creamy corn

I found this recipe as the side of Thanksgiving feast this year. It turned out really yummy. Sweet + creamy = ultimate comfort food. Bacon at the top adds nice texture to this dish. It only takes 20-30 minutes to make.

Ingredients:

Sweet corn kernels - 3 cans (drained)
Green pepper - 1/2 large (chopped)
Red or Orange pepper - 1/2 large (chopped)
Onion - 1 medium (chopped)

Bacon - 8 slices

Cream cheese - 6-8 TBS (depending on how creamy you want) 
Half & Half - 1/2 cup
Garlic salt - 2 tsp
Pepper - 2 tsp
Paprika - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1tsp

Prep:

1. Chop onion, green pepper and red/orange pepper into small pieces. 
2. Drain corn from can 

Cook:

1. In a frying pan or wok, cook 8 slices of bacon until your desired texture. Leave 2 TBS of bacon drippings. Cut into small pieces.
2. In the bacon drippings, fry onion until fragrant, about 3-5 minutes. Stir frequently.
3. Add in green and red/orange peppers and corn. Fry for about 8 minutes. Stir occasionally
4. Add in cream cheese, half and half, and all the seasonings. Let it simmer until cream cheese melts. Adjust the taste to your liking.

Serve:

1. In a serving plate/dish, pour the creamy corn. Top with cut bacon. 

spanish yellow rice

I haven't tried the actual/authentic Spanish yellow rice before, but once in a while I have this craving for fun recipes like this. I simply googled 'Spanish yellow rice' and came to this recipe. I cooked in a rice cooker. It turned out great. I served it with fried chicken and spicy green beans. I will definitely make this again! (the actual one is more bright yellow)

Ingredients:

Onion - 1/2 medium (chopped)
Garlic - 3 cloves (minced)
Long grain rice - 1 and half cup (use baking measuring cups)
Chicken broth - 2 and 1/4 cup (use baking measuring cups)
Salt - 1 tsp
Tumeric - 1/2 tsp

Prep:

1. Chop onion and mince garlic cloves
2. Wash and rinse long grain rice. 

Cook: 

1. On a frying pan, heat 1 TBS of vegetable or olive oil. Fry onion and garlic. Fry for 5 minutes. 
2. Mix everything in a rice cooker. Cook as usual. 

 Serve: 

1. Serve with your favorite sides, like fried chicken, seafood soup, and stir fried veggies. It tastes a bit like biryani (recipe coming soon), but simpler to make, so you can eat with curry, too!

caeser salad with sweet roll croutons

I LOVE Caesar salad. It's my favorite salad and I can eat many servings of it. I made my own Caesar dressing once, but it didn't taste quite the same, so I need to work on that recipe more. I found the dressing and it was very yummy. This post is for sweet roll croutons. 

Ingredients:

Hawaiian sweet rolls - 4 rolls *see TIPS
Olive oil - 1 and half TBS
Italian seasoning - 2 tsp
Dried Basil or parsley - 1 tsp
Garlic powder -  1 tsp
Salt - pinch

Romaine lettuce - 1 head (chopped & washed)
Grated Parmesan cheese - as much as you like, usually about 1/2 cup for 1 head of lettuce

Your favorite Caesar salad dressing   

It's yummy, plus the company gives all their profits to charity! What an awesome dressing!

 

 

 

 

Prep:

1. Cut the Hawaiian rolls into 1/2 inch (or smaller, depending on how big you want your croutons to be) chunks. Leave it on a kitchen counter for 30 minutes. If you are rushing, you can skip the leaving on the counter part.
2. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

I like my croutons big, but cut it to the size you like - even different shapes!

Cook:

1.  Turn the broiler on, or if you want to use oven instead, turn up to 400 F.  You can also use oven toaster if you have one (I want one!)
2. On a prepared baking sheet, toss cut-up rolls with the rest of the ingredients. The pieces should be wet from olive oil and it should cover the whole piece. 
3. [Broiling] Broil it for 2-3 minutes, use spatula to turn the croutons and broil for another 1-2 minutes. Make sure you don't burn them. :) Keep tossing. Turn off the broiler, cover with aluminum foil and leave it in for 5-7 minutes to dry out. 
4. [Baking] Bake in 400F oven for 3-4 minutes, turn using spatula and bake for another 4-5 minutes. It should turn golden brown. Turn the oven off, cover with aluminum foil and let it dry out.

Toss with your hands so you can make sure each piece gets the good stuff on

Watch the oven - multitasking will lead to croutons like the one above. :)

Serve:

1. Toss cut romaine lettuce with cheese. Pour desired amount of dressing. Toss. Sprinkle with homemade croutons. Do this just right before you eat. 

TIPS

• No Hawaiian rolls? No worries! It works with any kind of bread/rolls. If you are using regular toast bread, use 5 slices. 

spinach strawberry salad with poppy seed dressing

Poppy seed dressing

This is my husband's favorite salad! We have it for special occasions like Thanksgiving, anniversary, and Christmas. The recipe was from our close friend. Hope you like it, too! 

