I am so relieved that today is a holiday – because it means my husband gets to stay at home. I’ve been having one of those weekends – sick in bed. All day. Yesterday, I watched “Downton Abbey” on Netflix all day. I was hogging my wii remote and watching the show while my husband hung out with his family – which was totally fine by me because he took our boys and even brought me a plate of dinner. What a good husband I have.

So good news, guys! I am going to be a homeowner! We put an offer on a house a while back and it finally got approved. That means we are moving soon – like crazy soon, probably within a month. Which means… packing. And more packing! How am I going to achieve that with two crazy boys? I don’t know. But we are all very excited. I’m under a lot of stress already. Now our landlord (we’re renting a house) wants to sell this place so he has been fixing up stuff and he’s already got a real estate agent and a lot of strangers will be coming through this house in a week. Yes. I want to scream! So stressful.

And I hope my crazy life doesn’t affect my blogging. I will try and continue to post recipes regularly. But if any of you are interested in doing a guest post, please let me know.  Today, I’d like to share a wonderful quinoa recipe I came across a little while ago. This dish is so scrumptious. Quinoa is one of the healthiest grains you can find. I’ve made several quinoa dishes before but this one is definitely my favorite so far. I love the combination of all the ingredients but the addition of apple cider vinegar was pretty much magical to me.

And the simple broccoli dish was excellent with the quinoa dish. If you’re looking for a healthy dish to enjoy on a weeknight, try this yummy recipe.

Today, I wanted to introduce you to a very traditional soup dish called “Mi-yoek-guk”; seaweed soup. Many Koreans enjoy this soup on birthdays. The reason is that many moms who give birth to their babies eat this soup so on birthdays, you’re expected to eat the soup, too. Mi-yeok (seaweed) is believed to be very good to clear your blood and to help you recover faster after giving birth. On my birthday in January, my husband suggested that we eat this soup and brought some short ribs home so that we could add it to the soup. What a thoughtful husband. :)

Good morning everyone! And…. Happy Valentine’s day!! Or some of you might say, “Single Awareness Day”, lol But who says Valentine’s day is only for couples? It’s for everybody – your friends, parents, siblings, children, etc. I went to Walmart yesterday to get Valentine presents for my boys – my hub and my two boys. Just a bunch of little things and I swear, those Valentine cars cost more than the actual presents I got. :)

Let me tell you a little bit about this hoisin chicken. Now, I have been cooking a lot in my slow cooker lately. I love my slow cooker and it is seriously one of the best presents I got at my wedding five and a half years ago. I’ve been using it for many occasions. It’s so convenient and most of the stuff I cook in it turn out fabulously. I love cooking meat in it because they all come out so tender. This hoisin chicken was so delicious with great flavors from hoisin sauce. I bought the sauce at the grocery store. You can find it at an Asian aisle at any stores. This recipe is so simple and easy. It doesn’t take too long, either. If you cook it on high heat setting, it only takes about 3 hours. I shredded the cooked chicken afterward (it seriously falls apart at touch) but you don’t have to if you prefer chunkier texture.

I adore Garam Masala seasoning as it includes some of my favorite spices such as cumin, coriander, cardomom, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. I purchased my garam masala when my husband and I went to an Indian store a while ago – however, you can find it as the spice aisle at most grocery stores these days! Garam masala has a very unique scent to it and it is very flavorful. I enjoyed this slow cooker recipe – the house was filled with the delicious smell of my favorite spices.

The chicken, of course, was so tender since it was cooked in the slow cooker. I normally don’t like the texture of chicken when it’s boiled in hot water for a short time. It’s either too tough or rubbery. But somehow, the slowcooker does some magic to the chicken and it becomes so tender – like fall apart tender which I love. I think slowcooking chicken is definitely one of my favorite ways to cook it.

