Friday, June 27, 2014

Herb Roasted Split Chicken Breast -- end-of-the-week dinner hack

It's that time of the week again -- we departed from the excitement from the last weekend; lunch rotation has made a full round from sandwich to wraps to salad to leftover casseroles, and dinner had gone through beef/pork/salmon/tofu, yet the next grocery trip is not quite here yet. You wanted to make something delicious but am already somewhat worn-out. It's high time, to pull out some chicken breast from the freezer, again.


A life-changing trick I learned recently was to defrost meat in the fridge with added spice and herbs, which forms a pseudo-marinade -- The flavors sink in while defrosting, and no additional time is needed at all. 

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Healthy Crispy Beef Sliders with Homemade Buns -- perfect for a summer picnic

I love everything that summer brings us -- the sun, the beach, music festivals, county fairs, vineyard trips, fruit picking, and picnics! The ladies from D's family is going to have a girls' night out tomorrow with some great poetry and delicious food. I have been so excited that I started the food preparation way far in advance.

In my opinion, no social gathering shall be complete without some good bread and cheese, and of course we need to make our own bread. 3 days before the event, I had to drag D for some groceries, most importantly -- flour. Between the D&D sessions and Game of Thrones parties, we ran through a whole 5 pound of flour within a week. Record usage within one day: three loaves of crusty bread + home-made pasta + Arya's lemon cake = 12 cups of flour/day! We also hulled home six packs of cheese, some greek yogurt, crab sticks, ground beef, and the regular salad stuff. I became immediately happy 5 hours after the grocery trip, because of these cute slider buns came out lovely.


Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Lemonade Chia Seed Muffins -- we all have lazy days

It's time for breakfast again, and I had NOTHING prepared. Digging through the fridge, I found nothing but eggs and milk, along with some cabbage and dried shrimp & squid (!) What can I do?!

Luckily, D has got some lemonade in stock, way way in the back. How lucky! With a pantry stocked with flour, baking powder and vanilla, I could totally pull it off -- or could I?


Saturday, June 7, 2014

Gluten-Free Corn Muffins with Chia Seeds -- start your day with a smiley face

It's 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm not sure how many of us would stay up to write or read about food. But if there's a group of such, then I'm one of them.

As you may have already guessed: breakfast is the most challenging meals to make for me. D doesn't really like the eggy flavor at all, and I can never get up early enough for a gourmet morning deal. So I made more muffins. Day after day until we ran out of flour! The horror! Out of desperation, I whipped up some corn muffins with fresh blueberries, and oh my, they were good.