Ingredients:

[Poppy seed dressing]

White sugar - 1/4 cup
Dry mustard - 2 tsp
Salt - 2 tsp
Vinegar - 1/2 cup
Vegetable oil - 1/3 cup (add 1/3 cup more if you like to less thick)**see TIPS
Sweet onion - 2 large 
Lemon juice - 2 tsp
Poppy seeds - 2 tsp

[Spinach salad]

Baby spinach leaves - 1 bag (or 4 cups)
Bacon - 3 (cooked and crumbled)
Strawberries - 2 cups (sliced)
Candied walnuts/almond - 1/2 cup
Mandarin oranges - 1 can (medium)
Dried cranberries - 1/3 cup 

Prep:

1. [Poppy seed dressing] Measure all ingredients.

Cook:

1. In a blender, blend sweet onion, white sugar and vinegar until smooth. 
2. Add in the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. 
3. Keep in the airtight container. It tastes the best after a day or two in the fridge. 

TIPS

• Adjust consistency of the dressing with vegetable oil

homemade bbq sauce

It says, "BBQ sauce" in case you were wondering... :)

Have you ever experienced cooking something and then you find out you are missing something? Or you are so lazy to go out and get the necessary ingredients? Yes, I've done that many times. I thought I had BBQ sauce in the fridge, but I didn't! So I looked up the recipe and it turned out great. I find this BBQ is better because you can adjust the taste. :)

Ingredients: 
Brown sugar - 1 and 1/3 cup
White sugar or honey - 2 TBS
Ketchup - 1 and 2/3 cups
Red wine vinegar - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Worcestershire sauce - 1 TBS
Dry mustard - 2 TBS
Paprika - 2 tsp
Salt - 2 tsp
Black pepper - 1and 1/2 tsp

Prep/Cook:

1. Measure all ingredients. Put them all in the blender.
2. Blend it until smooth.
3. Keep in airtight container. It tastes better after couple of days. (It still taste great the day of)

pica de gallo {simple salsa}

For cheesy, carbo loaded Mexican dishes, it's nice to have the companionship of fresh and healthy pica de gallo or salsa. This is very simple to make -- all you do it chop & mix! 

Ingredients:

[A]
Roma tomatoes - 6
White onion - 2 small or 1 med
Green pepper - 1 med
Jalapeno - 2
Cilantro - 1/2 cup full or more if you want

[B]
Lemon juice - 2 tsp
Seasoned salt - 1 tsp
Black pepper - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp

Prep:

1. Take out seeds from Jalapeno and green peppers. Chop Jalapeno more finely than the rest of the veggies. 
2. Chop all the ingredients under [A].  You can use chopper or blender to save some time. 

Cook:

1. Mix chopped [A] ingredients and [B] ingredients in a bowl. Mix well and let it sit in the fridge for at least couple of hours. Make sure you taste before you store. Adjust taste to your liking.

Serve:

1. This can be a good snack with tortilla chips or as side kick to main dish like burritos or enchiladas. 

karaage (japanese-style fried chicken)

Do you need one more dish on your dinner table? This dish just need 5 min prep., let it sit in the fridge for awhile and take it out to fry 10 minutes before dinner! You can try out different marinades (see TIPS). This is also good as party finger food.

Ingredients: 

Chicken - 1 lbs (your favorite cut, preferably with skin on for crunchiness)

[Marinade]
Soy sauce - 3 TBS
Mirin - 1 TBS
Salt & balck pepper - 1 tsp each
White or brown sugar - 1/2 TBS
Cornstarch - 2 TBS
Garlic - 2 cloves (minced)
Ginger - 2 tsp (minced)

Corn starch - For dipping
Oil for frying

I used yakiniku sauce 1/3 cup + 1 tsp mirin + 1 tsp soy sauce

Prep:

1. Cut chicken into 2 inch bite size pieces. 
2. In a big Ziplock bag or in a bowl, combine chicken and add in marinades and massage the chicken in the marinade. Let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour (half a day or overnight is good, too)

Going to the fridge for few hours!

Cook:

1. Heat oil in a pot. **see TIPS
2. Put cornstarch on a plate/bowl. Roll each marinaded chicken pieces on cornstarch.
3. Fry until golden brown. Flip one.

Serve:

1. Serve with other main dish 
2. Ketchup tastes good on it, too. 

TIPS

• You can use leftover yakiniku sauce for marinade (omit soy sauce & mirin)
• For deep-frying, you can use less oil by using just enough to cover half of the chicken pieces. or you can make the chicken pieces smaller for shorter cook time.

pineapple coleslaw

We have a pretty decent coleslaw recipe. But one day, my husband said, "it needs some kick to it" and then he took out a can of pineapples and mixed it with the slaw -- it was a big HIT! The pineapple coleslaw tasted much better than the original recipe and it brought back memories from all the awesome food we ate in Hawaii.

