Slow Cooker Teriyaki Wings

Hello everyone! Hope you are enjoying warmer Spring like weather now a days. Have you ever heard of the phrase: “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as quick as I could!”. Well around this time of the year, I can say that with a big smile on my face. Last weekend we took a weekend trip to the Texas hill country for the sole purpose of wild flower viewing, and boy did we hit the jackpot! Below are a few photos for your viewing pleasure:

I've not seen this much blue bonnets in my whole life!

The funny thing is after we took photos at the blue bonnet field, hubby had to save a few ladies from some car trouble (their SUV got stuck in the sandy area), after several tries and still no luck, the grandma of the group went to flag a few motorists down, we almost got a stern talk to by the property owner. You see wild flower viewing is not without it’s dangers!

A sea of prickly white poppies hubby spotted while we were just driving around.

A mixture of cute wild flowers

Hubby hiking into a field of purple

What's a posting about Texas if I don't throw in a few cows?

Anyhoo, the weather has been unusually warm, and I would rather not stand over the stove if I can help it, so here is a very simple recipe that pretty much involves no labor, though you can not tell by the taste of the wings, the family ate them up and I was delighted, enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/8 cup vegetable oil
• 2 lb chicken wings

Preparation

In a plastic bag, mix all ingredients then add chicken wings; toss gently to coat. Refrigerate at least 2 hours to marinate.

Remove chicken from marinade; place in 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. Add about 1/2 cup of the marinade; set aside any remaining marinade.

Cover; cook on High heat setting 4 to 5 hours.

Turn on your oven broiler. Remove the cooked wings from the slow cooker, place them flat on a baking sheet, baste with the marinade, broil for 5-6 minutes depending on your oven. I served the wings over a bed of flattened vermicelli, drizzle any remaining sauce over the wings.

Recipe adapted from Betty Crocker

Easy Chestnut Chicken

Hello there! Are you feeling Spring weather in your neck of the woods? I had a wonderful week hanging out with my little girl during her Spring Break, had lots of play dates, picked strawberries, had a proper “Lady’s Lunch” in the big mall with our friends, and on Saturday hubby took us to Brehnam Texas for some wild flower viewing and wine tasting. Here are a couple of photos for your enjoyment:

Due to all the rain, blue bonnets are plentiful this Spring!

Field of gold!

I am especially proud to be a Texan when March/April rolls around, Lady Bird Johnson beautified this great State and we all truly appreciate it!

OK onto today’s recipe, I have been on a chicken kick lately, and this super simple recipe came out so flavorful, surely it will make another appearance real soon! The only item that needs some advance preparation is the dried chestnut, be sure to soak them in water for at least 4 hours, I only soaked mine for 2 hours this time around and they were not as soft in texture as I’d like, no one else complained though…

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons coarsely crushed yellow rock sugar
• 3 tablespoons Chinese rice wine
• 2 tablespoons dark mushroom soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 2 cups water
• 2  pounds whole chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/8-inch-thick slices
• 2 large garlic clove, smashed
• 16 dried chestnuts, soaked in warm water for at least 4 hours
• 1 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped scallion

Preparation

• Stir together sugar, wine, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and water in a medium bowl, then set aside.
• Cut chicken thighs into large bite size pieces
• Heat vegetable oil in a wok then stir-fry ginger and garlic until golden, 1 to 2 minutes, transfer to a plate.
• Add half of chicken to wok and stir-fry until golden, about 2 minutes, then transfer to plate with ginger and garlic. Stir-fry remaining chicken with chestnuts until golden, about 2 minutes.
• Return chicken, ginger, and garlic from plate to wok, then add soy mixture. Cover wok and cook chicken over moderate heat until sauce is reduced by half, about 25 minutes.
• Remove lid and cook over moderately high heat, stirring frequently, until sauce is thickened and just coats chicken, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sesame oil. Serve sprinkled with scallion.

Original recipe from Epicurious

Sesame Sweet Rice Balls

Have I mentioned my Mama is an excellent cook? Every other weekend I take little girl to visit my Parents and play with her cousins. As soon as we walk in the house our noses are always filled with yummy smells, now that my Mom has retired, she’s become quite the baker and dessert maker. One of little girl’s favorite game is “Guess what we are having for dessert today?” not gonna lie, I love that game also!

