Sweet Pea Journey

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

Category: Cooking

Cooking

Marinated Chicken Thighs

Super universal, ridiculously easy and fast, amazingly flavorful. Serve it as part of a main dish, and use leftovers in endless options.

Ingredients:

4 skinless boneless chicken thighs

1 cup of soy sauce

1/4 cup of honey

5 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Method:

Put all ingredients into a large ziploc bag, massage to combine well. Leave on counter top for 20 minutes while preparing the rest of the meal.

Pre-heat a heavy bottom pan, oil the pan to prevent chicken from sticking. Grill chicken on medium high heat on both sides for 5 minutes per side. Serve and enjoy!

Cooking

Quinoa Salad – Make it Your Way

What a great way to get your kid to love quinoa and vegetables!

My 6 year old keeps asking for it, and everyone has tried it loves it.

Ingredient:

1 cup uncooked quinoa (any color, I had red on hand)

Any combination of vegetables, that’s not too liquidy, but an onion (red preferably) is a must. Add vegetables such as multi-color bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, radishes, sugar snap peas, 1 small tomato, 1 rib of celery… The hard part is to have variety but not too much in quantity. An avocado would be a very nice touch for creaminess and coolness.

Instruction:

Rinse and cook quinoa per instruction. Or, bring 1 cup quinoa and 2 cups of water to a boil and reduce heat to low, lid on, simmer for 20-25 minutes or until liquid completely evaporate. Fluff up quinoa with a fork, set aside to cool.

In the mean time, wash and chop all vegetables to about 1/4 inch dice. Throw all vegetable dices into a large bowl.

Throw in cooked quinoa with vegetables.

Sprinkle salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drizzle about 2 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil and 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, or balsamic vinegar, or even lemon juice. Mix well and enjoy!

Cooking

Caribbean Oxtail

Frankly, I wasn’t sure which one was better, my red wine braised oxtail, or this one. They are literally equally fabulous, definitely both worth keeping! No kidding, this melt-in-your-mouth super flavorful oxtail will be requested over and over.

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Ingredients:

Oxtail pieces, 3lb ish, I bought giant oxtail pieces, so I used 5 of them, wash in salted vinegar water and rinse clean.

1 tomato, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

small bunch of parsley, leaves roughly chopped, save stem for later

1 jalapeno, sliced, seeds and all, in the end, you only taste very very mild warmth, don’t worry too much about the spice

1 green bell pepper, seeds removed and chopped

1 inch of fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped

about 2 TBSP of Worcestershire sauce

2 green onions, sliced

1 TBSP ketchup

2 TBSP packed brown sugar, white sugar will do too, if you don’t have brown sugar on hand

2 pieces of beef bullion cubes

2 bay leaves

1 can of coconut milk

Method:

Combine first 10 ingredients in a large bowl or ziploc bag, mix well to combine. Marinate in the fridge over night, or at least a few hours. I did 6 hours, worked wonderful.

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In a large heavy bottom pot, heat up about 1 TBSP vegetable oil on medium high heat, sprinkle in brown sugar. Be patient, let it bubble up and become deeply golden brown. This step is crucial, keep a close eye on your sugar oil mixture, don’t let sugar burn. Otherwise you will have to restart. The deep caramelized color will give the final dish a rich color and deep flavor.

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Carefully put in oxtail pieces to brown on all sides, shake off excess juices and vegetable pieces. If there are a few pieces of vegetable pieces stuck on the oxtail, no biggie, reserve all vegetables and juices.

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Patiently let oxtail pieces brown on all sides, roughly 5 minutes per side. Don’t stress about sugar burning a bit at the bottom, it will come right off once the vegetables are added. Don’t crowd the pan, brown oxtail pieces in batches if needed to.

Once all oxtail pieces are browned, put all pieces back into the pot, add in all the vegetables along with the marinate juices into the pot. Stir to combine. Hand crush the beef bullion cubes and sprinkle all over the oxtail mixture. Add coconut milk and enough water to submerge oxtail pieces, add bay leaves. Throw in the reserved parsley stem and bring the pot to a boil.

Lower the heat to low and simmer with lid on for 3 to 4 hours. Stir and scrape the bottom bits of goodness once in a while and move oxtail pieces around to ensure every bit of the oxtail gets some loving.

Last 30 minutes, take lid off, raise heat to medium. At this point, the liquid in the pot shall have evaporated some, and becomes thicker. Keep the gravy boiling and keep reducing until desired thickness and taste for salt.

Serve over humble steamed rice, along side some cooling salad, you will be in heaven!

Cooking

Almond Flour Chocolate Cake

I came across this recipe by accident one day, waking up from a boring TV show.. but boy, isn’t this one a keeper! Making it is super easy as well, you will for sure make it over and over again.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, I used chocolate chips, easier to melt
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 14-ounce can, plus 1/4 cup, sweetened condensed milk, save the rest for your coffee 🙂
  • 1 1/2 cups almond flour, this adds a very tender texture to the cake, great ingredient choice
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • Pinch of kosher or coarse sea salt, salt always brings out sweet flavors
  • 1/4 cup boiling water, this sounds odd, but really brings out the tenderness and moist of the cake
  • Confectioners’ sugar for dusting, think I may have over done a tiny bit? But the cake is not overly sweet, so no big deal 🙂

Method:

Set oven to 350F and preheat. Use a 9 inch spring form pan (yep, I got one just for this cake and it is so worth it!) butter it and cover the bottom with parchment paper. This helps the cake to be removed from the pan after cooling.

Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler. I used a small sauce pan with about 1 inch of water, and sat a large glass bowl on top, so the bottom of the glass bowl doesn’t touch the boiling water. The steam of the water will heat up the bowl and melt the chocolate and butter inside. Stir occasionally, until everything just melts.

Puree eggs and sweetened condensed milk in the blender until smooth, add melted chocolate and butter and blend. Add almond flour salt, baking powder, baking soda, puree again. Last but not the least, add boiling water and blend.

Pour into the prepared 9 inch spring form pan.

Bake for 40 minutes. Cake will puff up quite a bit. Poke the center with a toothpick, it should come out clean. Let cake cool completely in the spring form pan, the center will cave down to about 3/4 inch while the edges are still high, like a large bowl.

Dust the top with powdered sugar and serve with a cup of coffee, watching loved ones’ smiles on their faces savoring this cake, life is complete!

Cooking

Pork Shoulder Pupusas

Yep, I made those too. Pretty darn proud of myself, because these are amazing!

Ingredients:

1 lb pork shoulder, roughly sliced, liberally salt and pepper all over them on cutting board.

1 TBSP lard or vegetable shortening per batch for frying. I used my amazing Brown Sugar Carnita leftover fat with flavors.

1/2 green bell pepper, roughly chopped

1/4 white onion, roughly chopped

1/4 bunch of cilantro stems. Yes, stems have wonderful flavors and all you need to do is to blend it up, so no one will ever notice the fibers.

2 cups of masa, about 2 tsp salt and enough cold water to form a fairly loose corn meal dough. Read the instruction on the masa bag, prepare a bit more water for looser texture. It would feel like very fresh play dough or a tab bit looser. Dry dough will crack when you try to enclose filling.

Method:

Heat a heavy bottom pan on stove on medium high heat, add vegetable oil to coat. Sear pork shoulder pieces on both sides for a few minutes each, until browned. Cool slightly. In the mean time, make corn meal dough per packaging instruction, but add a tab bit more water to form looser dough than corn tortillas.

Add pork shoulder, onion, bell pepper and cilantro stem to a blender. Blend till smooth, I know this sounds weird, blending cooked meat, but bear with me, amazing things are happening here.

Heat up another heavy bottom pan over medium heat, such as cast iron pan with 1 TBSP any sort of fat. Bacon fat, lard, vegetable shortening, vegetable oil all work. Lucky for me, I had leftover brown sugar carnita fat.

Pinch off a piece of dough, about 1 inch diameter ball, flatten out on your palm, making a disc about 1/4 inch thick, slightly thicker in the middle. Put about 1 TBSP of blended meat filling in the middle of the disc. Carefully close the dough around the filling. This step takes skills. Don’t worry if the dough break or crack, or the filling is peeking through the dough. All you need to do is to pull a little bit more dough from the mixing bowl and patch up the holes on your pupusa.

Carefully form the dough with filling into a flatter disc, about 1/2 thick disc. Slowly and carefully lay the pupusa into the pre-heated pan and leave it alone for 4 to 5 minutes. Flip it over when the bottom is golden brown and slightly burned. You want the black spots, which is very crunchy and full of flavors. Fry the other side for 4 to 5 minutes too to achieve the same golden brown color and fully cooked through. Add more grease as needed.

Dish up and enjoy it with some home made charro beans, what a satisfying meal!

Cooking

Instant Pot Charro Beans

I have my precious Instant Pot. I don’t use it as much as I really should. But this recipe, hands down, is really good!

Ingredients:

2 cups of dried beans, picked and cleaned. Yep, I said dried beans, no soaking, changing water, any of that nonsense….You are welcome!

1/4 lb salted pork, or bacon, cut into small pieces

1/2 onion, yellow or white, diced

1/2 bunch of cilantro stem, roughly chopped. Yep, stem, save the pretty green leaves for garnish for those amazing brown sugar carnita tacos!

1 jalapeno, seeded and diced

1/2 TBSP ground cumin

1/2 TBSP ground smoked paprika

5 cups of chicken broth, or 5 cups of water + 1 chicken bullion cube

Method:

Heat up instant pot to high heat on saute function, add salted pork to render fat and slightly brown. Add onions and cilantro stem and jalapenos. Add cumin and smoked paprika. Stir until fragrant and onions are translucent. Add beans, broth. Lid on, lock and close vent.

Change the function to pressure cook, 30 minutes. Let pot release pressure naturally after beans are done. Stir the beans and enjoy!