Ingredients:

Coleslaw mix - 1 packet [16 oz] (or cabbage 1 small & carrots 2) **see TIPS
Onion - 1/3 cup (diced)
Mayonnaise - 2/3 cup
Vegetable oil - 3 TBS
White sugar - 1/3 (or more for sweet tooth) **see TIPS
White vinegar - 1 TBS
Salt - pinch
Poppy seeds - 1/2 tsp
Lemon juice - 3 tsp

Crushed pineapple - 1 small can (drained)  

 

 Prep:

1. Dice onion and drain can pineapple. 
2. Cut cabbage and carrots if you are cutting your own. 

Diced onion and drained crushed pineapple

Cook:

1. In a big bowl, combine all ingredients. Mix well. Adjust the taste. That's it! 

Ready to mix!

Serve: 

1. Perfect side dish for any BBQ or fried food!

 TIPS

• Coleslaw mix is  very convenient and pretty affordable (about $2). It'll save you time.
• Add 1/4 sugar first, and add more until it's sweet enough for you.

deviled eggs

Need something different from regular lettuce-tomato-cucumber salad? Deviled egg (for the longest time, I thought it was "devil's eggs" haha... silly me) is a fun salad topper! We made this one with left over tuna salad, but there are so many different combinations of deviled eggs you can make. If you have little bit (about 1/4 cup) of this and that, try making deviled egg with it -- you might surprise yourself. :)

Ingredients:

Eggs - 7 (to make 14 deviled eggs)

Tuna salad (or anything you want to put in) - 1/4 to 1/3 cups
Mayonnaise - 1/3 cup
Rice vinegar or lemon juice - 2 tsp
Garlic salt & pepper - pinch
Onion powder - 1 tsp
Other spices (e.g. ground mustard, dried parsley) - however you like it

Prep: 

1. [Hard-boiled eggs] In a pot, put the eggs in and fill it up with enough warm water to cover the eggs. Bring the water to simmer (but not boil - about 210 degrees). Once it hits the temperature or when the water starts to simmer, cover the pot and cook for 17 minutes. Turn off the heat and pour out the hot water and fill the pot with cold water. Let it sit until it's cool enough to work with. Peel the shells off and set it aside. 

Cook:

1. Cut the hard-boiled eggs in half. 
2. Take out the yolks. Cover the egg whites with wet paper towel.
3. Mash the yolks with a folk or a whisk. Add all the ingredients and mix.
4. Adjust the taste. If the egg mixture is too dry, add more mayo, rice vinegar or lemon juice. 
5. Put the egg mixture in a zip lock bag (or pastry bag with piping), cut the end so it will have 1cm opening. 
6. Fill the egg whites with the egg yolk mixture. 

Cover with wet paper towel to keep the egg whites moist

Texture should be creamy & smooth enough to work with

Serve:

1. Serve with cut lettuce. 

never-fail bread(stick)

I tried many recipes for bread that's soft in the inside, but nice and crunchy on the outside. This recipe works well with bread sticks or burger buns/hot dog buns. It's so simple, you don't have to buy bread sticks anymore! 

Ingredients: 

Milk or half & half - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup
Butter - 2 TBS

White sugar - 3 TBS
Active dry yeast - 1 envelope (.25 ounce or 2 and 1/2 tsp)

Salt - 1 1/2 tsp
Bread flour or all-purpose flour - 5 1/2 cups

[Brushing & Topping]
Egg - 1
Water - 1 TBS

Italian seasoning [optional]
Sesame seeds [optional for burger buns or hot dog buns]
Garlic salt or fresh minced garlic with butter

Prep:

1. In a saucepan, warm up milk, water (1 cup) and 2 TBS of butter until butter melts. Let it cool down a bit so it's not too hot (little bit more than lukewarm). 
2. In a large bowl (Kitchenaid bowl if you are using it), add sugar, yeast, salt and flour. Slowly, add in the milk/water solution as you knead the bread (or use Kitchenaid kneading hook). 
3. Let it knead for 8 minutes with electric ones or 10 minutes with hands.
4. Take the dough out, oil the bowl and return the dough. Cover with wet cloth and put in a warm place for about an hour (until it gets big! about twice the size) *See TIPS

Cook:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. 
2. Separate the dough twelve parts for hamburger buns, or 24 parts for bread sticks. Shape any way you want. Let it rise for another 15 minutes.
3. Mix egg and water (1 TBS) and brush the top of the bread. Sprinkle whatever toppings you want on top after brushing. 
4. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown on top. 
5. Leave them on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before serving. 

Braiding the bread sticks

for this, we put cheese, Italian seasoning

Serve:

1. Serve warm, but not right out of the oven. 

TIPS

• If you want sweeter bread, add more sugar
• If you can't wait for an hour, you can use the dough right away after kneading. Shape them and let it rise for 15-20 minutes.