Trying something new

I have accomplished one of my goals! Well, sort of.

Yesterday Mr. V decided that he wanted toast and scrambled eggs for dinner. Now, toast I can do with my eyes closed thanks to the magic of the toaster. However, as I've mentioned before, I have no idea how to cook an egg, since I've never eaten one. So, that was my task for the evening. Surprisingly, it actually worked! Granted those are the easiest type of eggs to make, but at least it made a dent in my plan to learn how to cook eggs.

Today was my first foray into making something I've never made before. I'm a big carbohydrate fan, so anything noodle-related is good with me. As a new reader of Food and Wine Magazine, I decided their website was a good place to start looking for new recipes. Today, I decided to make Vegetarian Red Curry Noodles, which was basically dried Chinese noodles in a spicy sauce made with coconut milk, brown sugar, Hoisin sauce, chili peppers and vegetables. The original recipe called for fish sauce, which isn't vegetarian, so I substituted Hoisin instead.

As an aside, it's very frustrating when recipes call for fish and seafood-based ingredients in a vegetarian recipe. Vegetarians don't eat fish or seafood (those who do are called pescetarians), but it's a common misconception. I can't even count the number of times people have told me I'd be fine eating something, because it didn't have meat in it. When I questioned further, they'd often tell me it has fish stock or some such in it. *Sigh* Not quite vegetarian then.

Anyway, the noodles were quite good. I found them to be a bit too sweet however, so next time I make the recipe I will probably omit the brown sugar and see if that helps. I'd also add some more veggies, because it was a little lower on them than I'd prefer.

Tomorrow, I plan to make grilled portobello mushroom sandwiches with spinach and goat cheese. Delish!