I'm bored

and inspired from watching food network competitions and iron chef for hours....

so I thought I'd post some of my favorite foods.....vietnamese, specifically, but some others as well...

1) asparagus and crab meat soup--though what my mom does is flavor the crab meat with fish sauce, but then flavor the broth with salt...I think that's better...
2) grilled pork and vermicelli--I think the difference here is that my mom marinates overnight...I *think* with soy sauce for flavor instead of fish sauce, and I think she generally uses beef more. Reason for soy sauce, she says, is that it makes the beef more tender? O_o? idk...it just does. Sometimes, instead of grilling, she sautes it quickly in a pan...tastes just as good...and it gives room to be lazy.
3) Spicy Beef and Pork Noodles--you know...I'm starting to wonder why things that take a long time to cook have such simple names. Anyway, the thing that my mother does differently is that she doesn't put the shrimp paste in the soup generally for the sole reason that it gets really.....pungent and stays in the house for a while. We add it individually...makes the flavor so great, though...heehee. Spicy = greatness. Plus....instead of simmering until the meat is tender, my mom has to use a slow-cooker because what she uses is a piece of beef that has a lot of connective tissue (tendon) that takes a while to cook to tenderness on the stove. She cooks it overnight, with the "pork knuckles"/leg and in those few hours, it will tenderize. :D It makes me so happy....I prefer things not that tender, though....because it's more fun to eat that way...just for this recipe, though.
4) Hot and Sour Fish Soup--again, I wished the names make these more appetizing...but don't knock it 'til you try it. Eaten with nice jasmine rice....this rocks. it ROCKS. Seriously. I think my mom actually cooks this one in a similar fashion. It's pretty simple, so....I expect most people to do it the same way.
5) Flan--k....I dunno how people usually do flan, but this is exactly how we do it. I don't put the coffee mixture with the egg mixture, though...I make black coffee and then chill it in ice and pour over the finished product. Much better that way :)
6) Roast Duck--not vietnamese and no recipe, but a picture. I like it a lot, though, especially with those fluffy like...white....bread-ish....things...I don't know what they're called.
7) Vietnamese Chicken Salad--I hate purple perilla, so my mom doesn't put it in, and I like the shredded cabbage, so we always have it. I also don't like spearmint, so we don't add that, either....For the fish sauce dressing...we don't use vinegar, my mom calls it "synthetic sour flavor" (literally translated) and we use lime instead...which I like a lot better. We top it with crispy fried shallots. MMM....We usually make this along with Vietnamese Chicken Rice Porridge--honestly, I don't know what makes this vietnamese besides the fact that it's flavored with fish sauce. The thing that we do differently is that we shred the chicken after it's cooked and make a salad, and then put some into the soup as well...so no marinade.
8) alright...I couldn't find the recipe and such for this one, but it's called "Baby Clams with Sesame Rice Crackers"--what my mom does is she just simply sautes baby clams, chopped onions, a vietnamese herb known as "rau ram" and chopped spicy Thai chilis and serve it with sesame rice crackers....AWESOMENESS

I think that's enough food for today....but my mother....cooks all of this for me...makes me happy....I *think* I know how to make all of this, too....although my flavoring is probably off from hers, since it's less experienced.