My Newest Creations

I have been SUPER SUPER busy for the past...I don't know how many months. I had midterm and final exams to deal with at school and had visitors over. My inlaws visited first for two weeks and then my parents visited for two weeks two days after my inlaws left. I had only one day in between to rest and clean up the house a bit before my parents came. It was the most busiest time of my life. Unlike my husband and I, both parents eat everything with rice about three times a day with a variety of side dishes and, of course, meat. With that said, I had to cook bigger portions and many things while doing homework, cleaning in between, and caring for Jensen. I was sleep deprived and took care of 4 other people. We also spent most of the day going sight seeing and touring Hawaii. By the time we come home, I have a few hours of doing homework, cook, clean, and shower before we all head to sleep. I'm truly thankful for the times my husband grilled and took care of some of the chores. I'm SO SO lucky to have such a great man and husband in my life. Truly blessed!!

Anywho, I won't be posting up any recipes for what these dishes. Mainly because I didn't write down any recipes. They were all from the top of my head and from previous experiments. Happy to say that they all turned out DELICIOUS!! Had so much compliments that I will be making these dishes again in the future and, hopefully, remember to jot down the recipes.

This is steamed shark in banana leaves. I first sauteed onion and red and green bell pepers with salt. I also sprinkled salt and pepper onto the shark. I then spoon out a small portion of the onion and pepper mixture onto banana leaves, laid the shark meat on top, drizzle with soy sauce, topped off with a slice of lemon, wrapped it up like an envelope, and steamed it for about 10 minutes.

Baked Flounder

This is baked sweet flounder. I sprinkled salt and pepper on the flounder. Laid a bed of thinly sliced tomatoes, chopped green onions, and chopped cilantro on foil. Laid the flounders on top. Drizzle with dark sweet soy sauce. I added slices of zucchini and eggplant for decorations. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. **Remember to clean out the fish gills and wash the flounders before cooking.






Hmong Cabbage Rolls

Cabbage rolls with hot, spicy pepper sauce....yummm!!

These are cabbage rolls. They're just like eggrolls but with cabbage as a wrap and steamed so it's healthier. The stuffing is the same stuffing as with eggrolls but with less ingredients. I only used ground pork, crushed garlic, salt and pepper, noodles, onions, and eggs. No need to over flavor. Take a head of cabbage and cut out the core. In a big pot, bring water to a boil and drop the head of cabbage in it. The boiling water will soften up the cabbage and make it easier for the cabbage leaves to fall apart. Once they have all fallen apart, dish them out one by one and let them cool. Then start filling them up with the stuffing, roll them like eggrolls, and place them in a steamer. No need to seal them up with any extra ingredients. Steam for about 30 minutes. Served best with a hot, spicy pepper dip.
By the way, these are my husband's favorite and my mother always makes it for him.



Pineapple Glazed Duck

For Thanksgiving this year, we celebrated it early so that we can have it with my parents. Instead of turkey, we used duck. My parents haven't had duck for a long time so they bought a duck for me to cook for Thanksgiving. I decided to make a pineapple glaze in honor of my dad who fell in love with Hawaii's pineapples. I first made a salt and pepper mixture with minced ginger and I smeared that all over the duck; in betweent he skin and inside the duck. I then made a pineapple reduction using honey, brown sugar, and pineapple juice. I can't remember how long I cooked the duck for but it was at 400 degrees. I covered it with foil and then took the foil off, glazed the duck with the pineapple glaze, and baked it again for 20 minutes. The picture DOES NOT do it justice. It came out golden brown and glossy. DELICIOUS!!

 

 In honor of my mom passing her citizen's test (took it 3 times) and finally becoming a U.S. citizen, I made her a strawberry layered white cake with mango curd on top. Almost forgot to take a picture so I took one quickly, but that was after my husband already had starting cutting the cake so that's why there's cake slices on the cake. I made a traditional white cake and saved the yolks to make the mango curd. I used mango nectar for the mango color and flavor. For the strawberry filling, I just cooked down some strawberries with sugar in apple juice. For the cream, I made a butter frosting with shortening for that white color and added walnuts around the sides for decorations. I didn't want the frosting to be so sweet because my mother doesn't like very sweet desserts so it wasn't as sweet. However, the mango curd and strawberry filling balanced it out very well. I am now a huge fan of white cake only because I can make other things with the yolks. It was definitely a great cake and the combination was perfect. SUCCESS!!