I saw this fantastic recipe on Better Homes and Gardens and I knew that I had to try it out. I love curry. All kinds. I have tried so many different kinds of curry in the past three years. I love curry pretty much from every culture. Japanese, Thai, Indian, Nepali, Middle Eastern, you name it. I am sure there are so many other curries from other cultures that I haven’t tried – and I hope that I do get to try them all before I die. :-)

This curry is wonderful with all my favorite vegetables such as sweet potatoes (or yam), sweet bell peppers, cauliflowers, and chickpeas. Since they are cooked in the slow cooker for a while, the veggies become smooth and tender, making the curry thick and delicious. Usually, I eat my curry with rice but I replaced it with couscous. And YES! I’ll definitely try that again! I’ve been trying to replace rice with something healthier with more nutrients and maybe less calories. I’m beginning to appreciate brown rice, couscous, and quinoa more and more. I have lost 10 lbs since the new year’s! I feel great! More healthy recipes coming so come back again for more healthy recipes like this one.

Jeon is one of the most popular Korean dishes for parties and ceremonies. I remember having these every time we did a ceremony for my ancestors. The ingredients are dusted with flour, dipped into lightly mixed eggs, then cooked in oil. You can be creative with Jeon and prepare shrimp, fish, eggplants, zucchinis, etc.

I made some Jeon with tofu and potatoes this time. I love them. And I fried some eggs with leftover batter, too. These Jeon go well with any other kinds of Korean dishes. These are supposed to be more like an appetizer although you could totally eat just these as a meal.

My favorite way to eat Jeon is with this yummy dipping sauce, made with soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, ground chili pepper flakes, and chopped green onions. You must try it if you haven’t. It’s so delicious and flavorful!

I can’t believe it’s already February! That means it’s almost Valentine’s day! I am sure a lot of you are probably trying to figure out what to make for your loved ones for Valentine’s day. Here’s a few suggestions!

Nutella No Bake Cookies – just a little twist on the classic no bake cookies – the secret is the addition of nutella! These freeze well also. Make sure to follow the instruction well or you might end up with crumbly and dry cookies. Cook only for a short time and you will have delicious nutella flavored cookies with a perfect texture!

Three Layer Chocolate Chip Bars – These bars have been one of our family favorites for a long time. We make these bars every year. They are so delicious with a crust layer, chocolate chip and caramel layer, and a chocolate sauce layer. Yes, make these for a very chocolaty Valentine’s day.

Oreo Truffles – Oreo truffles seem to be everyone’s favorite! Well, not a surprise for me, I guess. I just adore oreos! I love everything made with oreos. I could eat a box of them at one seating. I could. Although I wouldn’t. :) These oreo truffles are super simple and easy to make. If you have not tried these, you must.

Chocolate Hazelnut Wafers – These cookies are divine! From the shape of the cookies, you can totally tell that these cookies and Valentine’s day are a perfect match! The flavor of hazelnuts… oh my… I’ll be honest, though, these cookies take a little while to make – so plan ahead. And when you’re done making these, you will be so proud of yourself and feel like you have accomplished something huge in your life! At least, that is how I felt.

Fudge Brownie Pie – Nothing can possibly go wrong with brownies, pie crusts, and ice cream! Truth! This pie is so delicious – and it’s made from scratch! (Well, except for the pie crust but you can surely try making your own favorite pie crust.)

Reese’s Peanut Butter Brownies – Of course, if you (and your loved ones) are a big fan of peanut butter, why not use it in brownies? Seriously delicious. I cannot wait to try this again. I made this in a small square pan which was a mistake. I was supposed to make it in a larger rectangle pan. That way the baking time will be much shorter.

Oreo Cookie Muffins – These muffins are seriously addictive… Again, if you’re looking for a way to enjoy oreos in a different way, try these muffins. The oreo crumbles and the batter go perfectly well with the frosting.

Chocolate Biscotti Cookies – These cookies are different from the normal chocolate chip cookies – mainly the texture is. The texture is the crunchy biscotti texture – which I LOVE. I shaped these biscotti like cookies. But of course, you could shape them like the normal biscotti.

Chocolate Chip Brownie Cake – These brownies are homemade, more cakey than gooey. I actually really like cakey brownies better than gooey ones. These brownies would make this Valentine’s day sweet and rich!

