Sweet Pea Journey

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

Category: Cooking

Cooking

Fast Easy and Tasty Cucumber Salad

This is technically not qualified as a recipe in my eyes. You will need to do like 2 things really and takes 2 minutes.

Ingredients:

4 Persian cucumbers or 1 English cucumber. Persian cucumbers are a lot smaller and crispier than regular cucumbers. Their skin is very tender, you don’t need to peel, just wash thoroughly. Because they are cute and small, kids tend to like these way more than regular cucumbers.

1 dash of salt

a few drops of sesame oil

Method:

Thoroughly wash and dry Persian cucumbers, cut off the ends and cut them into small chunks, however you like. Sprinkle salt and drizzle sesame oil on top. Mix and enjoy!

For more adult version and more added health factor, add a crushed clove of garlic.

Cooking

Healthier Pigs in Blankets

Everyone knows how to make pig in a blanket. A good old little smoky sausage link wrapped in a canned flattened biscuit dough and bake in the oven.

My kids, with no exception, love these. I made a slightly healthier version – with turkey sausage links, lower in sodium, lower in fat, wrapped in fluffy flaky crescent dough.

Ingredients:

1 package of low sodium low fat turkey dog, boiled to remove more sodium, they still taste pretty good, believe me.

1 can of crescent dough.

Method:

Pre-heat oven to temperature indicated on the crescent can.

Boil turkey sausage in a small pot to ensure they are fully cooked through, and remove more sodium. They will slightly puff up a bit.

Open the can of crescent dough, wrap each sausage link in the crescent triangle, starting from the wide end towards the point end.

Lay the on a sheet tray and bake per instruction of the crescent can, and enjoy!

Cooking

Healthy and Tasty Ham and Cheese Wrap

Don’t we all have those days that you just don’t really want to cook, but have the munchies? This is a lot more than a recipe, it’s an idea, a series of recipes you can mix and match and go with whatever you have on hand.

This is what I did – super easy, tasty and healthy ham and cheese wrap.

Ingredients:

1 warm tortilla – use really nice freshly made tortilla if you have access to it. I made home made tortillas a couple of times, they turned out wonderful – another post, I promise.

1 piece of good quality ham, I used black forest

1 slice of good quality cheese, I went shy on mild cheddar cheese, didn’t want it to be over powering

half of a ripe avocado, smashed directly on top of the fillings

Method:

Can’t be easier, lay the tortilla flat, lay ham, cheese and avocado on top, lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper if desire, wrap up and dive in.

Again, use whatever you have on hand, peanut butter, apples and a dash of cinnamon for a sweet version, ricotta cheese and fig jam and candied bacon for a fancier day, the sky is the limit.

Cooking

Super Banana Egg Pancakes

Yep, the title says it all. There are 2 ingredients only, bananas and eggs. Both are super foods, so the pancakes are super breakfast too!

You guessed it, it truly is that easy.

2 ingredients, 1 to 1 ratio. 1 banana with 1 egg. I had 2 ripe bananas, so I threw in 2 eggs.

Mash bananas in a bowl with a fork, crack in the eggs and blend with the same fork until mixed. Bananas can be a bit chunky or smooth, totally up to you.

Non-stick pan on medium heat, butter / oil / pam, up to you.

About 1/4 cup batter per pancake. Don’t go too much, because there is no flour in these pancakes, they are super tender and may break when you flip, if they are too big. Therefore, keep them as smaller cuties, no larger than 2 inches diameter is the best. They make super cute medallion pancakes.

Plate up and enjoy with some fresh berries or honey.

Cooking

Egg Drop Noodle Soup

Yep, this is an awesome weekend breakfast, or weeknight dinner option for kids.

Ingredients:

Noodles, I used our home made fresh noodles, you can use shell pasta, spaghetti, any noodle would be fine.

3 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp corn starch, this is the secret how Chinese restaurant can make their egg drop soup so thick, and your attempt at home is so watery. No, it’s not the amount of eggs.

Method:

Boil noodle in a pot of water, as direction on package, till al dente. Drain some water out, leave in as much liquid as you wish for your final egg drop noodle soup.

Dissolve corn starch in about 1/4 cup of cold water – this is crucial. You have to dissolve the corn starch in cold water before adding to the pot. Otherwise it may form slime like streaks, so nasty. After dissolving the corn starch in cold water, slowly pour corn starch liquid into pot of noodles and boiling water. Stir the soup and watch the liquid in the pot thicken up slightly. Slowly pour your beaten eggs into the pot, stir the soup so the eggs will distribute evenly in the soup.

