Mark and Aldo Make... Sleepy Chinese Leftovers

Man, Aldo is sleepy. How come you're so sleepy Aldo? "I don't know," he says. Look at him. He can barely stay awake. He says he's going to bed at 6:30. Yeesh

I guess that means it's a perfect evening for Sleepy Chinese Leftovers. The key ingredient in Sleepy Chinese Leftovers is Chinese leftovers. This is going to be primarily composed of stuff from the hot pot, because that's the stuff you'll eat last. What the heck, soggy broccoli? Aldo and I decided to fry this mush at high heat, because water and heat are born enemies. It's called searing. Here's a video of this going down.

 

You'll notice we're frying the garlic in altogether too much oil. That's for oiliness. The garlic is like coffee for flavors, wakes them up and gets them talking to each other. Aldo and I use a special implement for taking the skin off garlic called a Rubber Tube. I won't explain how this works because it would sound too racy. Skinning garlic with a knife and your fingers is like trying to email with a rotary phone. 

Once the garlic starts to brown, then we throw in the Chinese leftovers along with some tofu, mushrooms, and chick peas. Tofu is also rubbery, but it isn't a rubber tube. This is what tofu looks like.

For greens this time, we chopped up a huge pile of dill. Here's the dill looking CRAZY. 

After this stuff has cooked for a while, we add some Udon noodles. Udon noodles are delicious and thick like hair, Aldo says. I guess he's thinking of dreadlocks. Which is disgusting to think about. I like Udon noodles because they'll lean up against anything. 

 

Now comes the moment when I get anxious about the food and make rash decisions. In this case I decided to add some barbecue sauce. Aldo and I are agreed about barbecue sauce being always good in anything. It makes your mouth watery. 

And that's the whole show. Since we're doing this at the highest heat, it doesn't take very long. Heat equals fast. We didn't have any friends to join us, so we decided to share our meal with Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. What do you think, James Stewart? Why don't you want to marry Grace Kelly? What are you so scared of? 

That's it. Thanks for joining us on our journey through taste. We wish you a good appetite and sleepy eating!

Prep time: 15 minutes

Eating time: 20 minutes

Clean time: 10 minutes

Mark and Aldo make... Gloomy Stir Fry

Oh man, me and Aldo are feeling the weather these days. It's cold, but not cold enough to be sharp and bright and all that good wintry stuff: the pallor of grey, not the innocence of snow. Here's Aldo gazing mournfully out the window, contemplating his lonely mortality.

Of course, the best solution for sadness is stiry-fry, so we decided to bring in a special guest to help us make our melancholia delicious, veggie expert and rain lover Billy "Holiday" "Ducks" Gekas. Here's Billy and Aldo sharing a morose chuckle.

The first step to any good stir fry is peeling the sweet potato. Aldo doesn't like sweet potatoes because they're like baby food. But babies cry a lot, so sweet potato is perfect for Gloomy Stir Fry. Guess where Aldo puts his peels?

Good thing Aldo is such a dapper gentleman in other ways. That's why we call him Senhor Batata Doce.

Next thing is the leafy greens, an Aldo and Mark essential ingredient to all food ever. Today we're using kale, because Aldo says that if Billy were food, he'd be kale. (Aldo himself is a potato.) As ever, be sure to rub it on your head. If you look closely it kind of looks like he has green hair. Or maybe a bow.

Then we put in a bunch of other crazy stuff, displayed here in smorgasbord format. There's a real science to this, which is completely lost to Aldo and me. The only part I remember is that Billy mixed the soy sauce with turmeric, which turned out to be awesome.

According to Billy, the antidote to the gloomies is sunflower oil, because it's got the sun in it, obviously. (See photo.) A little cayenne turns up the heat too. 

Then the cooking and stirring and all that happens, and voila! Gloomy Stir-Fry! We garnished with poppy seeds, an authentically respectable garnish which you might seriously consider.

Our friend taste-tester was Sam from down the hall. Holy wow, she looks amazed! What are you so amazed about, Sam? Is it our Gloomy Stir-Fry?

Yes!

So goodbye, Reader, we hope you have good luck cooking our recipe. Remember, life is made for happiness. At least, we'd like to think so.

Prep Time: 2 hours
Eating time: 1 hour
Clean up: 10 minutes

Mark and Aldo make... Mustache Spaghetti!

Hey, it's 2pm on Saturday and you haven't eaten anything since breakfast! You want a tasty treat but you don't wait too long to eat it. There's only three pieces of bread in the cupboard, so sandwiches are out. There's a pineapple named Levon on the counter, but it's too early for pina coladas, so that basically leaves one option: mustache spaghetti. 

Mustache Spaghetti gets its name from the type of pasta we use: vermicelli. Here's Aldo illustrating how this works:

Mustache in Portuguese is 'bigode'.

Get your water boiling, and then start cutting the vegetables. For this recipe you want to find the most luminescent red pepper in the fridge, for sparkle. Check it out:

Along with the red pepper, onions and mushrooms are a good idea. For a boost, add some leftover pasta sauce from the fridge. Aldo and I are crazy about adding leafy greens to all our meals, no matter what. We had some sort of choy plant in the fridge, so that's what we used. Make sure you rub it on your head first.

Dice up that floppy tree and throw it in the frying pan with the other vegetables. This is the element of unpredictability that's going to make you excited to eat.

But you have to flavor this up a bit, so Aldo and I decided to go for some coriander. We chose coriander from a smell test in the spice cupboard. Coriander smells good. Now you're almost done! The last step is the garnish. We chose carrot because it was in the fridge. Here's Aldo making our food beautiful:

Now you're ready to eat! This looks crazy good!

You always need a friend to try your food, so we invited Rolaids down to savor our labors.

He loves it! It's his favorite food ever, and that makes us the best cooks in the world.

Good luck making Mustache Spaghetti in your own kitchen. You're going to be so happy.


Prep time: 30 minutes
Eating time: 20 minutes
Clean up: a few minutes