Korean BBQ at Home

I was craving for some Korean BBQ at home, so I just made it.  It's easy to make it at home.  You just have to marinade the meats a day before and then prepare some side dishes to go with the meal.  I was grilling with an indoor grill.

              Short ribs and spicy chicken

                                 Japchea 

           Shrimps and veggies pancakes 

Air-fried Ground Chicken with Portobello Mushrooms

 

I loved my air-fryers and yes I have two.  One for cooking the main dish and the other one for cooking the side dish so that my complete meal could be done around the same time.  I love to eat my food hot as you can tell.  Usually we steam this dish but I air-fry it instead.  It's quick and easy and it turned out delicious.  Please do enjoy this easy recipe using an air-fryer!  And of course you can substitute the meat with pork or beef or shrimp as well (pork mixed with shrimp sound excellent too), or any meat you desire or what you have in your refrigerator would do.  It would make such a great Chinese New Year dish or a dish to impress your friends at a potluck party!  Such a great finger food too!

Methods:

One chicken breast, ground and season with some oyster sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder and white pepper, set aside.

Around 12 or 13 organic Portobello mushrooms, take out the stems and wipe clean.

Scoop the seasoned ground chicken into the Portobello mushrooms and top each piece with a green pea for decoration.  You can use the frozen green pea or the frozen carrot for colors.

Then, place them in a layer into the air-fryer, spray with avocado oil and set the temperature to 400'F for 10 mins.

In the meantime, heat up a small saucepan with 1/2 cup of water, add 2 Tbsp. of oyster sauce and 1 Tbsp. of mirin and boil until dissolved.  Thicken the sauce with some cornstarch water (1 tsp. cornstarch plus 1 Tbsp. water).  Keep stirring until thicken, once thicken, set it aside.

Once the mushrooms are done, take it out and place on a plate and scoop the thicken sauce on top of each mushrooms.  Serve hot!

Homecooked meal

 

What can be more satisfying then a delicious homecooked meal made with love?  I love to provide my girls with a nutritional balance meal whenever I get the chance.  With the two air-fryers that I have, cooking a meal is so much easier and faster.  I air-fried the asparagus in one and air-fried the miso cod in another air-fryer and I time it so that both finish cooking at about the same time.  Here's how you get warm food and not one cold dish with your meal.  I also time the beancurd knots to hit start button on my air-fryers to cook.

Served it up with my turmeric, black pepper and coconut oil rice!  Yummy in the tummy every time!

Seasoned Crispy and Fragrant Beancurd Knots or Tofu Knots

Well, I love almost all variety of tofu products.  I love beancurd knots because it holds it shape well when braising. Before this, I mostly use it in braising my soy sauce chicken or pork.  It goes well with rice with some homemade chili oil.  And then I saw a video of a different way of cooking dried beancurd roll.  I didn't have dried beancurd roll but I did have this dried beancurd knots that I could use.  Hence, here this recipe is born.  I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my girls and I.  Happy cooking!

Air Fried Baby Portabella Mushroom

Air fryer is a great kitchen gadget to have if you haven't owned it already.  I used it plenty often to produce an easy lunch or dinner.  It save me time and the food turned out great every time.  I would advice you to invest in one if you haven't already, or you can wait until Black Friday for the great price deal!

I wish I have asparagus, then I could throw that in and make it a more colorful and balance meal.

Korean Meal

I love Korean food and I always have homemade kimchi in my refrigerator. When my Korean craving hit, the above was what happened.  I already posted the above recipes in my blog before, that was how I looked for my old recipe to make this.  You can either look under Korean or just type the recipe under the Search button.  Enjoy!

Penang Assam Laksa

When I went back to Malaysia last year, the one paste that I really wanted to buy was this Penang assam laksa paste.  I had to search for it in Penang and in the end, my aunty had to bring me to a special supplier house to buy it.  Now, I can have assam laksa in the U.S. :)

This paste is really good, very original and I had my craving fixed.  An otherwise very troublesome recipe to make turned into an easy recipe with a ready made paste.  If you ever go to Malaysia, do stock up on this paste as it is not available here.  Below I will show you the ingredients I used to make this, only need to wash and slice those ingredients to eat with the noodle and that's it!

Prawn paste- optional
Can pineapple rings
I used sardine in olive oil here, just add the sardine and discard the oil in a plastic bag
Red onion
Lettuce
English cucumber
Rice noodle
I don't have mint leave
You can also add red chili padi (bird eye chili) for extra spiciness

Just follow the instruction as the back of the package and thinly slice those vegetable to serve.

Stir-fried Udon Noodle with Shrimp and Scallop

A simple stir-fried Udon noodle with shrimps and sea scallop with spinach, carrot and yellow onion.

Chicken Pot Pie from Scratch

I made this from scratch today and my girls both said it was really good.  I actually made chicken pot pie back in 2008 and here is the link to my old post.  I used the same flaky pie crust recipe and slightly altered the ingredients and method to what I have at home or currently using.  You can see my recipe in the next page.

I used the same lattice pattern on my pie, but I didn't brush it with egg wash this time.

Pie before baking and top with chicken filling.  I used two homemade flaky pie crusts for this recipe.  I pre-made the pie crusts in the morning and then refrigerated until ready to use.  Just bring it out to thaw on the kitchen counter while cooking the filling.

Air Fried Cornish Hen

Air-frying Cornish hen sounds like an excellent idea.  I used to deep-fried my Cornish hen but it left my kitchen with smell.  With air-frying, it was quick and I didn't have to use a lot of oil.  Thus I can have my dinner in less than 45 minutes.

