Sweet Pea Journey

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

Category: Cooking

Cooking

Texas Chili

Another struggle meal I made during this house moving transition. I chose the easiest and least equipment and seasoning required dishes, and try to use up our freezer supply. The results are awesome!

Ingredients:

  • 2 ground bison. It came in a square vacuum sealed bag
  • 1 lb of ground pork, I like it to provide a bit fat since bison is so lean
  • 1 14 oz can of tomato sauce, yep, I got a can opener from a dollar store, since I still couldn’t locate mine
  • 1 can of red beans
  • 1 can of northern beans, feel free to substitute any canned beans with whatever you got on hand
  • 1 TBSP red chili flakes
  • 2 TBSP masa for thickening the chili, totally optional
  • 3 TBSP pre-made chili seasoning, yep this is a wonderful thing to keep on hand, use it to season everything during a move, for example…

Method:

In a dry, high sides dutch oven, or any heavy bottom pot with a lid, brown bison meat and pork until separated and light brown color, on medium high heat. Keep browning for a few more minutes until all the liquid evaporates, about 5 more minutes. Keep moving the meats around and break up any large lumps so they don’t burn.

Notice I did not add any oil into the pan, there is no point adding oil up front and then drain the fat out. I just let the meat cook in its own juices and release any fat. Because I am using bison here, I didn’t end up with any fat that I needed to drain at all, score!

Add the pre-made chili seasoning, stir and evenly distribute seasoning to coat each piece of meat. Add the can of tomato sauce and fill the tomato sauce can with water and add it into the pot too, don’t waste anything. Add chili flakes, however much to your liking, or none. 

Stir the meat sauce, bring it to a rapid boil – this is where the high sides coming in handy, no one wants to clean up the stove after a giant pot of chili splatter everywhere. Lower heat to low, lid on and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Add beans to chili and stir to combine. Bring chili up to a boil again, and mix masa in enough cold water to dissolve and pour into chili mixture if used. Mix well and lower heat to low and simmer for another 45 minutes to an hour, make sure to stir occasionally to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom and burns. 

Top it with some green onions or cilantro, top white rice with home made chili and enjoy! 

Cooking

Little Smokies Breakfast Tacos

This is such a quick, easy, tasty on-the-go breakfast idea for little ones, of course, I wouldn’t miss this opportunity to indulge one myself 🙂

Ingredients:

  • 5 organic free range eggs I got from a friend at work, her sister’s farm got fresh farm eggs!
  • 10 little smokie sausage links, I used all beef kind
  • 5 cook-at-home tortillas, nowadays you can get these from major grocery stores, in the refrigerated area, next to cheeses
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • dash of sriracha to taste

Method:

Crack the eggs into a bowl and lightly beat them with a fork, add salt and pepper to taste. Go a bit easier on salt than you would normally, since the little smokies are quite salty themselves.

Heat up a medium non-stick pan on medium heat, cook the tortillas per instructions on the package. Set them aside. I tore 5 pieces of foil, since this is our on-the-go breakfast, I got the packaging ready. So I kept 1 piece of foil on the cutting board and laid the cooked tortilla on top, and laid the rest of the foil sheets on top to keep the tortillas warm while I prepare the filling.

While the tortillas are cooking, I used the waiting time to slice the little smokies into smaller chunks, easier to wrap and eat. Once all the tortillas are done, I threw the little smokie pieces into the same pan, without adding any oil. The sausages immediately started to sizzle, what amazing smell and sound in the morning! I let the little smokies sit in the pan for a minute and let them caramelize a bit before I moved them around in the pan with a spatula. 

Once the sausages are warmed through, I poured the beaten eggs into the pan and let it sit for about 30 seconds. Then I started scrambling the eggs, along with the sausages. The juices coming out of the sauces infuses the eggs as they moved around in the pan. It only takes a minute or so for the eggs to be cooked through.

Kill the heat, spread the 5 foil sheets on the counter, with 1 tortilla on top of each foil. Evenly divide egg and sausages on the tortillas. Squirt sriracha sauce as you wish and wrap the tortillas up in the foils. Breakfast on-the-go is done!

Cooking

Super flavorful Edamame

This is an all-time family favorite, as an appetizer or a snack. It’s high in protein, fiber, great to keep little ones busy and build healthy-eating habits, and improve hand-eye coordination. Yep, sometimes, the little soy beans are hard to catch!

