Ladies Love Meatballs -- one-step recipe

It's been almost two months since I last got together w/ S. Man, how I miss it. We click so well when it comes to movies, dramas, wine, food and our boyfriends -- did I mention our boyfriends are actually best friends? Let alone the fact that we live less than 2 blocks away from each other!

I am so happy that we got to have our ladies night last Thursday. S must be the best guest ever -- not only does she always show up with a bottle or two of delicious wine, but she was also a great and talented help in the kitchen.

That night, we had oven-baked cajun meatballs, quinoa loaf with green peas, stove-top popcorns, and home-made macaroons. Couldn't have made the dinner without her!

Chocolate Covered Matzo with Coconut Flakes, Dried Fruits and Seeds -- we are so ready for the passover party

We have awesome friends, J being one of them. Not only is he a master griller, a talented brewer, but also a great Jewfest thrower. (Yeah, also a big fan of making up funny words that conveys the meaning so well that I think some of those should be added into the dictionary.) For the Jewfest tomorrow, he let me help with the dessert. The instruction I received was "The dish I've generally made in the past is just taking maztah and covering it in melted chocolate then dried fruit or whatever else, etc...or if you have something else in mind I'm sure that's cool too." This is total trust I'm talking about, man. I'm was so excited to see the great opportunity to take a run with it.

I started with four sheets of Matzo, as an experiment. D had half of a sheet for dessert tonight, and thought it was pretty good. So happy it worked out. So I made more, but ran into a very practical problem quickly -- we were out of surface area! 

Thick Cut Bacon, Parsley Hash Brown, and a Sunny-Side Up Egg -- I earned my first tip!

Ah, Sunday is finally here, together with the nice spring weather! We woke up well rested, to a sunny and warm day.

D is hungry, as I am taking a break from making a batch of these muffins every other day, which is why I am making him a hearty breakfast while he is out getting us some coffee from the Starbucks around the corner.

Soy Ginger Marinated Salmon -- I want this every day

To put everything in context, I just got back from a fancy 3-course from the top French restaurant in town, that's been rated "excellent" by New York times, and I'm still salivating when writing this post.

As always, the main dish itself was easy enough to prepare. You need a piece of very fresh salmon. I was browsing in the Asian grocery and saw the WHOLE fish, and just simply could NOT resist purchasing 2 pounds, even though I had no idea whether it is wild-caught and that it is more expensive than the regular Stop & Shop.

It just looked too good to pass.

Skin on, bone in, as raw as it can be -- just how I like it!

Please forgive the picture quality, as it was quite late when we ate (and that I am still living with iphones instead of a fancy DSLR as a poor graduate student...)

Chicken & Wild Rice Skillet -- stretching the leftovers into a tasty one-pot meal

You may have already known how a great roast chicken is done, but do you know how to transform the leftovers into a magnificent dish? Guess what, we are going to show you a way!

Roast Chicken -- start it on Monday so you can have leftovers all week long

I have been plotting. What is the most effortless way to have delicious meals all week long? We used to get rotisserie chickens on Friday night, which means a relaxing weekend of chicken pot pies and whatnot, and maybe even lunch for a day or two throughout the weekdays. Though it does get a bit boring. We have tried all chickens in major grocery stores. Of course we have our favorite, though the most convenient store tend to provide overcooked/dried ones. So we took a break from rotisserie chicken for a month. Now we miss it! Luckily, we had a bird in our freezer -- a hearty 6 pounder. The plan was to cook it on Saturday night, so that we can have it over the weekend, and stretch it for lunch through mid-week. Well, it turned out to be a bit more complicated...

After pulling the bird out of freezer EARLY Saturday morning, I realized that it would take more than 24 hours to defrost. No worries. We would just have some pork chops (aka D's favorite dinner) and roast the bird on Sunday. But we forgot that we had a BBQ lunch on Sunday! It was quickly decided during the BBQ that we should all gather at our place to watch the new season of Game of Thrones over pizza. So instead of roasting a big bird, I made three whole wheat bacon & onion pizzas instead. Do not worry about our cholesterol level please, we did have a kale & spinach salad on the side.

Finally, after days of planning, I got to roast the chicken tonight! Woo-hoo! And it turned out well!

There Is No Cure for Veggie Fries -- this is more than just St. Patrick's

We are in a veggie fries frenzy. It started as we were experimenting with a healthy version of 50/50 fries a while back. The dish itself was simple -- oven baked fries consisting of 50% of potato and 50% of sweet potato. We would eat a whole tray during dinner, and another tray afterwards while watching certain Netflix shows.

It took 5 minutes to prepare but the enjoyment lasted hours. Eventually we asked ourselves, is potato & sweet potato really the limit? Of course not! We have had great success with carrot sticks, kale chips, asparagus, and many many more.

 Here is a snap shot of a version for St Patrick's Day. Did you notice the color semblance between the dish and the Irish flag?

Braised Beef Shank in the Slow Cooker -- something good to have (especially when you are exhausted!)

D and I spent the past whole weekend moving and cleaning. Yes, we are officially out of our cute studio downtown! Both of us are thrilled about the upgrade to our downtown loft, though I wish the cleaning process was easier!

Smart of us to plan ahead! We ate out on Saturday, simply ran out of time to cook lunch. On Sunday, we had brunch from leftovers, and planned a hearty dinner worthy of the hard work, and this is what our typical second (or third or fourth) serving looked like:

Not too shabby, huh? Let me tell you, D had to fight for his share on this one. Beef shank is the most precious cut in a lot of Asian countries, and I was not being polite when it came to tasty dinner!