Chinese new year was around a month ago, and my Mama decided to make her own sweet rice balls. This sounded like a daunting task, because I am used to buying them at the local Asian market (frozen aisle), boil some water and dump them in, 7 minutes later we got ourselves some deliciousness! Since my Mom’s real happy with her first batch, I was very eager to learn and document her mad skills, so here it is, enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 2 Package Glutinous Rice Flour (16oz each)
• 2 cups of water
• 1 1/2 cup sesame powder
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Instructions:

• Boil water
• Pour 1 bag of rice flour into large bowl
• Pour boiling water onto rice flour, mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon (make sure don’t burn yourself)
• In a medium size bowl, mix sesame powder, powdered sugar and oil, stir thoroughly
• When rice flour dough cools down a bit, kneed with hands until it forms a dough shape, if it’s too sticky, add a little more rice flour
• Take the dough out of the bowl, cut it into 4 pieces. Kneed them into individual long string like shapes
• Cut the string shapes into smaller pieces (around 1 inch), flatter with hand into circular shapes
• Put some sesame filling onto the center of flour circle, start closing with finger to form it into a ball, make sure it’s closed tightly
• Sprinkle some rice flour onto a board, place the finished sweet rice balls onto that to avoid sticking
• The finished rice balls can be frozen if you don’t plan on eating them right away.

To cook:

Boil water, put the sweet rice balls into the hot water for a few minutes, usually when the balls begin to surface, they are ready to be eaten.

We WON! (Tiramisu Cookie Balls)

This post is a bit late, but never the less very exciting! Some of you have been following my status on FaceBook about little girl’s Annual School Carnival, and I mentioned we entered the baking contest (The cookies category). We did win first place when she was in Kindergarten, which came as a HUGE surprise! That was the year I started to take cooking more seriously, though baking was not my strong suit (It still is not), so when the email announcement came, our jaws just about drop to the floor!

This year little girl insisted she needs to participate every step along the way, otherwise we would be cheating. I agreed with her even though the control freak part of me was not too thrilled, especially when cookie crumbs and chocolate dripping were all over the kitchen… The day of the carnival was a bit chaotic, it was rainy and most of the activities had to be kept indoors, so there were adults and children overflowing everywhere. After we turned the cookies in, Bingo seemed to be the most logical and calming thing to do, so we spend quite a bit of time there with our neighbor buddies, it was a lot of fun, and one of our friend actually won the grand price, Hooray!

A couple of hours later we received the news that little girl and her best friend had won First Place in the baking contest (The Cookies and Cupcakes categories), I still can’t believe it, what a honor, and how great is it that they both won at the same year, this called for some prancing around with their awards ribbons of course!

Here is the winning recipe, it’s really simple and the cookie balls are the “Non-Bake” kind, which means you can pretty much enjoy them as soon as the chocolate coating dries. Hope you give it a try!

Ingredients:

1 pkg. (8 oz.) Cream Cheese, softened

60 NILLA Wafers, finely crushed (about 2 cups)

3 Tbsp. MAXWELL HOUSE INTERNATIONAL CAFÉ Café Vienna, divided

2 pkg. (6 squares each) BAKER’S Chocolate, melted

Directions:

MIX cream cheese, cookie crumbs and 1 Tbsp. coffee until well blended.

SHAPE into (1-inch) balls. Freeze 10 min. Mix melted chocolate and remaining coffee. Dip balls in chocolate mixture; place in single layer in shallow waxed paper-lined pan.

REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm.

Recipe from Kraft

Simplified Hue Noodle Soup (Bun bo Hue)

Happy Friday everyone! It’s been a very productive week here, I’ve worked on many fun creative projects, preparing to start on a few exciting ones, even found time to do some bookkeeping (My absolute least favorite thing about running a small business). Since the week has been a busy one, at evening time I’ve been cooking dishes that take very little preparation time, or recipes I am very familiar with (Like sweet and sour fish that little girl requested a couple of nights ago). Hubby had mentioned he wanted to take us out to eat Pho (Vietnamese Noodle Soup) if work let out early on Thursday, the lazy part of me thought that’s a great idea, the frugal part of me saw the beef stew meat we had in the fridge and decided to cook soup noodles in the crock pot and save $20 instead. Due to how simple this recipe is, guess both the lazy and frugal part of me won!