Ready for air frying.

Thanksgiving Meal 2019

Our mini Thanksgiving meal.  My girls and I just loved the green bean casserole so we had to cook it again and this time we paired it with slow cooker turkey (I overcooked it and it turned out a bit dry and then I burnt it while I set it on broil!!! *slap face*), gravy and air-fried sweet potato tots.

Luckily my girls still like the turkey and said it was fine with the gravy.  Well, I did learn a lesson with each failure, don't ever trust the recipe completely and always check half way for sure.

My sweet potato pie from scratch!  I just can't do without it every holiday season.  A must have for my girls and I and in addition to that we also added the apple crumble pie into our tradition.  Those pies are so good homemade from scratch and it is just irresistible for us.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Green Beans

While I was shopping at Sprouts, I saw this beautiful green beans on sale.  I couldn't resist myself and bought some to cook this favorite dish of mine.  The trick of cooking green bean is you have to deep-fry it first, so that it would keep the crunch. 

So first, marinate the cut chicken breast with soy sauce, garlic powder, white pepper, rice wine, sesame oil and cornstarch.  Mix well and set aside.  Then, you deep-fry the green bean until it changed color, dish out and set aside.  After that, you heat up some oil in the wok, add in some diced garlic and the chicken and fry until cook through.  Add in the green beans and season with oyster sauce and premium dark soy sauce.  Mix well and serve hot on a plate.  Enjoy!

Stir-fried Black Bean Cutterfish with Celery

I loved cutterfish.  I will buy some frozen cutterfish when I am in the Asian supermarket because it is easy to defroze and it tastes really delicious.  I made this dish easily with some organic celery and the ready made bottled chili in black bean sauce and bottled hot chili paste with peanuts.  My girls enjoyed this dish too even for my younger girl who doesn't like spicy food.

Stir-fried Sweet Potato Noodle

Baked Crispy Potatoes

While I was browsing my Instagram, I saw a recipe of a delicious looking baked crispy potatoes that I wanted to try.  I used red potatoes and added Parmesan cheese to mine.  I paired it with baked Salmon and roasted asparagus and rainbow carrot to complete the meal.

This baked crispy potatoes was so crispy and delicious and my daughters couldn't stop raving about it and wanted me to make more.  I am going to make more for Christmas and this time pair it with brown butter chicken breast with mushrooms.  I am going to share my version of the crispy potatoes for my own record.  Try it and be amazed!

Seafood Thai Green Curry

I just realized that I can buy a really good quality organic frozen broccoli at Costco.  I used to buy frozen broccoli at the local supermarkets and it was fulled of stems instead of the florets.  While browsing through Costco, I came across the organic frozen veggies station and decided to give it a try.  To my utter surprise, the frozen organic broccoli was all florets, no stem at all!  And it was so fresh and beautiful, furthermore, it is organic!  What best can I ask for!  Next time I am going to try other frozen organic veggie as well.

The above is my lazy one dish Thai green curry meal.  Just go buy some Thai curry paste and put it in your freezer and it will last you for a long time.  Furthermore, anytime you can just whip up some lazy one dish meal to feed your family.  The brand that I am using is Mae Ploy and you can find it in any of the Asian supermarket.  Enjoy!

Baked Teriyaki Chicken

Just one of those days that I have to think of what to cook for dinner again.  I am switching to working part-time now so I have more times to spend with my girls as well as cook a healthier home cook meal for them.  They loved it of course because they missed it when I have no time to cook for them at all.  I miss my own cooking as well because I used all the best ingredients for my home cook meal and I know what I put in it.  Whereas, you have no idea what stuff they put in in a restaurant that served you.

Anyway,  trying out this Teriyaki sauce recipe posted by Taste and Tell.  Not bad at all.

Braised Chicken with Frozen Tofu and Shiitake Mushrooms

Have you tried the frozen tofu before?  If not, give it a try because I strongly recommended it!  It works best with extra firm or firm tofu.  Just wrap it in foil and in a Ziploc bag and freeze it for at least 2 days or up to a year.  When you want to use it in any of your dishes, just defroze it in the refrigerator overnight.  When defroze, squeeze out the water as much as you can before cooking.  I normally used it in braising meat or chicken and the sponge like texture with soak up all the braising flavor.

This dish is actually kind of spicy because of the dried chilies, but you can freely omit the dried chilies for a more child friendly dish.

Stir-fried Spaghetti with Mushroom, Eggs and Flower Chives

How this dish came about was I couldn't resist purchasing the organic brown mushroom that was on Manager Special at King Sooper.  I still have half a bunch of flower chives that was given by a friend and some organic brown eggs in the refrigerator, so this dish was set.  Eating too much carbohydrate has gotten me fat but sometimes I just craved for this easy one dish meal.  It was filling and it took less time to make.  However, I realized that I couldn't eat too much carb. few days in a roll, I really put on weight as a result.  So, right now I would stick to as little carb as possible and consume more vegetable and some protein.  And if I can control no snacking in the afternoon that would be great but I love my cookies!!  :(

Okay, enough ranting about my weight issue and scroll down for the recipe!

Ground Pork with Flower Chives

During the summer break, I was given some home grown flower chives and zucchini.  The owner was sharing this method of cooking the flower chives and it sounded delicious so I was trying out her recipe.  She used the black bean sauce to cook this and since I only have the bean sauce, I used that instead.  It turned out great and it was well received by both of my girls!  As for me, I have found another way of cooking the flower chives! :)