Sweet Pea Journey

Family, Friendship, Food, Fun and Everything in Between!

Sweet Pea Journey

Words

Life and random things

Words

At 8 pm, I am still working on the project. All of a sudden, I received a message from a co-worker. She apologized for not getting what I needed done for today, and promised to finish it tomorrow morning, because she is very exhausted now. I said OK and thank you. What she said afterwards brought me to tears.

“My guy has passed away in March…. from a rare form of cancer… I miss him so much, I would give anything for him to be here with me…I am not a difficult person, I promise, don’t be worried to ask me for anything…. Work has been keeping me busy, so I am always online…”

I was in shock. Not that I should have known about her personal business, but how fragile a life, a relationship could be, and how much pain separations can cause one another. I told her “I am sure he knows too..” It surprised me that I said that to her, instead of typical “I hope you are OK, I am always here..”

We all have witnessed, heard and been part of so many arguments, disagreements between couples, parents and children, friends, co-workers.. I know I teared up, not just because it is a sad situation, but I also felt her pain, to my core… People say harsh things to each other during arguments, for what? Defending and justifying their own behavior? But how many of us can truly HEAR how the other person is feeling? Frustrating on both ends indeed.

Words are double sided swords, they hurt on the way into someone’s ears, but most of us do not realize, they also hurt on the way out of our mouths, if you truly care for the other person.

I watch people argue, they pick the worst words to say, attacking each other on a personal level. Almost all the time, what hurts the most isn’t the argument itself, isn’t who is right who is wrong, isn’t someone’s pride or ego.. it’s the harsh words coming out of a loved one’s mouth.

I wonder if those moments went through her head, wishing she never said certain things, now he is gone she could never take them back… I wonder if he has ever thought of the same thing, knowing he didn’t have much time left?

People may apologize afterwards, saying I shouldn’t have said this or that, but can you really take those words back? No you can’t. Those words can’t be unheard, things can’t be unsaid.. A nail hammered into wood can be removed, but the hole remains.

We all know we should live like we are dying, but do we also treat our loved ones like we are dying too?

Cooking

Menudo

I have a blended family. We are both foodies, and both culture literally eat everything and anything. So there is nothing we need to avoid in our diet. Me being a person love to try new recipes and new foods, I had to make this Mexican delicacy. And it turned out fabulous. Let me put it this way, it was supposed to be our breakfast next day, and we were only supposed to taste for seasoning. We ended up eating a bowl, each, at mid night…and we barely had enough for breakfast the following day.

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Ingredients:

  • 3 lb honey comb trip, thoroughly washed with water and vinegar. Cut into bite size pieces with a pair of sharp kitchen scissors.
  • 6 TBSP menudo mix (store bought or home made)
  • 2 tsp Mexican oregano
  • 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 1/2 onion, roughly chopped
  • 1/2 c water
  • 2 beef bullion cubes
  • 1 dried bay leaf
  • 1 large can of drained and rinsed hominy (optional)
  • onions, cilantro and lime for garnish
  • salt to taste

Method:

In a blender, blend onion, garlic, beef bullion and water until smooth.

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In a large pot, add cleaned cut tripe, water, onion garlic mixture from the blender, and all the remaining ingredients except for hominy and garnish into the pot.

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Add water to fill pot to 3/4 full, and mix well.

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Bring to a rapid boil and lower heat to medium. Boil for 1 hour with lid on. The kitchen smells divine!!

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Add hominy beans and boil for another 45 minutes or until tender.

Taste for seasoning, add salt as needed. Serve a bowl, garnish with freshly chopped onions, cilantro and squirt with lime juice.

 

 

 

 

Cooking

Home Made No Knead Bread

This recipe is super easy. I have made it a few times, every time it came out really fragrant, super chewy and satisfying.

No kneed bread

When you cut into the crust, you could hear the crunch, and the air pockets inside are just phenomenal. Who knew making this bread is so simple, and literally have no work involved? All you need is some patience and planning one day ahead.

cut no kneed bread

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp yeast
  • 1/2 TBSP salt
  • 1 3/4 cup water

Method:

Full disclaimer, this bread takes 2 days to make. Think of it this way, instead of sweating your butt off kneading the dough, time is working for you.