Note, I did not add any salt, salted pork is quite salty as is, you can always add more salt at the very end, after tasting. Serve alongside any tacos, breakfast, or enjoy a bowl of charro beans on its own. This can be easily mistaken as authentic Mexican restaurant take out 🙂

Cooking

Brown Sugar Carnitas

Save this recipe, I am dead serious! Super easy, super tasty, super satisfying! I used mine for street tacos with home made corn tortilla.

Ingredients:

4 lb pork shoulder, cut into roughly 3 inch chunks, don’t worry about the looks

3 cups of milk, any kind, divided

1/4 of a large white / yellow onion, or half of a small one, cut into chunks

3 cloves of garlic

1 bunch of cilantro stems, yes, stems provides the good flavor, save the leaves for garnish!

1/4 cup of brown sugar

Generous amount of salt and pepper for seasoning

1 tbsp of lard or vegetable shortening. Worst case, use olive oil, don’t fuss about this

Method:

Brown pork in a heavy bottom pot over medium high heat with generous amount of salt and pepper. Leave meat pieces alone for 5 to 6 minutes to thoroughly brown, then flip once and brown for 5 to 6 minutes. You may need to do this in batches. Be patient.

In the mean time, blend the rest of the ingredients except for 1/2 cup of milk and brown sugar in a blender till smooth. Once meat chunks are thoroughly browned, pour milky mixture into pot, stir to combine. When liquid starts to boil again, lid on and lower heat to low and simmer for about 50 minutes. Stir a couple of times during.

When it’s all done and meat is tender, combine remaining milk and brown sugar and pour over meat. Stir, and cook for about 5 minutes. All done! Enjoy over home made tortilla or rice, top pizza dough, make pasta sauce, use it to make pupusas or even enchiladas….

Cooking

Tomato Egg Drop Soup

This is a fancier version of the all time favorite soup of Chinese restaurants. Believe it or not, one tomato makes a huge difference.

Ingredients:

1 ripe tomato, any variety

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 heaping TBSP corn starch, dissolved in 3 TBSP cold water, give or take

about 4 cups of water + 1 chicken bullion cube, or 4 cups of chicken stock

Salt to taste

Method:

Boil liquid in a stock pot, add chicken bullion if using it. Score the top of the tomato, just deep enough to break the skin. Once liquid is boiling, put tomato into the pot for about 15 seconds, turn tomato around, so all sides are submerged in boiling liquid. This helps the skin come off easily.

Using a slotted spoon or a regular spoon, take out the tomato, lay on the cutting board for a minute or so to let cool. Peel tomato and cut tomato into wedges or bite size chunks. Shape doesn’t matter much. Put tomato back into the pot and let it boil for a few minutes. The broth will turn slightly pink, and some foam may form on top of the broth. Skim the form off with a spoon if you wish.

Once tomato chunks are soft, give the dissolved corn starch one good stir and slowly drizzle into the pot. The broth shall slightly thicken and seems slightly cloudy in color. Once it comes to a boil again, lower heat to medium low, and slowly drizzle in the beaten egg. Add salt to taste. Enjoy!

Cooking

Avocado Multi-Grain Toast

This weekday breakfast is hands down, one of the best. Simply because it is the easiest, tastiest, healthiest, quickest breakfast to make – no more than 2 minutes from start to finish, and you will be satisfied all morning!

How is it? The name says it all – 2 ingredients: a slice of multi-grain toast and a ripe avocado.

Method:

  1. Toast multi-grain bread in a toaster oven to your liking.
  2. Meanwhile, slice open a ripe avocado, use a fork to fluff up the side without seed. Put the other side in an avocado saver, or a Ziploc plastic bag and squeeze out as much air as you could and safe as a healthy snack later.
  3. Spread the avocado on the toast and enjoy!

Cooking

Chinese Staple Soup – Egg Drop Soup

Who doesn’t like a hot bowl of egg drop soup? Believe it or not, it’s super easy to make at home too. It takes about 5 minutes, as long as you have some eggs and water, you are able to enjoy it any time you want. Bonus point, no need to measure anything in this recipe, eye ball everything works just fine!

Ingredients:

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 small pot of water, about 4 cups + 1 chicken bullion, or half chicken broth half water for added flavor. If you don’t have any of that on hand, plain water is fine.

1 tbsp corn starch

Method:

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add a cube of chicken bullion and dissolve, if preferred. Or you can use chicken broth and water. in the mean time crack eggs into a medium bowl and beat with a fork. Dissolve corn starch in a small bowl in about 1/4 cup of cold water. Once pot of water is boiling, slowly add corn starch mixture into pot and stir to combine. You will notice the boiling water will slightly thicken. You do not want glue texture, just lightly thickened water. This step is crucial if you want your eggs in thin layers in the final egg drop soup, otherwise your eggs may be in bigger chunks – This is how the restaurants do it.

Once water / broth comes back to a boil, slowly drizzle beaten eggs into the pot, stir slowly with the fork you used to beat the eggs. Add salt to your liking. Enjoy!

For more adult version, add some thinly sliced green onion as garnish after you serve yourself a bowl. Perfect for a cold day, or just because.