Stir Fried Broccoli with Garlic Sauce

When I was in China, I attended some cooking classes at Hutong Cuisine. The classes I attended are of the dishes I like. After the class, I haven’t had the chance to try cooking it again since it’s cheaper and more time efficient to buy the food especially if you’re living alone. During the pandemic, since we’re trying to limit our outside interaction, I decided to cook this dish to my husband.

As broccoli is one of the vegetables both of us like to eat and is quite healthy, I brave the cooking world and tried recreating this dish. I burnt a little the garlic but everything was just as I remembered. I haven’t had the chance to try it with other vegetables but the slurry seems to be quite common on most Chinese stir fry dishes. Try it and enjoy!

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Easy Fried Rice

For the past two weeks, I’ve been making Fried Rice. I’m always scared of cooking as most of the time the food I cook doesn’t look and taste like what I’ve imagined. While scrolling through Facebook videos, there was a video by emmymade on how to cook fried rice. So, I muster up my nerve and followed the steps. I didn’t have spring onions so I omitted it from the ingredient list.

The verdict: my husband loves it and I liked it too. There are a lot of variations to fried rice. For proteins, you could use fish, chicken, pork, beef. You can make it vegetarian. You can use just egg white. You can add those tuna in cans. You can add salted fish. Whatever you want your fried rice to be, you can do it. Common ingredients in fried rice are eggs, rice, and vegetables. I tried the frozen vegetables with broccoli, baby carrot, peas and potato, it didn’t jive with the rice.

Breakfast Egg Cups Recipe

With only 30 minutes of lunch break, going out to grab something to eat is not possible.  What’s breakfast egg cups got to do with lunch?  Well.. last week, there were a couple of days that I didn’t had time to bring leftovers for lunch.  I had these breakfast egg cups made on a Sunday at the fridge in the office and we only had cooked rice left, so I brought some rice and ate a couple of the egg cups for my instant lunch! 

Make ahead meals are becoming a norm now especially for people who like to eat something healthy and save some money.  I’ve had a hand making overnight oats but I didn’t like the taste.  I’ve been chopping some red, yellow and orange bell peppers for snacks.  I’m trying to expand my repertoire of food that I can make ahead and edible.

In my search for recipes online to try, I have adapted a recipe from Healthy Idea for Kids on their breakfast egg cups.  I used my favorite veggies and bake away!

BREAKFAST EGG CUPS

Makes 12 egg cups

Ingredients:

• 6 large eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/8 teaspoon salt 
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 5 mini sweet bell pepper, red
• 4 shiitake mushroom
• 1 ounce, your favorite cheese 

Instructions:

1. Grease a muffin tin and set aside.  Pre-heat oven to 375°F.
2. Whisk the eggs and milk together in a bowl.  Seasoned with salt and pepper.
3. Dice the bell pepper and mushroom into small cubes.  If you wish to add leafy vegetables like spinach, stack the spinach leaves, roll them up, and slice them thin. (This method is called chiffonade.)
4. Add the vegetable and shredded cheese to the egg mixture.
5. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes until centers are set and no longer runny.
6. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Notes:  

I used almond milk since I’m lactose intolerant.  It really is up to you which one to use.  For the salt and black pepper, I just eyeballed it instead of using a measuring spoon.  For the cheese, the original recipe called for cheddar but I’m not really a fan of it so I used mozarella or parmesan.

Extras may be stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to a week or in a freezer-safe container in the freezer for up to a month. Microwave thawed egg cups on high for 45-60 seconds or until hot.

You can change whichever vegetables you want.  You can use tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, spinach.  You can also add ham bits or bacon bits if you want some meat.

Jalapeño and Cilantro Sauce

Two weeks ago, our department hosted a potluck burrito bar.  My colleague, who’s Mexican-American, is famous for her sauces.  She made several types of sauce for this event, the cilantro jalapeno sauce, members only sauce and a burrito sauce.  Of the three sauces, the cilantro jalapeno sauce caught my eye due to it’s lime green color.  It has a mild jalapeno kick and a rich cilantro goodness.  A lot of people asked for the recipe and she graciously shared it with us.  She mentioned getting the recipe from the America’s Test Kitchen show.

Jalapeño and Cilantro Sauce

Ingredients:  (makes 1 cup)

• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, and stems, trimmed and chopped coarse
• 3 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Procedure:

1.  In a blender, put the cilantro, jalapeño, mayonnaise, lime juice, garlic and salt.  Blend it for 1 minute.
2.  Scrape down sides of blender jar and continue to process it until smooth, about another minute.
3.  With blender running, slowly add oil until incorporated.
4.  Transfer to a bowl for serving or jar for storage.  

For a mild spicy sauce, add chile seeds of one chile.  For an ultra spicy sauce, add all chile seeds from all 3 chiles.

Simple Chicken & Mushroom Soup Recipe

Since the local courier service wasn’t able to deliver the box of mushroom which I won during our annual company dinner, I asked around for simple Chinese recipes which I can cook with my dried mushrooms.   With the cool weather outside, a soup dish is something to look forward to warm our bodies.  Here’s to chronicling my two attempts of fixing a simple Chicken and Mushroom Soup from scratch.

Chicken and Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

• 200g chicken breast, cubed in 1.5cm
• several thin slices of ginger
• several slices of green onion (white stalk portion only)
• dried shiitake mushroom, sliced in quarters
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• salt
• pepper

Instructions:

1.  Boil water in a soup pan.

2.  Add ginger and green onion.  Let it boil for 2 mins.

3.  Add chicken breast cubes.  Let it boil for 3 mins.

4.  Add 1 tsp light soy sauce and shiitake mushrooms.  Let it boil for 10 mins.

5.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Let it boil for 10 mins.

That’s it!  Simple right?  The first time I did this dish, the mushroom flavor was strong and  made the soup yummy.  The second time I did this, the mushroom flavor was lighter and the ginger flavor didn’t come out that much.  I guess the freshly opened mushroom bag and fresh ginger helped.  You can also put rice noodles for some carbs.