Sweet Pea Journey

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Category: Cooking

Cooking

First Attempt Beans and Cheese Pupusa

I made these today, just had to try them. Also, just because it’s Sunday.

In order to find the right ingredients and make it Mexican way, I actually went to Fiesta and asked two ladies. With 75% English and 25% Spanish translated into English by the 8-year-old boy who was with them, I think I got it down.

 

Ingredients:

Maseca , about 2 cups

pinch of salt

Luke warm water, about 2 cups – I did not measure masa or water, totally did it by the feel of the dough, like a pro!

1 can of refried beans, yep, I used the canned stuff, I have not packed down the skills for charro beans yet.

1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, only because I did not have any mozzarella on hand like I thought I did

 

Method:

I poured some masa into a large bowl along with the salt, with one hand in masa, luke warm water in a cup in the other hand, I slowly poured water into masa, and mixed it by hand. Masa absorbs quite a bit of water, but be patient, and mix masa and water until it forms a rather wet dough.

Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let it rest for a few minutes. In the mean time, take out a heavy bottom pan, or flat griddle. I used my trusty cast iron pan. I opened the can of refried beans, put some cheese into a bow and set up my work station.

Once the masa is rested, heat up the pan on medium low heat, lightly grease the pan. Take a baseball size dough and form a hollow disk in one hand, patting with the fingers of the other hand. I am right-handed, so the hollow disk was in my left hand, I used my right hand to help shape it. Put a pinch of cheese in the center of the disk, followed by a tsp of refried beans. Close the disc up by curling the disc and meet the edges on top of the filling carefully and form a ball again. Patch it up with excess dough from the ball or from the bowl. Then carefully flatten the masa ball with filling back into a thicker disc. Be careful not to pat too hard, otherwise the filling may spill out.

Lay the disc onto the pan, and fry 3-4 minutes per side, or until it’s golden brown and the edges of the pupusa is cooked through, as well as the centers.

This is great on its own, or a side dish with harrisa chicken and veggie bake. Enjoy!

 

Cooking

Harrissa Chicken and Veggie Bake

This is another super healthy, super easy dish you would want to make over and over again.

Ingredients:

1 green bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

1 eggplant

2 onions, I used 1 yellow, 1 purple

5 chicken leg quarters, or drum sticks, or thighs, or a whole chicken, butterflied

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp olive oil

6 tbsp harrisa paste, I used mild this time, will try spicy next time

 

Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Clean and cup all vegetables to bite size, arrange at the bottom of 9 x 13 pan. I used 2 pans to avoid over crowding, but this will not be too much food, I know, amazing! Salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil go into the veggie goodness and mix with a spoon or hand.

Score chicken down to the bone, salt and pepper chicken, ensure to rub into the cracks of the cuts. Dump harrisa pates onto chicken and veggies and mix really well. Lay chicken on top of veggies, this way all the chicken fat and drippings will flavor the vegetables.

Both trays go into the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Enjoy the goodness!

Note, the mild harrisa paste isn’t spicy at all, at least not to me. I used some of the chicken for my tacos, and had to add some spices. I will try the spicy version next time.

 

Cooking

Ratatouille

What a fabulous vegetable dish! It sounds not so appetizing, I admit, looks can be deceiving as well, unless you are really into that presentation thing and can afford tons of time on that, but the flavor, I have to say, it is amazing. Give it a try, super easy to make, super nutritious, easily transformed into vegetarian version, perfect for leftovers… what else to ask for?

I forgot to take pictures of mine, so here, I borrowed Martha Stewart’s image from her recipe. Of course mine is a lot simpler, nowhere near as fancy as far as red wine vinegar is used..but the final result looks pretty similar. I will for sure try hers next time.

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant, diced

5 Roma tomatoes, diced

2 yellow onions, medium size,

1 yellow bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 zucchini, diced

1 squash, diced

2 giant weird beans from my parents’ garden, diced. Totally optional, I just wanted to use it in my dish, what else am I going to use it for, seriously? Yep, that thing is like 1.5 ft long!

salt to taste

2 tsp garlic powder, you can totally substitute with minced fresh garlic, as a matter of fact, you should! I was being lazy..

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1 tsp dried parsley, again use fresh if you have access. Being Asian, I normally stock up on green onions, very rarely parsley.

1 tsp chicken bouillon, or use chicken / vegetable stock

I had some cooked ground pork, so I threw about 1/4 cup of that in to add flavor, totally optional.

1 bay leaf

 

Method:

Heavy bottom pot, I used my trusty Dutch oven, 1 tbsp vegetable oil, on medium-high heat. Cook onions until fragrant. Salt onions. Throw in all the rest of diced vegetables (how easy is that?!) Stir the vegetable around, add more salt, and all the seasonings, throw in the bay leaf. Add about 1 cup of water. Don’t worry if it seems dry, the vegetables will give out quite a bit of moisture during the cooking process. Bring the mixture to a low simmer, lower heat to medium low. Cover tightly and cook for about 1 hour. Stir occasionally and check liquid level. Make sure it doesn’t burn.