Ingredients:

  • 1 bag of frozen or fresh (if you can find them) edamame in shells.
  • 1 tsp salt, or more to taste
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 2 star anise
  • 1 small handful (about 1 TBSP) Sichuan pepper corn, if you don’t have these, use black pepper corns. White ones are too mild for this recipe

Method:

Add the seasoning to a medium pot of water and bring it to a boil. You want to add the seasonings first so that they have a bit longer time to release the flavor into the boiling water.

Add the bag of edamame into the pot, and follow the directions to cook, or boil them for a good 5 minutes.

Kill the heat, leave the edamame in the cooking water with lid on to naturally cool down, this is important as well, so the soy beans have a chance to absorb all the flavors.

Use a slotted spoon, fish out all the edamame onto the plate, I don’t stress about the seasonings come onto the plate, but if you do, by all means, take them out, or before you put them into the pot, use a little cheese cloth pouch to enclose all the seasonings for easier removal at the end.

I let my daughter taste a couple Sichuan pepper corns when she was eating the edamame, she was excited to learn that they give a nice numbing sensation in her mouth. Kids learn to appreciate every little ingredients in their food and this helps them to learn new things and try new ideas rather than stick to what they know.

Cooking

Home Remedy – Cold and Sore Throat

The weather was a bit nuts for the past couple of weeks here in Houston. A lot of people, especially kids was feeling down, sore throats, or catching cold. I made this super delicious tea for the family. Kids love it, thinking they are getting a treat, husband and I enjoyed it cup after cup.

Ingredients:

  • a large knob of fresh ginger, about 1 inch long, thinly sliced
  • 3 oranges, peeled, only using the peels in this recipe, so feel free to eat the oranges or use them for other recipes and take in more vitamin C
  • 1 TBSP ground turmeric
  • 1 stick of cinnamon
  • 2 bags of pepper mint tea

Method:

Put all ingredients into a medium pot, put in about 8 cups of water, enough to cover all ingredients. Bring it up to a boil and lower the heat to a simmer for a good 10 minutes.

Be careful, since turmeric tends to boil over, so keep a close eye on it when it’s boiling before lowering the heat. Then kill the heat, leave the lid on, and let it cool to be able to enjoy it. 

Pour over some raw honey as desired, and squirt in some fresh lemon juice. This is a powerful cup of tea that would make you feel way better in no time and help you fight cold and sore throat.

Cooking

Marbled Eggs

This is a staple snack in China, popular in many provinces. Or, you can turn these into healthy kid friendly breakfast on the go.

It’s essentially soy sauce, tea and spices infused hard boiled eggs. This simple process gives boring hard boiled eggs really nice and rich deep flavor and aroma, paint the eggs with this very artistic marble looking designs and it is so fun to look at and eat.
The making process is super easy, literally not much more than hard boiled eggs.

Ingredients:
8 free range eggs

1 cinnamon stick

2 or 3 star anise

2 bay leaves

1/4 cup of soy sauce

2 TBSP dark soy sauce for color

optional, 2 tea bags, any mild flavor kind, such as green tea, jasmine tea, black tea or red tea, I used earl grey, that’s what I had on hand.

Method:

Fill a pot with cold tap water and carefully put the eggs into the water. Ensure the water just cover eggs. Put the pot on the stove, on high heat, drop in all the spices and soy sauces.

Bring the pot to a boil, kill the heat, put the lid on and let the eggs sit for 10 minutes. 
Use 2 spoons, one to scoop up an egg from the liquid, use the back of the other spoon to lightly tap on the eggs and crack the shell. Rotate the egg until all sides of the shell is cracked. No need to hit hard, the goal is to crack the shell so the flavor and color can seep into the egg shell cracks and give the lovely marble design and the rich flavor to the eggs.

Once the egg is cracked all the way around, put it back into the broth. Repeat until all the eggs are cracked. Leave the eggs on the stove over night, or put in the fridge for up to 3 days. 

Peel the eggs and reveal the lovely color and enjoy this amazing treat for a snack or breakfast on the go!