This cake was made for my inalws to welcome them to our home and to the island. It is a cream cheese layered red velvet cake with marshmallow fondant. I've always heard about marshmallow fondant being a better choice than regular fondant so I decided to try it for myself. It was definitely better. Making fondant is really easy but time consuming. So making the marshmallow was easy also but very sticky. I made it two days ahead and it stored very well in the frigde. I made a basic red velvet with the basic cream cheese frosting which was my husband's favorite cake. I then cover the cake with a thin layer of cream cheese and covered that up with a thin layer of fondant. I smooth out the sides and trim off the excess. The writings on the cakes says "Mom and Dad". I was constantly being bothered by my son so I couldn't make it look better since my husband had left to pick up his parents. I did what I could and that was the best I could do. As long as it's readable then it's good enough. It was a delicious cake and one that my inlaws love because of the marshmallow fondant. It wasn't as sweet as other frostings. Another SUCCESS!!

Fried Pickles

 

Fried Pickles!!

Fried pickles or pickle chips are super delicious!! If you never had one, you need to try one. They are similar to Lay's Dill Pickle chips, but made with real pickles that has been dipped in batter and deep fried. I've been told that Hooter's fried pickles are also very good, but I've never been to Hooter's before so I don't know. Plan to go to Hooter's soon. So I was on a craving for fried pickles and decided to make some since I had a whole jar of pickles in the fridge. But what kind of batter do I want? Welll, I wanted a fried pickle that tasted light even though it's deep fried and I didn't want a thick coating of batter. Also, most importantly, it had to have the crispy crunch. So I started to experiment. I experimented with two types of batter; one with flour and water and the other one with rice flour and carbonated water (similar to a tempura batter). I then experimented with flouring the pickles first before dipping them into the batter. Here are the recipes for both types and conclusion for each: 

 

Flour Batter

½ cup flour

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ cup corn starch

¾ cup carbonated water

Pinch salt

Lay out pickles on paper towels and pat them dry. This will ensure that the batter sticks on. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Dip the dry pickles in the batter or you can leave them in the batter until ready to fry. Heat up oil to 350 degrees and fry the battered pickles until golden brown. Once golden brown, scoop out the pickles onto paper towels to catch all the excess oil and serve with ranch or any dipping sauce.



 

Fried pickles with a flour batter. Crunchy and pickley but also greasy.

 

Conclusion: The flour batter was the typical basic batter used for any deep frying. It gave it a nice crunch and you can definitely taste the pickle. However, I felt that the batter was a bit thick and it tasted greasy even though I blotted the pickles with paper towels. It wasn't the batter that I was looking for, but if you are okay with the basic flour batter then this recipe is for you.

 

Tempura Batter

½ cup rice flour

½ tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt *optional

½ cup carbonated water

Lay out pickles on paper towels and pat them dry. Again, this is to ensure that the batter sticks on. Mix all the ingredients together and dip the pickles in the batter. You can also leave the pickles in the batter (they won't absorb the batter so don't worry). Heat up the oil to 350 degrees and fry the pickles until they're golden brown. Scoop out pickles onto paper towels. Serve and eat with ranch or other dipping sauce. 



Fried pickles with tempura batter. I was able to eat more of these than with the flour batter because it tasted lighter.

Conclusion: This batter was my favorite! It was very crispy and very light. I didn't taste the extra grease or had the thick coating of batter. It tasted light and airy. The texture is a lot more dense than the flour batter and had a crispier crunch to it than the flour batter. I loved this batter!

 

Fried pickles with tempura batter

As you can see, there's a thin coating of batter around the pickles. In fact, in some pickles, I was able to see the seeds inside the pickles which meant that this was a thin coat of batter. My favorite thing about this recipe is that you can taste all the pickle flavor without tasting the greasiness and it's made with rice flour so it's not a heavy batter. This was definitely a win-win for me, but if you prefer a flour batter then the first recipe is for you.



 

My last experiment, I decided to flour the pickles instead of laying them out on paper towels and patting them dry. I wanted to find an easier way to have the batter stick on nicely and one common way was to dip the pickles in flour first. You can use either recipe above, but lightly coat the pickles in flour first before dipping them in the batter.

Conclusion: Flouring the picles first instead of laying them on paper towels was a lot easier. However, it concluded in a thick batter no matter which batter recipe I used. This also meant that it was a lot greasier and tasted a lot heavier. Although the process was easier, I am going to skip this step for future reference.