Ingredients

• 4 lemongrass stalks (bottom 3 inches only), outer layers peeled
• 1 pounds beef stew meat
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups water

• 1 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 onions, thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon (or more) chili garlic sauce
• 1  teaspoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon MSG (optional)
• 1.5 teaspoon salt

• 1 package dried thin rice noodles (vermicelli-style)
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1 cup thinly shredded cabbage
• fried tofu, cut into smaller pieces

Directions:

Finely chop enough lemongrass stalks to measure 2 teaspoons. Cut remaining stalks in half. Place beef and stalks in large crock pot. Add broth and 4 cups water.

Heat oil in medium skillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add chili garlic sauce, paprika, and chopped lemongrass; sauté 1 minute. Add mixture to soup; mix in fish sauce, sugar, MSG, and salt. Cook in crock pot on high for 6 hours, skimming foam from surface from time to time. Add the fried tofu into broth about 1 hour before serving.

Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain; rinse under cold water and drain again. Divide noodles into serving bowls. Top with beef soup, bean sprouts, green onions, and shredded cabbage.

I also cut up some Thai chili pepper and added them to 3 tablespoons of fish sauce. Once we added the noodle to the Beef soup, the taste did dilute a bit, so adding this hot fish sauce on top kicked it up a notch. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Epicurious

Easy & Slim Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Hi everyone! For my US friends, did you have a good Super Bowl Sunday? Personally I am not a big sports fan, in fact when my husband has sports blaring on TV, I normally get disoriented from the sportscaster’s announcements (why must they yell?) and have a real hard time concentrate on whatever I want to focus on… Though Super Bowl Sunday is a bit different, for me it’s a time to get together with friends, and watch the hilarious multimillion dollar commercials in between the foot ball game. This year we were invited to a great party with lots of wonderful food, we brought along some buffalo wings and a pineapple upside down cake, both were such a hit with the party people, for a novice baker like me, it’s always surprising when baked goods come out eatable, let along getting such positive praises! The following is the super easy recipe, hope you will give it a try also!

BTW one of the little guests at the party told me she will eat any dish with the name of “Upside Down” in it, I thought that was hilarious!

Ingredients

1 box of yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 cup water
1/3 cup apple sauce (instead of oil)
1/3 cup orange juice
1 pineapple, peeled and sliced
1/3 to 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 stick butter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Prep a 13 x 9 baking dish by wrapping foil and grease all sides with cooking oil
3. Cut butter into small pieces and drop into the baking dish, then sprinkle the brown sugar evenly
4. Melt the butter and sugar into liquid by placing the baking dish into the oven for around 5 minutes
5. Prepare the cake batter by mix the cake mix with water, apple sauce and eggs, mix thoroughly, then stir in orange juice
6. Place the pineapple slices onto the melted butter and brown sugar liquid in the baking pan, then pour the cake batter over the pineapple slices
7. Bake the cake according to cake mix directions (around 50 minutes). When toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, take the cake out of the oven and place a plate over it then flip carefully, then carefully peel back the foilto reveal the cake. If you prefer, turn on the broiler and sprinkle some more brown sugar over the pineapple, and bake on top oven layer for another 5 minutes for more crunchy sugar coating. Enjoy!