Taste and season your egg drop noodle soup as needed, drizzle in a bit of sesame oil if desired. Enjoy!

And I had one extra hard boiled egg, so I put it in my bowl 🙂

Cooking

French Toast

I made this a few times recently, but only yesterday, I remembered to take pictures before they were torn apart by kids :p

Super simple, probably not the traditional way to make authentic French Toast, but it works for me. I always have everything on hand.

Ingredients:

Sliced bread, you can use literally all kinds of bread, white, wheat, oats, whatever you have on hand. I normally buy 12 or 15 grain bread, that’s why you see the grain and oats on the sides of the bread

1 egg

about 1 cup of milk, again, any kind you have on hand, even soy or almond milk, or cream, if you are into heavy dense and super filling french toast

1 splash of vanilla

about 1 tbsp of honey, I don’t measure this, I simply squeeze honey into the mixture, a bit more, a bit less doesn’t hurt

1 dash of ground cinnamon, about 1 tsp, again, I never measure this either.

Method:

Mix everything together in a shallow dish with large opening, except for the bread, use a fork or whisk, make sure the honey dissolves nicely into the mixture. Cinnamon tends to float on top, that’s normal.



Heat up a pan on medium heat, melt a tab of butter, or use cooking spray. Put a slice of bread into the mixture, gently press down to let bread soak up the mixture. Flip after about 3 to 5 seconds, soak the other side. Make sure don’t soak bread too long, the slice will fall apart quite easily.

Gently lay the slice of bread soaked in egg mixture in the pan, fry for about a minute, until golden brown. Flip, brown the other side. Plate it up, that’s really it!

Well, I did not find my powdered sugar and did not have any berries on hand yesterday, so I served it as is, or with an additional drizzle of real maple syrup. I love it as is, with a hint of the nuttiness from the whole grain.  Kids of course, wanted the maple syrup. Along with some turkey bacon, pan fried eggs and avocado chunks, breakfast is served!

 



Cooking

Peanut Butter Sugar Cookies

It’s an amazing quick and easy peanut butter cookie recipe, no dough chilling required. Enough said.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 stick of butter, room temperature

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup of white sugar

1 egg, room temperature

1 splash of pure vanilla

1 cup peanut butter, crunch or creamy, your choice

4 tbsp sugar, optional

 

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.

Sift first 3 ingredients into a medium bowl. Cream butter and brown and white sugar in a large bowl using hand mixer, or stand-up mixer (hint, 2nd option is easier, but 1st option is totally do-able). Add egg, beat until well blended. Add peanut butter and vanilla, blend until well incorporated. Scrape the sides of the bowl as well to ensure everything is well blended.

Add dry mixture into wet mixture slowly, mix until everything is incorporated. Dough will seem a bit crumbly. That’s normal.

Put 4 tbsp sugar into a small bowl, for coating peanut butter cookie dough ball, if desired. Or, skip this step.

Take about 2 tbsp worth of dough and roll into a ball between palms. Roll cookie dough ball in sugar to coat (if desired) and put onto lined baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches a part. Press cookie dough ball down slowly with the back of a fork, and again with 90 degrees angle (engineer coming out of me), giving cookie dough iconic peanut butter cookie look.

Bake 10-12 minutes and let cool for 5 minutes before washing these down with a glass of warm milk…. you get the picture.

 

Cooking

Chicken Casserole Rice, Sort of

My daughter just had 3 teeth pulled. I made something soft, nutritious and tasty food that is least irritating to her gum.

So this is what I came up with – sort of a chicken casserole rice dish, whipped up on the whim.

Ingredients:

3 chicken thighs, skin on, bone-in, that’s what I got, so don’t judge me. Feel free to use boneless skinless breast or thigh, all good.

1 medium onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

1 small head of broccoli, cut up into small pieces

1 chicken bouillon cube

1 can of cream of chicken

salt to taste

1 tsp dried parsley

2 cups of rice

 

Method:

Fill a medium pot with water, boil chicken on high and turn heat to medium after boiling. Don’t worry if you had a lot of water, you will use this broth to make rice.

Prep all veggies, clean, peel, dice up.

In a large pot, add 2 tbsp oil, put on high heat. Add onions and stir till onions are softened. Then add broccoli and carrot. Sprinkle some salt to help veggies soften.