Fish out the bay leaf, enjoy! This dish is amazing the next day too. Good luck not over eating! But the good news is, it is so healthy you totally won’t feel guilty stuffing your face!

Cooking

Double Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Spice Cookie – Just Because It’s 80 Degrees in Houston in September

Yep, we can’t wait till it’s officially fall! We are having some bad weather lately, tons of rain, dogs are wet, feet are wet, roads are slippery. But the good thing about it is, the rain brought back the dying lawn and the temperature dropped below 80 today! So, to celebrate comfortable jeans day, I made these amazing double chocolate chip pumpkin spice cookies (DCCPSC). These are kind of like a cross between a cookie and a cake, moist and soft in the center, a little crispy on the edges, the beauty of both worlds!

 

Ingredients:

2 1/4 c all purpose flower

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp pumpkin spice

1 tsp salt

2 sticks of butter, softened

3/4 c packed brown sugar

1/2 c white sugar

3/4 c pumpkin puree

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup of dark chocolate chips

1 cup of white chocolate chips

 

Method:

Whisk first 4 ingredients in a smaller bowl. Cream butter and both white and brown sugar together with a hand mixer in a large bowl until it’s fluffy. Drop in egg and vanilla extract, mix until mixed. Add pumpkin puree and mix. Add flour mixture into pumpkin mixture in thirds. Mix on low speed to avoid getting yourself covered in flour. Mix until there is no flour visible. Dump all chocolate chips into the batter Use a spatula to fold chocolate chips into dough. Refrigerate batter for 30 minutes before baking.

Pre-heat oven to 375 F. Line a baking sheet (you will need 2 sheets and bake 2 batches, or take your time with 1 sheet and bake 4 batches) with silicone mat or parchment paper.

Use a scoop or two spoons to drop about 1 inch diameter dough onto lined cookie sheets. Bake for 12 minutes and let cool for a few minutes.

I am telling ya, your whole house will smell amazing! Make yourself some coffee or tea, sit back and enjoy!

Cooking

Pork Belly Street Ramen

Ramen noodle is my latest obsession, besides tacos, well, that’s another post, another day.

As usual, I had to put my own twist on it. I combined Chinese traditional Pork Belly stew and Ramen noodle, and tons of vegetables, the result? I couldn’t stop eating it!

Anyway, the main take-away here is, whatever your favorite food is, you can always make a street Ramen version of it, and make it healthy.

I made Chinese pork belly stew, simply because that’s one of the family top favorite. All the men in my household LOVE this dish. And of course, for ladies, I added tons of vegetables. All ingredients are laid out, plus bean sprouts in the bag.

I brought water to a boil and dumped Ramen from the bags into boiling water and immediately killed the heat. Lid on and soaked for about 3 minutes. I do not want to fully cook the Ramen and make it soggy, just want it soft enough and still a bit under cooked, because I have a bigger plan – I want my Ramen to fully cook in pork belly stew juices and soak up ALL the goodness flavors! Yep, genius, I know!

Stainless steel wok on high heat, oil in, 2 eggs cracked directly into wok, and stirred up with a spatula. I went in with all veggies at the same time and the sliced garlic. Order doesn’t matter much, since in my case, pretty much all vegetables I chose to use are quite hearty, nothing too delicate that needs to be separated. Well, except for bean sprouts, but that is ALWAYS the last thing going into the wok, after killing the heat.

I sprinkled salt and chicken bouillon on the vegetables and stir fried them for a couple of minutes until they are slightly softened. In goes the softened Ramen noodles. I used a large ladle, scooped pork belly stew with juices onto Ramen, oh yeah… just like that, don’t worry about getting too much juices, because there is still room in Ramen noodles to soak up more liquid, this is going to be amazing!

Use two spatulas if needed, stir the noodles and veggies and pork around, I pick up a bundle with 2 spatulas and put them to the other side of the wok and repeat, until the color of the pork stew juices is evenly distributed throughout the noodles, and everything is mixed up beautifully. Now, very important, taste for additional seasoning. I know my pork belly stew was perfect if I ate it like that, but because I used that as a flavoring for my Ramen and veggies, you never know if the flavor is still strong enough to flavor the whole wok of goodness. Add more soy sauce, oyster sauce and a splash of sesame oil if needed. Kill the heat and throw in the bean sprouts (to be honest with you, I forget it 50% of the time :p )

Dish up and enjoy, or eat straight out of the wok, I won’t judge!

 

Cooking

Breakfast Sandwich – The One You Will Keep Making

If you are like me, I have the least amount of breakfast ideas, compared to main dish and desserts. But this one, I promise, is a keeper, and you can make so many alternations to it and dress it up or down.