Golden Tofu

Happy Lunar New Year everyone! I always told myself due to us observing both Western and Lunar calendars, we have twice as many opportunities to start the year off right! Ever since we moved from Taiwan to Texas, the Lunar New Year celebration has not been the same, I remember the school children normally take Winter break at this time, working Mom and Dads would get around a week off also. This was a time I got to hang out with relatives, visit certain folks from out of town and enjoy the festivities together, also collect red envelopes, the most exciting time indeed. Now a days I try to have some traditions around my own home, so little girl can learn about the culture and hopefully pass the fun to her children. On Lunar New Year’s eve I would clean the whole house, since no cleaning is allowed during the New Year celebration, I would make sure to have oranges and flowers in the kitchen, they represent good fortune and make me happy. Most importantly there’s the cooking, my Mama made this wonderful New Year’s cake, I cut them into rectangular shapes, dip in egg then pan fried  golden, oh they were so good! There were also boiled and pan fried dumplings, then some tea eggs to top everything off. You can see the photos on Weeknite Meals’ FaceBook page here>

Anywho, let’s talk about today’s recipe! Chinese people like to eat dishes that represent good fortune during the New Year’s celebration, for example, the dumplings look like the silver and gold ingots Chinese folks used as currency, the Tea Eggs symbolize golden nuggets. The Golden Tofu are made to represent gold bricks, and who doesn’t want some in their home to bring in prosperity and more good fortune in the new year! I had fun making this, the family had a great time eating ‘em gold blocks, I hope you will give it a try also!

Ingredients:

1 box firm tofu
1 egg
1/2 T sesame seeds
3 T corn starch
1/3 cup panko
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T teriyaki sauce
salt and pepper to taste
2T oil for frying

Directions:

1. Slice the tofu and cut them into rectangle shape to represent gold bricks, set aside to drain
2. Mix panko with sesame seed on a plate, set aside
3. Beat the egg, add minced garlic, set aside
4. Put corn starch in 1 bowl, set aside
5. Coat the tofu in the following order: dip in egg, then corn starch, then panko mix
6. Heat up the oil with medium high heat, add the tofu pieces and pan fry until golden brown. (Optional: I served them on top of a bed of sauteed spinach), plate and sprinkle with salt/pepper to taste, then drizzle teriyaki sauce or soy sauce. Enjoy!

Chicken in Lemon Sauce

Hello friends! How’s your 2012 so far? It’s amazing we are already more than half way done with January, so far I am still sticking with my New Year’s Resolution of “Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments”, hope you are doing well with your resolution also!

My fellow foodie friend Kath from My Funny Little Life recently posted a blog of some of her favorite things, in there she included a MP3 player, it got me thinking that maybe I can incorporate music into my week night cooking routine also. Normally I listen to “Vocal Trance” from Digitally Imported while working, don’t laugh, I know it’s ridiculous that I listen to dance club music while designing, but it’s been going on for years, and it really gets the creative juices flowing, or at least the beat keeps me productive. I’ve recently downloaded their app onto my iPhone, so now a days when it’s time to cook, the headphones are plugged in, and I feel so happy prepping and cooking away! Do you have any routine that helps with making everyday chores fun?

OK, let’s talk about today’s recipe! A few months ago I re-organized our bookcase, when my hubby was doing most of the cooking, the gourmet in training that he is purchased every single cookbook there is along with every single spices one would ever need. The spices have come in very handy, though the cookbooks got buried with the rest of our stuff. Now everything’s organized, I’ve pulled out the Asian ones and study them from time to time. The Chicken in Lemon Sauce is from “The Asian Kitchen” by Lilian Wu, it’s a beautiful hard cover and with detailed step by step photos. I received many praises from the family about this (there’s a slight modification from the original recipe), hope you will give it a try also!

Ingredients:
4 skinned chicken thighs, flattened and cut away fats, then cut into 1/2 inch stripes
1tbsp light soy sauce
5 tbsp cornstarch
3 stalks of green onions, cut into 3 long sections per stalk
1 lemon
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp rice wine
2/3 cup chicken stock
4 tbsp cooking oil

Instructions:
1. Toss chicken strips with soy sauce, then cover with 4 tbsp of cornstarch
2. Peel the lemon, remove lemon zest and cut into fine strips, reserve aside.
3. Juice the lemon, , mix with sugar, rice wine, chicken stock.
4. Mix remaining corn starch with some water and blend well, reserve aside
5. Heat the oil and cook the chicken in small batches for 3-4 minutes, remove and drain on paper towel
6. Add the green onions sections and garlic to the pan, stir until fragrant
7. Add the reserved ingredients (lemon juice mix, corn starch mix and lemon zest) bring to a boil, add the chicken pieces back into the pan and toss with sauce to coat evenly, enjoy with white rice.