The day before eating the bread, combine all ingredients in a large bowl until well mixed. The mixture will be very shaggy, sticky, it will be a mess. Don’t worry, that’s how it is supposed to be. Just make sure there is no dry flour anywhere, including at the bottom of the bowl.

shaggy dough

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and forget about it on the counter top for the next 12 to 18 hours. Don’t stick it into the fridge, unless you want to wait even longer.

When the dough is ready, the plastic will poof up slightly and once you open the plastic, you can really smell the lovely yeast. Preheat the oven with a nice heavy bottom pot (the lid should be oven proof too) such as a dutch oven to 425F.

Prepare a large piece of parchment paper, sprinkle with flour.

Lightly sprinkle the top and the sides of the very sticky dough with flour and carefully, use well greased hands to scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto the prepared parchment paper. Shape the dough mess into a rough ball shape. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and rest, while the oven pre-heats to temperature.

Once the oven reaches temperature, take out the pot very carefully, lid off. Pick up the parchment paper with dough and carefully drop the whole thing into the pot, parchment paper too. Bring the pot with lid on, back into the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Then take the lid off the pot and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes until the bread is golden brown on top.

Remove the bread by lifting the parchment paper out of the dutch oven, let it cool and serve.

Cooking

Home Made Basic White Bread

With current COVID-19 situation, we try to limit our trips to the grocery store as much as possible. But bread is one of those things, you can’t store them for too long, and you have random cravings for them. So, I rolled up my sleeves and started making home made basic bread. These turned out super easy and frankly, taste way better than store bought breads.

Heads up, this recipe makes 2 loaves. You will need 2 9×5 in loaf pans (slightly smaller or bigger is not an issue). But literally one of the loaves will be consumed within 30 minutes after the breads are done baking, so you pretty much don’t need to cut the recipe in half.

bread

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of luke warm water (110-120F)
  • 2/3 cups of white sugar
  • 1 1/2 TBSP yeast
  • 6 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 butter melted

Method:

Dissolve sugar in warm water, sprinkle in yeast and mix well. Let the mixture stand for about 5 minutes or until the yeast foams up.

In your stand mixer bowl, add flour, mix in salt and pour in melted butter. Pour the yeast water into the flour. Use a dough hook and let the mixer go for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until the dough pulls away from the bowl. The dough will be quite tacky and sticky. Do not add in any additional flour, that will make your bread tough.

mix dough

In the picture above, I reserved some flour from the 6 cups and used a standard paddle. But I made these breads so many times in the past several weeks, I realized there is no need to reserve any flour, or dirty the paddle. All flour go in at once and go straight to a dough hook works just fine.

Once the dough pulls away from the bowl, lightly dust a clean work surface and kneed the dough for a few minutes until a smooth ball forms. Grease the inside of a large bowl. Put dough ball into the bowl, move it around so the bottom of the dough ball is well greased. Then flip the dough ball over and cover the bowl with a plastic wrap or clean damp kitchen towl.

1st rise covered

Keep the bowl at a warm and draft free place, such as near the stove or in the oven. I put the bowl into the oven, and turned on the oven light without turning on the oven. This slight heat from the light bulb actually helps speed up the rising process. About 30 minutes later, the dough is ready for next step.

Punch the dough down to release the trapped gas in the dough, take the dough out, and kneed for a few minutes on the clean work surface. Divide the dough into equal 2 parts. Kneed each half and shape them into loaves. You can achieve this by rolling out the dough like a pizza crust. Then fold two sides and roll the dough up into a log. Again, this step is what I figured out along the practice process. The following pictures were taken at the very first attempt of making these breads. So the logs were not very good looking.

2nd rise

Let the loaves rise again using the plastic wraps or damp towel and leave them in the lit oven for about 20 minutes. They shall poof up like baked breads.