Add 2 cups of rice, stir for a minute or two to taste rice. Fish out chicken and put on a cutting board to cool. Dump all broth into rice pot. Add chicken bouillon cube, stir, cover and lower heat to medium. Boil rice for about 15 minutes. Make sure there is enough liquid, if not, add water to at least cover rice by 1 inch.

While the chicken is cooling, I was digging around in the pantry to see what I had on hand to thicken the rice a bit in the end, something that will make it a bit creamy. Since I didn’t want to add too much cheese into it – I know, I am Asian, didn’t grow up on cheese, sorry. I found a can of cream of chicken.

 

After I chopped up chicken, roughly 15 minutes into cooking rice, I added the cream of chicken into rice, and filled up the can with water twice, and dumped water into the pot too. Mix the cream of chicken into rice.

Add all chicken, I actually threw the bones and skin back into the rice for flavor. In the end I will fish these out and discard. Mix well, add dried parsley. Taste for salt and doneness of rice. I added about 1 more tsp of salt.

My rice was cooked through, but still got a bit of a bite to it. I want the rice to be quite soft so it is really easy for kids to eat, especially my daughter at the moment, until she feels better. So I killed the heat, put the lid on the pot and let the residual heat to keep cooking the rice and the rice will soak up more juices.

 

Cooking

Fresh Peach Cobbler – The Best!

This is a quick and easy, super tasty dessert. If you have super ripe fresh peaches on hand, you are in luck!

I happened to have 3 different kinds of peaches on hand, quite ripe. I had 4 medium size southern peaches, 1 large white peach and 1 donut peach left (check these donut peaches out, if you haven’t tries these, super kid friendly!) They are all about to be overly ripe, so I decided to make this amazingly good fresh peach cobbler.

 

Ingredients:

about 6 peaches, peeled, cored and sliced

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup white sugar + 3/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup milk

6 tbsp butter

2 tbsp cinnamon + 2 tbsp sugar, make cinnamon sugar mix

 

Method:

Prepare peaches, peeled, cored, sliced and dump into a medium sauce pan. Add 3/4 cup sugar and 1/4 tsp salt, stir peaches on medium heat for a couple of minutes until sugar dissolves and peach releases juices. Set aside to cool.

Slice butter into a 9 x 13 pan, scatter butter patties and put pan into oven. Heat oven to 350F. Melt butter while oven heats up. In the mean time, combine flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt in a large mixing bowl. Add milk and mix till just combined.

Take baking dish with melted butter out of oven. Pour flour mixture into baking dish, spread around, roughly even out. Spoon peach over batter, evenly cover, pour juices over peaches. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mix over peaches.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Cool slightly, serve warm alone, or, to kick it up a notch, add a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and insert a sprig of mint for garnish. Enjoy!

Cooking

Singapore Noodle – Requested Dinner

Singapore noodles were requested to be on the dinner menu tonight. The reason is simple, it is super tasty. So I made it.

 

Ingredients:

1 green bell pepper, sliced

1 yellow onion,  sliced

1 red onion, sliced

1 lb shrimp, shells removed and deveined

1/2 lb bbq pork, thinly sliced into match sticks

7 eggs, or whatever amount you have

1 bag of dried rice sticks, softened in hot water

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tbsp yellow curry powder

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp chili powder

1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 cup water

 

Method:

Prepare all ingredients, wash, chop, soften, line them up. Drain water from noodles and roughly cut noodles with kitchen scissors, marinade shrimp in some salt, pepper, cayenne and garlic.

 

Large wok on medium high heat, go in with about 4 tbsp oil. Crack eggs into the wok and break up the yolk with your spatula or spoon. Stir eggs around until it is scrambled.

Push eggs to one side of the wok, add shrimp and cook until shrimps are 80% (ish) done.

Scoop out eggs and shrimp, you don’t want to over cook it. Add more oil into wok and add all vegetables into wok. Cook until vegetables are softened. Season with salt and pepper. Add bbq pork. Add eggs and shrimp back into wok. Add all noodles.

Add all seasoning and water. Use 2 spatulas or spoons to stir everything around. It will take a while to fully incorporate the seasoning and evenly distribute the flavor. Once it’s evenly distributed, and water absorbed by the noodles, taste for seasoning. Add any seasoning to entertain your taste buds.

If you don’t like spicy food, skip the cayenne, chili powder doesn’t add spiciness that much but it gives the noodles a warming pinkish color. Of course the main color will be light brown, due to yellow curry powder and soy sauce.

Seriously, make a bunch, these noodles hold their texture quite well, it will last a couple of days in the fridge, if it will ever survive that long.