Spaghetti and Meatball Sauce

I made this a couple of month ago. I don’t prepare dish like this often but if I do I will usually make a large batch of it and freeze some of it up. This way I can just warm it up and have it with spaghetti or make it into meatball sub. Instead of just ground beef I added some ground turkey to it too. It turns out really nice. Mmmm feeling like having this today. Maybe I should thaw out some and have it for dinner tonight.

Fried Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms

I look forward to these delicate each summer. In fact I have two zucchini plants at my backyard and they gave me quite a few flowers every 2 days but mostly male flowers. I wish there gave me more female flowers though as I would like to have some zucchini too. So far I saw only 4 zucchini out of the 2 plants.

Anyway I collected quite a few of it and stuffed some of them up. I am not too keen on stuffing it with cheese as it oozed out while I was frying it and it was a mess. Oil spatters everywhere. This time I stuffed it with some meat and dipped it in light batter and deep fried them. The batter coats the flowers so lightly but it still gives a satisfying crunch when you bite into the savory center. We like this version so much better.

Chinese Style Braised Honey Spare Ribs

This dish is super easy to make. With just a few ingredients it turns out a wonderful dish to have it with rice. All you have to do it let the ribs simmer for some time and the meat will be so tender and literally fall off the bones when you eat it. I actually bought a whole rack of ribs and get the butcher to cut it into smaller pieces.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

With the cold winter weather I like making soup or stew for our dinner. I found some very nice beef short ribs at the supermarket the other day and decided to make some stew with some leftover red wine. I love cooking with wine. You can get some real cheap wine online from Jims Cellars which is great for drinking and also for cooking. I love dishes like this as it is hearty and full of flavor. The short ribs are cooked in an aromatic broth for a good two and a half hours. By the time it’s done the meat literally falls off the bone. I added some carrots chunks and potatoes to it as I am too lazy to cook any other dish to go with it. There were some leftovers and it taste even better the second day.

Homemade Char Siu (with Pork Belly)/Chinese BBQ Pork

non-halal

It has been awhile since I last make some Char Siu. I posted a recipe here before and I used pork loin for it. I bought a piece of pork belly a few weeks ago and it was pretty lean (it has more lean meat than fat) so I decided to use it to make char siu. So which char siu we like better? We like the pork belly one as the meat was sinfully juicy and very tender but most of all we like the charring part. Of course there is a bit of fat there but most of it renders out when I cook it in the oven. So from now on I will be using pork belly for char siu. I gave some to my a friend of mine and she just can’t get enough of it and she wanted me to show her how to make it ;).

 

 

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Pomegranate Glaze

non-halal

Pork tenderloin is one of my favorite cuts of meat. I love how tender the meat is and I can marinate and glaze it with anything and it will cook in no time. I will usually throw it onto the grill and let it grill on all sides. As for the marinate it can be anything seasonings of your choice and for the glaze I used pomegranate juice with a few other ingredients. It turns out really good and flavorful. It is super easy to prepare and quick cooking…I mean grilling! And the best part…no pots and pans to wash!

 

 

Apricot Glazed Grilled Pork Tenderloin

non-halal

We like having BBQ on the weekends. The weather at the bay area during summer it not too warm and we do get a lot of breeze in the evening. So it is a perfect weather to spend some time sitting at the backyard and do some grilling. Normally I will prepare a protein dish either steak, chicken or pork and we usually have it with grill corn and some salad. This is one of the usual ways we like to grill our pork loin.

Fried Tofu and Meat Sui Kow/Fried Tofu and Meat Dumplings

I was thinking of making a tofu dish but when I cut open the tube of egg tofu it was all broken. I can’t really slice it into round rings. So I decided to mash them up and mix it into the meat filling for the dumplings or Sui Kow. If your kid is not a fan of tofu you can make this and hide the tofu in the filling without them knowing it. I don't think they will ever figure out there is tofu in it. Not my hubby :)

Ingredients:

1 packet of dumplings wrappers or wonton wrappers
1 tube of egg tofu – mashed
6 oz ground pork or chicken
6 oz shrimps – peel and deveined and roughly chopped
1 small carrot – grated
6 water chestnut – cut into tiny cubes
2 spring onions
1 egg
1 tbsp cornstarch

Dong Po Pork/Dong Po Rou

Non-Halal

My laptop has been giving quite a bit of problems lately. It’s a relatively new machine and hopefully Carlos is able to fix it this weekend. Before he does that I better put up a post or two but if you see no posting here that means I don’t have access to my laptop.