Wow, after this post, I think I’m going to have to pinch myself so that I won’t think about getting up and start baking one of these sweets…. I told my husband not to expect any sweets from me this Valentine’s day because of our diet… but maybe I should surprise him with one of these…. :)

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

I love red potatoes… probably my favorite kind of potatoes. Red potatoes make great chips like this one. They are much easier to prepare, too. I like to roast potatoes. One of my favorite ways to prepare them is combining olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. But this time I prepared them with some paprika instead and they were delicious!

Since I used paprika, the color of the potatoes turned out beautifully. This potato dish makes a wonderful side dish to any entree you might prepare. I ate these potatoes with grilled chicken. You can create roasted red potatoes with pretty much in any way you like – I think next time, I might roast them with some garlic… What is your favorite way to prepare red potatoes?

My husband claims that these cookies are his favorite – not “one” of his favorites. His favorite! I was shocked because I thought he liked the normal chocolate chip cookies more but no, he says he loves these more than the normal chocolate chip cookies. I gotta say it’s completely understandable. These chewy cookies are so perfect in texture, in flavor. I love these cookies, too.

My husband and I have been making these cookies for a couple of years now. He made these for his Sunday school class. He teaches 5 year olds at church. Of course, the kids went crazy for these little cookies. We also dropped these off at our friend’s – they weren’t home so we left them at their doorstep. Well, what do you know, they never got them. Apparently someone stole the cookies. Yup, these cookies are steal-worthy! lol

Wednesday… It’s Wednesday! And today is also the first day of February! February is an exciting month with Valentine’s day and all. I’ve made a new goal about exercising and eating well. I did fine in January and lose some weight… about 6 lbs total. It was 8 lbs then I gained 2 back because I ate too good on my birthday a couple of days ago… ha ha But it’s alright. My new goal for this month is to stick to the meal plan, no night snacking, and add some weight training to my exercise. We’ll see how that goes.

Last night, I made this Korean dish – and it was so delicious. I marinaded the short ribs for about 30 minutes and cooked it on the stove. The meat was tender and delicious with the marinade. The sauce isn’t too difficult to make – simple Asian ingredients. The sauce is sweet and flavorful. I remember having short ribs a lot as a side dish in Korea. The only difference is that this one is boneless short ribs whereas I used to eat a lot of the bone-in ribs. The choice is yours!

Marinade the ribs at least 30 minutes, however, you can make the marinade the night before you want to cook it in the refrigerator. The flavors will soak into the ribs nicely.

Good morning everyone! Today is a great day for me because guess what….  It’s my birthday!!! Well, now, I know you’re all going to ask how old are you today? Well… I am 31 years old! :) I know. Old. I know some of you shouted “SHUT UP!” and some of you probably said, “Wow, that’s old”. But I feel great and I am happy to be 31 years old. My husband surprised me with cute balloons, flowers, and my favorite croissants. I am full. Oh and he made this cake (my favorite cake made in the rice cooker). I am so excited to try it later.

This chicken recipe is another slow cooker recipe. I’ve been having fun with my slow cooker lately. Since the weather’s been so weird lately, I’ve been feeling up and down too. So I’ve been lazy and cooking more stuff in the slow cooker. I love cooking chicken in the slow cooker – it is so tender and so delicious. I love that it falls apart just by one little touch by a fork… This garlic chicken is flavorful and so good for dinner. My husband enjoyed this dish with tortilla.

