I received my first copy of the Food Network Magazine that Viv gave me for my birthday last month. I'd been meaning to try one of the recipes but my mum came to stay and since she cooks such great food I had to take advantage of that as often as possible. Although I am still missing pho and I ate instant noodles every day since she left for an entire week because I'd a) forgotten how to cook, b) decided I really didn't want to clean the dishes, c) I was mourning the loss of my mother and d) I was just stressed. Right now I still don't remember how to cook, still don't want to clean the dishes, still mourning and I'm still stressed. But I decided to cook anyway. Who doesn't love Mexican?

This recipe required beer though. Says the recipe, not me. I left out the beer since I didn't have any in the fridge and I didn't want to receive any strange looks if I bought one can of beer. But since I don't like the taste of beer I don't think I really missed out on anything. The steak was great. A little spicy but mostly tangy from the chimichurri sauce. The recipe says that it takes 1hr and 50 mins, but 1 hr is spent just marinating the meat. I don't think the rest of the preparation took 50 mins.

Unfortunately alot of the recipes in this issue were salads or lunch food. Neither of which I'm fond of making.

I'm pretty excited that two movies I'm really excited to watch are coming out soon. "500 days of summer" is coming out in 2 weeks. And "Julie and Julia" which was initially how this all began. The trailer looks pretty hilarious, as all kitchen disasters are (when they happen to someone else).

I've started to subscribe to Women's Health. I find it really interesting and this month they had an easy food guide, and I have decided to try as many recipes as I can. They also have a list of items that everyone should have lying around in their pantry and better food options. I'm not really an expert on health but I have recently started paying attention to how much fat and sugar I am consuming (although I refuse to foresake my can of coke a day habit).

I know I didn't use soba noodles but I don't really like soba noodles and I had these ones lying around. This recipe was really tasty, unlike the fried rice I made last time. Unfortunately I only had enough to make two servings, so I won't be eating this for the next week. I must also add that this recipe took exactly 10 minutes to make. Great for one of those days when I've just gotten home from the gym and too lazy to cook.

Every time I've made fried rice my rice has always been mushy so this time I cooked my rice way in advance so that it would be on the drier side. I don't think this recipe was very good though. I added the amount of soy sauce as the recipe said but something must have been wrong because it was so bland. The bamboo and mushrooms tasted fine, but the chicken tasted bland since there was no seasoning other than the soy sauce. Pretty disappointing. And I ended up eating it for a week, dousing each bowl with some extra soy sauce did the trick.

This book is amazing. Every recipe is so concise, they barely seem like recipes at all.

Recipe:
Place 100g dried bean thread noodle in bowl and pour over boiling water. Stand for 5 minutes or until tender, drain. Toss noodles with 1/2 store bought barbecue chicken (shredded), 1 sliced cucumber, 1 chopped tomato, 50g unsalted cashes, 1/4 cup coriander leaves and 1/4 cup basil leaves. Then combine 1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce and 1.5 tsp of soy sauce to make the dressing and toss dressing through salad.

The only reason I would call this a salad is because it is eaten cold, although I heated up the chicken. Voila, a quick meal for under $5. Definitely one of those meals that I will cook again. Although cook probably isn't the right word. I will probably put this meal together again. It was just so simple. For one of those days when you just don't want to cook. And it's a lot healthier than instant noodles. I'm not usually a fan of salads because I often find they can be bland. Maybe it was the chicken on the sweet and slightly salty dressing, but I liked the fact that there was a lot of flavour.

Two weeks ago I was back in Sydney eating some of the best food Sydney has to offer; my mum's. I think everyone who moves away from home misses their mother's cooking (or the convenience of having food readily available) but sometimes the benefits of independence outweighs those of a home cooked meal. If it were possible for me to go home every week just so I could eat my mother's cooking I would. I don't even try to replicate her food because I know it will always seem bland in comparison.

I borrowed a Vietnamese cookbook called KOTO, named after a charity in Vietnam that educates kids in the hospitality and tourism industry. I really enjoyed flipping through this book and seeing pictures of dishes that I easily recognise. When I saw this recipe for tofu in tomato sauce I just had to try it. It's not quite Pho, but it still reminds me of traditional Vietnamese food.

Did I do it justice? Unfortunately not. It came down to poor quality tofu. The tofu I bought was way too hard. The tomato sauce was perfect though, although it could have done with a little bit more fish sauce. Add a plate of boiled okra and it felt almost like I was at home again.