Take the breads out of the oven, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and bake these breads for about 25 to 30 minutes until the top is golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when you tap on them.

bread in pan

Here is another tip, once the breads are baked, take them out of the loaf pans immediately and let them cool on wire racks, do not let the loaf sit in the pans to cool, otherwise the bottom will get soggy and soft.

cooling

Slice them up and serve with PB&J, simple butter spread, cream cheese and honey, avocado… the choices are endless.

Cooking

Super Soup

This soup is super healthy, vegetarian, yet you won’t miss any meat. And it is super easy to put together in a flash. It’s so satisfying.

veggie soup

I literally grabbed whatever I can find in my fridge that sounds good in this soup, let’s count the variety of vegetables, that’s why I am telling ya, this is a super healthy soup.

Ingredients:

  • 1 yellow onion, medium size, diced
  • 1 medium size carrot, diced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
  • 2 roma tomatoes, diced, don’t worry about taking out any seeds, they never bother nobody
  • 1 bunch kale (I separated the tough stems out, saved them for my home made dog food)
  • 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
  • 1 chayote, diced
  • 1 russet potato, diced and soaked in water till needed
  • 1 can of chick peas, drained and rinsed
  • 1 handful of green lentils
  • green onions or cilantro for garnish, optional
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp rosemary
  • 2 chicken bullion cubes
  • 1 TBSP tomato paste
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

In a large sauce pot, drizzle about 2 TBSP cooking oil and sautee onions and carrots on medium high heat for about 2 minutes until softened, add garlic and stir.

onions and carrots

Add chili powder, cumin and rosemary and toast the seasoning until fragrant.

added seaoning    seasoning

Squirt in tomato paste and stir. Add the remaining ingredients except for potatoes. Add about 6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, lid on and cook for about 25 minutes or until the lentils are tender.

boiling soup

Add the diced potatoes and cook for another 5 minutes or so, taste for seasoning. Add salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Dish up and garnish with sliced green onions or cilantro as desired. Enjoy!

 

Cooking

Basic Bubble Tea

If you have never tried bubble tea, you need to. Even if you swear you don’t like tapioca bubbles, just try the tea. It’s so good and takes literally minutes to make!

You will need:

  • 2 black tea bags
  • 4 cups of water
  • 4 TBSP sweetened condensed milk (or to taste)
  • a handful of tapioca bubbles (you can get these in Asian market)

If you don’t like tapioca bubbles, skip the steps of cooking these bubbles, your tea will still be out of this world amazing.

To make the tapioca bubbles:

Bring a small pot of water to a rapid boil. Put a handful of the tapioca bubbles into the boiling water and stir so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Lower the heat to medium and let it go for about 10 minutes, or until the bubbles are translucent all the way through the center and floating. The easiest way to test if your tapioca bubbles are done is to try one. Make sure the center of the tapioca balls are cooked all the way through and no chalky or hard spots.

Drain the hot water and leave the bubbles in some cold water and set aside. You can make a bigger batch and store them in water bath in a container in the fridge for a few days.

To make the tea:

Bring the 4 cups of water to a boil, kill the heat. Leave the tea bags in the boiling water for 5 minutes and discard. Let tea cool down for a few minutes, or simply add a few ice cubes to speed up the process.

Add sweetened condensed milk to your tea and stir until it’s all mixed through. Taste for sweetness. Add more sweetened condensed milk as you wish.

To serve, scoop some tapioca bubbles into a glass, fill with ice cubes as desired, top off with milk tea. Viola, what a fancy summer treat!

Cooking

Home Made Horchata

This is a Mexican staple drink. It is so good, it makes me feel sinful every time I have one of these.. But who knows how simple it is to make at home?! Let’s try it out.

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/3 cup of white rice
  • 5 cups of water, divided
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 1 cup of milk of choice (I had vanilla soy milk, that’s what I used, tastes AMAZING!)
  • 1 TBSP vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2/3 cup white sugar

Method:

In a good blender, blend white rice, 2 cups of water and cinnamon sticks until roughly blended. Then add the remaining water and blend another minute.

Pour everything into a glass pitcher and refrigerate over night.