White Wine Tri-Mushroom Risotto with Scallops

In August, my husband and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary. Every year, we cook something special instead of going out to eat. Last year was a picnic at the beach. This year, I wanted to cook something at home. I decided to make risotto with seared scallops. My husband loves scallops, but we don't always get them. He's also never had risotto so I wanted him to try some without spending a fortune at a restaurant. I decided to make three mushroom risotta using mushroom stock and three different kinds of mushroom. Risotto is not hard to make, but it does take patience and time. You can't rush it or else it won't be risotto. Risotta is suppose to be creamy and rice is suppose to be soft, but not chewy. If it's chewy, it's not fully cooked. If' it's too soft, you cooked it too long. I've made risotta a few times, but my husband was deployed so he didn't get to taste it. I love mushrooms and thought the pairing of mushrooms with scallops will be great. If you don't have wine or don't want to add wine, then leave it out.

**I did not write down the recipe so I'm not accurate with the measurements or directions***

SORRY!!

 

Made for 2:

4 scallops
1 cup arborio rice, uncooked
1 container of chicken stock
white wine, about 1/2 cup
2 Tbsp butter
half onion, diced
1 garlice clove, minced
olive oil
dried shiitake mushrooms and choice of 2 other kinds of mushroom (fresh)

**You don't need a lot of mushrooms for 2 people, so about 2-4 mushrooms each should be fine**

grated parmesean cheese
salt and pepper
tarragon

First, heat up the container of chicken stock in a pot and bring it to a boil. There is a possibility that you might use up quite a bit of stock so heat up all the stock just in case. When it comes to a boil, turn off the heat and add in 2-3 dried shiitake mushrooms. Cover and let sit for about one hour. Now you have your mushroom stock. After an hour, take the shiitake mushrooms out and dice them up. Wash and dice the rest of the mushrooms too.

Next, heat up a sautee pan with olive oil. Add in the minced garlic and diced onions. Sweat the onions and then add in the aroborio rice. Sautee the arborio rice, stirring constantly, until grains are lightly toasted. Add salt and pepper. Once the grains are toasted, add in the white wine or a ladle of chicken stock if you're not using the wine. Cook on medium low and stir constantly. When the liquid begins to disappear, add another ladle of chicken stock and stir. Keep following these steps until the grains are cooked. This will take some time, but you want to keep stirring to prevent the rice from burning. This process will take about 30-45 minutes on medium low heat. Be sure to not over-cook your risotto or under cook your risotto. When risotto is cooked, add in some grated parmesean cheese, 1 Tbsp of roughly chopped tarragon, and butter. Stir. Add more salt and pepper to taste.
**If you're unsure of when the risotto is cooked, taste it**
Perfect risotto should have a creamy texture with perfectly done rice; not chewy, but soft grains.

Meanwhile, heat up the chicken stock that was used to rehydrate the shiitake mushrooms to medium heat. Make sure you take out all the shiitake mushrooms. Then prepare the scallops to be seared. Make sure they're dried (pat them down with paper towel). I bought frozen scallops from my supermarket so I had to pat them down quite a bit since I thawed them out, but if you have fresh ones then you won't need to pat them down too much.  Heat up a sautee pan and drizzle a little bit of olive oil just enough to lightly coat the pan. Lightly sprinkle salt and pepper one both sides and sear them in the pan making sure the pan is hot in the first place. The process of searing is to form a nice crust on the sides so you will need a hot pan for that. Sear the scallops for about 2-3 minutes on both sides or until it forms a nice golden color. Serve ontop of the mushroom risotto and garnish with some tarragon leaves. Voila`! 

White Wine Tri-Mushroom Risotto With Seared Scallops

For our 7 year anniversary, we celebrated it for that whole week. We went out and had a picnic at the beach. I made bacon caprese sandwiches: basil leaves, tomato, mozzarella, a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, and bacon sandwiched between two toasted bagels. With sides of watermelons, chips and dips, blueberry danishes for desserts. My husband never had a caprese before (I know...he never tried a lot of things before lols) and I wanted something easy to make and pack so caprese it was! You can substitute the bacon for turky or chicken...pretty much anything or go meatless. We had a great anniversary week and we ended it with a nice, home-cooked meal. Happy 7 Yr Anniversary, Hubby!!