gaga in the kitchen

Sugar Cookies

2011-12-18T23:35:00.000-08:00

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received Duncan Hines cake mixes. Because I got so many samples, I kept looking for alternative things to do with it because I don't really eat cake. But I do eat cookies!!! This was another super easy one and surprisingly tasty too. I didn't think cookies made out of cake mix would be any good, but these were! I'm definitely doing this again in the future.

From Skip to My Lou
Ingredients:
- 1 box of cake mix (I used White Cake Mix)
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup oil
- Strawberry frosting (optional)

Directions:
- Mix the cake mix, eggs and oil together.
- Preheat the oven to 350
- Scoop out 20 portions of the cookie dough on a silpat (smooshed down a bit) and bake for 10-13 minutes
- When the cookie has completely cooled, frost it if desired.

Pumpkin Devil's Food Cake

2011-12-11T22:36:00.001-08:00

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received Duncan Hines cake mixes. I've seen this on Pinterest. It looked easy and tasty so I decided to give it a try. All you have to do is mix the cake mix with a can of pumpkin puree and follow the rest of the directions on the back of the box. No eggs, oil, etc, so it's healthier too!

Ingredients:
- One box of cake mix
- One 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree

Directions:
- Mix the cake mix and pumpkin puree until fully incorporated. The consistency will be super thick and brownie like. You'll probably be tempted to add something to it because it just doesn't look right, but keep with it. It'll work, I promise.
- Follow the rest of the directions on the back of the box. In my case, I lightly oiled and floured a pan and poured the batter in and baked for 35 minutes.

- And even though the batter is thick like a brownie, the completed product is more like a moist cake and yummy too!

I wonder if this would work with other purees like sweet potato or butternut squash? If you've tried it, let me know!

Ji Se La Pi

2011-11-28T22:01:00.001-08:00

This isn't the prettiest dish, but it's a tasty dish that is great for leftover turkey. This shredded chicken and mung bean sheet cold salad is best served fresh, ie not after being refrigerated. Refrigeration tends to make the noodles hard. And, another thing to look out for it getting the right kind of noodles. I'm not sure what to tell you here because that's where I screwed up. The kind that I bought was way too thick. It said something like TianJian style on the bag if that helps.

So keep from refrigerating this and buy the right noodles and you'll be sure to enjoy this! :)

Ingredients:
- Mung bean sheets
- Shredded chicken (or turkey)
- Cucumber
- Peanut butter
- Water
- Soy sauce
- Vinegar (rice vinegar or regular is fine too)
- Wasabi (optional)

Directions:
- Cook the mung bean sheets according to the package directions. Run them under cold water and then cut them into approximately 1"x1" pieces (though shape and size really don't matter). Set aside.
- Shred the chicken/turkey and julianne the cucumber.
- In a separate bowl, mix the peanut butter and a bit of water until it's nice and creamy, about the consistency of a thick gravy. Heating the water will help it mix. If you put too much water, just pop the bowl with the water and peanut butter into the microwave for a bit and stir. It's better to have it too thick than too watery. You'll get more liquid from the other flavorings and the noodles/cucumbers will give off water too.
- Add soy, vinegar and wasabi to taste.
- Mix the sauce with the cucumber, chicken and noodles and enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

2011-10-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to jump on the bandwagon again and try another recipe that I've been seeing all over the internet lately. This one was a bit disappointing though. Not that it wasn't good, but it wasn't as amazing as I expected based on all the accounts I read. It tasted like sweet hummus, not cookie dough. Maybe if I didn't know it was made out of chickpeas, I wouldn't have thought that, but I did.

Even though I generally like to make healthy alternatives whenever possible, I think this is one of those times the real deal with all the unhealthiness is worth it.

Ingredients:
- Chickpeas
- Peanut butter
- Vanilla extract
- Salt
- Sugar
- Honey
- Chocolate chips

Directions:
- I used canned chickpeas, so I drained 2 cans of chickpeas while reserving the liquid from the can.
- Put the chickpeas in a food processor along with the peanut butter (about 2 tbs), vanilla extract (2 tsp), salt (a pinch), sugar and honey (I don't know how much I used because I just kept adding it until it tasted like I wanted it to).
- Puree the mixture until sooth and creamy. I found it to be a bit dry, so I added a bit of the liquid from the can until I got the desired consistency.
- Stir in chocolate chips and then top it with a few more as a garnish.
- Serve with graham crackers or vanilla wafers.

Crash Hot Potatoes

2011-10-21T23:01:00.000-07:00

This is my version of those crash hot potatoes that are all over the internet.

Even though it seems that everyone out there is in love with it, I was resistant to believe the hype. While I do love potatoes, potatoes are potatoes, right? And the recipe is so darn simple, can it really make that much of a difference? Apparently so! It's darn tasty! So tasty in fact, that Mr. Gaga requested it again for dinner the next night and asked "Why don't we do this more often?!?!?!" The answer is because I didn't know that it was so easy and so tasty and we will do this more often in the future, and so should you! :)

Ingredients:
- Potatoes (I used red potatoes, but I'm sure you can use any and it'll still be good)
- Olive oil
- Salt (I used kosher)
- Pepper
- Rosemary or your favorite herb or none at all

Directions:
- Wash and scrub the potatoes. Put them in a large bowl and microwave until cooked through. For me it took about 5 minutes for 10'ish potatoes. You can also boil the potatoes, but microwaves are much faster and easier.
- Lay out the potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Using a potato masher (or fork or bottom of a pan/plate/cup) and smush each potato. If necessary, flip the potatoes over so that the potato innards are face up. You'll get better crispiness out of it that way.
- Drizzle olive oil over the tops, sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbs.
- Pop the potatoes in the oven until the tops are crispy. The first night I made them, I put them in for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees and the second night I tried it for 15-20 minutes are 425 degrees. They both turned out just fine.
- Eat.

Sugar-Free Banana Bread

2011-09-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

This is something I made a long time ago, but I haven't been great about keeping up with this blog as you can tell, so I'm posting it now, many, many months later.

I'm not a huge fan of this, but I was looking for something interesting to make for my daughter besides the usual boring purees. She was 9 months at the time and loving finger foods. I wanted to expose her to as many flavors and textures as possible, and thought this might be good. Unfortunately, she wasn't a fan either and I ended up tossing most of it. It was just bland and a bit on the dry side and not very tasty. The sugar is very important :)

Anyway, if you decide to give this a try anyway, from what I've read, it's not a good idea to give babies too much sugar or salt, and this fits the bill. It's also not a good idea for babies to eat egg whites, but we have no history of allergies in our families and our pediatrician cleared it. If you're being more careful about allergies than we are, you might want to steer clear of this until your kid is a bit older. I left out the nuts from the recipe because that's another common allergen.

Inspired by Cooks.com
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cups of bananas (mashed)
- 1/3 cup of veggie oil
- 1 large eggs
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
Directions:
- Mix the banana, oil, eggs and water.
- Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix well.
- Pour mixture into a well-oiled 9x5 loaf pan.
- Bakd at 325 for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool on a wire rack, then slice and serve.

Corn with Chicken

2011-08-28T16:45:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I knew that if my mom wasn't around to make dinner, this was what we were having, because it was the only dish my dad knew how to make. Well, this and egg fried rice (one of my favorite by the way).

So, given that, you can assume that this dish is pretty easy to make, and it is! And even better, my daughter will actually eat it (she's been on a self-imposed mostly vegetarian diet of as late).

I also tried out a little trick that I think I will be using from now on. I always wondered how Chinese restaurants get there meat so darn tender. I was always told it was because they marinated it in corn starch, which is something I always do, but it's never the same. After a bit of internet research, it looks like they're using baking soda! So I tried just a pinch of baking soda and it seemed to have worked. It's not as obvious with chicken, especially when the chicken pieces are so small this case, so the real test will be the next time I make beef with broccoli. I'll let you know how that goes...

Ingredients:
- Corn
- Chicken (I used breast)
- Salt
- Baking soda
- Oil

Directions:
- Cut the corn into ~1/2" cubes and sprinkle a dash of salt and a pinch of baking soda and mix well. Set aside and let it marinate for a bit. 10 minutes is probably enough time.
- Heat some oil in a pan or wok and add the chicken in. Keep the chicken moving in the pan until it is mostly cooked through.
- Add corn and keep the contents of the pan moving until the chicken is cooked through and the corn is heated through. Add a bit more salt to taste if necessary.
- Serve with rice.

Told ya' it was easy!

Potstickers Revisited

2011-07-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still alive. No, I'm not cooking nearly as much as I used to, and when I do, it's not all that exciting. That's one reason for the lack of posts. Another reason is that I'm pregnant again! Baby #2 is due on January 5, 2012 and we are super excited for the new addition!

So while the posts will still be far and few between, I promise that this blog is not dead and I will be back periodically with little additions here and there. And today, I'm blogging about dumplings again!

I love that dumplings are so versatile. You can use any meat, or no meat at all and any veggie(s). This time, I used ground turkey, bok choy and ginger and that's it! Easy, delicious, healthy and baby friendly too!

Ingredients:
- Ground turkey
- Bok Choy
- Ginger
- Soy sauce
- White pepper
- Oyster sauce
- Sesame oil
- Dumpling wrappers

Directions:
- Finely chop the bok choy.
- Grate the ginger
- Mix the turkey, bok choy, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, white pepper and oyster sauce in a bowl

- Take a wrapper, put about a tablespoon of filling in the center, dab water around the edge of half of the wrapper, fold it over and squeeze closed, pleating it you've got the skills to achieve a half moon shape (you can skip the pleating if it's too difficult).

- When you're done wrapping all the dumplings, heat a nonstick pan with a bit of oil. Line the dumplings in the pan, making sure the bottom of each one is coated in oil. Add about a cup of water and cover the pan. Turn the heat up to high and let it boil and evaporate.
- Once the water has mostly cooked off, take the lid off and let it continue cooking until the water has completely evaporated and the bottoms of the dumplings are nice and crispy.
- Serve it with your favorite dipping sauce. I like mine simple, just black vinegar and soy sauce.

No knead bread

2011-04-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I've never posted the recipe, so here it is!

We used to keep a starter for artisan bread in 5 minutes a day in the fridge at all times, but because you're supposed to take some out and add more every once in a while, and of course, we couldn't waste what we tossed out, we ended up baking (and eating) bread waaay too much (if there is such a thing) and eventually stopped :(

Now we use this recipe instead when we're in the mood for fresh baked bread. It's quick, easy and delicious and we love it. In fact, when we make it, we tend to make several loaves at once, which kind of defeats the purpose of not keeping the old starter because we still end up eating too much bread. Well, at least I get the fridge space back :)

Ingredients:

- 3 cups of flour (bread flour is preferable but all-purpose will work too)

- 1 1/2 cups of warm water

- 1/4 tsp yeast

- 1 tsp salt

Directions:

- At least 8 hours ahead of time, or up to 24 hours in advance, mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl (make sure to leave room for the dough to rise) and cover. Let rise.

- When the dough is ready, it will look very wet and bubbly.

- Gently knead the dough a bit with your hands to punch down some of the bubbles and shape it into a messy ball. You can shape it into a pretty ball if you'd like, but just be sure to slit the top before putting it into the oven.

- To make transferring the dough and clean easy, I like to plop the ball on parchment paper and put it back in the original bowl. Let it rise for an hour or two.

- Preheat the oven and a dutch oven to 450 degrees.

- Carefully transfer the dough into the HOT dutch oven. If you're using parchment paper, you can just place the parchment paper into the pot along with the dough.

- Put the lid on the dutch oven and place it back in the oven for 30 minutes.

- Then remove the lid and bake for another 15-20 minutes.

- Remove the bread and let it cool on a rack.

- Slice and enjoy! Our favorite is to pair it with cheese :)

Chive Boxes

2011-03-13T21:43:00.002-07:00

I love all dumpling'ish foods such as dumplings, pot stickers, steamed buns and of course chive boxes, also known as jiu cai he zi in Chinese.

Garlic chives or Chinese chives are much more potent than regular chives and I love the flavor and fragrance. I started growing garlic chives in the garden, but I still don't have quite enough to make a decent batch of chive boxes, so store-bought will have to do for now.

The main components of chive boxes are egg, glass noodles and of course chives! If you like, mini dried shrimp make a tasty addition as well. And if you decide that you don't like the flavor of garlic chives, which can be a bit strong, you can easily substitute it for other veggies such as spinach and even add some ground pork or shrimp to make your own tasty creation!

I'm also submitting this dish to Weekend Herb Blogging which is being hosted by Chris at Mele Cotte. Check out the other submissions if you get a chance!

Ingredients:
(Dough)

- All Purpose Flour
- Hot Water

(Filling)
- Garlic chives
- Glass noodles aka mung bean noodles, cellophane noodles, etc.
- Eggs
- Salt and/or soy sauce

- Sesame oil

Directions:
- Mix together the flour and hot water (about 2 parts flour to 1 part water) until a nice smooth dough is formed. Cover it and set it aside.
- Chop the chives into 1/2-1/4 inch bits.
- Scramble the eggs in a pan with a bit of salt and/or soy to taste.
- Soak the glass noodles in hot water until soft and pliable. Then chop the noodles into approximately 1 inch lengths.
- Mix the chives, glass noodles and eggs together in a bowl. Season with soy sauce and sesame oil as needed.

- Cut off a chunk of the dough and roll and stretch it into a rope of about 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter.
- Slice the rope into approximately 1 inch chunks (depending on how big you want your chive boxes to be and how thick you like the skin to be), turning the rope 90 degrees in between each cut so that you the dough doesn't get flattened into an oval.

- Smoosh each chunk into a circle, dust with flour, set aside, and cover them with a kitchen towel so that they don't dry out.
- Using a wooden dowel, roll out the dough into a circle (or as close to it as you can get). I find that rolling the dough from the edge closest to me halfway to the center of the circle and back out with my left hand while using my right hand to turn the dough a quarter turn in between each roll of the dowel works best for me.
- When you have achieved the desired thickness (depending on how dough-y you like your chive boxes to be), you can use a cookie cutter to get a prettier circle, but I'm lazy and don't bother with this step.
- Place some filling in the center of the dough and wet the edge of half the circle with water. Bring the wet edge and the dry edge together (sort of like a taco) and press the edges together. You can make pretty pleats if you want, but it's really not necessary. Just make sure it's closed tight.
- Set aside and repeat until you are out of dough or filling.
- Heat some oil on medium in a non-stick pan. Place as many of the chive boxes in the pan, seam side down, as you can.
- If you want, add a bit of water to the pan as if you were cooking potstickers. You can also cook them without water too. Both methods work and will just give you a slightly different texture in the dough.
- Let them cook until the crust is a crunchy and has a light golden brown. Flip them and cook the other side until light golden brown as well.
- Serve plain or with a mixture of black vinegar and soy sauce.
- You can also freeze these and pop them back in the pan to reheat whenever you're in the mood for them!

Grilled Chicken Burrito

2011-02-05T22:48:00.000-08:00

I've always had trouble wrapping burritos. I can never get the filling to stay inside, and I've discovered the reason is because I've never used the proper tortillas. Burrito tortillas are HUMUNGOUS! And the only place I've found them at are Mexican grocery stores. Having the right tortillas really makes a difference.

Oh, and you know those Grilled Burritos that they have at Taco Bell? They're really on to something! Grilling burritos may not be authentic, but it sure does make them tasty!

Ingredients:

- Chicken breasts

- Salsa

- Shredded cheese

- Burrito tortillas

- Mexican rice

- No-fried beans

Directions:

- Put chicken breasts in a heavy bottomed pot and pour in salsa. You don't need to cover the chicken all the way because it will release a bit of liquid on its own.

- Bring the chicken/salsa to a boil and then turn down the heat to a simmer.

- Simmer until the chicken is cooked through and tender enough to shred with a fork.

- Shred the chicken and flavor with salt and pepper (or other spices of your choice) if necessary.

- Take a tortilla and layer the cheese, beans, rice, chicken and any other extras you like (tomtatoes, guacamole, sour cream, etc) and wrap up the burrito. Be generous with the fillings, those tortillas can hold a lot!

- Grill the burrito on each side until brown and crispy.

- Share with a friend...these suckers are big!

Mexican Rice

2011-02-05T22:19:00.000-08:00

Oh poor neglected food blog. Hello again and happy new year. Have I really not posted since last year? Ack. So sorry. I'll try to post here a bit more regularly in 2011.

