Sweet Pea Journey

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

Tagged: quick

Cooking

Chocolate Cheesecake Pie

I made this one today, totally by accident. But let me tell ya, I am making this Chocolate Cheesecake Pie from now on! Best part? There is no guilt! Notice, I did not add a single granule of sugar! When we tried it, it tasted seriously, restaurant quality. All I needed was some coco powder dusting or shaved chocolate on top for presentation. I may also add some orange zest into the cheesecake mixture.

To tell you the truth, I was making a cheesecake, but after I softened and dumped my cream cheese into the bowl, I realized I was out of one of the key ingredients – sweetened condensed milk. What?! How did this happen? I always have some on hand! But oh well, what can I do at this point? I already leaked out the excitement to the kids that we are having a cheesecake! I was searching my pantry for inspiration, what can I used that may mimic the thick texture of sweetened condensed milk, and gives amazing flavor? Then my eyes gazed on the white mini chocolate chips. I had some left overs from making cake pops for my daughter’s birthday party. That’s it! Here is what I did.  A hint: this is a no bake cheesecake pie! How much easier can that be?

 

Ingredients:

2 packages of cream cheese, softened (either leave the cream cheese on the counter for at least 2 hours in the packaging, or simply follow the instructions printed inside the box, you didn’t know there was instruction there, did you? Took me years to realize that too!)

1 cup of mini white chocolate chips, or  baking chocolate, cut into small pieces (a lot easier to melt)

1/4 cup of unsweetened coco powder

1 store-bought pie crust

 

Method:

I already dumped the 2 packages of cream cheese into a medium size mixing bowl. I melted white mini chocolate chips in another glass bowl in the microwave. 45 seconds on high to start out with, stir, added 30 seconds more, that did all the trick. Or you can melt your chocolate chips in double boiler. Again, I didn’t feel like using the stove and another pot. Now, if I didn’t dump out the cream cheese earlier, I would add my softened cream cheese into my chocolate mixture at this point to save another bowl.

I mixed the cream cheese and chocolate with a large spoon. Don’t use a whisk, the cream cheese will get stick in the middle of the  whisk and that doesn’t really help. Once chocolate and cream cheese is mixed together, I added the coco powder. Slowly press the coco powder into the cream cheese mixture using the back of the spoon. If you try to stir, chances are, you will make a huge mess with the coco powder. The mixture will feel a bit too dry at first, but it will loosen up a bit as the coco powders are incorporated.

Simply remove the plastic cover from the pie crust, pour the chocolate cream cheese mixture into the pie crust. Using the back of the same spoon, even out the top of the cheese mixture. I don’t know any kid doesn’t like chocolate, or cheesecake, or pie… I had a little helper, really a little taster. She was also playing with a spatula, and had tons of fun tasting the cheesecake pie.

 

After smoothing out the top, doesn’t have to be perfect. I didn’t fee like adding extra bells and whistles to this one, I put the lid back on and stuck the pie in the fridge to let it set  a bit.

 

If you want to go fancy, shave some chocolate shavings and sprinkle on top, or you can arrange marsh mellows on top, and quickly torch it before serving, it would be a s’more version! The alteration is endless!

Have fun making this one! Everyone would love it!

 

 

 

Cooking

Wing-it Pizza and Arugula Salad

Pizza and Salad anyone? We made this super simple and restaurant quality pizza and arugula salad the other night. It looked stunning, smelled amazing and made us feel like a million bucks eating super yummy yet healthy dinner!

Here is how we made it.

At the super market, we felt like home made pizza for dinner. So, without searching for a recipe, we just winged it. We grabbed some assorted olives from the olive bar (majority was for snack, shhh), a chunk of fresh mozzarella cheese, an heirloom tomato, a bag of arugula and a can of whole tomatoes (I followed experts’ advice, bought a 28 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes) and we went fancy, bought 4 slices of prosciutto, and a ball of fresh pizza dough (this is a true life saver, I didn’t have to slave myself kneading the dough and spending quite some time letting it rise, and store bought fresh pizza dough is always spot on). I know I have onions, shaved Parmesan cheese, fresh lemon, shallot, garlic, fresh basil from my garden, we are good to go!