 

Crock Pot Pork & Egg Stew Noodles

How’s everyone’s 2012 going so far? January is usually a bit slow for me business wise, so I was a little surprised at the work load there are this week, it’s definitely a great surprise though, because to tell you the truth, I am ALL PARTIED OUT from the festivities of last year’s holiday season, so routine and normalcy is very welcoming! Below is some photos of the parties we had at our place, if you would like to see more photos of the food, please visit the album on Weeknite Meals’ FB Page Here>

Some photos of our Christmas Eve and New Year Eve festivities

The house is back to normal now, everything seems to be more spacious and airy. We are planning some minor home improvement projects, it’s a little nerve wrecking, because I am not the most handy person in the world. Though we are excited about what’s to come, there will be some before and after photos coming your way when I get up the nerve to tackle these tasks!

OK, let’s talk about the Pork and Egg crock pot stew recipe. Since I have been pretty busy with work, this week’s menu has been pretty simple. I already have a super easy and fabulous Spicy Beef Noodle crock pot recipe, though I didn’t have any stew beef laying in the freezer, so after some research, this pork stew recipe looks to be the thing to work with. It’s got a lighter broth, and the family seemed really to be taken by it. Little girl asked me for “LOTS of Pork and LOTS of soup” in her next day’s lunch box, hubby also praised the taste and tenderness of the pork. Looks like I will be making this dish pretty regularly, hope you will give it a try also!

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/8 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1/8 cup light soy sauce
• 1/4 cup Chinese rice wine
• 3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
• 5 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 2-inch piece ginger, peeled and sliced
• 2 pieces star anise
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• 1.5 pounds lean pork stew meat
• 6 eggs
• 6-10 fried tofu cubes
• 1 package of dry rice noodles

Directions

Hard boil the eggs, peel the shell and reserve aside.

Combine all other ingredients (except noodles and fried tofu) in a 5-to-6-quart slow cooker. Add the pork, then cover and cook on high 4 hours.

Add the hard boiled eggs and fried tofu into the crock pot, cook on high for another 2 hours.

Cook the rice noodles according to direction, once done divide into bowls, ladle the broth, egg, tofu and pork onto the noodles, add some vegetable if your prefer. Enjoy!

Adapted from Food Network

Spicy Leftover Turkey Soup

Hi everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! I am enjoying the second week of Christmas/New Year holiday season, chilling with little girl and hanging out with friends. The potluck party we threw on Christmas Eve was a huge success, adults and children all had a blast, as the host/hostess, hubby and I were thrilled! If you are interested to find out what dishes were served, please check out Weeknite Meal’s Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/weeknitemeals

Even though most of the food were consumed, there were still quite a bit of turkey left (hubby fried two turkeys, one and half were gone by the end of the night), I shredded the meat and kept them in the frig to make this wonderfully comfort soup. The original recipe was from Laura in the Kitchen, hubby found her video on YouTube and we were extremely pleased with how the soup tasted, I’ve made some minor adjustments to suit our preference (the original recipe called for 1 whole tablespoon of chilli… For a spicy food lover like me, that was still way too hot!) Enjoy!

Ingredients
4 cups of Chicken Stock
3 cups of water
1 Large Onion, chopped
1 Tbsp of Olive Oil
1 Jalapeno, seeded ad chopped
4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp of Chili Powder
1 Tsp of Cumin
1 tsp of Dried Oregano
1 Tsp of Coriander
1 28oz can of Hominy, drained and rinsed
1 pound of cooked Turkey, shredded
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste

For Topping,
Lime Juice
Chopped Avocados

Process,

1) In a large pot over medium high heat, cook together the onion, jalapeno and garlic in the olive oil for 4 to 5 minutes or until the veggie are staring to cook down. Add the ground cumin, coriander, chili powder and oregano and cook for 30 seconds.

2) Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes.

3) Add the hominy and turkey, season with salt and pepper and cook for 10 minutes.

4) Ladle into the serving bowl and top with some fresh cilantro, chopped avocados and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Laura In The Kitchen