Sweet Pea Journey

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….

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!

At Last – Soccer Clinic

I have been searching for some physical activities for my kids for a while. It’s very difficult to find something to be close to school, close to the house, fits their age AND fits our schedule… but at last, soccer clinic was on my radar!

Houston weather has been nuts lately. It should be close to 90 degrees by March, but it’s been anywhere between 38 to 80, from hail to sunshine.. past 2 weeks, it rained hard on soccer clinic day, but today, finally we had a cloudy day, turned out perfectly for soccer!

I love it, kids get exercise, eats better, sleeps better, learn to play with each other, learn to be competitive gracefully, and learn sportsmanship, honesty, integrity, and have fun!

Wonderful Surprise

Finished our meal at Panera, one of my all time favorites. Time for dessert.

It’s closing time at Panera, the ladies are piling up the leftover bagels, breads, muffins, cookies… What a waste! I mumbled under my breath. I know, right? Imagine how many people all these breads can feed every day! He replied.

I want to ask if we can buy these leftovers at a discounted price and give them to the homeless… I looked outside, it’s so cold and wet outside!

Soon, it’s our turn to order. “What do you do with the leftovers everyday?” I asked the lady behind the counter.

“We actually give the leftovers away daily to local churches and shelters.” Proudly, she said, with a smile.

Our faces lit up – What a wonderful surprise!

Do Something that Makes Someone Smile

The other day, on my way to work, I pulled up to this traffic light on the slow lane, as usual, sipping my coffee, thinking about random things. At the corner of my eye, I saw a man jogging on the side walk, towards me. Everything is so normal, so routine.

The car quite a distance in front of me quickly swirled to the left and then back into our lane. A large black object appeared on the road. That’s the reason the car in front of me was trying to avoid. It was a blown tire.

The man jogging picked up his speed and ran into the road suddenly. He quickly pulled the tire off the road and onto the side walk, and kept on running.

I watched the whole thing happening in front of me. He didn’t have to do a thing about it, but that nice thing he did, certainly put a smile on my face. There are good people all around us. Can we all do something that lights up someone else’s day?

 

Love is in the Air

Valentine’s day, is normally over rated, overly commercialized. You can bet on hours of waiting at restaurants, overly priced flowers and chocolates.. After all, you don’t have to wait till V day to show some love, right? If you are in love, everyday is sweeter than Valentine’s day chocolate, prettier than Valentine’s day flowers, what difference is this one day going to makeBut it did not stop me for showing some love to my loved ones 🙂 I call it just because, I love these people in my life. And me? I am loved by people around me every day, that puts a big smile on my face every day 🙂

Super plush ombre throws for kids

Flowers for mom, cookies and biscotties for everyone

New shoes for dad

Muffin with Mom – Happy Valentine’s Day!

I have 2 little Valentines this year 🙂 Wonderful school event organized today, shout out to all the staff and volunteers, the event had an amazing turn out. Kids had tons of fun! I am so grateful I have these two sweet little Valentines.

I gave my little dude a fresh hair cut last night, just in time to look extra sharp; my princess requested her triple braid – pony tail hair do, super sweet!

At the end of the day, kids want love from parents, want parents to be there with them, but just saying I will be there for you, show it with your action.

Enjoy our HUGE muffins!

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!

Weekday Breakfast are Important

Weekday mornings can be quite hectic with little kids. Well, I say little kids, myself could be a major factor too. Sometimes you just want to keep your eyes closed for just another 5 more minutes..you know what I mean. But I firmly believe, having kids is responsibility, meaning, you put yourself after your kids’ needs and you do whatever you can to make sure they are healthy, happy and make sure your example speaks the loudest.

In my case, getting up bright and early and eating healthy are two of the main things, at least for this blog.

Weekday breakfast can be rougher decisions to make. Do we just shove a glazed donut with sprinkles on their plate with a bottle of chocolate milk? Absolutely not in my mind. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, people say. What we put in their little stomach right now could form their life time habit. Just imagine one (or two) donut a day plus a sweet drink, over time, how much damage will that cause to their body? All because we, as parents are too lazy to get out of bed 15 minutes earlier to make some healthy oatmeal, or avocado toast, or fried egg…

I made these on a weekday last week. Most of the time I forget to take pictures for my blog, because to me, that’s normal daily thing.

You can get the cucumber salad and egg drop soup recipes from my cooking posts.

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.