Mexican rice is so much more fun than boring old regular rice and is so easy too. I'm assuming you can dump all these ingredients in a rice cooker and it'd turn out great too, but since I'm already dirtying a pan for sauteing the onions, I just finish it in the pan instead of dirtying the rice cooker too. I've never cooked rice without a rice cooker and still depend on it to tell me how much water to put in, but who knew cooking rice was so easy? This doesn't mean I'm giving up the rice cooker though!

Ingredients:
- Oil
- Rice
- Water or broth
- Minced garlic
- Diced onions
- Tomato paste
- Salt
- Cumin
(optional - bell peppers, jalapenos, cilantro, etc)

Directions:
- Pour a bit of oil in a pan and add the onions. Saute until soft.
- Add the other veggies if you're using any.
- Add the garlic and stir for a few seconds.
- Add the rice and saute until the grains are coated with oil and are a bit toasty. Then add the water/broth. Or, if you're like me and have no clue how much water to add without using the lines in the rice cooker, add the rice and water together.
- Stir in the tomato paste (to taste/color) until melted.
- Add salt and cumin to taste.
- Bring everything to a simmer, turn the heat down and put the lid on.
- Simmer until the water is gone and the rice is cooked through.
- Fluff the rice, garnish it with cilantro, and serve it with whatever Mexican goodies you want.

Turkey Club

2010-11-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

With the baby this year, I opted out of hosting Thanksgiving, and let me tell you, it was a nice break. I didn't even realize Thanksgiving was coming up until a few days before it instead of stressing and agonizing over the menu for weeks.

We had a lovely dinner at my in-laws and even got to take home lots of delicious leftovers. It just doesn't get any better...until my husband made this fantastic turkey club out of the leftovers! Making a sandwich is not just slapping together two pieces of bread with some stuff in the middle. It takes real talent to get the right combo of ingredients and put them in the right order etc, and I just don't have that talent, but I'm glad my husband does! And don't sandwiches just taste better when someone else makes them anyway? :)

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

potato salad

2010-09-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

We had a big BBQ this past weekend. It was such a contrast from last year. This year was filled with a lot more kids and a lot less alcohol. I guess we're growing up!

I also have to say that prepping and hosting a BBQ with a baby is a lot more difficult than I had anticipated, but we survived and I think everyone ate well and had fun. At least I hope so!

We made smoked brisket, pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, and I tried a new recipe for the potato salad this year. My hubby really liked the tanginess of it and I thought it was pretty good too. I'm definitely keeping this one bookmarked for the future.

Adapted from Accidental Hedonist
(this is a double and a half batch because we had so many people and because I bought a 5 pound bag of potatoes)

Ingredients:
- 5 pounds of Sierra Gold potatoes (they were on sale, Yukon was not)
- 2 1/2 tsp salt
- 5 Tbs pickle juice
- 5 tsp yellow mustard
- 2 1/2 brown mustard

- 2 1/2 Tbs pickle juice
- 1/2 cup of finely chopped pickles
- 1 1/2 tsp celery salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 1/4 cup mayo
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 red onion, chopped very finely

Directions:
- Peel and cut the potatoes into 3/4 inch pieces
- Place the potatoes in cold water, covered by 1 inch of water
- Bring the water to a boil, add 2 1/2 tsp salt and the simmer until tender (about 10-15 minutes)
- Drain potatoes and spread them out on a baking sheet
- Mix 5 Tbs of pickle juice with the mustard and pour it over the potatoes and toss gently
- Let the potatoes cool
- After the potatoes have cooled, mix 2 1/2 Tbs of pickle juice, pickles, celery salt, pepper, mayo, sour cream and onion
- Refrigerate until ready to serve

Milk

2010-08-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been a bit busy with a new baby! I'm still cooking here and there and also have a huge backlog of pictures of previous things I've cooked and just never got around to posting about, but for now, I'll leave you with this :)

Directions:
1. Get pregnant

2. Have baby

3. Wait a few days

4. Squeeze/suck boob

PS - I started a baby blog too. If you're interested in reading it and know me in real life, let me know and I'll invite you.

apricot bread

2010-05-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

I'm on maternity now and so you'd think I'd have more time for things like cooking and blogging, right? I thought so too! Sorry about the neglect... :(

I still have a bunch of fruit from last year's bounty in the freezer. It's really a shame that we have so many gorgeous fruit trees in our yard but are not a frequent fruit-eating household. I know it's something we should change, and I'm working on it. But for now, I'm also working on clearing out the freezer because before you know it, our fruit trees are going to be abundant with fruit again and I'm going to need that freezer space!

One of the fruits that my freezer is overflowing with is apricots. I looked up recipes to use up my apricots, but everything I found was for dried apricots. So I looked up peaches instead. They're pretty similar, right? One that caught my eye was this peach bread recipe. I just substituted the peaches for apricots and it worked out nicely. It actually doesn't taste very apricot-y, but it's a tasty bread either way. It could be that my apricots weren't all that flavorful, who knows.

I also substituted half of the flour with white whole wheat flour to make it a bit healthier and have been eating it for breakfast this week.

If you have any other great apricot recipes, I'd love to hear them!

Adapted from A Life Less Sweet
Ingredients:
- 2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 cups very ripe, mashed apricots
- 1 egg
- 2 tbs melted butter

Directions:
- Combine the flours, sugars, salt and baking soda in a bowl.
- In a second bowl, combine the peaches, egg and butter.
- Stir in flour mixture.
- Grease a 9x5 loaf pan and pour the mixture in.
- Let it stand for 20 minutes while preheating the oven to 350 degrees.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then remove it to a cooling rack to finish cooling. minutes. Bake at 350 for 45-55 min. Cool bread in pan 15 min; remove from pan and finish cooling on wire rack.

Chicken & Sausage Scarpiello Arrabbiata

2010-05-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

Here's another sauce that was sent to me by Bertolli - Arrabbiata sauce. I followed their recipe for chicken & sausage scarpiello arrabiata. Again, I was surprised to find that the sauce needed more salt. I also would have preferred pasta over potatoes, but the recipe called for potatoes, so that's what I used. Otherwise, it was tasty and made a great meal.

Recipe:
6 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 lb. hot or sweet italian sausage links, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup red vinegar
1 jar (7 oz) roasted red peppers, drained and thinly sliced
1 jar Bertolli Arrabbiata Sauce
2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
1 lb. all-purpose potatoes, peeled, cooked and cut into wedges

Heat oil and brown chicken and sausage in 12 inch deep nonstick skillet or 5 quart saucepot over medium high heat; remove. In same skillet, cook onion and fennel over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, 6 minutes or until tender and starting to brown. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds. Stir in vinegar and roasted red peppers and cook 1 minute. Stir in Bertolli Arrabbiata Sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add back chicken and sausage. Simmer covered 30 minutes. Stir in potatoes and parsley and cook 5 minutes.

Pink Shrimp with Bacons & Onions

2010-05-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

Being a member of Foodbuzz means that I occasionally get sent goodies to test out. This time I got a jar of Four Cheese Rosa Sauce from Bertolli along with a few recipes on how to use it. I decided to go with Pink Shrimp with Bacons & Onions. All the ingredients sound fabulous, don't they?

It was a tasty dish overall, however I was a surprised to find that it could have used a bit of salt. Usually jarred sauces are way too salty. Otherwise, I definitely recommend this recipe.

I'm also submitting this to Presto Pasta Nights, a fun event created by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast. Check out her blog on Friday to see the other submissions.

Recipe:
4 servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

4 slices of bacon, chopped
1 large onion, sliced into thin wedges
1 lb. uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 jar Bertolli Four Cheese Rosa Sauce
8 ounces fettuccine, cooked and drained (reserve 1/2 cup pasta water)

Cook bacon in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon; reserve drippings. Cook onion in reserved drippings over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes or until onion is golden. Add shrimp and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, 4 minutes of until shrimp turn pink. Stir in Sauce and reserved pasta water; heat through. Toss with hot fettuccine and garnish , if desired, with shredded fontina cheese and parsley.

Cabbage and Tomato Stir Fry

2010-04-27T23:48:00.000-07:00

This is a simple and healthy side dish. That's all there is to it, really. If I ever need a quick veggie dish, I whip this up in a few minutes.

Ingredients:
- Cabbage
- Tomatoes
- Garlic
- Salt
Directions:
- Mince the garlic and set aside.
- Cut the cabbage into strips, about a quarter inch thick or so.
- Slice the tomatoes into thing wedges.
- Heat some oil in a pan.
- Add the garlic and stir for a few seconds, until fragrant.
- Add the tomatoes and a bit of water and cook until the tomatoes soften a bit. Adding a sprinkle or two of salt will help with this.
- Add the cabbage and salt to taste.
- Stir everything in the pan until the cabbage is cooked through.
- Enjoy this healthy side dish guilt-free!

Teriyaki Chicken

2010-04-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

When you order teriyaki chicken at a restaurant, it's usually just grilled (or even boiled) chicken smothered in teriyaki sauce. Not too exciting. I really like teriyak chicken, but just not when it's made like that. I like marinating the chicken in the sauce instead and then grilling it up. A light drizzle of extra sauce over to eat with the rice or veggies is fine, but I don't want it drowning in sauce.

So, this is how I make teriyaki chicken. Super simple, super delicious.

Ingredients:
- Boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- Teriyaki sauce
- Sesame seeds and green onions as a garnish
- Rice and steamed veggies to round out the meal

Directions:
- Marinate the chicken in the teriyaki sauce for a few hours (I tend to do it overnight)
- Grill the chicken
- Garnish the chicken with sesame seeds and green onions
- Serve it with rice and veggies

That's all!

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

2010-04-17T00:05:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go to Vietnamese restaurants, I always have an internal struggle between ordering the fried eggrolls and the fresh spring rolls. Usually, the fried ones win, but since the weather is warming up, this seems more fitting.

And since this month's Side Dish Showdown has a theme of Spring, this seems fitting. Check out Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice and the end of the month to see some other Spring inspired side dishes.

Ingredients:
(Rolls)
- Rice paper
- Rice noodles
- Shrimp
- Thinly sliced meat (I used eye of round that was pre-sliced for hot pot purposes)
- Lettuce
(Sauce)
- Peanut butter
- Hoisin
- Water
- Fish sauce
- Crushed peanuts
- Chili sauce (optional)

Directions:
(Rolls)
- Boil the rice noodles until fully cooked, then rinse it with cold water and set aside.
- Slice the lettuce into quarter inch strips and set aside.
- Cook the shrimp, then cool it, slice them in half if desired and set aside.
- Cook the meat, cool it, and set aside.
- Fill a pan large enough to fit the rice paper with water.
- For each roll, quickly dip two sheets of rice paper in the water (on both sides) and stack them on top of each other, flat on a cutting board. On my first roll, I let the paper soak in the water until it was fully soft. That was too soft and the rice paper fell apart. On my second, I just dipped it quickly, but found that it was still not enough because it'd rip when I tried rolling the spring rolls. Then I tried to dip two quickly and found that was perfect. You can experience yourself too, to see what works best for you.
- Lay a line of shrimp (pretty side down if you sliced them in half) on the softened rice paper.
- Lay a line of the meat on top of the shrimp.
- Lay a line of noodles on top of the meat.
- Lay a line of lettuce on top of the noodles.
- Fold in the edges and wrap up the filling into the spring roll.
- Repeat for each roll.
(Sauce)
- Scoop some peanut butter into a bowl and add a bit of water.
- Pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to help melt the peanut butter.
- Stir the peanut butter/water mixture until smooth.
- Add hoisin sauce and just a dash of fish sauce to taste (a little goes a looong way, so don't add too much).
- Add some chili sauce if desired.
- Stir everything together until it achieves the taste and consistency you desire.
- Top with crushed peanuts and dip spring rolls in the sauce.

Chimichurri Sauce

2010-04-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

Grilling season is back! That means less cooking for me and more for my hubz! I like grilling season :)

Instead of doing the standard grilled tri-tip that we do so often, we decided to make things a little more interesting by adding a nice chimichurri sauce.

We went to Argentina last year, and as much steak as we ate, we had surprisingly little chimichurri. But what we did have was fantastic! And now we don't need to fly all the way down there to get some.

Chimichurri is so easy to make and definitely worth the effort. If you've never tried it, I highly suggest you do.

Ingredients:
- Grilled tri-tip or other steak
- Parsley
- Garlic
- Oregano
- Olive oil
- Vinegar (red wine or something similar would be nice) or lemon juice
- Salt
- Pepper
- Red pepper flakes

Directions:
- Start with a nice piece of meat like this
- In a food processor, blend the parsley, garlic, oregano, oil, vinegar/lemon juice, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste.
- Drizzle the sauce on the meat of your choice. Beef works best in my opinion, but I'm sure it tastes great with other meats too. Heck, just smearing it on some bread tastes great too!

No-fried Beans

2010-04-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

Like I've said before, we eat a lot of Mexican food at home. I used to buy cases of refried beans from Costco to use in our Mexican concoctions, but I decided to try making it myself. I figured it probably wasn't too difficult and that it'd be healthier and cheaper this way. I was right on all counts and haven't bought the canned stuff since. The only problem is that you have to plan at least a day ahead because the beans require soaking. I suppose if I skipped the soaking and just used more liquid and cooked it longer, that would work too.

We use our no-fried beans in burritos, tacos, nachos, etc, and add salsa and cheese to it for a tasty dip for chips, so even when I make a big batch, we end up finishing it all. If we ever have trouble finishing it, I'm sure that it would freeze well. Just freeze them into single serving size batches and defrost them as needed.

Ingredients:
- Dried pinto beans
- Water or stock
- Cumin
- Chili powder
- Onion powder
- Garlic powder
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
The day before -
- Rinse the beans and pick out any rocks or ugly beans.
- Fill a container half-way (or less) with the dried beans and then fill it to the top with water. The beans will expand A LOT, so give it room to do so. I learned this the hard way when I woke up to see that they had overflowed all over the kitchen counter.

Pressure cooker version -
- The next day, drain the beans and dump them into your pressure cooker.
- If you're using a pressure cooker, you don't need much liquid at all, so just barely cover the beans with liquid.
- You can add a bit of the seasonings if you want, or none at all. If you do season now, do so lightly. You can always add more later.*
- Cook the beans at full pressure for about 15 minutes. Then let the pressure come back down naturally.
- Open up the beans, if they're not soft yet, cook them for another 10 minutes. You don't really have to worry about overcooking them since they're going to be mashed anyway.

Crockpot/Other pot version -
(I've never done it this way, but I'm assuming this would work)
- Dump the beans into the pot and fill it with water or stock until they're covered by at least an inch.
- Add a bit of the seasonings (not too much though as the water will evaporate and the flavors will concentrate. You can always add more at the end)*
- Bring everything to a boil and then let it simmer until the beans are soft, stirring occasionally and adding more liquid when necessary.

Do for all versions -
- If there is still a lot of liquid left, pour enough of it out (but set it aside as you may want to add more later) so that the liquid covers the beans by about half an inch or less.
- Use a potato masher and mash the beans until smooth (or slightly chunky if that's the way you like it) while seasoning to taste.
- If the beans are thicker than you like, add some liquid. If it's too watery, you can cook it down a bit, but just remember that it will thicken up as it cools.
- Serve it in your favorite Mexican dishes!

*I've read that adding salt to the beans while cooking results in them splitting. I add salt while cooking and mine do split sometimes (usually just the ones on the top layer), but since I'm mashing them anyway, who cares?

Crispy Pan-Fried Noodles

2010-03-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

Chow mein is great on it's own, but frying the noodles makes it even better!

Liang mian huang or crispy pan fried noodles are noodles that are fried into a crispy disk and topped with a stir fry of meat and vegetables and a nice, flavorful, thick sauce. Mix the noodles, meat, vegetables and sauce at the table. The perfect bite has a bit of noodles that have soaked up the sauce, a bit of noodles that are still crunchy, and a bit of meat and vegetables. It's a fun dish to prepare and to eat!

I'm also submitting this for Presto Pasta Night which is hosted by Once Upon a Feast this week. Check it out to see all the other yummy submissions.

