Crash Hot, What?

I've been writing so many essays recently that I haven't found the energy or inspiration to blog. I hate it. I miss having all the extra time to bake, take photos, and write about what happened. All I do now is bake, bake, bake, eat, eat, eat, sleep, sleep sleep, school, school, school, work, work, work, see the b/f, rinse and repeat. I've been so horrendous at writing that it took me 3 weeks to respond to my sweet dear friend that lives on the other side of the globe. Shameful.

Today, I leave you with a simple delicious potato recipe.

Crash Hot Potatoes
Inspired from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• Potatoes
• Olive Oil
• Sea Salt Salt To Taste
• Black Pepper To Taste
• Green Onion, chopped finely
• Cheese

Instructions

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add in as many potatoes as you wish to make and cook them until they are fork-tender.
2. On a sheet pan, line it with foil and place tender potatoes on the cookie sheet leaving plenty of room between each potato.
3. With a potato masher, gently press down each potato until it slightly mashes, rotate the potato masher 90 degrees and mash again. Brush the tops of each crushed potato generously with olive oil.
4. Sprinkle potatoes with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.
5. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes. Add the cheese and green onion and bake for another 5 minutes or until the cheese starts to melt and crisp up.

Being around food makes me happy

(Click photo to enlarge)

Lately I've been stressed worrying about my future. I currently work with children and I have a great time whenever I go to work. I laugh, I get irritated, and I love to see them smile and grow as a person. However, it's not something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life so where does that leave me? I've been researching about other careers where I can work with children, but the more information I find, the more confused and stressed I get. When that happens, I start reading food blogs and thinking about new dishes to make to destress myself. What does that mean? Does that mean my passion lies within food and not children? Or maybe the reason I enjoy being around food is because it's a hobby and not a job? So much to think about....

(Click photo to enlarge)

Pineapple-Banana Smoothie

Makes 3 cups

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups fresh pineapples, frozen
• 1 small banana, sliced and frozen
• 6 oz plain yogurt (or any flavor)
• 1/2 cup milk (or more)

Directions

1. Add all ingredients into the blender and blend away until it's to your desired consistency.
2. You may need to add more milk if the smoothie is too thick.

(Click photo to enlarge)

"Healthy" Deviled eggs

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 2 hard-boiled eggs
• smidge of Dijon mustard for flavor
• 1 tsp green onion, finely sliced
• 1 tsp Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Slice hard-boiled eggs in half.
2. Keep 1 yolk and toss the other.
3. Mix yolk with mustard, green onion, and Parmesan cheese.
4. Fill the egg halves with filling and enjoy!

Raspberry Banana Smoothie

Back in the day (wow...way to make myself sound old), my typical after school snacks included munching on crackers, slurping up instant cup of noodles, gobbling up cookies, and drinking milkshakes and juice. Talk about sugar, sodium, and fat overload.

Since I've started blogging, my need to consume junk food declined rapidly. I think it's changed because it's much more fun to photograph homemade fresh foods than packaged foods. The best part about creating my own dishes is hearing my family telling me that they enjoyed with I made. And if they did not enjoy it, it motivates me to try again and again until they give me the seal of approval.

 (Click image to enlarge)

Raspberry Banana Smoothie

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 1 cup banana, frozen
• 3/4 cup raspberries, frozen
• 1/2 cup milk (or more depending on the consistency)

Directions

1. Toss everything in the blender and blend away until its to your desired consistency.
2. You may need to add more milk to the smoothie if you find it too thick.

 (Click image to enlarge)

Tomato Sauce and Oven-baked Wings (recipes)

I had a wonderful vacation this past week. It was relaxing and I got to spend quality time with my man. There was only one problem. I started getting cranky near the end of our trip. I was ingesting too much grease in my system and not enough fresh vegetables. It only took a vacation to remind me how much I love to cook my own food.

Basic Tomato Sauce
Recipe from The Amateur Gourmet
(the recipe below was taken from his book, but his website has a similar one)

Makes 4 Cups

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Spanish Onion (substitute: yellow onion), finely diced
• 4 garlic gloves, peeled and thinly sliced
• 3 TBSP chopped fresh thyme (or 1 TBSP dried thyme)
• 1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
• 2 28-oz cans peeled whole tomatoes
• kosher salt

Directions

1. In a 3-quart sauce pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown (8-10 minutes).
2. Add thyme and carrots and cook for 5 minutes or more until carrots are soft.
3. With your hands, crush tomatoes and add them with their juices into the saucepan.
4. Bring to a boil, stir often, and lower heat. Simmer for 30 minutes or until sauce is thick as hot cereal.
5. Season with salt. Serve.

Notes:

• Keeps for 1 week in fridge or 6 months in freezer.
• I found the sauce a tad too salty for me, because of the sodium in the canned tomatoes. Next time, I may attempt to cook this sauce with super ripe fresh tomatoes to cut back on the salt.

Oven-Baked Chicken Wings

Serves as many as you want.