I have a confession. I dislike eggplants – not hate – just dislike. I have never been a big fan of eggplants. I don’t like the texture and it tastes kinda funky (to me). But every once in a while, I do try different eggplant recipes in the hopes I’ll like it. There is a lot of stuff that I used to hate but now I love or like or endure – for example, the first time I tried oatmeal, I threw up in my mouth. Seriously THE most disgusting thing I’d ever eaten in my life. Then a couple of years later, I tried it again although my heart was screaming NO, I still tried it and decided that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Since then on, I started trying more and more oatmeal and now I love it! That’s what I’m hoping for eggplants. I just want to try it one day and love it. :)

I know that many people adore eggplants – and I know they will appreciate this recipe. I liked this pasta dish. I did. Just not love. You might think it’s strange that I share a recipe that I didn’t “love” but I decided to post it because I know there are many people who love eggplants. I decided to add some sausage to the pasta in the end – but you can totally leave that out if you want to stick to vegetarian. Oh and did I tell you that this is a “slow cooker” recipe? :)

We had some guests over for dinner last night. I made some meatballs with bulgogi sauce, brown rice, sweet potato fries…. AND this broccoli dish! I am always looking for a new way to cook broccoli and the honey dijon mustard sauce was a very good one!  The texture of the broccoli wasn’t soggy but crispy and perfect. The sauce was sweet and tangy at the same time. I think I drank the leftover sauce after the broccoli was gone. :)

Another great thing about this dish is that it only takes about 5 minutes to cook. So I started making this like 10 minutes before our guests were supposed to show up. I gotta say I wasn’t too stressed about cooking for guests last night. Much more relaxing and I had everything ready to go for the guests when they arrived. If you’re looking for a good way to enjoy the healthy vegetable (broccoli), try this.

I finally got my chips maker! Hooray! I thought about getting a Pampered Chef one – but I decided to go with something a little cheaper. I got this chips maker on Amazon for $19. It comes with a slicer and a chips maker. I’ve been making chips every once in a while using apples, sweet potatoes, and potatoes. So delicious!

I already own a slicer from Pampered Chef (it works amazingly!!). I’ve used normal russet potatoes for chips and they work pretty good but for some reason, I like using red potatoes. They are smaller so they tend to work better for me. However, you can use any kind of potatoes you like/love. Using a slicer, slice potatoes as thin as you can.

Drain potato water by placing the potatoes in between two sheets of kitchen paper towels. Place potato slices on a chips maker.

Season potatoes with salt and freshly ground salt and pepper – or your favorite seasoning.

Microwave for about 3:30-4 minutes, or until the potato slices are crispy.

No fat added. Just plain potatoes with salt and pepper. I like to leave potato skins on – but if you prefer, you can always peel the potatoes before cooking. These chips are so easy and quick to make… I’m so glad that I decided to try out the chips maker.

Mmmm… now I am craving some! :)

{This recipe was posted back when I re-started this blog last year… For some reason, an unknown plug-in was uploaded to my blog (a plug in that I had never seen before – called “old post promoter”. It was really weird because my networked blogs kept on posting my old posts on facebook and twitter! I got rid of the plug-in and since they automatically deleted my old post so I decided to repost this tonight. This is a great recipe. I’m looking forward to making this again in the fall this year, maybe for a chili cook-off competition. :) }

Yippee! I am starting my blog again. The last few months have been crazy… with a new born baby and all. I gotta say raising two kids is definitely different from raising one… But luckily, my kids are pretty well behaved (most of the tim) so I feel very blessed.

I missed cooking and baking so much and I feel bad that I wasn’t able to keep up with my blog for the last four months or so. But I am back and excited to share some of my favorite
recipes with you all. I started a blog under a new name and a new website but it got flourished with spam comments that I just couldn’t handle them anymore. So I am back at my old blog address. So please, no more spam I hope.

This chili recipe is so simple and easy to fix! I’d never made white chili before so I had no idea what it was going to take like.. but like the name says, it was rich and creamy. I added some vegetables to the soup (unlike many other chili recipes) but surprisingly they added yummy flavors to the chili. Bake or buy some bread or tortilla chips to go with it.

There are many things that I love about my husband – one of them is his great cooking skill. He lived in Japan for two years about 8 years ago (whoa, where did the time go?) and he picked up some great Japanese recipes there. Lucky for me because I get to try some of the greatest and authentic Japanese food right at home every once in a while. Although some of Japanese and Korean food are similar, I had never heard of Katsudon or Oyakodon until I met my husband. I wasn’t so sure about the combination of eggs and chicken together but it has become one of my favorite meals and I often request my husband to make it.