Cooking

Purple Sweet Potato Pie – Exotic

Yep, this is made with real purple sweet potatoes, no food coloring of any sort. If you haven’t tried these purple cuties, let me tell ya, they are so much better and tastier than their typical white or orange siblings. No marshmallows needed for this dessert! But if you just like some, no one will judge!

Ingredient

Ingredients:

2 medium size purple sweet potatoes. Youc an find these beauties in most Asian market, next to regular potatoes

1/3 cup of butter, softened

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp sweet potato pie seasoning, or 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg

1 splash of vanilla

1 9in pie shell, I used a store bought graham cracker pie shell. You can use frozen or home made fresh pie shell, just prepare the pie shell per instruction or your recipe.

Method:

Cut sweet potatoes length wise into wedges, much easier to manage and much quicker to boil.

In a medium size soup pot, fill water to cover all sweet potatoes and bring it up to a boil and leave sweet potatoes in the boiling water for a good 10 minutes or so, until fork tender. In this step, the water will seem green or blue. This is normal, it’s the natural color from the sweet potatoes.

Once sweet potatoes are fork tender, drain and let cool in a bowl. When it’s cool enough to handle, carefully peel the outer layer off and discard skin.

Mash the sweet potatoes with a potato masher, or a fork until very smooth. This step requires quite a bit of muscles. Purple sweet potatoes are dryer than regular sweet potatoes, you are officially warned. But the effort is very well worth it, I promise. In the mean time, pre-heat oven to 425F.

In a separate large bowl, cream together the softened butter and white sugar with a hand blender. Add in eggs, one at a time, blend well. Add in seasoning and vanilla, blend well.

Add about 2 cups of mashed sweet potatoes into the mixture. Blend with the electric hand mixer for a good 2 minutes or so, or until the sweet potatoes are well mixed in and you have achieved smooth mush texture.

At this stage it will not look very purple, don’t worry, after baking the purple color will show. Pour sweet potato mixture into the pie shell and lightly tap the pie over the counter to smooth the top a bit prior to baking.

Bake the pie at 425F for 15 minutes and lower the heat to 350F. Bake for another 30 minutes or so.

Let the pie cool on the counter for about 15 minutes, cut it up and serve a wedge of this purple beauty.

Top with some marshmallows or whipped cream, or drizzle some caramel sauce of your liking… This slice of pie is so worth savoring with a cup of hot coffee. Your life will be in heaven.

Cooking

Easy Yummy Chicken Salad

This is a slight twist of a cold chicken salad recipe from my home town, which calls for loads of spices and toasted peanuts. Although I love my home town chicken salad dearly, my version is equally good and more kid friendly. Also, this recipe takes about 30 minutes to make, perfect for a week night dinner.

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Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, doesn’t matter if there is skin or bone
about 6 fresh green onions, divided
about 4 slices of fresh ginger
about 4 cloves of garlic, divided
a handful of Sichuan peppercorn. If you don’t have these, use black peppercorns
outside hard part of lemon grass, if you have some, if not, leave it out
1 small handful of fresh cilantro
2 TBSP oyster sauce
1 TBSP Hoisin sauce
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp powdered chicken bullion
chili oil, optional
2 TBSP soy sauce
1 tsp black Asian vinegar
1 tsp sugar

Method:

Put chicken breasts into a medium size stock pot. Fill cold water to cover chicken. Roughly slice 2 green onions lengthwise to release more flavor, bruise ginger slices and crush 2 garlic cloves. Put sliced green onion, crushed garlic, bruised ginger, Sichuan peppercorn and hard part of lemon grass into the pot. Turn the heat on high to heat up soup, until barely bubbling. Lower heat to low to keep stock from rapid boiling. Poach chicken breasts for about 25 minutes to fully cook them through. This poaching method will keep otherwise dry and bland chicken breasts juicy and tender for the salad.

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In the mean time, thinly slice the rest of the green onions, mince the rest of the garlic cloves, and slice the cilantro leaves.

Fish out chicken breasts, let chicken breasts rest and cool on the cutting board for a good 10 minutes. Remove bone and skin if any and put cooled chicken breasts into large ziploc bags.

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Lightly smash the chicken breasts with a rolling pin to loosen up the meat fibers. This step helps chicken meat to absorb more flavor of the sauce. Remove chicken breast from the bag and shred it into bite size pieces and put into a large mixing bowl.

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Add all the remaining ingredients into the mixing bowl, mix thoroughly and serve.