After we got home, first thing first, the pizza sauce needs to be made (or you can cut corners even more, and get a good jar of pizza sauce). I diced a small onion, smashed 3 cloves of garlic, and threw them into a heavy bottom sauce pan with a table spoon olive oil heating on medium high heat. Then I moved onto opening the can of tomatoes. I let the onions and garlic sweat in the sauce pan for a couple minutes, I dumped the can of tomatoes, juices and all, into the pot. I was too lazy to squeeze the tomatoes through my fingers and didn’t feel like making a mess. So, I poked them with a wooden spoon and broke them up in the pan. Don’t worry, at the end of the cooking process, the tomatoes will break down beautifully anyway. Immediately, I filled the tomato can with tap water and dumped that into the pan too. I didn’t want to waste any flavor of the tomatoes. Once the sauce came to a boil, I lowered the heat to medium low. I added a pinch of chicken bullion (or instead of the water and bullion, you can add chicken broth, or even good white wine). I loosely put the lid on, and let it go.

I took out the pizza dough, stretched it out to fit the nonstick pizza pan I have, sliced up the onions, mushrooms, pitted black olives, heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese. I gathered my fresh basil leaves. Music was on, a glass of wine was served, life was good! I had a few more minutes to spare while waiting on the tomato sauce, I pulled out the baby arugula and dumped the whole bag into a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, I mixed 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (about half a fresh lemon), 2 tbsp avocado oil (figured it’s a nice alternative to good old extra virgin olive oil, and it turned out I was right!), I put in a finely diced shallot, a pinch of salt and some freshly ground multi color pepper (black is good too, multi color pepper corn was what I had on hand, it does give any dish a nice little color boost, it’s fun). I whisked the dressing until it is emulsified. Here is a mistake I made, I dumped the dressing into the arugula bowl at this point, and mixed it up. The baby arugula wilted a little by the time the pizza was finally done. Even though I had a good time sampling the salad along the way, because the slightly peppery salad was really good, next time, I would leave the dressing separate until the last minute just before plating.

By now, the tomato sauce was done. I turned on the oven to a piping 450 degrees Fahrenheit,  I added in just a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. I ladled some sauce in the middle of the stretched out pizza dough, mirroring exactly what I see on TV from pizza restaurant commercial, spreading the sauce from center outwards, in a circular motion, using the bottom of the ladle. We had fun laying out the mozzarella slices, vegetables, and half of the basil onto the pizza. Can’t forget the prosciutto slices. We hand torn those and laid those pieces loosely on top of everything else.  Into the oven it goes. One thing to pay attention, don’t over load the pizza with veges, it will be too watery and makes it soggy.

We turned on the oven light, acted like little kids, sticking our faces on the oven door, waiting for the pizza to be done. 20 minutes and a facial tanning session later, the pizza is finally done!

A slice of pizza heaven, a handful of simple yet scrumptious baby arugula salad, some fresh basil and shaved Parmesan, dinner is served.

 

Cooking

Vegetable Fried Rice

Fried rice is one of the go-to dishes in my kitchen. No one really needs a reason to enjoy this great dish, but here are a few:

  • It is universal, you can literally use anything in your kitchen.
  • It is quick and easy, you can whip up an amazing one-pot dish in minutes! Did I mention it’s a one-pot dish? I am instantly hooked whenever I see that phrase in a recipe.
  • It is super healthy, kid friendly and you have your protein, carbohydrates and veggies all in one bowl. The combinations are truly endless, and even the pickiest toddler would never realize all the yucky vegetables are actually quite yummy!
  • Come on, let’s face it, who doesn’t like an amazing bowl of fried rice?!

So, I was scratching my head last night, wondering what I should make for my kiddos for dinner. This is what I whipped up in about 20 minutes.

Not the best I have ever made, but the kids loved it, another home run, that is what matters at the end of the day.

A little disclaimer: I am not a professionally trained chef, but I gathered some tips and tricks in my “home cooking career” and frankly, cooking is one of my passions. There are some tips that may be helpful to you at the end of the blog.