Strain the rice water mixture the next day and discard all solids. Add milk of choice, vanilla, sugar and ground cinnamon. Mix well and serve chilled, or over ice.

Enjoy a cup of home made horchata on a hot summer day is just heavenly.

Cooking

Pork and Sausage Stir Fried Noodles

Let me tell ya, this is definitely a keeper. It’s so quick, easy, yummy, and so versatile. Change it up to use whatever you have on hand, the flavor is amazing! Even our pickiest carnivore gobbled down the greens!

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Let’s get straight to the recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 lb ground pork

1/2 lb sweet Italian sausage, casing removed

1 package of Cantonese style noodles

1 medium size onion, sliced

1 zucchini, julianned

1 carrot, peeled and julianned

2 cloves of garlic, peeled, minced

1 bundle of any greens, I used half of a package of yu choy and Chinese lettuce

2 TBSP oyster sauce

2 TBSP Hoisin sauce

2 TBSP soy sauce

1 TPSB dark soy sauce

1 handful of thinly sliced green onions

 

Method:

In a large wok, heat up about 1 TBSP oil, brown ground pork and sausage until the liquid is evaporated. In the mean time, bring a medium pot of water to a boil, get ready for the noodles.

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Add sliced onions and carrots, since they require a bit longer to cook. Stir for about 1 minute until the vegetables are slightly softened.

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Add minced garlic and zucchini, and stir fry for a minute or so.

Once the water is boiling, put the bag of noodles into the boiling water, immediately turn off the heat of the pot. Move the noodles around to avoid a clunk of noodles. Let the noodles sit in the boiling water for 15 seconds or so. Do not over boil the noodles.

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Fish out the noodles from the pot and add into the pork and veggie mixture directly. Add all seasonings and sliced greens. Use two spatulas or a pair of tongs thoroughly mix the noodles with the veggies and meats and evenly distribute the seasoning and let the flavors mingle.

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Dish up and enjoy the happy faces at the table!

Cooking

Luxurious Korean Ramen

Yes, Ramen Noodles are getting a makeover in our household! We are, frankly, noodle freaks, we love noodle dishes, but it also means, our expectation for noodle dishes are quite high. This Korean version deluxe Ramen Noodles certainly put a giant smile on everyone’s face.

Here is how to make this super simple, yet super satisfying Ramen dish.

Ingredients:

  • 1 chicken breast, sliced into bite size slices, marinate chicken well with the marinade mix listed below, set aside for about 10 minutes while preparing the rest of the ingredients
  • 1 lb small raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
  • 1 lb sausages, any kind would work, even hot dogs. I had a package of chicken sausages, so I sliced them at a diagonal for larger surface area, so the flavor blends better into the broth
  • 6 cups of broth (if you have any), or good old plain water would do – which is what I did.
  • 6-8 cloves of garlic, minced
  • about 1/2 inch of fresh ginger, minced. Freeze your ginger! And use a grater to grate it than try to mince fresh ginger, it saves you A LOT of hard work!
  • 3 green onions, sliced and save for garnish
  • white toasted sesame seeds, white or black, for garnish, totally optional
  • 4 packages of Korean style Ramen noodles, any flavor, but I used chicken
  • 1/2 small head of cabbage, roughly chopped, you want to be able to find the cabbage leaves after they are cooked, probably one of the best part of the dish in my opinion
  • 1 heaping TBSP of Gochujang – Korean chili paste, this will really give you the warmth, in my mind, not very spicy
  • 1 heaping TBSP fine Korean chili powder, this will give the vibrant red color. OK, here is my confession, I didn’t find mine, so I left it out. That’s the reason why my noodles turned out more of an orange color than red. Even though the flavor is still amazing, color could be better. But for the sake of this recipe, it is also totally optional
  • about 6 pieces of kimchi, roughly chopped – Korean fermented cabbage. This is also key to give the dish signature Korea flavor. It can be spicy, so be sure to taste your kimchi and decide how much you want to put into your pot. 
  • 4 eggs

Chicken marinade:

  • 2 TBSP soy sauce
  • 1 TBSP Gochujang
  • 2 tsp white sugar
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 TBSP corn starch

Method:

1. put about 2 TBSP vegetable oil or any kind of mild flavored cooking oil into your trusty heavy bottomed soup pot. A dutch oven is my recommendation. Just imagine when the noodles are done, they sit nice and warm in the dutch oven, with the amazing steam elevating from the pot for a while… anyway.. cook your minced garlic and ginger for a minute or until fragrant. Add the Gochujang and Korean chili powder (if using) and let the hot oil toast the spices while moving the paste around, about 1 additional minute.