This is a great recipe that combines two fabulous recipes (two recipes that can be enjoyed separately), Oyakodon and Chicken Katsu recipes (Although Tonkatsu is more of a traditional recipe but I actually prefer chicken to pork – you can definitely replace the chicken with tenderized pork loin if you want).

Isn’t it beautiful? I am so glad that my husband knows how to make this! Admittedly I am pretty good at making chicken katsu (have been making it for years) but I have not yet attempted making oyakodon. I confess. It’s just one of those recipes that I let beg my husband to make. My husband says I’m silly. But I know you can all try and making these. It doesn’t seem too hard to make… I don’t try making it because I already know that my husband can make it perfectly – why should I get in the way and steal his thunder? lol

I am so happy now that I got this blog to work. I did something terribly wrong a while ago and all the contents of this blog were wiped out. I was so frustrated! I am still bitter about the recipes that I couldn’t retrieve… but at least I got this website to work… I will do better this time and NEVER do anything stupid with ftp server. I will stay out of it. Anyway I know many of you were probably as disappointed as I was when I couldn’t continue on with blogging but I’m back. I’ll try my best to be consistent, too. No more excuses.

Today, I’d like to share a recipe that requires very little time to prepare. I invented this recipe (well, I just threw some of my favorite ingredients together and I call that an invention). Turkey smoked sausage is delicious and it’s got lower calories than other regular sausages. You can find it at any grocery stores – look for hillshire farm brand turkey smoked sausage. You don’t always have to follow my recipes exactly. You can always replace vegetable ingredients with the ones that you actually have in your fridge. That’s why cooking can be so exciting because when you like to experiment in the kitchen, your food start to taste better and better.

Turkey Smoked Sausage Stirfry

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 hillshire farm turkey smoked sausage link, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, cut into thin strings
2 carrots, thinly sliced
1 cup broccoli (frozen or fresh)
1/2 cup black olives, sliced
1 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (freshly ground)

Directions:

Heat oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Add the turkey sausage, bell pepper and carrots to the pan and stir well. When carrots are softened but still crispy (not too soft), add the broccoli and black olives and stir well. Add the seasoning salt and black pepper and stir.

Serve with rice if desired.

Mmm… Salmon… Salmon is one of those fancy fish that I never tried until I came to America. Boy, was I missing out? Salmon has a very unique flavor that I love and also the texture is pretty good. I think a lot of people are afraid to cook salmon at home because they think they can only order a salmon dish at restaurants or fancy weddings. But let me tell you (and I am sure many of you agree with me), there are so many easy ways to prepare salmon! I love baking salmon (also grilling). I added some citrus flavors to my salmon and baked it. I also made some butter with cilantro and it was delicious.

Oh this soup? So delicious. Loved the creamy texture and the wonderful flavors of basil leaves, tomatoes, and garlic together… plus some Gruyere cheese! It was my first time trying Gruyere cheese – it was creamy and good!

And I also made some grilled cheese sandwich with my leftover Gruyere cheese. It was so wonderful with the soup. The soup tasted like mild pesto and I’d definitely make it again.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to one of my very favorite Korean street foods! There are so many street vendors in Korea, especially during winter. They are so popular and so cheap, too. When I took my little family to Korea back in 2008, I was way excited to have my husband try some of them. He loved all of them, especially their freshly dipped corndogs! He loved it so much that he wanted to get one immediately after he finished it. :)

But today, I wanted to write about “Ho-Dduk”. It’s basically stuffed pancake with some cinnamon sugar filling inside. The batter is fine rice flour so the dough is pretty sticky. When I found a mix at a Korean market the other day, I squealed with joy. I could not wait to try them. Although these weren’t as good as the street ones that I tried when I lived in Korea – but they were still very delicious!

The filling melts as you cook it so when you take a bite, it’s all warm and syrupy.

This is the box I used. You can find the directions on the box. I know many of you don’t have Korean markets nearby but those who do, check it out. You won’t regret it – especially if you like anything Korean or anything sweet. :)