Ingredients:
- Yellow noodles (you can find these in any Asian supermarket. You can go with thick or thin, I happened to go with thick)
- Any combination of meat (typical options are chicken, beef and shrimp)
- Cabbage
- Carrots
- Garlic
- Soy sauce
- Oyster sauce
- Water
- Corn starch

Directions:
- Cook the noodles according to the package directions, drain them and set them aside.
- Slice the meat into bite size pieces. Marinate them in a mixture of corn starch and soy sauce while you prep the other veggies.
- Slice the carrots into thin slices (I like to do it at a bias)
- Chop the cabbage into roughly 1 inch squares
- Mince the garlic
- Mix a few teaspoons of corn starch with a few teaspoons of cold water and set aside.
- Heat about at least 1/2 inch of oil in a pan (you can deep fry the noodles too if you'd like) until placing placing a chopstick into the oil makes it bubble.
- Carefully dump the noodles into the oil and fry until crispy.
- Flip the noodles and fry the other side until crispy.
- Remove the noodles, drain the oil, and set them aside.
- Heat a bit of oil in another pan (or dump most of the oil out of your original pan) and add the meat, some soy sauce, and the garlic. Stir fry it until it's mostly cooked. If you're using shrimp, add the shrimp at the last minute so that it doesn't overcook.
- Add the veggies and oyster sauce. Cook through while keeping everything in the pan moving.
- When everything is done, add more water if you need to (you should have quite a bit of sauce for the noodles to soak up) and the corn starch/water slurry to thicken up the sauce.
- Spoon the meat, veggies and sauce over the noodles and serve while hot.

Miso Soup

2010-03-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Since I already had the miso out, I thought a nice accompaniment to the salmon would be a miso soup. This was also simple, quick and healthy with minimal cleanup. I love meals like this!

Ingredients:
- Miso
- Water
- Dashi (pellet-like fish stock base)
- Wakame (dried seaweed - but not the sushi kind)
- Tofu
- Green onions

Directions:
- Boil some water in a pot.
- Add dashi according to the package directions, stirring to dissolve the pellets.
- Add miso paste to taste.
- Add in the wakame.
- Dice the tofu and gently slide it in.
- Gently stir the soup so that everything is mixed.
- Garnish with a bit of freshly chopped green onions.

Miso-Glazed Salmon

2010-03-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

This dish was inspired by my continued effort to eat healthier and eat more fish. I've already reached my "recommended" weight gain for this pregnancy. I'm an over-achiever that way. And since I still have a while to go, I am (sometimes) watching what I eat a bit more carefully. Apparently, it's a good idea to watch what you eat, even if you're not pregnant, but whatever. Plus fish is good for the baby's brain development - grow baby brain, grow! :)

I've always adored miso-glazed fish that you get at restaurants and was surprised to find that it is SUPER easy to make at home. Hardly any prep and minimal clean up, it's so quick and so good for you too. I'm definitely adding it to the regular rotation!

Ingredients:
- Salmon
- Miso paste
- Honey
- Soy
- Rice wine vinegar
- Ginger
- Mirin
- Water

Directions:
- Mix the miso paste, a bit of hot water, honey, soy, rice wine vinegar, grated ginger (I used a microplane grater), and mirin in a bowl to taste. If you're missing any of the ingredients (besides the miso), feel free to substitute. Honey and mirin can be replaced by brown sugar, etc. And honestly, if you're missing any of the other ingredients, it's fine to omit them altogether. The main thing you need is the miso and something sweet.
- Put the mixture in the microwave just long enough so that it thickens up a bit. It shouldn't take long.
- Put the salmon on some foil to make cleanup a cinch.
- Brush half of the glaze onto the salmon and pop it under a broiler for about 15 minutes. Since I was just making this for the two of us, I used our toaster oven instead of the full-sized and it still turned out great.
- After 15 minutes, take the fish out and brush on another layer of glaze and pop it back under the broiler until the fish has cooked through. For me, it took another 15 minutes, but it really depends on how thick your fish is and how strong your broiler is.
- Serve it with brown rice and steamed broccoli and you've got yourself a quick and healthy dinner. And if you have any extra sauce left, drizzle it over the rice and veggies.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

2010-03-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

My first un-assisted cookie success! I'm sooooo happy!!!!

My entire life, every cookie that I've baked on my own has turned out bad. Usually, the texture is more like a cake than a cookie. And usually, I'm attempting to make chocolate chip cookies.

Well, this time I decided to tackle a different type of cookie, hoping to get better results. Oatmeal raisin is classic, right? But I still wanted my chocolate, so I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies instead. It was a brilliant idea if I do say so myself, haha.

I used an oatmeal raisin recipe from Smitten Kitchen but substituted chocolate chips for raisins. It turned out soft and chewy and wonderful. Maybe I can tackle regular chocolate chip cookies next!

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Ingredients:
- 1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
- 2/3 cup of light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour (I used bread flour because that's all I had in the house, and it still turned out well)
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1 1/2 cups of rolled oats
- 3/4 cup of chocolate chips

Directions:
- Cream the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla together in a bowl.
- Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt to the butter/sugar mixture.
- Fold in the oatmeal and chocolate chips.
- Scoop the cookies onto a lined cookie sheet, giving them plenty of space to spread, and stick them in the fridge (or freezer if you're impatient) until they're cool.
- Bake them in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. I found that they actually need more like 15 because they started off cold. Basically, you want the edges to be slightly brown and the middle to be slightly undercooked.
- Remove them from the oven and let them cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Dip them in some cold milk and indulge!

Garlic Steamed Scallops

2010-03-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

This is a dish that I had in Hong Kong and Singapore and I absolutely adored it. There are these restaurants with live seafood. You go up to the tanks, pick what you want and tell them how you want it prepared. This is a picture of the tanks at one of the restaurants on Lamma Island in Hong Kong. So fresh and delicious!

My favorite dish to order at these types of restaurants was the garlic steamed scallops. Humongous fresh scallops, steamed with garlic and glass noodles. Yum, yum, YUM!

I'm not sure what else they put in because as I tried to recreate it, it just wasn't quite the same. If you've ever had this dish, please help me out and let me know what I'm missing. I'm dying to recreate it properly.

In the meantime, here is what I did...

Ingredients:
- Sea scallops
- Glass noodles
- Garlic
- Scallions
- Sea salt
- Oil (I used sesame, but I suggest using olive oil or butter instead)

Directions:
- Soak the glass noodles in hot water until soft. They should be pretty much cooked since they won't be steaming for long.
- Finely dice/crush the garlic.
- Lay down a bed of the noodles, then the scallop, then a generous dollop of garlic and a bit of chopped scallions.
- Sprinkle sea salt on top and drizzle a bit of oil on top. I used sesame oil, but the flavor was way too strong. I'm thinking maybe olive oil or butter would be better.
- Place it in a steamer for about 5-10 minutes or until the scallop is cooked (be careful not to over cook them).

Spicy Eggplant

2010-03-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Eggplants are so pretty raw, but after you cook them, they're one of the most unappetizing looking foods out there. And using a phone to take the picture because my camera was out of batteries and I couldn't find the charger doesn't help matters either. But it's the flavor that's more important, right? And with this dish, the flavor was definitely there!

Ingredients:
- Eggplants (I like using the thinner Japanese style ones)
- Ground meat (pork or turkey)
- Enoki mushrooms (totally optional, but I love the texture of these mushrooms)
- Garlic
- Chili sauce
Soy sauce
- Oil

Directions:
- Slice the eggplant into wedges about 2-3 inches long. The thinner you cut them, the faster they'll cook.
- Finely chop the garlic.
- Heat some oil in a pan or wok.
- Add the garlic and stir it for a few seconds until it's fragrant.
- Add the ground meat and some soy.
- Cook the meat, breaking it up as you go and then remove it from the pan and set it aside.
- To cook the eggplant, you can either deep fry it (faster, crispier, tastier and prettier, but not as healthy) or "boil" it.
- To deep fry, heat a lot of oil in the wok, toss the eggplant in (you may want to do this in batches to keep the oil hot) and keep the eggplant moving until it's cooked through.
- To "boil" it, just add the eggplant to the wok with some soy sauce and water. Keep the stirring the eggplant until it's cooked through, adding more water as necessary.
- Add the meat back in with the eggplant, add chili sauce and the enoki mushrooms and stir until everything is well combined and the mushrooms are cooked. It shouldn't take very long at all.
- Serve it over a bed of rice.

Fish Tacos

2010-03-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

Fish is good for you, so I bought a bag of frozen tilapia in an effort to "be healthier". HA! We'll see how long that lasts :)

We made fish tacos with the tilapia and it was super tasty. If this is what all "healthier" food tastes like, I think I can definitely keep this up!

Ingredients:
- Tilapia or other mild flavored fish
- Salt
- Pepper
- Chili powder
- Tortillas (corn is more traditional, but all we had was flour, which worked out great too)
- Garnish
- Cabbage
- Black beans
- Diced tomatoes
- Diced avocado
- Sour cream
- Hot sauce/salsa (we like Tapitio)
- Lime

Directions:
- Season the fish with salt, pepper and chili powder.
- Pan fry the fish with a tiny bit of oil until cooked through.
- Place the fish along with the garnishes of your choice on a tortilla.
- Fold it over and enjoy it guilt-free!

Carrot Bread

2010-03-05T20:14:00.000-08:00

I've been getting tired of cereal for breakfast every morning, so when I saw my friend make zucchini bread, I asked her for the recipe. It looked like the perfect solution to my breakfast boredom.

Along with the recipe, she mentioned how next time she wanted to try carrots, and since I already had carrots in my fridge, I went with carrots. She also gave me notes on 3 separate attempts she did using different amounts of different kinds of sugar and her opinions on its effects. She said 1 cup of white sugar was too sweet. 3/4 cups of brown sugar wasn't sweet enough and 3/4 cup of white sugar was still a bit too sweet. Using this info, I decided on 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar and thought it was a good level of sweetness. You can tweak it however you like.

Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
(the original calls for 1 cup of sugar instead of the mixture of white and brown sugar)
1 cup of shredded carrots
1 egg
1/2 cup oil
1/4 tsp lemon zest
1/2 cup walnuts (I forgot these)

Directions:
- Stir the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and baking powder together and set aside.
- Mix the sugar, brown sugar, carrots and egg in a separate bowl.
- Add the lemon zest and oil to the carrot mixture.
- Slowly mix in the flour mixture until evenly mixed.
- Fold in the walnuts.
- Grease a 8x4x2 loaf pan and pour the batter in.
- Cook in a 350 degree oven for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes than transfer it to a rack to finish cooling.

Chinese New Year Dumplings

2010-02-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Happy Chinese New Year!

When I was a kid, my mother always made a Chinese New Year feast with all the "lucky" foods and my favorite was always dumplings. She'd hide a peanut, candy, or a quarter in a select number of the dumplings (yes, we'd bleach the quarter and then wrap it in saran wrap - which was always my job) and a select lucky few would eat these special dumplings. Whoever got a peanut would be blessed with good health, the candy symbolized love, and the money meant fortune. It was a fun tradition that I definitely intend to continue with our kids!

Ingredients:
- Ground meat (I used a combo of ground pork and turkey. Shrimp is also a common filling)
- Vegetables (I used napa cabbage, but garlic chives, spinach, mushrooms, etc are all great options)
- Aromatics (Ginger, garlic, scallions, etc)
- Soy sauce
- Salt
- White pepper
- Sesame oil
- Dumpling wrappers

Directions:
- Finely chop the napa cabbage, salt it and set it in a colander to get rid of the excess water. Once it's been wilted, rinse off the salt and drain it. You can also put it into the food processor and then use a cheese cloth to squeeze out the water.

- Finely dice or grate the aromatics.
- Mix the meat, veggies, aromatics, and seasonings together in large bowl.
- Take a dumpling wrapper, place about a tablespoon of filling in the center along with one of the little surprises if you want. If you're having trouble getting it closed, use less filling or more if you want plumper dumplings. You'll get better at folding them with practice.
- Wet one half of the edge of the wrapper with water, fold over to close it and if you can, pleat the edges like this.

- Repeat the previous step until you run out of filling or wrappers. At this point, you can freeze them to cook at a later time or cook them now.

- To cook, you can use one of the following methods:

Boil - Bring a pot of water to a boil. Carefully drop in the dumplings and give it a stir to keep them from sticking (there's no need to defrost them if they were frozen first) Bring it back up to a boil. When it reaches a boil, add a cup of cold water and bring it up to a boil again. Repeat this again. The third time it comes up to a boil, the dumplings should be floating and cooked through.
Steam - Line a steamer basket with napa cabbage leaves. Put the dumplings into the steamer and steam for 10-15 minutes.
Pot stickers - Pour enough oil to coat the bottom of a non-stick pan. Line the dumplings in a single layer (my husband likes to make it pretty, while I just dump them in haphazardly). Add a cup of water and cover with the lid. Let it boil/steam until all the water is almost dry. Remove the lid and keep cooking until the bottoms are crispy. Flip them out of the pan.

- Serve with your favorite dipping sauce. Personally, I like black vinegar and soy. Enjoy and happy year of the tiger! Rawr :)

Parmesan Bread Twists

2010-02-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

I had leftover dough when making pizza, so I decided to make some parmesan breadsticks. They're fun for entertaining and easy to make. I did have some trouble keeping the bread from unraveling after twisting them, but in the end, I think they turned out okay.

Ingredients:
- Pizza dough (you can use store bought or this recipe)
- Parmesan cheese
- Garlic powder
- Oregano or parsley or other herbs
- Salt
- Oil

Directions:
- Roll out the pizza dough into a rectangle. If you have trouble rolling it out because it keeps bouncing back, let the dough rest 10-15 minutes and try again.
- Sprinkle parmesan cheese, garlic powder, herbs, and salt to taste on the bottom half of the rectangle.
- Fold the top half of dough over the part with the filling and using a knife or pizza cutter, cut it into ~3/4" strips.
- Twist each strip and place it on a lined baking sheet.
- Let them rest for about 20 minutes.
- Brush them with oil.
- Put them into a 400 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes or until they're golden brown.

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

2010-01-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long silence, but I have some news...

We're having a GIRL!!!

So in honor of this news, I went through my pictures of yet to be blogged about dishes and found something pink :)

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes (minus the lemonade).

I found this recipe at Annie's Eats and it looked tasty, so I decided to give it a try. But I got lazy and skipped the lemonade part. :P

These were definitely better than my previous attempt at strawberry cupcakes. They weren't as gorgeous as Annie's but by my standards, this was a huge improvement. These were much fluffier than last time, the flavor was great and the icing wasn't a total disaster! I still need more practice baking, but I there is hope! :)

Inspired by Annie's Eats

Cupcake Ingredients:
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 3/4 tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. lemon zest
- 12 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 cups strawberries, chopped (I used thawed frozen strawberries)

Frosting Ingredients:
- 1 cup strawberries, chopped (I used thawed frozen strawberries)
- 12 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)
- 18 tbsp. unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 2 2/3 cups confectioners’ sugar (sifted)
- 3 tsp. lemon juice
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
- Mix flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Set aside.
- Beat the butter on medium in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
- Add the sugar and beat until combined.
- Add the eggs one at a time until combined.
- Add half of the flour mixture and beat until well incorporated.
- Add the milk and mix.
- Add the rest of the flour mixture until everything is smooth and incorporated.
- Fold in the strawberries.
- Fill up paper-lined cupcake tins about 3/4 way full.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

- Blend the strawberries in a blender for the frosting.
- Strain the strawberries to remove the seeds.
- Beat the cream cheese and butter together until fluffy.
- Add the powdered sugar and beat until thoroughly mixed.
- Add the lemon juice and vanilla extract.
- Mix in the strawberry puree one tablespoon at a time until it reaches the texture, flavor, and color you want.
- When the cupcakes are totally cool, frost them and serve!

Egg Rolls (vietnamese style)

2010-01-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

I love egg rolls, especially Vietnamese ones, so when I make my own, I always go for that style.

I've blogged about these before, but last time I baked them. Since fried ones are so much better and you're allowed to indulge during the holidays, I fried them this time. Everything else was pretty much the same.

I made these weeks ahead of time and froze them individually and fried them up the day of and served them with chili sauce. A tasty and easy appetizer for any time of the year!

Ingredients:
- ground pork
- carrots
- onions
- glass noodles (mung bean noodles)
- garlic
- wood ear mushrooms
- fish sauce
- soy sauce
- egg rolls wrappers
- oil (for frying)

Directions:
- Shred the carrots and set aside.
- Finely dice the onions and set aside.
- Mince the garlic and set aside.
- Soak the glass noodles in water until they're pliable (about 15-30 minutes), then cut them into shorter more manageable pieces.
- Soak the wood ear mushrooms until they're soft (hot water will speed this up), then cut it into thin strips.
- Mix everything together, seasoning to taste with soy and fish sauce. You can always fry up a small portion of the filling before wrapping the egg rolls to make sure it tastes good.
- Take a sheet of egg roll wrapper and fill it with a diagonal line of filling and wrap it up.
- You can either fry them immediately or put them in the freezer at this point to fry up at a later date.

