I am so glad that I am not afraid of trying dishes from other cultures. If I were then I would have never come across this wonderful Filipino dish.

It is a very simple dish made with chicken or pork, slow cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, bay leaf, and pepper.

The chicken came out moist and had a wonderful color to it. Matt took it to work the next day for lunch and came back telling me that it was even better the next day for having been able to soak in more of the sauce.

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So tonight we decided to make some Thai food. I don’t use the wok often so this was going to be a bit of an adventure for me.

Unfortunately when I went shopping for the ingredients this weekend I picked up rice noodles instead of glass noodles. It was a simple mistake on my part as I didn’t recall that glass noodles are actually made of bean threads and not rice. Even with the incorrect noodles I figured I should still give the recipe a go.

I made the Young Thailand Hot Sauce this morning to give it some time to rest. All I have to say is that if you aren’t used to heat, use this sparingly.

Overall I think the recipe was very easy to follow, even for a novice with the wok such as me. The key to it was definitely timing and being able to control the heat properly. Even with the change in noodles I think that the dish worked really well. I didn’t bother with the black fungus as I didn’t have the time to go to the local Asian market. I forgot to garnish with the red pepper at the end so it looked a little bland even with the green onion. It still tasted wonderful, and the the Young Thailand Hot Sauce gave it just enough kick.

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On Sunday evening I extended an invitation to some friends to come over for dinner. I had two options for the meal. After a quick discussion it was decided that I would make Turkey and Roasted Red Pepper Meat Loaf. This was a new recipe for me. I’ve tried several meatloaf recipes in the past and most of them didn’t turn out well.

I find it rather interesting that a dish a simple as meatloaf can go horribly wrong. Thankfully this was not the case with this recipe. I was afraid that it would turn out dry but it turned out really moist.

There were a few suggestions from my…test subjects. It was suggested that I chop the onions smaller as it seemed to be a bit much. I pointed out that I was short about a 1/4 pound of meat. So even though I did use a small onion it made a difference. The flavors worked well together though.

The dressing for the side salad was a little strong on the mustard, but it was passable.

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