think runny yolk is such a beautiful thing...I am a food blogger after all.

Are you a blogger?  What confessions do you have to share?  C'mon...I won't tell...