Artichoke Dip

2010-01-05T17:55:00.000-08:00

Here's another appetizer that I put out on our buffet table for Thanksgiving. I put the artichoke dip in a mini crock pot to keep it warm.

The crackers are rosemary crackers, also homemade. But since my husband made them (and refuses to share the recipe) I can't tell you how he made them. I'll keep bugging him about it, but in the meantime, here's the artichoke dip recipe.

Ingredients:
- Marinated artichokes
- Mayo
- Cream cheese
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Drain and chop the artichokes.
- Mix the artichokes, cream cheese and mayo together, microwaving it periodically, until it reaches the consistency you desire.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve with crackers, pita chips, or veggies.
-

Cranberry Sauce (revisited)

2010-01-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

This is another one that can be made ahead of time to reduce stress on Thanksgiving day. An even better way to reduce stress is to ask your husband to do it! Thanks babe! :)

We used the same recipe as we did last year, except we made a bigger batch. Too big in fact (we bought the Costco size bag of cranberries). Anyone want some frozen cranberry sauce or have any ideas of what we should do with all the leftovers? If you do, PLEASE let us know!

Ingredients:
- Cranberries
- Orange juice
- Sugar
- Lemon zest
- Ginger

Directions:
- Rinse the cranberries and then pour them into a large pot.
- Add enough orange juice to cover barely cover the cranberries (they won't look covered because cranberries float)
- Bring the mixture to a boil and then lower the heat to maintain a simmer.
- Add LOTS of sugar to taste.
- Add some lemon zest and grated ginger to taste.
- Simmer until all the cranberries of popped and the sauce has thickened.
- Let the sauce cool and then place it in the fridge to set.

Clam Chowder

2009-12-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!

While I didn't do any cooking for the holidays, I still haven't finished my Thanksgiving posts, so here's one more.

I was a bit worried that the soup wouldn't get eaten and that I'd have a ton of leftovers, but apparently, it wasn't something that I needed to worry about. I made the clam chowder the day before and then popped in the crock pot in the morning to heat it up and left it there during dinner to keep it warm. Anyone who wanted it, had to get up off their butts, walk over, pour themselves a bowl, and bring it back to their seats.

The crock pot happened to be near my father-in-law who took it upon himself to tattle on people who went for seconds. I told him it was fine and that we had plenty - people could go for seconds and thirds as much as they wanted. Apparently that wasn't the reaction he was looking for out of me, so he decided to report to everyone, how many bowls each person had helped themselves to. Luckily, that didn't deter anyone from going back for more and we had less than one bowl's worth left at the end of the night. I'd call that a success :)

Happy New Year!!!

Ingredients:
- Clams and clam juice (I used canned clams that were packed in its own juices)
- Stock (clam stock would be best, then fish, then veggie or chicken. I used chicken because that's all that I had on hand. Water will do too if you don't have any stock at all)
- Milk (I used soy milk)
- Cream (I used half & half though I'm sure heavy cream would have been wonderful)
- Potatoes
- Onions
- Celery (optional)
- Parsley
- Salt
- Pepper
- Flour
- Butter

Directions:
- Peel and dice the potatoes.
- Finely dice the onions.
- Finely slice the celery.
- In a heavy bottomed pot, add a bit of butter or oil and the onions and sweat them until softened.
- Add the potatoes and celery.
- Saute everything until the potatoes and celery have softened a bit. They don't need to be totally cooked through yet at this point.
- Remove everything.
- Make a rue by mixing equal parts of melted butter and flour and cooking it until it is just starting to turn a bit golden in color.
- Add any of the liquids (milk, cream, stock) and whisk the mixture until the rue has been fully incorporated into the liquid and it has thickened nicely.
- Add the rest of the liquids, the clams, clam juice, onions, celery, potatoes, etc and bring everything to a simmer.
- If the soup is not thick enough, either add more cream or make more rue in a separate pot, add a bit of the liquid from the soup to the rue and add the entire mixture back to the soup once it's been fully incorporated.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the parsley at the last minute.

Baked Brie

2009-12-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to try this forever! I keep hearing how fabulous baked brie is and how it's always such a hit at parties, but I never got a chance to try it. Well, I still didn't get to try it this year since brie is on the "do not eat" list for pregnant ladies, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it!

Next I had to decide on what kind of baked brie I wanted to make. Wrapped in puff pastry? Topped with a fruit compote? What kind of fruit compote?

In the end, I decided to save myself a bit of trouble and just go with the easiest version out there...topped with honey and nuts.

I can't give a personal report on whether it was good or not, but it seemed to go over well with the guests. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it myself one of these days...

Ingredients:
- Brie
- Honey
- Nuts (I used sliced almonds)
- Crackers

Directions:
- Place the brie on a piece of foil and pop it in the oven at 350 until the middle is soft and gooey. It shouldn't take very long at all.
- Transfer the brie onto the serving plate and drizzle honey on top.
- Garnish with nuts.
- Serve with crackers. (I also placed a few apple slices around for a bit more color)

Sweet Potatoes

2009-12-21T15:15:00.000-08:00

Normally, I'm a bit of a control freak. I like to do everything myself, but seeing as how we had 20 people coming and I was low on energy because of the pregnancy, I was forced to concede and let my mom help me out. But even then, I couldn't quite bear to give up control on anything too big like the turkey, so I let her be in charge of the sweet potatoes.

I had all sorts of ideas for the sweet potatoes, but my mom claimed she had a fabulous way of preparing them and I was too tired and short on time to fight her, so I bit my tongue and let her do them her way. And lemme tell ya, they were really good! I might even steal her recipe in the future and pass it off as my own :)

And next time, I'll remember to get a picture of the completed dish instead of it just simmering in the pot.

Ingredients:
- Sweet potatoes
- Orange Juice
- Brown Sugar
- Butter

Directions:
- Peel and cut the sweet potatoes into bite size pieces.
- Place the sweet potatoes in a large pot with orange juice, brown sugar, and LOTS of butter.
- Simmer the sweet potatoes, gently stirring them ocassionally until they're mostly cooked through. (You can skip this part if you want and put them directly into the oven, but since oven space is scarce on Thanksgiving day, we did most of the cooking on the stovetop and just finished them in the oven).
- Transfer everything to a baking dish and bake them at 375 until they finish cooking and have a bit of crisp and color to them.

Sauteed Green Beans II

2009-12-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

I'm not a fan of the typical cream of mushroom green bean casserole, so I served sauteed green beans instead.

I made something similar last year and used a lot of bacon grease and decided to go a little healthier this year. There's still bacon, but it was crisped and crumbled separately and just sprinkled on top. Still delicious and a bit healthier :)

Ingredients:
- Green beans
- Red onions (or shallots)
- Mushrooms
- Bacon
- Oil
- Salt

Directions:
- Clean and trim all the green beans.
- Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil.
- Blanche the green beans until they're cooked but still crunchy.
- Immediately remove them from the water and plunge them into an ice bath.
- After the green beans have cooled, drain them.
- I did all this a few days ahead of time and put it in a ziploc bag in the fridge to make the day-of less stressful.
- Slice the onions length wise.
- Quarter the mushrooms.
- Cook the bacon until crispy and then crumble it into large chunks.
- In a large pan, heat a bit of oil.
- Add the onions and a bit of salt. Saute them until they're soft.
- Add the mushrooms and saute until cooked and slightly browned.
- Add the green beans and a bit more salt if necessary.
- Mix everything together until the green beans are heated through.
- Put it on the serving platter and top it with the bacon.

Pork Roulade

2009-12-14T21:49:00.000-08:00

Since we had 20 people coming over for thanksgiving dinner and the turkey was only 20 pounds, we decided to do a second meat dish, just to be on the safe side. We decided on trying something new and made a pork roulade.

My husband went out and bought a big old pork tenderloin while I decided on a pear butter, bacon and mushroom filling. I've never tried it, but it sounded like a tasty combo.

The day of, my husband cut the pork loin in half to make it easier to work with. He then butterflied, but in 3 sections, is that still called butterflying? Anyway, he made 3 long cuts length-wise in each half of the pork loin to open and flatten them out. I diced and sauteed the mushrooms, my mom crisped and crumbled the bacon, and then I mixed the filling together and slathered it on the pork. My husband then rolled up the roulades, tied them up to keep them from unrolling and oil, salt and peppered them generously. We then browned them on our griddle and popped it in the oven at 350 for a little less than an hour and then took them out to let them rest.

Unfortunately, it turned out a little overcooked and dry because the turkey had hogged both of our probe thermometers (the turkey is more important after all) and we guess-timated how long it would take. Plus, this was our first time making something like this, so it really wasn't our fault. Especially for a first attempt and with all the other craziness going on in the kitchen, I think my husband did a fabulous job. With a little more practice and access to a probe thermometer, I think this could be a lot juicier and prettier in the future. It's definitely a keeper.

What do you think?

Ingredients:
- Pork tenderloin
- Pear butter
- Mushrooms
- Bacon
- Oil
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Dice the mushrooms and saute them to release most of the liquid. Set aside
- Crisp up the bacon and crumble it. Set aside.
- If your pork loin is really long, consider cutting it in half to make it easier to work with.
- Make 3 cuts into the pork loin (length-wise), so that it can be "unrolled" into one large piece of pork that is evenly thick the whole way through. (This is much easier said than done and may take some practice).
- Mix the pear butter, mushrooms and bacon together.
- Slather the mixture on the "cut" side of the pork loin, leaving about half an inch to an inch of empty space along the border.
- Roll the pork and filling up and tie it every few inches with kitchen twine to keep it from unrolling.
- Generously coat the outside with oil, salt and pepper.
- In a large pan (we used our griddle), brown each side of the pork roulade.
- Put it on a baking sheet and place it into a 350 degree oven.
- Cook until it reaches an internal temperature of 160.
- Take the pork out and let it rest for at least 20 minutes (you can tent it with foil to keep it warm).
- Cut off the strings, slice the pork and serve. If there are any juices, pour those on top. Cranberry sauce and gravy go well with it too.

Thanksgiving Turkey

2009-12-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

This year, we had a 20 pounder and I decided to do my own brining. I definitely think it was worth the extra hassle. The meat was juicy and flavorful and I believe that it definitely made a significant difference.

Last year, I bought a pre-brined turkey from Trader Joe's and I think this year was better, though it is difficult to remember and compare against something I had a year ago. Even if it wasn't, brining is not difficult, so I'd rather not pay more for the pre-brined and do it myself.

I used Alton Brown's brine recipe and used the same tips and tricks I used last year to get a nice juicy bird with perfectly browned crispy skin.

Here's a recap. The night before, brine the turkey. I put the turkey and brine in a gigantic brining bag and stuck the whole thing in the fridge overnight.

Brine Ingredients:
(adapted from Good Eats)
- 1 cup of kosher salt
- 1/2 cup of light brown sugar
- 1 tbs of black peppercorns
- 1 1/2 tsp of allspice berries
- 1 1/2 tsp of chopped candied ginger
- 2 gallons of water

Brining Directions:
- Heat 1 gallon of water and mix the rest of the ingredients in until the salt and sugar are dissolved.
- Let the mixture cool. I made mine 2 nights before and chilled it in the fridge overnight. If you don't have time to chill the mixture, add lots of ice to bring the temperature down (take that amount of liquid out of the 2nd gallon of water if you do).
- The night before, put the turkey in a large brining bag and pour in the mixture along with another gallon of water.
- Make sure the turkey is fully submerged and that the cavity is filled with the brining liquid instead of a big air bubble.
- Place the brining bag in a large pan (I used the roasting pan) to catch leaks and refrigerate it overnight.

Turkey Ingredients:
- Vegetable oil
- Rosemary
- Garlic
- Lemon zest
- Salt
- Pepper
- Aromatics (such as onions, apples, lemons, oranges, etc)

Turkey Directions:
- Take your brined turkey out of the fridge.
- Dump all the brine down the sink and rinse the turkey well (be sure to get both the inside and the outside)
- Carefully use your fingers to separate the skin from the meat whereever you can reach (mostly the breast).
- Either pat the turkey dry, or put it on the baking rack in the roasting pan and place it in the fridge for a while to dry out the skin.
- Flip the turkey so that it's on the baking rack, breast side down.
- Place a bag of ice inside the cavity, resting against the breast and another bag of ice underneath the turkey breast.
- Let the rest of the bird come up closer to room temperature while icing the breast. Since the breast tends to cook faster than the dark meat, this will help the two reach the perfect temperature at the same time, resulting in perfectly cooked and juicy light and dark meat.
- Mix the oil, finely chopped rosemary, minced garlic and lemon zest together in a bowl.
- Remove the ice bags from the turkey.
- Slather the mixture all over the outside of the turkey and underneath the skin in the areas that you were able to separate it from the meat.

- Generously salt and pepper both the inside and outside of the turkey.
- Stuff the turkey with the aromatics.
- Place one probe thermometer in the deepest part of the breast without hitting the bone and another in the deepest part the leg and the body, without hitting the bone.
- Put the turkey into a 500 degree oven for 30 minutes until the skin is crispy and browned.
- Cover the breast with foil and turn the oven down to 350 degrees and cook until both thermometers reach 161 degrees.
- Take the turkey out and tent it while letting the turkey rest for at least 15 minutes.
- Carve the turkey and serve it to your hungry guests!

Bun...

2009-12-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

*chirp*
*chirp*

I know. I've been MIA lately and I apologize, but I have a good excuse (at least I think it is).

We have a bun in the oven!

I've been pretty tired (though that's getting better these days) and I have had no interest in food, hence the lack of posts. I don't enjoy cooking, eating, or even thinking about food...it's really quite sad. Even tried and true favorites have no appeal to me, though that's starting to ease up it seems.

We did manage to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for 20, so I'll be slowly posting those.

In the meantime, I want to thank Juliana at Simple Recipes for the Kreativ Blogger award! I promise to try to blog more regularly so that I'm more deserving of it.

Thanks Juliana!

So, to play by the rules, here are 7 things about me (I'm going to cheat a little here):
1. I'm pregnant!
2. I'm pregnant!
3. I'm pregnant!
4. I'm pregnant!
5. I'm pregnant!
6. I'm pregnant!
7. I'm pregnant!

hehe.

And here are 7 bloggers I'd like to share the award with:
1. Skinny food by Amy
2. Elizabeth's Edible Experience
3. Made with Love
4. Petite Nyonya
5. Journey of an Italian Cook
6. Dunkin Cooking the Semi-Homemade Way
7. Pig Pig's Corner

Ginger Pork

2009-11-14T09:11:00.000-08:00

I really like the flavor of ginger and really don't use it enough in my cooking. I always have it on hand and keep it in the freezer, but because it's in the freezer, it's one of those out of sight, out of mind things and I never really use it. To remedy this, I decided to make ginger pork and make ginger the star of the show!

This is a quick and tasty dish to make and since the hubz has taken a liking to keeping the freezer stocked with pork tenderloin (I think he's tired of chicken), I'll probably be making this a lot more in the future.

Ingredients:
- Pork tenderloin
- Onions
- Ginger
- Soy sauce
- Brown sugar
- Corn starch
- Edamame (optional)

Directions:
- Slice the pork into thin strips.
- Marinate the pork in some soy sauce, brown sugar, corn starch and lots of grated ginger (I used a microplane zester) while you're prepping the rest of the ingredients.
- Slice the onions into thin strips.
- Slice some ginger into super thin strips (you can skip this step if you want. I just thought that the grated ginger was a bit mild, so I added more strips of it for more ginger flavor).
- Heat a wok or pan with a bit of oil in it.
- Add the onions and saute until they are mostly softened.
- Add the sliced ginger and the pork along with the marinade and keep everything in the pan moving until the pork is cooked through, adding more soy sauce and brown sugar to taste as needed and water/stock if it gets too dry or you want more sauce.
- Add the edamame if you want it to just heat it through.
- Serve everything over rice.

Sweet Potatos Fries

2009-10-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

Sweet potato fries have become so darn popular that I wouldn't be surprised if McDonald's started selling them soon. I know I'd buy them!

When my husband decided to smoke 25 pounds of meat, he also decided to send out an email (at midnite, mind you), inviting some people over that night for a last minute dinner party to help us eat it. I was informed of our dinner guests when I woke up in the morning :) Which is totally fine by me by the way. I love having people come over. Short notice or no notice, if show up at my doorstep, I'll gladly feed you. Plus, it forces me to clean, and sometimes, I need that extra push of motivation.

Since this was literally last minute, I whipped up some cole slaw before heading off to work and picked up some sweet potatoes on my way home because I thought it'd be a nice pairing. And they really were. I especially like them dipped in the BBQ sauce my husband made.