Anyway, here is how I made it.

First off, I scoured the fridge for ingredients that caught my eye. I found red onions (ideally, I would love to use yellow or white onions, but red would do. I will explain why later), broccoli crown, half of a red bell pepper in a Ziploc bag (no idea what happened to the other half, don’t judge me), a bag of asparagus, I took out 3 eggs and 3 cloves of garlic, and left on the counter.

After washing all my veggies and shake dry, I laid them on my veggie cutting board. I ran my knife through my veggies, diced red onion, chopped up broccoli, sliced the half red bell pepper and snipped and cut asparagus into inch long sections, and I minced my garlic cloves.

I put my 3 eggs on the counter next to the stove. I have a giant stainless steel wok, you can use non-stick, which is a great great option. Mine wasn’t in the best shape, so instead of using a sticky non-stick pan, I prefer to use my stainless steel wok. At the end of the day, it will not stick on my wok anyway, and you will see it. Wok on the stove, I cranked the heat on high as you can see in the picture below, and squirted some vegetable oil into my wok. You can use other kind of oil, canola, peanut, sunflower seed, grape seed, avocado oil area all good options. I am Asian, I don’t cook with a lot of butter though. Butter will probably burn in this situation anyway.

I left the oil alone for about 30 seconds to let it heat up. I cracked the eggs directly into the wok, one by one, again, because I really do not like doing dishes, especially if I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to use the dish in the first place. Take your time, take it slow, don’t worry about the eggs getting cooked into sunny side up. Trust me on this. The eggs started cooking immediately as they hit the hot oil. But keep in mind, I still had enough time to throw away the egg shells, wash and dry my hands, picked up my phone and snapped the picture. You will be just fine.

Then I took a wooden spatula, or you can use your favorite one (use wood or rubber for non-stick pan though) poke the yokes and stir the eggs around, to me, this looks exactly the same as if I cracked the eggs into a bowl and beat them with a fork first.. what do you think?

Once eggs are cooked, add your uncooked meats or other protein (if you are using leftover steak or pork chop, leave it till later, you want to cook all raw things first), stir fry till it’s cooked. I did not have any meats to add, so I moved on to adding veggies. Onions and garlic first, because most people don’t like raw onion or raw garlic taste in their fried rice. You want to make sure they are cooked thoroughly. I think I cooked onions and garlic for about 2 minutes or so, or until onions are translucent.

I dumped the rest of my veggies from the plastic cutting board straight into the wok. You see why I used the plastic cutting board instead of chopping all my veggies on the thick heavy wooden cutting board now? Yeah, there is a reason behind my madness. Muahaha… I picked up the plastic cutting board easily and curved it up a bit on both ends and all the veggies just slide right onto the wok, again, a bunch less bowls to wash, instantly, I felt like a million bucks!

Nothing fancy, keep stirring, stick the spatula to the very bottom of the wok, and pick up everything from the bottom and bring to the top, give absolutely everything a chance to get kissed by the heat. No rush, take your time. If you need to do something for a few seconds, that’s fine. Lower the heat a touch to medium to medium high, make sure don’t burn your food. After a few minutes, it would look like this. Notice, I lowered the heat a touch. Now I sprinkled in salt and my secret seasoning – chicken bouillon granules. I always have it on hand, it elevates the flavor exponentially. I don’t have a specific brand that I have to have, just whatever is on sale. I have Knorr brand right now. Within a couple minutes, all the vegetables will start to soften and release some juices. Don’t panic, it will be alright. Unless you put tons of cucumbers and tomatoes into this veggie mix, then it could be a soup.

 

Then last but not the least, cold rice goes in. Keep stirring, it takes literally a minute for the rice to evenly distribute throughout the dish, and soaks up the wonderful flavors of veggies and heat through. Final taste for flavor, add in more salt and or chicken bouillon granules, kill the heat. I normally would add a handful of thinly sliced green onions at this point, but sadly I had none in my fridge. You can also use thinly sliced fresh basil or cilantro, or parsley, whatever calls your name.

