Home-cooked Meal

I finally got some break and free to cook dinner for my girls again.  And because I started cooking and have more free time now, I also get to update my blog more often.  The above was just one of the dinners that I made at home.  I made some Korean radish side dish the other day with a round radish that I had.  I also loved to have some Korean fish cake in the freezer whenever it was on sale.  It was easy to defroze and can be easily whipped up in a meal, or threw it in soup.  Always needed to make sure we have plenty of vegetable in our meal, so a plate of bok choy was a must.  And some chicken to create a balance meal.

School has started for my girls.  With the school starting, it also mean I will have to prepare 2 lunch boxes for my girls, one for middle school and one for high school.  My daughters preferred to take home lunch instead of eating school lunch as she told me school lunch was really gross (which was fine by me because I preferred them to eat organic and non-GMO food).  Well, more work for me as I liked to prepare hot lunch instead of cold lunch, but whatever works.  Hence, I always scouting at Costco for any offer that I could make into a quick lunch box for my girls.  Stock up when it was on sales and think ahead so that I could steal an extra 10 minutes of sleep.  I also like to make the hot lunch the night before so that I could just heat it up in the microwave before putting the food into the thermos or kept warm lunch box container.  Here, to the new school year and may my two daughters adjusted to their new school environment smoothly and successfully!

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.

Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting

My girls wanted to make their own birthday cake this year and they wanted a chocolate cake with a chocolate frosting.  So, I went back to use my trusted moist chocolate cake from Pusiva that I had made for Edda's 1st. birthday party.  I wanted a not too sweet chocolate whipping cream as the frosting for the cake and I played around with the recipe to come out with this.  It was a really good frosting so I had to pen it down here so that next time I know where to find it.

I made this 2 layers chocolate cake (with the help of my girls) with Nutella filling in the middle and chocolate whipped cream.  My girls decorated with some chocolate chips as well.  Overall, a very delicious chocolate cake I might say.  Very satisfied with the result.

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!