Ingredients

• Chicken wings
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Garlic Powder
• Olive Oil

Directions

1. Rinse the wings and dry with a paper towel. Lay them out on a baking sheet.
2. Preheat oven to 400°F.
3. Drizzle the wings in olive oil and make sure the wings are evenly covered in the oil. Liberally cover the wings in black pepper and garlic powder. Add a dash of salt on each wing and rub the salt into the wing (a wing massage if you will.).
4. Line cooking sheet/baking sheet in foil and lay the wings on it. Make sure to give ample space between each wing (about 1 inch of space).
5. Bake in oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until the skin is golden brown.

Fake Corn Soup and Failed Apple Tarte Tartin

I love punking around with JSB. After my success with Mini-snack #1, she was excited for another surprised. I knew she was waiting for a gourmet snack in a larger portion. No way was I going to sit back and just let her freeload off of me.

I made corn soup and topped it with salmon and basil. She came home excited and devoured the snack and told me it was really good, but questioned where I got the corn from.

I told her the secret was canned corn. She gave me the "You-fed-me-what?" look and I had my ROFL moment.

Sadly, karma exists in this world. After I fed JSB the corn soup, my attempt at cooking an Apple Tarte Tartin failed miserably.

Instead of an impressive tartin, I ended up with a burnt mess.

Waaah! Sliiiiiime!! (Edamame Soup)

I randomly stumbled upon White on Rice couple's edamame soup. I didn't think much of it until I read the recipe and realized how simple it was. All it required was a bit of sauteing, add the edamame and stock, simmer a bit, and blend it up. BAM! and you got yourself a soup.

My only mistake was using canned chicken stock, because it was too salty. If I had the choice, I would use homemade stock -- much healthier too.

Side note: my soup was on the thick side so I made pasta to go with it, which JSB devoured and complained that I gave her too little.

Edamame (Soy Bean) Soup
Recipe from White on Rice Couple

Ingredients
For vegetarians, use vegetable stock. For everyone else, use bacon and stock.

• 1 T Butter
• 1 t Sesame Oil
• 2 T Shallots, finely minced
• 1/2 T Garlic (2 cloves), crushed
• 1 1/2 T Ginger (2″ knob), finely grated or crushed
• optional- 2 pieces Bacon, diced
• 1 pkg Soy Beans (16oz)
• 3 c Chicken or Vegetable Broth (add more for a lighter, more liquidy soup)
• 1 1/2 T Soy Sauce
• fresh cracked pepper and thinly sliced green onion for finish & garnish

Directions

1. On medium heat, melt butter with sesame oil in a sauce pan. (If using bacon, omit the butter and fry the bacon and sesame oil till the fat is rendered) Add shallots, garlic and ginger. Sauté until lightly golden and fragrant.
2. Add soy beans, broth and soy sauce.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until soy beans are tender (how fast or slow you simmer will affect the thickness of the soup. It is always a good idea to have extra broth in case you boil off too much liquid.)
3. Put everything into a blender and puree until smooth. Return to sauce pan to keep warm.  Serve with fresh cracked pepper on top of each bowl and the thinly sliced green onion. Add a light stream of sesame oil or a  touch of sour cream or creme fraiche for extra tastiness.
4. If the soup is too thick for you, add more broth until it reaches your desired consistency.

Oh em Gee, the best way to use up lemons! (Lemon Bar recipe)

Mom: "Piee, look at these lemons I bought!"
Me: "Hrmm?..."
Mom: "They were sooo cuuuute. Bright yellow and tiny with thin skins, and heavy too!"
Me: "Oh...they look nice...I guess I could use them to make something."
Mom: "NO! You may not."
Me: "Eeeh??" O.o
Mom: "You will make me FAT!"

Because I'm such an obedient daughter, I didn't touch the lemons for a week. No one else touched them either. I guess no one wanted lemonade. The lemons started wrinkling and the color began to dull. Since the lemons were deteriorating, I took it as a sign that the lemons needed to get used and abused. In other words, It's time to make Mom fat.

I decided to make lemon bars, because I adore the tangy, sweet, and lemony flavored filling on a nice shortbread crust. Coincidentally, I managed to use up all the lemons for this recipe too. yay. no leftovers!

I chose to halve the lemon filling, because in the pictures, it looked like there was a crapton of filling to crust ratio. I prefer a 1:1 ratio of crust to filling. I decided to do some research and found another recipe that I could use. I ended up combining 2 recipes to suit my taste, however, I borrowed more from Food Gal's recipe.

Lemon Bars
Adapted from Foodgal and Oishi Food

Ingredients
Crust

• 3/4 cups of flour
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 6 TBSP of butter
• Dash of salt

Filling

• 3 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups of sugar
• 1/2 cup + 2 TBSP of lemon juice
• 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour

Directions
For the Crust:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Combine flour and sugar in a bowl and beat until mixed. Add butter until the size of small peas. Press into a 9 inch pie pan.
3. Bake until crust is golden brown, approximately 20 to 25 minutes. Allow crust to cool to room temperature. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.

For the filling:

1. Whisk eggs and sugar until smooth. Add lemon and flour. Pour onto crust.
2. Bake until filling sets, approximately 40 minutes. Allow the bars to cool to room temperature and store in fridge for a 1 hour before serving.
3. Store in fridge for up to 3 days.