This dish has been on my to –do list for the longest time since I've seen it at Wendy’s blog and I finally made it when Diana came home to celebrate Thanksgiving last year. Yeah I made this dish a few months ago only get to post it now. I wish the meat was a bit leaner as we are not a fan of fatty pork. Nevertheless we totally enjoyed it (we removed some of the fats) especially when we ate it with homemade Mantau . And the gravy goes really well with rice too. I am going to cook this again and this time using a leaner cut of meat.

Meatballs in Mushroom Sauce

Carlos and I like this dish a lot. Sometimes we just have it with some sauté vegetables or serve it over pasta. It is so versatile that you can even eat it with rice or make sandwich out of it. Instead of frying the meatballs, I used the oven baking method to cook and brown the meatballs. If you have a large crowd to feed this will be a great dish to serve.The ground beef is cheap and so is the pasta. This recipe serves 4-5 so you need to double or triple the ingredients if you need to feed a large crowd.

Roast Pork Loin with Teriyaki Orange Glaze

non-halal

If I cook with pork, one of my favorite cuts of meat will be the tenderloin. I love how versatile it is and you can cook it any way you like and it won’t turn out dry or chewy. I usually like grilling at the BBQ stove during warm season but as for winter I will usually roast it in the oven. They always turn out moist and succulent. I totally transform Carlos into liking pork with this method of cooking and now this is one of his favorite dishes. In fact I still have two strips of it in the freezer waiting for him and Diana to come home so I can cook it for them next week. With the leftovers we will make sandwich out of it the next day. As for the glaze, you can use it on chicken or fish.

Ingredients:

1 piece of pork tenderloin (about 1 1/2 pound)

Ingredients for the rub:

1 teaspoons salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp olive oil

Steamed Shrimp and Meat Patties - Day 10

Let’s make something savory today. After a few days of sweet dessert I decided to make these patties for our lunch. I basically used whatever I have in my fridge. This is a very versatile recipe as you can use any type of ingredients you like. It is quick to prepare and healthy too. Instead of steaming everything in a plate I steamed them individually with the Jelly moulds. If you don't have the moulds you can always use muffin pan or ramekins.

Vietnamese Shaking Beef/Bo Luc Lac

My friend Janice and I went to Philly for our Asian groceries shopping a couple of weeks ago and after that we went for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. Since I’ve never been there I let her do the ordering. She ordered a few dishes and one of them was Bo Luc Lac. Bo Luc Lac literally translated is ‘Shaking Beef’ The luc Lac refers to how you have to shake back and forth the skillet or wok to sear the cubes of beef.

I love this beef salad so much that I have to re-creates it at home. After a little research online I came up with this. I used my leftover tenderloin from the freezer for this but you can use other cuts of meat of your choice as long as they are good for quick stir-fry. This dish is normally served on a bed of watercress salad and since I am too lazy to drive out to get it I just served them with lettuce and tomatoes. Both of us enjoyed this dish very much. The beef is so tender, succulent and flavorful... it packs such a punch of flavor. The next time I cook this again I will try it out with other cuts of meat and see the difference in taste.

Murtabak Daging/Meat Curry Parcels

This month of August is the Holy Month of Ramadan. This is the time where the Muslim will fast from sunrise till sunset. The fasting is not only forgoing food and drink but also ‘fasting’ of the mind from unhealthy thoughts. This will be the month too where all the Ramadan Bazaars comes to life once a year. Ramadan Bazaars can be found wherever there are substantial population and residents in an area and they are usually located in available spaces in the middle of towns, residential estates and villages. They sell varieties of food and drinks for the breaking of fast, it is a quite a phenomenon and an attraction. The shoppers in the bazaars aren't all Muslim, though; we the non-Muslim and foreign tourists also benefit from the bazaars' mouth-watering traditional and non-traditional food and dishes found in Malaysia.

I used to work at SS14, PJ and the Ramadan Bazaar was just in front of my office. My colleagues and I will visit the Bazaar at least 4-5 times a week to buy all our favorite food. One of them will be this Murtabak Daging where we eat it with pickle onions and curry sauce. Murtabak is an Indian Muslim wrap. It's a large, thin, roti-style shell stuffed with various meat fillings, along with eggs and onions and then pan-fried. Since we don’t have Ramadan Bazaar here in the US to buy this Murtabak Daging, I have to make do with my simple homemade version using spring roll wrappers. It actually turns out pretty good.