And because sweet potato fries tend to be quite soggy, I used my good friend google for some tips and tricks. The secrets that I decided to use were soaking the sweet potatoes in water after cutting them and dusting them with corn starch before frying. The fries came out crisp and delicious, but I'm still open to suggestions on how to make them even crispier. If you've got any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Ingredients:
- Sweet potatoes
- Corn starch
- Salt
- Chili powder

Directions:
- Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into matchsticks.
- Soak the matchsticks in water until you're ready to fry.
- Heat some oil (a heavy bottomed pot would be best) to about 350 degrees.
- Dry the sweet potatoes (I used my salad spinner).
- Dust them in corn starch right before frying. (If your first batch doesn't come out as crispy as you'd like it to be, use a thicker coating)
- Carefully drop the coated fries into the oil and fry until they are golden browned and crispy.
- Remove them from the oil and spread them on a cooling rack, letting the excess oil drip away.
- Sprinkle salt and chili powder while the oil is still hot so that it will stick better.
- Stuff your face - these things are seriously addicting!

(Secret) Homemade BBQ Sauce

2009-10-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

My husband always complains that I don't give him credit for his creations on this blog, but I always do. If he made it or helped, I mention him. He also complains that I don't post about all the goodies he makes around the house, but every time I ask him for the recipe so that I can post it, he refuses to tell me! I just can't win, can I? Well, hopefully this post will shut him up for a while :)

My husband has been wanting to break out the smoker one last time before the end of the year, so when pork butt went on sale, he bought two huge honking ones to make pulled pork sandwiches. Then he figured, if he's going to go through all the trouble of smoking the suckers for 14 hours, he might as well maximize his efforts. Since he can fit 4 pork butts on the smoker, he asked me to pick up 2 more. We ended up with 25 pounds of pork. No, I'm not kidding.

I went to bed at a normal person hour while my husband napped all afternoon. He woke up about an hour before I went to bed, and stayed up all night to smoke the pork. I kept waking up in the middle of night, smelling smoke, onions, garlic, and other tasty aromas that aren't exactly what you want to be smelling while you're trying to sleep, while he toiled away smoking the pork and making this awesome homemade BBQ sauce. It's nice and rich and full of flavor. It's the perfect consistency, isn't too sweet, has a bit of smokiness to it, has the perfect amount of acidity, and packs a lot of heat, just the way I like it.

And here is where I would usually share with you the recipe for this BBQ sauce... BUT HE WON'T SHARE IT WITH ME! In fact, he's joked (at least I hope he's joking) about splitting the recipe in two so that if someone ever finds it (ie me), they'll only have half of it.

So I apologize for posting this teaser of a post, but I had to do it so that he'll stop accusing me of taking credit for his work and for not posting the stuff he makes. If you want to try this magic BBQ sauce, maybe I can convince him to sell you a jar? Or maybe, if I do enough snooping, I can find both halves of recipe and expose it to the world!

Ingredients:
???

Directions:
???

Nachos Grande

2009-10-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

The hubz pointed out that we eat a lot of Mexican food. I never noticed but suppose it's true. Maybe that's a product of growing up in San Diego, but honestly, I didn't eat much Mexican growing up. I eat as much as I can every time I visit these days, but as a kid, it was always Chinese food, even when we went out. It's interesting though. Mexican food is one of those cuisines that you can't really find outside of Mexico, California and Texas. When I was living in Hong Kong, boy did I crave a good burrito! I was really excited when we planned a trip to New York and I thought I was finally going to get some decent Mexican, but nope, I was sorely disappointed.

On that note, we love Chevy's. Yes, I know it's "gringo" Mexican food, but that doesn't make it any less tasty. They have the best chips and salsa. So light and flaky. And you can't beat El Machino, pumping out fresh tortillas right before your eyes! A great bonus is that Chevy's has the absolute best happy hour. $3 margaritas (and beer and cocktails) and $3 for select appetizers. Full-sized appetizers, and their appetizers are big!

Even before we tried out their happy hour, the hubz and I always enjoyed going there for a few margaritas and getting a nachos grande to share. Now with the discovery of happy hour, we can't go back to paying full price. So when I came home from work too late to make it to happy hour, we decided to make our own at home.

Ingredients:
- Tortillas chips
- Salsa
- Refried beans
- Chicken
- Shredded cheese (mexican blend)
- Additional things that I didn't have on hand but would be super tasty if I did are tomatoes, avocados, corn, black beans, sour cream, guacamole etc.

Directions:
- Lay a thin layer of salsa on the bottom of a oven-safe plate. (I used a casserole dish)
- Put down a single layer of tortilla chips.
- Put a few dollops of refried beans every few inches.
- Put a few dollops of salsa every few inches.
- Put a few pieces of shredded chicken on the chips, also a few inches apart.
- Sprinkle everything with shredded cheese.
- Lay another layer of chips and layer of beans, salsa, chicken and cheese.
- Pop it in the oven until it's warmed through and the cheese is melted.
- Top it with diced tomatoes, avocados, sour cream, guacamole, etc.
- Serve with margaritas.

Lu Rou Fan (Stewed Pork Rice)

2009-10-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge fan of Taiwanese food. This wasn't always the case though. When I was 4 years old and spent a summer in Taiwan, I begged for hamburgers, pizza and spaghetti, and there was just none to be found (this was before McDonald's made their way out there). When my mom finally found spaghetti, I refused to eat it becuase it was was basically ketchup over noodles, yuck. So what was a kid to do? I survived off of yakult yogurt drinks, sa chi ma (chinese rice krispy treats), and whatever healthy items my mom managed to force down my throat.

Now that I'm all grown up, I love Taiwanese food and just can't get enough. The best part about visiting Taiwan is the food! But since I can't just hop on a plane to enjoy all those goodies, I make it at home.

Ingredients:
- Ground pork (or fatty pork belly would be even better!)
- Shitake mushrooms
- Shallots
- Soy sauce
- Brown sugar
- Fried shallots
- Eggs (optional)

Directions:
- Rehydrate the shitake mushrooms if you're using dried. (Using hot water or popping it in the microwave for a minute will speed up the process if you're in a rush).

- Finely dice the shallots and set them aside.
- Dice the mushrooms too.
- In a heavy bottomed pot, heat up some oil.
- Add the shallots in and saute them until soft.
- Add the ground pork and some soy sauce. Brown until mostly cooked through.
- Add the mushrooms, the liquid from the mushrooms (being careful not to pour in the grit at the bottom) and enough water to barely cover everything.
- Add some fried shallots to taste.

- Add more soy sauce and brown sugar to taste.
- If you want, you can add some peeled hard boiled eggs and simmer them until brown and flavorful for soy sauce eggs.

- Simmer until the flavors have come together and serve it over rice (garnishing it with more fried shallots if desired).

Hot & Sour Cabbage

2009-10-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

I love hot and sour flavors together, and I'm assuming I'm not the only one since hot and sour soup seems to be pretty popular (which I'm dying to make one of these days btw, so if you if you have a great recipe, please share it with me).

Anyway, this hot & sour cabbage is a quick and easy veggie dish to go with any meal. It's also decent alternative for when you're craving kimchi but don't have the patience to wait for it to ferment.

And since the secret ingredient for Weekend Wokking is cabbage this month, I'm submitting this to Erbe in Cucina who is hosting it this month.

Ingredients:
- Cabbage
- Dried chili peppers (chili pepper flakes will work too if you don't have the peppers)
- Chili oil (optional)
- Vinegar
- Salt
- Oil

Directions:
- Chop the cabbage into bit size squares. Wash and drain them.
- Heat up some oil in a wok or pan.
- Add the chili peppers or flakes and toast them until you can smell the spice. Be careful not to let them burn.
- Add the cabbage and salt and vinegar to taste. If it's not spicy enough, I also like to add a bit of chili oil too.
- Stir everything around until the cabbage is cooked through but still has some crunchiness to it.

Banana Oatmeal Cookie

2009-10-13T23:34:00.000-07:00

This time it wasn't my fault. I stopped buying bananas because they always get mushy and then I'm forced to use them for baking and I've learned my lesson. This time, I had mushy bananas because my in-laws brought them over one day and left them behind. Then, to no one's surprise, they got mushy and I had to find something to do with them.

I found this recipe on There's always thyme to cook. I really liked these cookies. They weren't overly sweet and I felt (sorta) healthy eating them since they had bananas and oatmeal. I did mess with the recipe a bit because I had 4 rotting bananas, not 3, but it still turned out fine, which is surprising because if you've followed my blog at all, you know that I suck at baking. Oh, I also kept them in the oven much longer than 12 minutes the original recipe called for because they weren't browning and came out mushy. With or without my tweaks, they were yummy and I definitely approve of this recipe.

Adapted from There's always thyme to cook
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 4 ripe bananas (the original recipe calls for 3, so 3 would probably work too)
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 cup walnuts

Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Cream the butter, sugar and brown sugar together.
- Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
- Mix in the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon until well-combined.
- Mix in the banana, oats, walnuts and chocolate chips.
- Put spoonfuls of dough on a greased baking pan, parchment paper or silpat and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cookies are just beginning to brown. (The original recipe says 10-12 minutes, but I found that it wasn't enough)
- Cool on a cooling rack and then share them with your friends!

Tsatziki (on a Chicken Plate)

2009-10-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

Back in college, we used to live off of Durant Food Court aka Asian Ghetto. And while most of the restaurants there are Asian, there was a non-Asian place that we really enjoyed as well - Meesha's Gyros. We'd always order the same thing when we went there, "Chicken plate over rice, with hummus, extra yogurt sauce and spicy on the side - to go". The thing that made this dish was really the yogurt sauce, which I how realize was probably tzatziki.

I hadn't thought about that dish since we graduated (there's no need to mention how long ago that was) until a few weeks ago. It was like all the stars aligned and I really had no choice but to try and recreate it. I had leftover grilled chicken thighs in the fridge, a cucumber that I didn't know what to do with, and a tub of plain yogurt that needed to be eaten before it went bad. The other ingredients I needed are constant staples in this household, so I was set. I cooked up some rice in the rice cooker and got to work on the highlight of the dish, the yogurt sauce, and was very happy with the results. It's quick, easy, healthy and delicious. I'm definitely not going to forget this dish again any time soon.

Ingredients:
- Chicken (I like thighs)
- 1 cup of greek yogurt or plain regular yogurt, drained
- 1 to 2 cloves of garlic (to taste)
- 1/2 cucumber
- juice of 1/2 lemon (to taste)
- Salt & pepper

Directions:
- Salt and pepper the chicken thigh and grill until cooked through. Let it rest, then cut it into bite size pieces and set it aside.
- Put the yogurt in a bowl. If you're using regular yogurt, put in a cheese cloth and let some of the excess liquid drain for a little while first.
- Using a microplane zester, zest the garlic into the yogurt.
- Wash and peel the cucumber. Cut the cucumber in half length-wise and scoop out the seeds (I find using a spoon works well).
- Grate the cucumber and add it to the yogurt mixture, squeezing out the excess liquid with your hands first.
- Add lemon juice to taste.
- Add salt and pepper to taste (though I found that I didn't need any at all).
- Mix well and let it sit in the fridge for a while for the flavors to really meld together (or serve immediately if you're impatient like me).
- Serve the chicken over a bed of rice with a healthy dollop of yogurt sauce on top, a sprinkling of chili powder if desired, a side of hummus and some steamed vegetables, and you've got yourself a healthy and delicious meal.

Chicken Orzo Soup

2009-10-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

The weather is getting cooler and while I'll definitely miss the summer, I will also enjoy the fact that it's also soup season! Plus I've been saving all the bones from all those summer bbq's in my freezer and have lots of stock on hand for some great soups.

This is a simple and easy classic, but instead of using noodle, I used orzo. I love the fun shape and texture of orzo, it's like fat rice!

Ingredients:
- Chicken (I used chicken breast)
- Onions
- Celery
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Orzo
- Chicken stock (recipe can be found here)
- Salt & Pepper

Directions:
- Dice the onions, peel and chop the carrots, and chop the celery. Set everything aside.
- Heat a heavy bottomed pot and add a bit of oil. Add the onions with a sprinkling of salt and saute them until they're soft.
- Add the carrots and celery and cook until they've softened as well.
- Add chicken stock to the pot and bring it to a boil.
- Add the potatoes and orzo and chicken.
- When the chicken is cooked through, pull it out, let it cool, shred it, and put it back in.
- Salt and pepper the soup to taste and let it warm you up on a chilly night.

Chao Mi Fen

2009-10-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

If you're Chinese, you call this mi-fen. If you're Filipino, you call this pancit. If you're Malaysian, you call this bihon. In America, they call it Rice Vermicelli. Regardless of what you call it, I call it yummy!

Asian foods have a lot of overlap. I had a friend in high school who was Korean, and we used to have arguments, along with a Filipino friend of mine, on whether something our moms made was Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, etc. And if she couldn't win the argument, she'd just throw her hands up in the air and declare "It's Mongolian! We all descended from Mongolia!" Whether or not that's true, I don't know (I suck at history), but it was her way of saying "If I can't win, no one can!" :)

I like that there's a lot of overlap in the types of food Asians make and I love how each culture puts their own little spin on the same dish. In fact, even within each culture, there are countless ways to make this dish. I learned this way from my mom, but I've never seen it made like this in a restaurant or anyone else's house, which makes me think that she made it up to get me to eat more carrots, but who knows. Regardless, it's what I grew up with and what I enjoy, so I continue on the tradition by making this way too.

I know it looks like a scary amount of carrots, but somehow, it just works. The carrots lend a sweetness to the dish that I really enjoy and it doesn't taste too carrot-y. Plus it gives the dish color and makes it pretty. It's also a great way to use up carrots that have been sitting in the fridge for waaay too long!

This is my submission to Presto Pasta Nights, a wonderful event created by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast, which is being hosted by Joanne of Eats Well with Others. Check out the roundup at the end of the week for more noodly goodness.

Ingredients:
- Half a bag of dried rice vermicelli
- 5 carrots
- Half a head of napa cabbage
- 2 to 3 chicken breasts or pork chops
- Soy sauce
- Oyster sauce

Directions:
- Soak the rice vermicelli in water while prepping the other ingredients. It should be soft and pliable by the time you need to use it, which should take about 10 minutes or so. Soaking it longer does no harm.
- Slice the chicken or pork into thin strips of about a quarter inch thick. If you want bigger pieces of meat, that's fine too, there are no real rules to this.
- Mix in a bit of soy sauce and corn starch with the chicken/pork to marinate and tenderize it.
- Peel and shred the carrots. I find the shredding blade of the food processor especially handy for this task.
- Wash and thinly slice the napa cabbage. You can use more or less if you'd like, or use regular cabbage or even other veggies such as spinach if you'd like too. There's a lotta flexibility here. My mom used napa cabbage, so that's what I use too.
- Heat a bit of oil in a large pot or wok.
- Put the marinated meat into the pot/wok and stir it until it's about 80% cooked through. You can add more soy or oil if it seems to be sticking to the pan too much.
- Add the carrots and cabbage and give everything a good stir. Sprinkle a bit of salt on top and put the lid on. Check on it every few minutes, giving it a stir if necessary, until the carrots and cabbage have wilted and softened significantly.
- Add the soaked noodles in and flavor with soy and oyster sauce to taste. Stir everything together until the noodles are soft. If the pan keeps drying out while you're stirring or the noodles are too hard, add more water.
- I love to serve this with Sriracha sauce.

Tortilla de Patatas

2009-09-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

To go with the delicious tri-tip that my husband grilled up, we wanted some potatoes. Having just come back from Argentina and having eaten some great Spanish Potato Tortillas there, I wanted to try making it at home.

This is a great alternative to boring old mashed, baked or fried potatoes. It looks so fancy but is really not difficult to make at all. Well, actually, I don't know that for a fact because I didn't make it. The hubz made it while I watched. But he didn't seem to have any trouble with it, so I'm going to say that it's not that difficult to make, though he might have a different opinion :)

The hubz probably did a better job of making this dish than I could have. It turned out crispy, flavorful and delicious, not to mention pretty! If it were up to me, I'm sure I would've broken it or dropped it during the flipping process and it would've come out a dreadful mess. Thanks goodness for my hubby!
Look how perfect that is!

