Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.