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.

Air-fried Cauliflower

With the recent purchase of an Air-fryer, it is time for experimentation.  I loved the ideas of fast cooking time, easy to clean, minimum to no oil used and no smell in the kitchen.  Cauliflower was on sales at Sprouts so I bought some to cook.  It was a bit of an hassle to stir fry the cauliflower as more cutting and preparation was involved so I decided to air-fry it.  It turned out great and so easy to make and so quick to cook.  It prompted me to go to Sprouts again to buy more cauliflower!!

I paired it with chicken rendang and a delicious dinner was created.  Click next page for my recipe.

My New Toy- Air Fryer

After hearing about the Air-fryer for two years, I decided to buy one from Costco when it went on sales.  I hope this turned out to be a good investment for me as my readers probably know that I am a pretty health conscious individual and I really sold to the idea of deep-frying with no or minimal oil.  What makes this great is it only took few minutes to cook and it doesn't leave my house smelling like I have just deep-fried some food.  As of now, I am loving my deep-fryer!

I tried it with Alexia's sweet potato tots, 400'F for 13 minutes, shaking half way and it turned out great.

I also tried it with mini Asian spring rolls that I bought at Costco.  400'F for 8 minutes, turn over half way.

Ling Ling's pot stickers.  I think I need to brush it with egg wash to produce the golden brown effect, other than that it does taste crispy and the inside is cooked through.  400'F for 10 minutes.

Lastly, I used it to bake Cod fish.  It cooked great, just be aware that lots of water came out from the fish.  So, perhaps line the bottom of the air fryer with a parchment paper for easy cleaning.

I also tried it with deep-fried tofu and it turned out well as

Gula Melaka Coconut Sago Dessert

One of the Malaysian favorite dessert.  Sago/ tapioca pearls with coconut cream and gula Melaka.

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!

Egg Tart Pie

My girls loved Chinese egg tarts.  However, in order to eat egg tarts, we would have to drive up to Denver (about an hour plus away).  One can either order it in a Dim Sum restaurant or get it to go at some Chinese shops.  With my schedule right now, we don't have time to drive up to Denver that often, also when whether permitting, usually I don't planning to drive up there when it will be snowing or extremely cold.

Hence, I figured I could make it into a pie, cut down on the time and give my girls a quick fix.  Thus, this lazy version of the egg tart pie is created.

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!

Pesto Chicken Sausage Broccoli Penne

Hello my readers, it has been a while since I last updated my blog.   Sorry, I have been pretty preoccupied lately.  Today, I would like to share this easy and delicious penne pasta recipe with you.  My girls totally loved it and told me, mom this is really good.  Hahaha...what a compliment and I guess that's what a cook were looking for in the end, that's to make the eaters satisfied with their meals.  I used Costco's organic chicken sausages and organic frozen broccoli for this.  Non-GMO penne from Sprouts and Costco pesto sauce.  I added some butter to fry the sausages and broccoli, and then I added the cooked penne and some water, mixed well.  Then, I added the pesto and dried parsley flakes, mixed well.  Season with some salt and black pepper.  Serve hot and enjoy!

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!

Green Bean Casserole from Scratch!

This Ultimate Green Bean Casserole from Daring Gourmet was seriously the best!  I was searching on Google for the best green bean casserole and this seriously caught my attention.  Fresh green bean instead of the canned green bean and the fresh mushroom, cheese and organic half & half definitely beat the canned of cream of mushroom soup anytime!

Instead of the roast turkey breast, my girls opted for roasted chicken instead.  I bought the Sprout Hawaiian bread and non-GMO apple cider and I just needed to make the gravy, my awesome mashed organic potato and this ultimate green bean casserole.

The easy spread!  I didn't make the cranberry salsa as I will be the only one eating it (Even though it is so yummy).  Hence,  I chose to save money and extra prep and cook.  :)  Edda helped me a lot in the kitchen, she peeled the potatoes for me and sliced the mushroom for me which made it so much faster to complete this meal.

I haven't cooked for ages so I was happy to hear from my girls that their mom still got it!  Ha!  They were afraid that I would lose my touch if I stop cooking for a long time.  I guess cooking is a skill and once you got it, you got it!  :)

Sorry I didn't manage to come out with any new recipe lately.  Hoping my 10 years innovation and collection of recipes here are helping you.  Have a Happy Holidays readers!

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! :)