Ingredients:
- Potatoes
- Onions (optional)
- Eggs
- Oil
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Slice the potatoes as thin as possible. A mandoline or the slicer blade on your food processor would work nicely. My husband decided to do it by hand and it turned out fine.
- To speed up the whole thing, a nice little shortcut is to pop the sliced potatoes in the microwave until they are slightly soft, but not so soft that they fall apart. You can also fry the potatoes in oil to be more traditional and less healthy :)
- Dice the onions and saute them in a bit of oil until softened. If you want to skip the onions altogether, that's totally fine.
- Beat some eggs in a bowl, mixing in the onions, salt and pepper.
- Carefully stir the potatoes into the egg mixture, being careful not to break too many of the potatoes.
- Heat a heavy bottomed skillet and coat the bottom with oil.
- Pour the egg, potato, onion mixture into the pan and let it cook on medium until the sides have solidified and you can easily slide the tortilla around without it falling apart. The edges and bottom should also be a nice crispy brown.
- Using a large plate, flip the tortilla upside down onto the plate.
- Carefully slide the tortilla back into the pan (adding oil if necessary) to finish cooking and crisping up the other side.
- When the other side is brown and crispy and the tortilla is cooked all the way through, remove it from the pan and slice into wedges to serve.

Grilled Tri-tip

2009-09-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

Even though it's technically fall, the weather here has been hot and that means more grilling! My husband loves to grill up tri-tip. Every time it's on sale, he buys it, slaps on a tasty homemade rub and grills it up to perfection.

I've never posted his tri-tip before because he's never shared with me the secrets of how to make this beautifully cooked hunk o' meat, so I have nothing to share with you today. The only thing I can say is that there's a suspicious amount of brown sugar, paprika, cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper missing from my spice rack, and that the meat thermometer is dirty. But other than that, I'm at a loss ;)

I'm hoping that if I butter him up a bit by posting this tasty picture and singing his praises, he might just cave and teach me, or make more. I'll be happy with either outcome. But on second thought, since he does it so well, there's really no need for me to learn. I should really just sit back, kick up my feet, and enjoy it while I can!

Pear Butter

2009-09-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

Our pear tree was extremely productive this year. After giving away bags of pears to everyone who would take them, we were still buried in pears.

I've heard a lot about apple butter and was always wanted to try it. With pears and apples being so similar (in my mind at least), I figured I could make some pear butter instead! It turned out really nicely.

I used it instead of mayo on a ham sandwich and it was a nice salty/sweet combo. It was also a nice change of pace from boring old ham sandwiches. Do you have any other suggestions on how to use it?

This is my submission to the Grow Your Own blogging event which shows off things people grow and the things they make with it. Check out Mowgli Chic's blog on Sept 30th to see what everyone else made!

Ingredients:
-Pears
-Sugar
-Cinnamon
-Nutmeg
-Water

Directions:
- Wash, cut and core the pears.
- In a pot or pressure cooker with just a tiny bit of water (the pears will release a lot of their own liquid, so you don't need much), cook the pears until they are soft.
- Use a stick blender or an actual blender and blend until smooth. It'll probably have a consistency similar to watery applesauce.
- Put the mixture in a heavy pot or slow cooker and reduce it until it reaches the desired consistency (similar to peanut butter). This will take a looooong time, so be patient. I reduced mine by more than 2/3 before I was happy with the consistency.
- Stir it every once in a while to keep it from burning, turning the heat way down when the mixture becomes thick. I propped the lid using two chopsticks so that it wouldn't splatter all over the place but would still allow steam to escape.
- Add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg (and any other spices you like) to taste. Add this at the end just because if you add it in the beginning, then cook it down, you'll probably end up with something way too sweet.
- If you want to can your pear butter, fill up sanitized, heated jars with the pear butter. Cover and process in a boiling water bath for at least 10 minutes. Let them sit overnight and then check them to make sure that the seal is tight. If not, you can reprocess it or put it in the fridge and eat it right away.

Soba Noodles

2009-09-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my office moved less than 6 miles away from home! It still takes me about 15 minutes because it's all local, but it's still nice to be so close.

One of the benefits of being so close is that I can go home for lunch! I don't do it often, but it's nice to know it's an option.

On this particular day, I didn't bring a lunch like I usually do and didn't have lunch plans with anyone, so I decided to go home. There were no leftovers in the fridge (otherwise I would've brought those for lunch), so I needed to make something quick. We're going through a heat wave right now in California, so I decided on cold soba noodles. Quick, refreshing, healthy, and delicious!

This is my submission for Presto Pasta Nights which is being hosted by Sara of I'm a Food Blog. Check out the rest of the submissions on Sept 25th!

Ingredients:
- 1 serving of soba noodles
- Edamame (I used frozen)
- 1-2 slices of ham
- Soy sauce
- Rice vinegar (or any vinegar will do if you don'to have rice vinegar)
- Mirin (honey or sugar is fine if you don't have mirin)
- Miso paste (if you don't have this, just leave it out and put more soy)
- Wasabi paste (optional, if you want a bit of kick)

Directions:
- Boil a pot of water and cook the soba according to package directions. Put the edamame in also, just to heat them through. Immediately drain and rinse with cold water when done and set aside.
- Mix a bit of soy, vinegar, mirin, miso paste, and wasabi in a bowl to taste. If you're missing some of the ingredients, no big deal. Just substitute the soy and miso with something salty, the vinegar with something sour and/or citrusy, and the mirin with something sweet.
- Toss the noodles in the sauce and top it with the edamame and julienned ham and you've got yourself a quick and easy summer meal.

Argentina

2009-09-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

We went to Argentina for a week and a half and I thought I'd share a few pictures. But first, an apology. I scheduled a bunch of posts while we were away so that it wouldn't look like this blog was being neglected, but then I came back and never got around to posting anything until now. Oops. At least I had good intentions :)

Ok, onto the pictures. The main reason we went to Argentina was to visit Iguazu Falls. Even though it we didn't go during the rainy season where the falls are even more impressive, the falls were still gorgeous.

Purty, huh?

We had some good food while in Argentina too. One of our favorite meals while there was at La Cabrera. The line was long, but they offered beer and appetizers while we waited. They also have a sister restaurant across the street, and the line there was just as long. When we finally sat down, we ordered the ribeye and it was HUGE! It also came with about a million little side dishes, all of which were super tasty.

Argentina is famous for their beef and parillas or bbq/grill restaurants are all over the place, with the grill usually in plain sight.

And a typical dish at a parilla is to get the mixed plate, with various meats like beef, sausage, blood sausage, kidneys, intestines, etc.

Anyway, we're back now and will be returning to normal posting!

Black Box Wines

2009-09-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

Being a member of Foodbuzz is awesome. Look at the latest goodie I got from them - wine! Black Box Wine to be exact.

I know, I know, wine in a box? Ick! But this wasn't ick at all. In fact, it was pretty darn good.

I'm by no means a wine expert, so I'm not going to go into the hints of this and that that I detect or its floral notes, etc, but I am going to say that this makes a good table wine. It's not great, it's not bad, in fact it's a bit boring, but that's what I expect from table wines.

Plus it's super convenient because it's resealable, so if you don't want to finish a whole bottle, no problem, it keeps for at least a month! Keep it in the fridge and you can have a glass here and there any time you want. The opposite is also true though. You really have no idea how much you've had because you can't see in the black box, and before you know it, you've finished the box, which is the equivalent of 4 bottles! oops! I'll let you guess which scenario happened in this house :)

So if you're looking for a pretty good, affordable, convenient table wine, consider giving this a try.

Cheers!

Fresh salsa

2009-08-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

I love fresh salsa, it's so much better than jarred, and summertime is the best time to make it because all the ingredients are fresh and readily available. In fact, most of these ingredients came from our own backyard!

Here's our first tomato of the season! He's a small little bugger. In fact, all the romas seem to be small little buggers, but the beefsteak and heirlooms seem to be growing quite nicely. Oh, and I'm happy to announce that I have not lost a single plant to gophers this year, hooray! The hubz helped me line the bottom of our raised bed with the chicken wire and that seems to have done the trick. I've also been setting out gopher traps and have had quite a few successes. Those efforts, combined with the fact that I have 10 thriving tomato plants means that we'll be eating lots of fresh tomatoes this year!

I know that homegrown tomatoes are sweeter than store bought, but ours were so sweet that they didn't make a good salsa at all. I had to put a TON of lime juice in before it tasted "normal". Luckily I just planted a lime tree in our last year and it's producing fruit too.

Letting them sit in the fridge overnight also helped tone down the sweetness, so we ended up with something pretty tasty.

Ingredients:
- Tomaotes
- Red onion
- Jalapeno
- Cilantro
- Lime juice
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Dice the tomaotes into small cubes.
- Finely dice the onions (I skipped these this time because I didn't have any and didn't feel like going to the store)
- Finely mince the jalapeno
- Mince the cilantro (also skipped because I was too lazy to go to the store and let the ones in my garden die on me)
- Mix the tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, cilantro, lime juice and salt & pepper to taste.
- Put everything in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors mellow together.
- Serve with tortilla chips or on a taco or other your favorite Mexican dish.

Tuna Sashimi

2009-08-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

And last but definitely not least, one of our friends went fishing the day before and caught some awesome fresh tuna and was kind enough to bring some to share with us. How amazing is that?

It was so fresh and delicious. Just a little soy and wasabi. It doesn't get any better than that...

Thanks Ryan!!!

Corn salad

2009-08-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

In lieu of corn on the cob, I decided to make a corn salad for our 4th of July BBQ. It's very simple and quick to make. You can also make it ahead of time to save yourself a bit of stress when you're having over 30 people over :)

Ingredients:
- 2 or 3 cans of sweet corn, drained
- 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 red onion finely diced
- 1 red bell pepper finely diced
- Basil leaves
- Olive oil
- Vinegar
- Salt & Pepper

Directions:
- Mix all the ingredients together and serve or cover and keep it in the fridge until your guests arrive.

I told ya it was easy!

Potato Salad

2009-08-19T07:59:00.000-07:00

So I make my potato salad a little differently than how most people make it. I have no idea where I learned it from, maybe my mom? But honestly, I don't remember her ever making potato salad growing up.

Regardless of where I learned it from, it's the way I like it these days, and this is how I make it...

Ingredients:
- Potatoes
- Eggs
- Bacon
- Ham (the real stuff, not sliced lunch meat)
- Peas
- Mayo
- Salt
- Pepper
- Cheddar cheese (optional)

Directions:
- Peel and boil or steam the potatoes until they're cooked through but not falling apart (a knife should go through it smoothly but still meet a bit of resistance)
- Drain the potatoes and dunk them in an ice bath to cool them down if you're short on time, or just set them aside and let them cool down on their own.
- Hard boil a few eggs and set aside or dunk them in an ice bath to let them cool.
- Crisp up some bacon and set aside to let cool.
- Thaw the peas if using frozen or cook them if using fresh.
- Dice the ham into 1/2 inch cubes.
- Peel then dice the eggs into 1/2 inch cubes.
- Crumble the bacon.
- Cut the potatoes into 1 inch cubes.
- If you're using cheddar cheese, either shred it or cut into 1/2 inch cubes, depending on your personal preference.
- Mix the potatoes, eggs, ham, bacon and peas (and cheese if you're using it) with enough mayo to coat everything.
- Season generously with salt and pepper.
- You can either serve it immediately or make it ahead of time, cover it, and store it in the fridge until chow time.

Coleslaw

2009-08-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I grew up detesting coleslaw. Then again, my only exposure to it was in the elementary school cafeteria, so who can blame me right?

But you can't have a pulled pork sandwich without coleslaw, and I don't mind coleslaw with a good pulled pork sandwich. In fact, I think it makes the sandwich that much better!

Here's my recipe for coleslaw and how to put it all together.

Ingredients:
- 1 head of cabbage
- 1 carrot shredded
- Mayo
- Greek yogurt (or regular yogurt, drained)
- Dijon mustard
- Vinegar
- Salt & Pepper

Directions:
- Slice the cabbage into thin strips and place it in a colander. Sprinkle some salt every once in a while and let it sit for a few hours. This will allow a bunch of the excess water to drain out so that you don't end up with soggy coleslaw. This is a crucial step and makes a huge difference.

Here it is before...
And here it is after...
It really wilts down a lot.

- After the cabbage has wilted down, rinse off the salt and then squeeze out the water. A salad spinner will work too.
- Mix in the rest of the ingredients to taste. Cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for a few hours to let all the flavors meld together.
- Take a hamburger bun, pile on some pulled pork, smothered in homemade bbq sauce, topped with some crunchy coleslaw and try not to spill on yourself!

Broccoli Beef

2009-08-12T19:24:00.000-07:00

Before I finish posting about our 4th of July BBQ, I wanted to post this so that I can participate in Regional Recipes this month. They're featuring China and it's being hosted by Darlene of Blazing Hot Wok.

Broccoli beef is probably one of the most well-known Chinese stir fry dishes in America and it's also one of the easiest, though all stir fries are pretty easy. It's just a bit of oil, some aromatics, a protein, and vegetables with some sauce.

You can do almost any combo of:

aromatics - garlic, ginger, scallions, etc
protein - chicken, shrimp, beef, tofu, etc or even skip it altogether if you want
vegetables - brocolli, carrots, onions, cabbage, pretty much anything you want!
sauce - soy, oyster, hoisin, hot sauce, pretty much anything you can find in the sauce aisle of your local asian market.

Stir fries are great for cleaning out the fridge!

Ingredients:
- Beef
- Broccoli
- Carrots (I added it for color and to sneak in extra veggies, but it's totally optional and not really "traditional")
- Garlic
- Soy Sauce
- Oyster Sauce
- Corn starch

Directions:
- Slice the beef into thin bite-size pieces. Flank steak is great for this, but any beef will do really, as long as you slice it against the grain to keep it tender. If you have trouble slicing it thinly, either use a sharper knife or put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
- Marinate the beef in a few teaspoons of corn starch and soy sauce while you prep the other ingredients. This will keep the beef tender and help thicken the sauce.
- Cut the broccoli florets off into bite-size pieces. You can also peel off the tough skin of the stem, slice it, and add them to the florets.
- Peel and slice the carrots at a bias (if you're using them)
- Finely mince the garlic.
Heat a pan or wok until smoking hot.
- Add a bit of oil to coat the bottom and let that heat up too.
- Add the garlic and stir it quickly for only a few seconds so that they don't burn.
- Add the beef with a bit of extra soy sauce.
- When the beef if about 80% cooked, you can take it out and set it aside. If you're being lazy like me, don't bother with this step :)
- If you're using carrots, add them to the pan. You can also add more oil at any time if things start sticking.
- Add the broccoli to the pan and oyster sauce to taste. If you don't have oyster sauce, more soy is fine too. If you like more sauce, feel free to add a bit of water or chicken stock.
- If you took the beef out earlier, add it back in now. Don't let the broccoli cook too long or it will get mushy. You want it to keep a bit of crispness.
- If you want to thicken the sauce more, mix a bit of corn starch in a bowl with a bit of water until fully dissolved and add the slurry to the pan. It should thicken even more as it cools.
- Serve over rice.

Smokey Pulled Pork Sandwiches

2009-08-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Since the hubz was waking up at 4am to smoke brisket anyway, we thought we should toss a few more things onto the smoker to maximize his efforts. After debating between a second brisket and a few other meaty goodies, we decided on pulled pork sandwiches.

The hubz took 2 honkin' pieces of pork butt and covered them in the same rub that he used for the brisket and let them sit in the fridge overnight. That's a lotta meat!

At 4am, he put them on the top rack of the smoker so that the juices would drip down onto the brisket and baste it while keeping it moist.

After hours of slow cooking in the smoker, a beautiful bark developed and it was ready for pulling!

When I went to go "pull" the pork, it was so tender that it literally fell apart! You can also see how deep the smoke penetrated the meat. Yum!

And just like last time, I'll let this website give you directions on how to pull off the meat for this amazing sandwich. We added my husband's homemade bbq sauce like we did for the brisket and some homemade cole slaw that I'll blog about next.

Smoked Brisket

2009-08-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, I think it's about time I posted a new food post, don't you think?

So the hubz and I got a Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker as a wedding gift but never got around to using it because honestly, it seemed like such a hassle. Every time he considered using it (he's the grill master in this house), he opted to use our gas grill instead because it was just so much easier. In addition to our indoor grill, we've got 3 outdoor ones. Yes, probably a little overboard, but we like it :)

Well, he finally broke out the smoker over the 4th of July weekend. We were having 30+ people over for a bbq and didn't want to do burgers and dogs. It was the perfect opportunity to test out the smoker. And you know what? Smoking isn't nearly as difficult or scary as it seems. Sure, it's more work than using the gas grill or your oven or even a normal charcoal grill, but it's definitely worth it for some things, such as smoked brisket. In fact, 2 weeks later, we took out again to smoke a few racks of ribs. And while we both thought the ribs were way too smokey and probably best cooked using other methods, but I'll get around to blogging about that some other time, we both felt that the brisket and the pulled pork were well worth the effort.

