Peanut sesame noodles

Smitten Kitchen is the creme de la creme brulee among food blogs, in my oh-so-humble opinion. The photography is stellar, the posts consistently interesting and covering a wide range of foods... check it out, yo.

While you're there, why don't you check out the recipe for peanut sesame noodles? Those are some seriously yummy noodles. I know because I made them! And once again I almost exactly followed the recipe. I'm beginning to think that's a really good idea.

The sauce, in particular, emphasized that particular fact. Peanut butter, soy sauce, water, vinegar, sesame oil, a little ginger, garlic and hot sauce -- exactly the ingredients I use whenever I make a peanut sauce. But when I followed her proportions, the sauce was so much better than anything I throw together, it was downright ridiculous. Down. Right. Ridiculous.

My pictures, of course, are nowhere near as lovely as hers, but I'm trying:


You might notice I added radishes. There were a few other modifications, all very small, because I followed the recipe, remember? But I won't bother to tell you about them because I am 110% sure that the original version was better.



I think I'm getting better at it!

True story: I bought a white plate just so I could take pictures of food on it. Is that silly?

Sometimes I get very jealous reading the really good food blogs. It's not just that I am jealous of their beautiful kitchens and wealth of knowledge and photography skillz and beautiful plating and stunning, diverse dishes and general talent. It's a combination of all of that, plus they are just cooler than me. I read their blogs and think, "ooh!", and then I think, "man, I feel like such a cooking loser." I pout for about three seconds, then I perk up. I'm not good at staying down for too long.

But SOMEDAY I am going to be a perfectly BRILLIANT cook. I'm going to have a wealth of knowledge and a massive cookbook collection I've read cover-to-cover and a lovely, huge black and stainless steel kitchen with an excessive amount of counter space. I'm going to cook stunningly ornate feasts and deceptively, beautifully simple meals and talk intelligently about where my ingredients came from and everybody who eats my food will be blissfully happy, because it will not only be made with love but also with SKILLZ. I will have MAD CRAZY SKILLZ.

And do you know what I'll do? I'll write all about it on the internet to make kids like me super jealous (and maybe inspired.) This will be my vengeance.