2. Add marinated chicken slices into the pot, move chicken around to cook for a minute. Don’t worry if chicken isn’t fully cooked, they will be boiled for a while. 

3. Add sausages into the pot, to give it a chance to render any fat and flavor the soup base. Stir fry for about a minute or two. Add broth or water into the pot. Add cabbage. Close the lid, bring the liquid to a rapid boil.

4. Open Ramen packages, add all the flavoring base into the pot, including the sesame packages. Stir the soup to mix well. Add Ramen noodles into the pot, push down a bit to make sure all the noodles are being cooked. Flip noodles as needed. Skim off any foam as needed. Lower the heat to medium low, and let the soup cook for a couple of minutes with the lid on. 

5. Stir the noodles. Once the noodles are al dente (be careful not to over cook at this point), or just softened enough not to be crunchy, push noodles down to form 4 dents on the surface of the noodle layer. Crack one egg into each dent, do not disturb the soup. Lid goes back onto the dutch oven and let it cook for another 2 minutes. This allows the eggs to be gently cooked from the bottom and steamed from the top. And final dish would have perfectly soft poached egg. Or, if you prefer, leave the eggs cook a bit longer so it’s fully cooked in the center. 

6. Lid off, kill the heat. Use a pair of tongs to serve noodles and fixings into a bowl, use a spatula to serve a soft poached egg or hard boiled egg on top of the noodles, and ladle some amazing hot and glossy broth over everything. Top it off with chopped green onions and toasted sesame seeds.

My mouth is watering again, just to go through this cooking process again in my head…Enjoy!

Cooking

Instant Pot Ox Tail

Seriously, I can’t live without my slow cookers or Instant Pots nowadays. They are so handy, either worry free cooking or huge time saver.

I tried this ox tail recipe in my trusty 6 qt instant pot, the smaller one I have. It fit perfectly, 8 qt one probably would be a bit more comfortable.

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Ingredients:

  • 3 lb oxtail1 yellow onion, sliced
  • 4 green onions sliced
  • 3 carrots, cut into 1 inch sections, half the thicker pieces
  • 1 green bell pepper, cut into pieces
  • 5 clove of garlic, minced
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp 7-spice or all spice
  • 1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 cup beef broth
  • 1 Tbsp BBQ sauce of your choice
    1 tsp dried herb province

Method:

Wash and pat dry oxtail pieces and put in a large bowl (I used my stock pot since all my stainless steel bowls were occupied). Add brown sugar, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, garlic powder, 7-spice or all spice into the pot and mix well with ox tail pieces. Set aside to marinate.

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In the mean time cut up all vegetables and garlic.

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Set instant pot on saute function. Add oil once pot is hot. Brown ox tail pieces on all sides till brown. About 2 minutes per side. Brown the pieces in batches to avoid over crowding the pot. Set the browned ox tail pieces into a bowl.

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Once all oxtail pieces are browned. Add a splash of the beef broth to de-galze the pot, using a wooden spoon and scrape all the dark goodness off the bottom of the pot. Add all the vegetables into the pot and saute for a few minutes until the vegetables are softened.
Add the remaining of seasoning into the pot, mix well with the vegetables, add the browned oxtail pieces back into the pot, pour the remaining beef broth into the pot, lid on, seal the vent, and change the setting to pressure cooking, on high for 50 minutes.

Once the pressure cooking process is completed, let it naturally release the pressure.

About 20 minutes later, enjoy a bowl of delicious oxtail stew, you will never believe this pot of pure deliciousness was done within an hour and a half, from start to finish.

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