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Cooking

Blanched Prawns and Simple Vinegar Ginger Sauce

This dish is such a treat when prawns are in season. Simple cooking methods and sauce brings out the natural sweetness of the fresh catch. From beginning to end, this dish takes 10 minutes tops.

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Ingredients:

1 lb fresh head on, shell on prawns
2 TBSP black Asian vinegar
2 TBSP water, optional
1 TBSP grated or finely minced fresh ginger

Method:

In a large pot, bring about 4 to 6 cups of water to a rapid boil. In the mean time, prepare ginger and put into a dipping sauce bowl.

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Add black Asian vinegar and mix well. Take a taste of the sauce, this is quite strong, frankly. I quite love the strong sauce, however, if it is too strong to your taste, feel free to thin it out a bit by adding some water to it.

When water is boiling, add all prawns into the pot, heads on, shell on. Move them around in the pot to evenly distribute them. They will turn pink quickly. Leave them in the hot water for about 2 minutes, or just before the water comes back to a boil.

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Fish out all prawns and arrange them on a platter to cool.

Twist off the heads, peel the prawns and dip into the dipping sauce. Savor the fresh sweet taste from the prawn, the black vinegar and ginger really brings out and highlights the slightly sweet meat from the fresh juicy prawns.

Cooking

Tomato and Fried Egg Noodle

This noodle dish is such a comforting, healthy yet flavorful dish. You can easily make it a non-spicy version for kids. Such a quick treat!

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 roma tomato, sliced into wedges

1 small bundle of asparagus, bottom trimmed and cut at an angle about 1.5 inch pieces

a bunch of napa cabbage leaves, washed and torn into large pieces

2 green onions, thinly sliced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 chicken bullion

3 servings of thin dried Chinese noodles

2 spicy chilies, optional

Method:

Heat up about 2 TBSP vegetable oil in a medium size nonstick soup pot, pour the lightly beaten eggs into the pot, scramble for a minute or so, until the eggs are just set.

Add in minced garlic and tomatoes and stir fry for a minute or two until tomato wedges are softened and falling apart. Add garlic and chilies if using, stir fry until fragrant.

Add about 4 cups of water, bring it to a rapid boil. Add the chicken bullion to dissolve.

Add the super thin noodles into the soup. It will look like there isn’t enough water, but bare with it. Use a pair of chopsticks and move around the noodles constantly, so they don’t stick together. The noodles would soak up most of the liquid. Don’t panic. Add all the leafy greens into the pot too, yes, it will seem impossible… Looks like something like this:

Patiently and carefully turn the noodles over, on top of the leafy greens. Leaves will soon wilt into almost nothing.

Taste for flavor, add salt as needed. Add sliced green onions and serve!

Cooking

Soothing Tomato and Cucumber Egg Drop Soup

Yes, this is another version of egg drop soup. Look at it this way, this could be a healthier version, simply because there is tomato and cucumber as vegetables. Yet, tomatoes add a very surprising depth to the flavor, and cucumbers add freshness. This is such a quick and easy summer treat!

Ingredients:

1 roma tomato, peeled, sliced into wedges

1 cucumber, peeled, sliced thinly

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 green onion, thinly sliced

2 heaping TBSP of corn starch

1 cube of chicken bullion

salt to taste

Method:

Heat up about 4 cups of water in a soup pot, add the tomatoes first to bring to a boil. This step is crucial to let the tomatoes fully cook through, soften up and almost melting into the soup. This not only takes out the raw tomato taste, sometimes not everyone likes, and also this deepens the savory flavor of the soup and sweeten up the tomato pieces a bit.

Add cucumber slices and chicken bullion into the soup, and let it boil for a minute or so. Dissolve corn starch in about 1/4 cup of cold water and pour into soup. Stir the soup to evenly distribute the corn starch water. The soup will ever so slightly thicken up a bit but not too much.

Pour in beaten eggs, stir the soup as the eggs are being poured. Thickened soup and moving liquid will ensure the eggs will form very thin and small pieces and suspend in the soup like snow flakes.

Add thinly sliced green onions, kills the heat, taste for seasoning, add salt to taste or a bit more water if it is accidentally too salty.

Dish up and serve. You will be amazed how simple yet tasty this soup is, and everyone will love it.