Ingredients:

2 English muffins, split and toasted / broiled, you can use whole wheat, for even healthier option

Half an avocado, smashed

2 slices of ripe tomato

2 slices of bacon, cut in half and cooked

2 eggs

2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

2 slices of provolone cheese

freshly ground pepper

 

Method:

In a dry pan, put grated Parmesan cheeses into 2 piles, lightly flatten out into discs, about 2 inch diameter each. Pan on medium heat, Parmesan will start bubbling and melt quickly. Crack an egg on each pile, poke yolk for quicker cooking, or leave yolk whole for runnier yolk for the sandwich. Don’t worry about the looks, mine happened to be one poked yolk, one whole yolk – perfection!

When egg white starts to set, gently tri-fold the Parmesan cheese over eggs, make it small enough to fit the sandwich. In the meantime, slice tomatoes and cut prepare avocado.

 

Once the English muffins are toasted to your liking, spread mashed avocado on the bottom halves and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper (I had to go fancy, and cracked the multi-color peppers on it). Top that with tomato slice, go shy than piling too much tomato, it will get watery and slippery for other toppings. Top tomato with toasted Parmesan wrapped eggs, then a slice of provolone, more cracked black pepper, bacon strips and cap it off with the English muffin top.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Cooking

Cherry and Pineapple Dump Cake

Made a simple yet amazing cake with my little sous chef. Memory made!

This is super simple, yet scrumptious, perfect to make with kids.

Ingredients:

1 21 oz can of cherry pie filling

1 20 oz can of crushed pineapple

1 box of yellow cake mix

1 handful of any nuts (totally optional)

1 cup of butter (2 sticks) melted

 

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Spray 9 x 13 baking dish lightly, dump crushed pineapple with juice into baking dish, spread to form an even layer.

Dump cherry pie filling onto pineapple, smear to form an even layer. The smearing part is awesome for kids, tons of fun!

Sprinkle yellow cake mix on top of fruit mix. Same as before, form an even layer, don’t mix with fruit. Sprinkle slivered almonds on top of cake mix if desired.

Pour melted butter on top, try to cover as much area as you could.

Bake at 350F for 55-60 minutes.

Cool for 30 minutes and enjoy!

 

Cooking

Turmeric Ginger Tea – Home Remedy That Works!

Home remedy, for inflammation, and upset tummy. With a hint of lemon and raw honey, even the kids were fighting over this. I made a batch of spice mix, so next time I don’t need to pull out all the little jars.

Super easy to make:

Ingredients:

1 tsp ground turmeric – be careful, this yellow stuff will stain literally anything and everything!

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 TBSP raw honey, or maple syrup if you like. But I don’t stock up on any maple syrup at my house, so raw honey in a heart beat, healthier anyway

1 tsp lemon juice, or squirt about half a juicy lemon (fresh is better!)

 

Method:

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil on the stove. Dump in all ground spices and stir to dissolve. Lower heat to simmer the spice infused water for about 10 minutes.

Cool the tea slightly and strain the tea (if you like), most of the ground spices will sink to the bottom anyway. Pour tea into a tea cup, add raw honey and lemon juice, stir well and enjoy!

Warning, this stuff works wonders! To me, this is way better than any pill or medicine out of a bottle.

Cooking

Yellow Curry Chicken and Vegetables

Finally, I tackled yellow curry – one of the favorite Thai food. It’s amazingly easy to make and tasty, you should try this at home too. Because I chose the cheat version, using store bought yellow curry paste, it’s actually a very easy one pot dish to make, and clean up is a breeze.

Ingredients:

3 skinless bone in chicken thighs, cut off most meat from bone, cut into bite size pieces, save bones to add flavor. I did not do anything for this step, only because I still don’t trust my left hand enough to handle cutting meats into smaller pieces.

1 white rose potato, this is highly recommended, just for the texture in the curry. You want the potato to thicken up the curry a bit but still want to be able to enjoy the potatoes, not mashed potatoes.

1 medium to large size red potato, totally optional but I like the color added to the dish

half of a large onion or a medium one, cut into chunks

half of a green bell pepper, only because I had a half in the fridge.

1 carrot, cut into bite size pieces

2 tbsp yellow curry paste, I used a store-bought canned paste.

1 can of coconut milk, not cream, not oil

2 tsp of sugar

1 tsp of fish sauce

salt to taste

 

Method:

Put a medium size sauce pan on high heat, pour in half a can of coconut milk, bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium and let coconut milk bubble away. If you are lucky, the coconut milk you bought may separate to have a layer of coconut oil on top. If it doesn’t no big deal, pretend you didn’t see this from me and move on.

When the coconut milk is reducing, cut all vegetables into bite size pieces except for potatoes, to prevent them from oxidizing. Add yellow curry paste into the pan, and use a spatula to stir constantly to let yellow curry paste get toasted and well combined with the reduced coconut milk.