Minang Fried Beef

Our Indonesia helper taught me to cook this dish many years ago. It is a simple Minangkabau dish. Minangkabau people are from West Sumatra, Indonesia. Their dishes are popular in South East Asian and is famous for its rich taste of succulent coconut milk and spicy chili. This dish that she taught me is very simple and didn’t use any coconut milk in it. Even without the coconut milk the dish has a nice fragrant of coconut because of the coconut paste/kerisik in it and it is not spicy at all. It goes really well with rice or bread.

Ingredients:
From My Kitchen Snippets

1 pound beef – I used flank steak
2 tbsp chili paste or sambal Oelek
4 shallots
2” fresh ginger
6 cloves garlic
2 green chilies – cut small
1 medium size onion – slice round
3 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tbsp coconut paste/ kerisik (recipe below)
2 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

Irish Beef Stew

This Irish stew is traditionally made with lamb but since we are not a fan of it so I just used beef. The additional of Guinness beer really add a nice flavor to this rich and hearty stew. The beef is incredibly tender and great to serve it with some crusty bread.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 pounds stew beef – cut into 1” pieces
3 potatoes – peel, cut into chunks
1 large onion – cut into chunks
3 carrots – peel and cut into 1” length
½ cup green peas (optional)
6 cloves garlic - chopped
2 sprig thyme - remove the stems and chopped
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup Guinness Beer
6 cups beef stocks
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

Stir-fried Shishito Peppers with Beef

I was first introduced to these peppers by a friend when I was living in New York many years ago and I was hooked ever since. So…if you are not familiar with this pepper…let me introduce you to Japanese Shishito Pepper. These peppers are very mild in flavor,sweet and not hot but sometimes you might find a fiery one among the big batch. They were eaten whole, seeds and all. The classic way for cooking shishito peppers is to toss them in a bit of oil, drop them on a hot grill pan or cast-iron skillet, and cook until hot and blackened in spots. Then toss with a bit of salt. Another way is to fry them in tempura batter or just simply grill them. They were so good that you will gobble it up in no time. Today I do a quick stir-fry with some beef and they were delicious!!

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Spinach

I will like to thank each and everyone of you who take the time to comment and support on my last posting. It really makes me feel so much better. Don't worry, I won't stop blogging because of people like this.

The pork loin was on sale a few weeks ago and I bought a few strips and freeze it up. Sometimes I will just do stir-fry with it or just ground it up to make something with it. For today I stuffed it with spinach. This stuffed pork tenderloin is one of those recipes that looks very impressive when you presents it to your dinner guest. In fact is quite simple to prepare. You can basically stuffs anything into it.

Ingredients:

About 1.5 – 2 pounds of pork loin

Filling:

1 packet (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach – thawed and squeezed out all the water
1 medium size onion – chopped
2 cloves garlic – chopped
3 tbsp of cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Ground Beef Tacos

Do you like Mexican cuisine? How about a delicious meal that can be put together easily that you and your family can enjoy? The Mexican here in the US will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo on May 5th so I am featuring one of their dish here. You can read more about Cinco de Mayo here. These spicy beef tacos combined with some fresh toppings is a much healthier version than the one you get from the fast food joints or restaurants. I think this will be great for a party as your guest can top up their tacos with whatever toppings they prefer. Another dish that will go great with your party will be Chicken Fajitas.

Ingredients for Beef Tacos:

1 pound of lean ground beef

1 large onion – cut into small cubes

3 cloves garlic – chopped

2 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

2 tsp cayenne pepper (you can put less)

1 can 14 oz crushed tomato

½ cup beef stock or water

1 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp vinegar

Cheesy Orzo Frittata

I have this habit of buy all shapes pasta to keep in my pantry. It is not that we are big pasta eater but I like to keep them handy when I needed them. One of them is Orzo Pasta. Orzo pasta is a type of pasta which is made in the shape of a grain of rice. This pasta is very versatile, and it can be use in soup, salad, casserole or you can even substitute orzo for the rice. The word orzo is Italian for “barley,” and a reference to the size and shape of the pasta. The small size can make orzo fun pasta to work and cook with.

I found this Chicken and Orzo Frittata by Giada De Laurentiis from Food Network.com. I change the recipe a bit with some leftovers from my fridge. I replaced the chicken with some leftover ham, the roasted peppers with sundried tomatoes and added some olives since Carlos is a huge fan of it. Her recipe also calls for crème fraiche, which I don’t usually have on hand so I substituted it with half and half. This is an easy dish to prepare and we enjoyed it with some salad.

This is my version of the frittata but you can check out the original recipe here .