I'm not going to post a how-to here because this website is all you need and does a way better job than I ever could. It's a fantastic resource that goes in-depth into everything there is to know about smoking a fabulous hunk o' meat. I will share a couple highlights though...

The hubz bought a big ol' brisket, trimmed the fat cap, and put a homemade rub on overnight. Unfortunately, I don't have a recipe for you because the hubz doesn't really follow recipes, but it always turns out fantastic! He's just talented that way :) What I do know is that it consisted of lots of brown sugar, cayenne, paprika, cumin, salt and freshly ground black pepper and probably some garlic powder and onion powder too.

For the cooking method, he opted to go for the Smoked & Oven Finished method. This yields great smokey flavor and tender juicy meat. But in order to get it done in time, the poor boy had to wake up at 4am to get things started - that's dedication!

Look it's still dark out! It's also a lotta smoke!

The result was fantastic in my opinion. Look at that perfect smoke ring.

And the gorgeous, flavorful bark.
A few tips that he says he's going to use next time is to trim off more of the fat cap as the smoke doesn't penetrate through that thick layer of fat very well. He also put 2 fatty pork butts on the rack above it so that the drippings would "baste" the brisket and keep it from drying out. If you don't want to do that, you can cover it in a layer of bacon instead.

The hubz also highly recommends making your own bbq sauce. It's so much better than anything store bought and you can tailor it to your personal preferences (we like it spicy). For our bbq, he made 2 sauces for a little variety, a sweet bourbon bbq sauce, and a tangy spicy bbq sauce. The base of both were canned tomatoes, fresh onions, brown sugar, vinegar, maple syrup, a touch of ketchup, all cooked down for several hours and then blended smooth. The sweet bourbon sauce had a very healthy dose of jim beam and extra brown sugar while the spicy one had a boatload of cayenne and chili powder for a nice kick and additional vinegar for tang and brightness.

Here it is all cut up and ready to enjoy!

One Lovely Award

2009-07-22T22:21:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. I'm a horrible blogger, sorry. Hopefully I'll be blogging more regularly again soon.

In the meantime, I want to thank Branny of Branny Boils Over for the One Lovely Blog Award. She's a vegetarian, but her husband is an omnivore, so her blog is filled with amazing veggie dishes and meat-filled recipes too. There's something scrumptious for everyone! Definitely check out her blog if you haven't already.

I'd also like to share the award with a few other blogs that I really enjoy too.
- Lisa from lisa is cooking really does have a lovely blog. There are so many great recipes in her blog and it all looks delicious.
- Steph chows is always cooking up something lovely too. I really enjoy reading her blog, you should definitely check it out.
- Sophie who writes Sophie's Foodfiles makes lovely dishes as well. I'm always looking forward to her next posts.
- Jo shares lots of goodies on Sugar & Everything Nice. Her desserts make my mouth water and I'm not even a particularly big fan of sweets.

Thanks again Branny!

Strawberry Bread

2009-06-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

Our strawberry plants are producing a lot less fruit this year. Maybe it's because the plants or older now, or maybe because I thinned out the patch a bit earlier this year. Either way, it's probably a good thing because we still have frozen strawberries leftover from last season that need to be used up.

And because we can only eat so much strawberry jam and drink so many smoothies, I'm always looking for ways to use the strawberries and came across this strawberry bread. It's like banana nut bread, but with strawberries! Maybe next time I'll try a strawberry and banana nut bread since strawberries and bananas go so well together...

I got this recipe from Amber's Delectable Delights and highly recommend it!

Source: Amber's Delectable Delights
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
- 1 1/4 cups (6 1/2 ounces) flour (I used bread flour)
- 1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) mashed strawberries
- 1/2 cup (2 1/2 ounces) vegetable oil

Directions:
- Mix the walnuts, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and nutmeg together in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the lemon zest, eggs, strawberries and oil.
- Combine the two until well blended.
- Pour everything into a greased 9x5" loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool the bread in the pan for 15 minutes, then move it to a cooling rack.
- Slice and serve!

Nuo Mi Fan

2009-06-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

Almost every Chinese family I know makes this sticky rice dish (known as nuo mi fan or you fan) in place of traditional stuffing during Thanksgiving. In fact, for me and most of my friends, it's the highlight of Thanksgiving dinner! My mother in law does a better job with it than I do, so even though I've hosted Thanksgiving the past two years, I always ask her to bring the "Chinese Stuffing". I also always ask her to make extra so that we can keep the leftovers, though there's never much left because, like I said, it's the highlight of Thanksgiving dinner. When people are packing up doggy bags at the end of the night, the hubz makes it known that the leftover nuo mi fan is off limits :)

The reason my mother in law's version of nuo mi fan is better is because it's just somehow more fragrant than mine. I thought it was the fried shallots, but no matter how much I put in, it's still not the same. I'm going to have to watch her make it and steal her secrets one of these days, but for now, my version is not bad either. In fact, it's pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

I make my nuo mi fan in 3 different methods, depending on how lazy I'm being. I believe the traditional way is to fry it a bit first, and then steam it to finish it off, but that also requires the most work. My semi-lazy way is just to stir fry it the whole way through and skip the steaming. This yields just as good results in my opinion, so this is the method I use the most. And my lazy way is to the user rice cooker. It's super quick and easy and can be done with just a little prep, then you can "set it and forget it". The rice cooker method produces grains of rice that don't quite have the same resistance as the other methods, but it still tastes great and will save you a lot of time.

For today, I decided to go with the steaming method, but I'll explain all 3 below...

Ingredients:
- 2 cups of glutinous rice (the package might say sweet rice on it)
- 6 Dried Shitake Mushrooms (you can use more or less depending on your personal preference)
- 4 Xiang Chang (or Lap Cheong in Cantonese) which is a Chinese Sausage. Again, you can use more or less of it, depending on your personal preference.
- Soy Sauce
- Oyster Sauce
- Fried shallots
- Scallions or parsley for garnish

Directions:
- Rinse the rice in running water, then soak it overnight. If you plan on using your rice cooker, put the rice in the rice cooker pot and fill it to the line as you would when cooking rice normally. Otherwise, just make sure the rice is fully covered with water.
- Either the night before or the day of, soak the mushrooms to soften them. If you don't have time to wait for them to soften because you're impatient or forget to plan ahead, put them in water, pop them in the microwave for about a minute or two and then let them sit for another 5-10 minutes or so. This should soften them up faster. (Save the soaking liquid).
- Dice the mushrooms and the Xiang Chang.
- If you're using the rice cooker method, add soy sauce and oyster sauce to the rice and water to taste. Then toss in the mushrooms, xiang chang, mushroom soaking liquid (minus the grainy bits at the bottom), and a healthy dose of fried shallots. Give everything a good stir and turn on your rice cooker. When the rice cooker indicates that it's done cooking, serve it with a garnish of freshly chopped scallions or parsley.
- If you're not using the rice cooker method, heat a large wok or pan. You can add oil if you want, but I don't find it's necessary since the sausage has plenty of oil already.
- Put the xiang chang in the wok/pan and cook it until fragrant.
- Drain the rice and add it to the xiang chang, along with the mushrooms. Stir everything together so that the rice is coated with the oil from the sausage.
- Add soy and oyster sauce to taste. Also add in the reserved mushroom soaking liquid (be careful not to pour in the grainy bits that have settled at the bottom).
- Keep everything in the pan moving until the liquid has been absorbed.
- If you want to steam it, mix in the fried shallots and move everything to a steamer. Steam it until the rice is soft and chewy and no longer crunchy. Serve with scallions or parsley.
- If you want to finish it in the wok/pan, add the fried shallots and just keep stirring and flipping the rice until the rice is soft and chewy and no longer crunchy. As the rice cooks, it will get stickier and you'll find that it gets harder and harder to mix and stir, but that's okay. Keep at it! Then serve it with some scallions or parsley.

Blackened Mahi Mahi, Couscous, and Asparagus

2009-06-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

We don't eat much fish in this household, but after eating this one, the hubz and I decided that we should probably try to change that.

We have the in-laws over every so often, and every time they come, they bring a bunch of food with them. This time, they left behind two big mahi mahi steaks. Since mahi mahi is a very "meaty" fish, we thought they would go well with a nice bold flavor instead of the delicate flavors usually associated with fish, and decided on blackened mahi mahi.

This whole meal was shockingly quick and easy while being super tasty and healthy. I even cheated by using the microwave for the asparagus and was pleasantly surprised by the results. I'm definitely keeping that little trick in my repetoire from now on!

Anyway, if you'd like to give this meal a try, here's how...

Ingredients:
For the fish -
- Mahi Mahi or any other "meaty" fish
- Salt
- Pepper
- Paprika
- Oregano
- Onion powder
- Garlic powder
- Cayenne
- Cumin

For the asparagus -
- Asparagus spears
- Salt
- Pepper
- Lemon

For the couscous -
- Couscous
- Water or some sort of broth
- Salt

For garnish (optional) -
- Lemon
- Parsley

Directions:
For the fish -
- Mix the spices in a bowl and pat a nice generous layer on to both sides of the fish filet.
- Heat a nice heavy-bottomed pan (we used our castiron) until smoking hot.
- If desired, add a bit of oil to the pan, though we found it wasn't necessary.
- Put the fish in the pan and put the lid on. Don't touch it until a nice crust has formed (a few minutes, depending on how thick your fish is).
- Flip the fish and repeat the step above and leave it in the pan until the fish has cooked through.

For the asparagus -
- Rinse the asparagus and trim off the tough ends.
- Some of my asparagus were monstrously thick, so I split them down the middle length-wise to make them more uniform. This isn't necessary, but it's what I did.
- Lay the asparagus flat in a dish and sprinkle them with salt and pepper.
- Pop them in the microwave until they're cooked but still have a crunch to them (this took about 1.5 minutes for me, but it'll depend on your microwave and how thick your asparagus are).
- Squeeze some lemon juice over the asparagus and they're ready to serve!

For the Couscous -
- Follow the directions on the back of the box.
For me, I brought the chicken stock and a bit of salt to a boil on the stove top, added the couscous. Then I turned off the heat, put the lid on and let it sit for 5 minutes. I then fluffed it with a fork and served it with the fish and asparagus.

My hubz came up with both versions of the presentation. Pretty good, huh?

Century Egg Tofu (Pi Dan Tofu)

2009-06-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. Both work and life in general have been keeping me busy, but here's another super quick and super easy dish. *Warning* - it's not for everyone.

See that black jelly like stuff in the picture? That's an egg. Yup, a hundred year old egg! It's not really a hundred years old, that's just what it's called. It's also known as century egg or pi dan in Chinese. Here's what it looks like with the shell on.

How do they get the egg that way? They cake it in clay, ash, salt and some other stuff to preserve it. Even if you can get passed its appearance, it's definitely an acquired taste and texture, and tastes nothing like an egg. I know a guy who will eat everything from chicken feet to scorpions to bull testicles, etc, but won't touch this stuff with a ten foot pole. Then there are people like me who absolutely adore it.

So, if you're feeling adventurous, give this a try. It's a nice refreshing dish that's especially nice on a hot summer day, and who knows, you may fall in love with it too!

Ingredients:
- 2 century eggs
- 1 block of silken tofu
- Soy sauce
- Oyster sauce
- Sesame oil
- Green onions or bonito flakes as a garnish (optional)

Directions:
- Dice the tofu into large cubes.
- Dice the century eggs into large cubes.
- Top the century egg and tofu with a few dashes of soy, a healthy drizzle of oyster sauce and a splash of sesame oil.
- Garnish with green onions or bonito flakes if you want.
- Mix everything together and serve cold.

Homemade Kimchi

2009-06-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

I started eating kimchi at the ripe old age of 3. I thought that was pretty impressive until I met my friends' daughter who is eating at age 1! Anyway, I loved the stuff from the beginning and often wished I was Korean so that we could eat it with every meal. All I needed was kimchi and rice and I was a happy girl.

But I guess one should be careful of what they wish for. One of my childhood friends who is Korean explained to me that her grandmother was the family kimchi maker, as I'm sure is the case in many Korean households. Unfortunately, her grandma's taste buds weren't what they used to be, so the kimchi she made was waaay too spicy for the rest of the family. But because no one wanted to hurt grandma's feelings, everyone grinned and beared it. Then again, I always find myself wishing that store bought kimchi was spicier, so maybe I'd fit in perfectly with their family!
I've always wanted to try making my own kimchi but just never got around to it. Well, one day, I found myself with an abundance of napa cabbage in the fridge while my supply of kimchi was running dangerously low. It was like the stars aligned and told me "you must make your own kimchi". So I did. And you know what? It was sooo darn easy and way more tasty. I don't think I'm ever going to get the store-bought stuff again! And you can make lots of other goodies with it like Kimchi Jigae, Duk Bokki, Kimchi Fried Rice, and much more!

Regional Recipes is highlighting Korean food this month, and what's more Korean than kimchi? The host this round is Wandering Chopsticks.

Recipe from Kitchen Experiments
Ingredients:
(this makes a lot so feel free to make smaller batches if you're not a frequent kimchi eater, although this will keep in the fridge practically forever without going bad)
- 2 heads of napa cabbage
- Lots of salt
- 1 cup of glutinous rice flour or mochi flour
- 2 cups of water
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of fish sauce
- 2/3 cup of Korean chili powder (I just used regular chili powder - and trust me, it's definitely spicy enough. You may want to start with less to begin with. Be warned, the spice seems to intensify as it ferments.)
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 1 onion
- 2 inches of ginger
- 1/2 cup of julienned carrots
- 1 bunch of garlic chives (I skipped this and used scallions instead and it turned out fine)
- 1/2 cup shredded daikon radish (I skipped this also and it was fine)
- 10 pieces of fresh oysters (optional) (I skipped this as well)

Directions:
- Cut the cabbage in to quarters length-wise and rinse them.
- Sprinkle salt on every single leaf by lifting each of them and salting in between. Put more towards the base because it's thicker. Let them sit in the sink or a large bowl for 4 hours, flipping them half way through.
- After 4 hours, the cabbage should be wilted like shown below. Rinse off all the excess salt so that your kimchi won't be too salty. Squeeze out the excess water.

- To make the kimchi paste, mix the glutinous rice flour and water in a pot and bring it to a boil. Stir it constantly until it reaches the consistency of rice congee or a watery pudding. Keep a vigilant eye on it because the point it can quickly overcook. I had to make a second batch because I stepped away from it for a second and ruined it.
- Add the fish sauce and chili powder and mix well.
- In a food processor, process the ginger, garlic and onion. Add this to the rice flour, chili, fish sauce mixture.
- Stir in the julienned vegetables. If you're using oysters, add those now too.
- If you want to keep your kimchi in quarters, spread the paste on each leaf of the cabbage (using your hands it the best way). Or cut the cabbage into bite size pieces and mix it into the paste.
- Put the kimchi in a jar and keep it at room temperatures for approximately 2 days (I ended up leaving mine out for 3). Yes, this made me nervous too, but trust me, it's how it's done.
- You'll know it's done fermenting when you open the jar and hear or see bubbles and smell a bit of "sourness".
- When it's done fermenting, keep it in the fridge and eat it with rice or cook with it.

Asparagus and Mushroom Stirfry

2009-05-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

I think of asparagus as being a "meaty" veggie, so to make a quick, easy, and healthy stirfry, I decided to pair it with mushrooms, which I also think of as being "meaty". While I think a king oyster mushroom would have been better, I always have dried shitake mushrooms in my pantry, so that's what I used. That's one of the best things about stir fries, you can just toss in whatever you have on hand! Though, next time I'll try to plan ahead and get some fresh king oyster mushrooms and try this again.

Ingredients:
- One bunch of asparagus
- 5 dried shitake mushrooms or king oyster mushrooms if you have them
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 3 tablespoons (to taste) of oyster sauce (soy sauce is fine if you don't have oyster sauce)

Directions:
- Wash and trim the asparagus by cutting off the tough end.
- Cut the asparagus on the bias into thin slices.
- Soak the shitake mushroom in water until they're soft. If you want to rush the process, put the mushrooms and water in the microwave for a minute.
- Slice the mushrooms into thin slices.
- Mince the garlic.
- Heat some a bit of oil in a pan or wok.
- Add the garlic and saute for just a few seconds.
- Add the asparagus, mushrooms, and the liquid the mushrooms were soaking in (minus the bit at the bottom with the dirty mushroom remnants).
- Add the oyster or soy sauce.
- Saute everything together until the asparagus is cooked through, but still has a nice crunch to it.