Add chicken pieces into the pot, bone and all, and stir until chicken pieces are well coated with curry mixture. Pour in the rest of the coconut milk and bring it to a boil. Don’t throw away the can just yet. Reduce the heat to medium and cook chicken to tender. I also threw in a bay leaf. About 15 minutes. Use this time to cut up potatoes.

Once chicken is cooked till tender, add all vegetables and the can of water to the pot, as usual, I threw in a chicken bouillon cube. Or you can add chicken broth instead. Make sure you have enough liquid to cover everything in the pot. Once it comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium to medium low and let it cook for another 10-15 minutes, lid off. That way extra liquid can evaporate and you don’t end up with super watery curry.

Stir occasionally and make sure all potatoes are submerged. Use this time to wash cutting board, knife, clean up the kitchen, or drink some coffee.

Once the potatoes are tender but not melted away yet, kill the heat, taste for seasoning. This step is crucial, this will fundamentally transform your yellow curry. I added quite a bit salt, a couple of tsp of sugar an a couple of dashes of fish sauce to achieve the final amazing taste, please don’t be fooled by the whole house of exciting curry smell when you cook it.

Serve over steamed rice, with loads and loads of potatoes and juices, you will definitely come back for more, a couple of times!

Cooking

Best Sausage Arugula Shell Pasta

After a whole week of recovering from my arm surgery, I took baby steps easing myself back into simple tasks, such as opening tea bags and folding laundry. Today, I attempted making a simple yet hearty meal for lunch, also testing recipes for when my babies return. I haven’t seen them for a long time, miss them so very much.

I have to say, this meal is the highlight of my past few days, and I was super excited, and of course, I over ate for lunch, again.

 

Did I mention this is super easy, one pot healthy, tasty and kid friendly meal? Here is how I made it. My apologies first, my left hand / arm still have very limited mobility, so I was nowhere near as fast or detail oriented as I would like to be, so I took the shortcuts where I could and did not take any pictures till the very end.

 

Ingredients:

1/2 large onion, or 1 small one, diced. The half onion left in the fridge since who knows when has been bugging me royally, so of course I seized the first available opportunity to use it. It took me a while to dice it carefully, simply because I don’t have the firm grip from my left hand yet, so, slowly and carefully, I tackled the onion.

2 cloves of garlic, minced. You guessed it, I didn’t bother mincing garlic, I used about 1 tsp of garlic powder.

8 oz bulk sweet Italian sausage, or 2 links of Italian sweet sausage, casing removed.

About 4 cups of stock, as usual, I swapped with water and bouillon combo. I used 1 chicken cube and 1 beef cube to test the flavor, it worked beautifully.

8 oz of baby arugula, I bought a bag of baby arugula salad, which came with a bag of surprised corn kernels, of course I threw that in the pasta

1 squash, it was also bugging me, sitting in the fridge for a while, withering away, I couldn’t stand wasting fresh vegetables..so I diced it up, quarter inch thick, half moon or quartered to achieve roughly same size. Of course, broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, cabbage, eggplant, leeks…any vegetables would be fantastic option!

1 generous cup of dried small shell pasta. You can use any bite size pasta in your pantry. I would recommend something that has some curves, holes, ridges of some sort to grab on the delicious sauces and sausage meat in each bite, you would be pleasantly surprised how amazing this meal is.

Optional: shavings of Parmesan cheese.

 

Method:

I heated up about 1 tsp vegetable oil in a high sided pan. The reason is simple, I will be cooking the pasta in this pot, I want the least amount of liquid added possible to achieve maximum taste. Throw diced onions into the pot and soften for a couple of minutes. Then add fresh garlic, or garlic powder and cook for another 30 seconds or so.

Add sausages to onion mixture, use the spoon or spatula to break the sausages to smaller sizes, or to your liking. Lower the heat to medium, stir occasionally to brown the sausages well. The kitchen smells amazing at this point.

Once the sausages are browned, add the vegetables except for the arugula and half of the stock or water. I threw in the bouillon to let the cubes dissolve, raise the heat and bring the liquid to a boil. Dump in the pasta and stir.

Lower heat to medium, stir occasionally to cook pasta gently. Add more liquid as needed, keep stirring, don’t walk away. After about 15 minutes, try pasta for doneness and seasoning. Mine was awesome, you can tell the shells grew in sizes and appear to be soft. Seasoning was spot on! After all, the sausages and bouillon are both quite salty. That’s why I never added any salt, can it be any easier?

Once pasta is done, kill the heat and fold in the arugula. It will look overwhelmingly much, but arugula will wilt to almost nothing, but add this subtle peppery yet sweet flavor to this dish. To me it is a must have ingredient.

Dish up, top with parm and enjoy!