Dish up and enjoy!

Tips:

  1. Because I am too lazy to wash about 4 or 5 dishes that a lot of other cooks out there would use to temporarily store their prepped veggies, I just pushed them to a corner on my cutting board. So, less mess to clean up for me!
  2. Yep, you probably noticed that I shook dry instead of padded dry my veggies. I am quite lazy about pulling paper towels. And, I’d like to claim, I am a quite frugal person, and don’t like wasting my precious paper towels unless it’s an emergency. A little bit moisture did not hurt.
  3. Prepare all the veggies before turning on the stove. This is crucial. Stir fry rice happens so fast as soon as the heat is on, and believe me, turning off the heat during stir fry and restart again would be a very sticky and wet disaster. So, do yourself a favor, keep all ingredients prepped first.
  4. Mince garlic, some may find it difficult, because garlic cloves may be large, may be small, plump or skinny. It may not be very easy to hold stable on the cutting board and chop with a knife. I would put the knife flat on top of the garlic clove, and smack it with my palm or bottom of my fist first. Once garlic is smashed, it’s a lot easier to quickly chop it up.
  5. I personally like to use yellow or white onion for stir fry, but yesterday I only had red, which I prefer to put in salad and eat raw. But any onion would do. Dicing onions can be difficult. Depends on the type of onions, you may literally be crying a river. There are many tips of slicing or dicing onions or tools to minimize the pungent smell. Here is an amazing video to watch by Chef Gordon Ramsay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCGS067s0zo
  6. Slicing bell peppers, always slice bell peppers from inside out, in other words, put it on the cutting board skin side down. If your knife is not the sharpest, cutting from skin side can be quite difficult and knife blade can slide and your fingers may be in danger.
  7. You can always spend a bit more money and buy broccoli crown already cut into small pieces into florets, but if you would like to save a few pennies here and there like me, I cut it myself. Always cut from the stem side, make a slit from the stem to the base of the crown, then simply pull it apart. That way, you don’t lose a bunch of the tasty green crown, and it will turn out like mine in the pictures. Also, there are plenty YouTube videos on this topic as well.
  8. Rice, always use cooked, cold rice. Leftover rice would be best. Therefore, fried rice is a natural way to give leftover rice an amazing second life! You can always make fresh pot of rice, and stick it into the fridge to cool, but always use cold rice. Otherwise your fried rice would be a pot of sticky mess. Cold rice can be easily broken apart, and final product would have rice and veggies evenly distributed throughout, instead of clunks of rice here and there. Always try to break apart a chunk of rice before putting it into the pan. That’s why I used the back of a big spoon to press down the clunk and made sure the clunk of left over rice was broken up.
  9. Fried rice essentially have 2 components: rice / grain and add-ins. Some ideas for alternatives:
    1. Rice / grain: white rice, brown rice, wild rice ( I personally do not used this one much because wild rice has a much stronger taste itself, and can be over powering), quinoa, barley, couscous, even some other small bite size pasta or beans
    2. Add-ins: meat is one thing you can always play with. Diced chicken, bacon, ham, sausages, shrimp are all very tasty options. If you are meat free, or don’t have any of those on hand ready to go (sometimes, I don’t feel like defrosting, let’s face it, I don’t really always have fresh meats in my fridge), I can make a vegetarian version like I did yesterday. Eggs are always good. Did you know that a very traditional Chinese fried rice has nothing but eggs, rice and green onions in it? Veggie option is endless: onions, leaks, carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, asparagus, mushrooms.. they are ALL very amazing options. However, here is one very important tip: you would want to avoid high water content vegetables, such as cucumbers or tomatoes. You can still use those, but use less than other veggies, you don’t want to have a pot of fried rice soup. I encourage you try different combinations and discover new flavors.
    3. A handful of thinly sliced green onions at the very end is always always always a great ending. I have to admit, I did not have any on hand yesterday, I would take 1 point off my fried rice only because of that. Even if you don’t normally like onions or already had onions in your rice, still throw it in, and you will be happy that you did.