Oysters on the Half Shell

2009-05-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

While we're on this seafood kick, I thought I'd share a quick and easy post about oysters too.

I'm not going to into how to shuck an oyster because I'm no expert and am sure google would be a much better resource, but I am going to tell you how easy it is to enjoy these delicacies at home!

Ingredients:
- Oysters
- Shallots
- Lime juice
- Rice wine vinegar
- Sugar

Directions:
- Finely dice the shallot.
- Add the lime juice and rice wine vinegar to the shallots. If it's a bit tart, add some sugar.
- Wash and shuck the oysters.
- Spoon a bit of the lime, vinegar, shallot dressing onto the oyster and slurp it down!

Clams in a Wine and Butter Sauce

2009-05-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

The hubz and I love ordering clams as an appetizer and sopping up the sauce with lots of nice crusty bread. Unfortunately, every time we order it, we end up being too full to finish our actual dinner, so we decided to make it at home as an entree instead of just as an appetizer.

This dish is so quick and easy!

Ingredients:
- Clams (we used manila)
- Shallots
- Butter
- White wine

Directions:
- Soak and then the scrub the clams.
- Finely dice the shallot.
- Melt some butter in a pan and add the shallots. Saute the shallots until they're translucent.
- Add the wine and bring to a simmer.
- Add the clams and put the lid on the pan. Let the clams steam until they've opened up. It will only take a few minutes.
- Discard any clams that don't open on their own.
- Garnish with a bit of fresh parsley and serve with nice crusty bread.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-05-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

Why oh why must I be cursed with an inability to bake? I have really got to be one of the worst bakers ever! Everytime I attempt some sort of baked goodie, I make a mess of it. I swear I follow the directions as precisely as I am capable of. I try, try, and try again. But I fail, fail, and fail again. Arrrrgh! But, I'm going to keep trying and hopefully one day I'll learn.

Remember that episode of Friends where Monica makes a million batches of cookies in an attempt to make the best chocolate chip cookies without any success? That's how I feel. No matter what recipe I've tried (yes including the Phoebe's mom's famous Nesele Toulouse recipe), no matter whose oven I'm using, no matter what the weather is like outside, no matter how full the moon is, or how the planets are aligned, they ALWAYS come out cakey. See those below? That's not what a cookie should look like...

The ONE time they turned out right was the time the hubz was helping me and screwed up the recipe because he didn't bother to read it carefully! They were chewy and delicious and definitely not my doing. I tried to make them again the right way the following week without his help, and guess what? CAKEY! Next time I'm going to try his messed up version, but I bet those will turn out cakey too.

Seriously, what's wrong with me?

Ok, enough wallowing in self-pity. Here's the recipe for Alton Brown's "The Chewy", aka "The Cakey" when I get my hands on it. The accidental changes that my husband made in his version, which tasted fantastic by the way, are in blue.

Ingredients:
(my hubz changes are in blue)
- 2 sticks of butter
- 2 1/4 cups of bread flour
- 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/4 cup of sugar (1 c of sugar)
- 1 1/4 cup of brown sugar (1/2 c of brown sugar)
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons of milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
- 2 cups of chocolate chips

Directions:
- Melt the butter (I used a microwave).
- Add the sugar and brown sugar into the butter and cream them together.
- Add the egg, egg yolk, milk, vanilla extract and mix.
- Slowly mix in the flour, salt and baking soda until well incorporated.
- Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Chill the dough.
- Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Scoop the dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 14 minutes.
- Enjoy the fact that you can make cookies that have the texture of cookies and I can't.

Niu Rou Mien (Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup)

2009-05-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

Now that you have amazing handmade noodles, you need something equally amazing to eat those noodles with, right? Enter one of my all time favorites - Niu Rou Mien aka Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. I love this stuff. One of my coworkers makes us go to the same exact place EVERY week and orders this dish so that he can get his weekly fix, and I more than happily oblige.

Usually, this dish is served with a nice thick layer of spicy red oil on top of the broth, but alas, when I'm cooking at home, I can't bring myself to knowingly eat it that way, so I refrigerate the broth overnight and skim off the solidified fat. It's still yummy, but if you chose not to skim off the fat, it'll only make it better.

Additionally, making a batch of Niu Rou Mien is the perfect opportunity to impart some of these great flavors into a few other otherwise ingredients. Personally, I really like the flavor of carrots that have been stewed in the broth, so I always toss a few of those in. I adore soy sauce eggs and this broth is perfect for making them, so I always make sure to cook up a batch of those too whenever I'm making this dish. Other things typical items that you can toss in there are dou gan (bean curd - kinda like a super firm tofu) and seaweed.

I'm submitting this post to Pasta Presto Nights. Patsy of Family Friends & Food is hosting this week, so check out her blog on May 15th to see everyone else's pasta creations!

Now onto the second most important part - how to make this dish. (The most important part is actually eating it)

Ingredients:
- Handmade noodles (recipe here)
- Beef (traditionally beef shank, but any stew meat will do. I used chuck this time)
- Beef Tendon (totally optional. some people like it, some don't)
- Water or Beef or Chicken or Vegetable Stock
- Soy sauce (to taste)
- Brown sugar (to taste)
- 1-2 sprigs of Green onions
- 3-4 cloves of Garlic
- 3-5 slices of Ginger
- 3-5 Star anise
- Dried chili peppers (to taste)
- Sichuan peppercorns (to taste)
Optional additions that I used:
- Carrots
- Peeled hard-boiled eggs

Directions:
- Put the meat, tendon and carrots if you're using them, ginger, garlic, scallions, spices, etc (basically everything but the eggs) in a pressure cooker or heavy bottomed pot. If you're not using a pressure cooker, go ahead and stick the eggs too. If you are, I don't imagine pressure cooked eggs to be a pretty sight (though I've never tried it), so leave those out for now.
- Fill the pot with the liquid of your choice until the meat is barely covered.
- Add soy sauce and brown sugar to taste. You can always water down the broth later if you add too much, or add more if it's too bland.
- Bring everything to a boil. If you're using a pressure cooker, let it cook at maximum pressure for about 20-30 minutes and let the pressure come down naturally, or until the meat is fall apart tender. If you're using a pot, either simmer it on the stovetop or put it into a 350 degree oven for a few hours until the meat is fall apart tender.
- Take out everything but the spices, ginger, scallion and garlic and set it aside.
- Strain the broth. If you used a pressure cooker and want to make soy sauce eggs, put the eggs in and let it simmer for at least an hour (the longer the better though) so that the color and flavor penetrates the egg.
- If you want, refrigerate the broth overnight to remove the layer of fat on top.
- Now it's time to serve! In a bowl, put some noodles, a bit of the broth (and some water if it's too salty), and a few slices of the beef. Garnish it with some bok choy, carrots, soy sauce egg, pickled cabbage, green onions, parsley, etc.
- Slurp and enjoy!

Homemade Noodles

2009-05-11T18:43:00.000-07:00

I love nice thick chewy noodles and the texture that can only come from fresh noodles, not dried. Since it's sometimes hard to find them at stores, I decided to make them myself. The only problem is that even though it's easy, it makes a big mess, so if I'm going to the trouble of making them, I like to make extra and freeze them. I floured them heavily and froze them in individually sized portions. Unfortunately, they stuck together even though I dusted them with a ton of flour. If you have a suggestion on on how store/freeze them, please let me know!

Ingredients:
- 2 parts Flour
- 1 part Ice Water
- lots of extra Flour to keep things from sticking

Directions:
- Mix the water and flour together and knead until it forms a nice smooth dough, adding more flour as needed for dusting the work surface and your hands.
- Let the dough rest for at least 10 minutes.
- Roll the dough out into sheets about 1/8 of an inch thick. If you're having trouble rolling it out, let it rest longer.
- Flour the sheet heavily and roll it loosely.
- Cut the rolls into strips of your desired thickness. Personally, I like them about half an inch wide.
- Carefully unroll the cut strips and lay them out, heavily floured so that they don't stick.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
- Put the noodles into the water for just a few minutes until the noodles are cooked through.
- Drain the noodles and put them into the broth of your choice or toss them with olive oil or sesame oil for use at a later time.

Simple Artichokes

2009-05-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

So work has been kicking my butt lately, which leaves little time for blogging among other things. Hopefully it'll lighten up soon, but for now, here's something quick and simple.

Ingredients:
- Artichokes
- Water
- Salt
- Lemon juice
- Garlic
- Mayo

Directions:
- Use a vegetable peeler to get rid of the tough skin on the stem, cut in half, scoop out the furry insides.
- Sprinkle on a bit of salt and a squeeze of lemon and toss them in a steam tray in your pressure cooker and for a about 15 minutes or until they're soft. If you don't have a pressure cooker, boiling, steaming, grilling and even microwaving are all acceptable cooking methods. They just might take a bit longer.
- In a separate bowl, mix mayo, minced garlic, lemon juice and salt to taste.
- Peel each leaf of the artichoke off one by one and dip the ends in the sauce.
- Fight over the stems and heart of the artichoke :)

Told ya it was quick and simple!

Shrimp Bisque

2009-04-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

Our friend, Stephanie, had crab night at her house a while ago and it was a huge hit. She boiled half of the crabs in an broth seasoned with old bay and the other half in cajun seasonings. Then she let the liquid boil down and sent a batch of delicious crab broth home with me! Yay!

Sticking with the seafood theme, I decided to make a shrimp bisque out of it. I can't give you an exact recipe since I have no idea how much of what spices she put into the broth. But then again, I rarely give measurements on this blog anyway since I tend not to measure things, so I guess it's not that different from usual. My typical method of cooking is to spin my spice rack around, grabbing whatever catches my eye, and tossing it in. I give it a taste and adjust accordingly. This usually results in something decent :)

Ingredients:
- Leftover crab broth
- Onions
- Carrots
- Celery
- Garlic
- Tomatoes
- Tomato paste
- Rice
- Butter
- Flour
- Shrimp
- Soy milk (or cream)
- Water
- Paprika
- Salt
- Pepper
- Parsley

Directions:
- Melt some butter in a heavy pot and add the onions. Sweat them until they're soft.
- Melt more butter if necessary. Add flour and mix, cooking it down to get rid of the raw flour taste and make a roux.
- Toss in the chopped carrots, celery, garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, rice, crab stock, water if necessary.
- Bring everything to a boil and let it simmer until the vegetables are soft.
- Season to taste with salt, pepper and paprika.
- Using a stick blender, blend the soup until everything is smooth and creamy.
- Mix in the cream (I used soy milk) and add the shrimp. Stir until the shrimp is cooked.
- Garnish with parsley and serve.

Crustless Quiche

2009-04-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

There was a period of time when my hubz was on Atkins. The first week or two was really fun for him, eating endless steak, bacon, cheese and other goodies without guilt while losing weight! After a while though, that got tiring so I was constantly on the lookout for Atkins friendly recipes that would add a bit of variety to his diet.

One of his favorites was crustless quiche. Even though he's not on atkins anymore, he was in the mood for it, so he whipped up a batch himself, put them into muffin tins so that they'd make convenient little bite-sized snacks.
I'm submitting this to the Tasty Tools Event hosted by Joelen's Culinary Adventures which is featuring muffin pans this month.

Ingredients:
- Eggs
- Milk or Cream (we use soy milk)
- Cheese
- Filling (you can use whatever you like. My hubz used broccoli and ham this time)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Oil

Directions:
- Whisk the eggs and milk together until nice and fluffy.
- Mix in the cheese and fillings. It's a good idea to pre-cook most ingredients to get all the water out first.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Coat the muffin tins in oil to prevent sticking. I find a quick spray with Pam to be the easiest.
- Fill each muffin tin with the egg mixure.
- Bake at 350 degrees until cooked through and a toothpick comes out clean (about 20-30 minutes).
- Pop them in your mouth and enjoy!

Duk Bokki (Rice Pinkies)

2009-04-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

As you may already know, I love the chewy texture of rice cakes. Some time during high school, I was introduced to korean rice pinkies and I fell in love all over again. It's like rice cakes, but on steroids! I do have to admit that my jaw gets kinda tired after a few of these guys, but it's totally worth it.

I've only had it a few times, but I usually see this served with some ramen (mixed in the same sauce) and fish cake. But since I didn't have any fish cake in the house and figured I'd rather use my carb allotment on more rice pinkies instead of ramen, so I left those two ingredients out. I also usually see it served with sliced hard boiled eggs, but I thought I'd do a fried egg with a runny center instead.

I'm also submitting these rice pinkies to Joelen's Wine & Dine event featuring Korean food. Posts are accepted until April 18th, so get your entries in and check out the roundup!

Ingredients*:
- Rice pinkies
- Kimchi or napa cabbage (I used kimchi)
- Egg
- Korean chili paste
- Soy bean paste (optional)
- Water or chicken stock
- Soy sauce
- Sesame seeds and/or green onions for garnish (I skipped this)
* You can also easily add meat, more veggies, etc depending on your preferences

Directions:
- Heat some water or chicken stock in a wok/pan.
- Stir in a few tablespoons of the korean chili paste (to taste). If it's too spicy for you, replace some of it with the soy bean paste instead.
- If you're adding meat to the dish, do it now.
- Add the cabbage or kimchi and any other veggies you would like to use.
- Add the rice pinkies.
- Mix everything and let it simmer until the rice pinkies are soft, adding more liquid if necessary.
- Add soy or more chili paste/soy bean paste to taste.
- Top everything with a fried egg.
- Garnish with sesame seeds and sliced green onions.

Honey Walnut Shrimp

2009-04-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

When you first think about this combination, it sounds kinda gross. Shrimp in a sweet mayonnaise sauce? If I saw that on a menu, I'd probably pass on it. Luckily, they've come up with a much more appealing name for it - Honey Walnut Shrimp. That sounds much tastier, doesn't it? And it really is tasty, no matter what you call it.

A few things I'd like to point out when making this dish. Use decent sized shrimp if possible. A big part of the beauty of this dish is biting into a juicy, succulent shrimp with crispy breading. If the shrimp is too small, you won't get that same satisfaction from the "popping" of the shrimp when biting into it. Plus, you run the risk of the breading being so thick and heavy that the shrimp just disappears.

Another thing that I recommend you do is to add the nuts in AFTER you've mixed the shrimp with the mayo sauce. I tossed them in first without thinking, and the nuts got all covered in goop and didn't make for a very pretty presentation. Sprinkle the nuts on afterwards as an edible garnish. It'll look much more appetizing.

Ingredients:
- Shrimp
- Cornstarch
- Oil
- Honey
- Mayo
- Sweetened Condensed Milk
- Walnuts (sugar or honey glazed is best, but plain is fine too)

Directions:
- Peel and devein the shrimp.
- Coat the shrimp lightly in the cornstarch. You can definitely use your favorite breading technique instead, but I use cornstarch because I just like a little bit of crispness without it being too heavy.
- Heat some oil in a pan or wok. Throw in the shrimp and toss it around for a few minutes until it's cooked through and crispy. If you're using a heavier batter, deep frying is probably a better way to go.
- Mix equal portions of mayo and condensed milk and a squeeze of honey until smooth and combined.
- Fold the shrimp into the sauce and sprinkle the walnuts on top as a garnish.

Artisan Pizza

2009-04-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

So we've been continuing to keep the dough for artisan bread in our fridge at all times and are really enjoying a constant supply of fresh crusty bread whenever we want. I also have to report on another great cheese find at Costco. The Fancy Yancy's Smoked Gouda is less than $6 per pound, is super tasty, and goes great with the baguettes. Yum!

Besides baguettes, we also tried making pizza out of it and it turned out great. I am in love with this super versatile dough and am excited to experiment with the possibilities even more.

Ingredients:
- See dough recipe here

- Tomato sauce
- Tomato paste
- Oregano
- Mozerella cheese
- Toppings of your choice (we used grilled chicken breast and tomatoes for the pizza pictured above).
- Cornmeal or parchment paper.

Directions:
- Take about a pound of the dough, dust it in flour and roll it into a ball.
- Set the dough aside and let it rest for at least half an hour. An hour or even two would be fine also.
- Heat your oven and baking stone to 475 degrees.
- Stretch and toss the dough until it makes a nice circle about 12 inches in diameter. Place it on top of a generous amount of cornmeal or parchment paper.
- Mix some tomato paste and tomato sauce together until it reaches the consistency you like and spread it all over the pizza, minus the crust.
- Sprinkle oregano on the pizza.
- Place whatever toppings you like on top.
- Sprinkle on the cheese.
- Slide the pizza onto the baking stone and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Cut into slices and enjoy!