Breakfast on a Sunday morning

I think it's been like 6+ months since I made breakfast at home. Since I woke up kinda early (10:30), I decided to make congee and eggs. Actually, here's the real reason I cooked the below dish today. I went to my mom's last week and saw my brother eating these eggs. He ate the last serving of it and I was slightly sadden when I saw the empty bowl. Okay, I was a little more than slightly sad. I've been thinking about these eggs since...

So just to warn you guys, these aren't your typical fried eggs. The ingredients are somewhat different. H didn't know I was making them and when he saw it on the table, he was like "crap". :) You can say, this is not his favorite eggs.

So, this is my salted soy beans & ginger fried eggs. It's not as bad as it sounds. The soy beans isn't as salty as you think either. I put sugar in it so it tones down the saltiness.

I messed up on the congee a little. It got a bit mushy. I guess I overcooked it. It was still edible though! For me at least ;) H wasn't too crazy about it.

So this was a really yummy breakfast for me. I ate the leftovers for a late lunch/early dinner too. Too bad I can't say the same for H. He came prepared to the table by bringing his preserved tofu and shredded pork ;)

Breakfast at Home

My breakfast for this Sunday morning...

Dipping my toasted you tiao into a nice cup of coffee. Yummy!

Chicken Wings

Here's the chicken wings I cook at home. I usually make it, let it marinate for a couple of days and then bake it. I got the recipe from my bro-in-law.

The pic didn't come out too well but it taste yummy with some ketchup and tabasco sauce dipping sauce. I also usually eat this with some rice.

Spaghetti

We were going to bbq tonight but the weather didn't look too great so I decided to make some spaghetti instead.

Here's my version of spaghetti and meatballs. I use the frozen meatballs from ikea and they taste pretty good. I gotta remember to put mushrooms into the mix the next time I make this.

This was yummy  (for my at least) ;)

Oh and on a side note. I took the first pic with flash and the second w/o. I don't like the way either came out.

Buffalo Wings

When I saw how easy it was for my brother-in-law to make Buffalo wings, I decided to put it on my list of things to "cook".

Here are pics of my first try:

Here are the baked wings before I tossed them in the sauce. To prep these wings, I added black pepper, salt and some garlic powder and left them "marinating" overnight. To my surprise, it actually took a long time to get these wings baked. I think I had these in the oven (@425 to 450 degrees ) for 75 mins. I think it was around that much time. At the end, I boiled each side for about 3 mins to make them a bit crisper.

Here's the sauce that I used to make it.

When I was in the supermarket, I couldn't decide on using this one or using their "buffalo flavor sauce". I ended up deciding to use this one because I remember my bro-in-law using this. I figured that I can use the buffalo sauce the next time I have wings.

So to make the sauce, I melted about 1/4 cup (4 TBs) of butter, added about a bowl of hot sauce and mixed thoroughly.

Once the wings baked, I put them in a big bowl and poured the sauce into it. After tossing it for a min, I got the following:

I think it turned out pretty decent for my first time. I guess it's really something you can't mess up. One thing I realized right away was that I might have added too much butter. I don't think it was necessary to put a whole 1/4 cup in.

The wings tasted alright. Typical buffalo wings I guess. It was pretty spicy. T thought it was a bit sour though. I guess I might have drenched it in too much sauce?

The next time I make wings, I'm gonna try to make a spicy bbq wings. I gotta find the right bbq sauce and hot sauce to combine. I guess I'll experiment further and post!

**BTW, I compressed these photos a lot. Can you guys tell? I'm wondering if I made the pic quality bad. If it looks bad, it might be because of the original photo. I wasn't too crazy about the way the pics came out. Again, I had to use flash and I think when I did, the pics got "altered".  I think I just need better lighting in my house.

Brownies

I bought a box of brownie mix almost a year ago and it's been sitting in my cabinet since then. Feeling a little bit of motivation, I decided to make it today.

 

 
This was my first time making brownies or doing any kind of baking at all. I used a Betty Crocker mix. To my surprise, the directions did not call for any milk. I always thought you needed milk when you baked. Oh, and man, I did not know baking required so much oil. The directions called for 2/3 of a cup of oil! Crazy stuff.

Anyway, I was somewhat disappointed with the result.  It tasted more like cake than brownies. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I believe I followed the directions correctly so maybe it's the mix? Not sure. Guess I'll ask around and see what happens next time!

Fried Eggs

Throughout High School and College, I was only able to cook two things...instant noodles and fried eggs. I already posted about my instant noodles so here's my fried eggs pics.

I love eating these eggs with some white rice. H claims to like it too.

On the eggs, I like to add a couple of dashes of soy sauce, hot sauce, lime juice and some black pepper. You have to get the amount right or else the eggs might become too salty or dry.

Fried Dumplings

It seems that every time I go over to my parent's house, someone at home cooks fried dumplings. I was only able to eat 1 dumpling the last time I went so I've been craving some since the weekend. So today I decided to cook them!

Dipped this with some hoisin and hot sauce and it was yummy.

I really like this brand of dumplings. I've tried a few of these frozen brands and this one is my favorite one. Usually with meat products, I sometimes find the meat tasting too "meaty". Not sure if that's the correct word for it. I think it happens when it's not fully cooked. Anyway, I never have any trouble cooking these and it usually tastes very good. You can pick these up a local Asian market. They are about 3 for $10.

Korean Instant Noodles

Instant Noodles...so many ways to cook them. You can stir fry them, cook them into a soup or as I like to do it, make them dry. Sounds weird right? I don't think I know anyone but my family making instant noodles dry. It was something I learned from my sister when I was younger. It's just so yummy sometimes. Especially when you are not in the mood for hot soup. The texture is also just different.

 
This is the brand that I usually use when I want spicy korean noodles. You can get them at any asian food market.
 

 
Here's my "Dry" noodles. You can put anything you want in them (dumplings, fish balls, veggies) but I'm usually too lazy and just cook them plain.
 

You can see the spices soaked into the noodles. Man, these noodles are nice and spicy. When I was younger, I would have a hard time handling them but they are okay now. I guess I've been eating too much spicy food.
 
H doesn't really like it this style so I cooked him his soup version.
 

 
Same brand of noodles but cooked in a different way.  I put more water, eggs, dumplings and fish ball. Yes, just one fish ball. I've had these fish balls in the freezer for awhile now but I just didn't like the looks of the others ones so I tossed them. I think they were fine but I just wanted to make sure. 
 
I would have also put some veggies in it but my house hardly has any. In the end though, it was still pretty yummy. As always, I took a few "bites" of his dinner to confirm this.
 

Hoisin mixed with hot Sauce

 

Good dipping sauce for the fish ball and dumplings.

 

Overall, it was a yummy dinner.

 

Oh, and here's what I had for lunch today.

 

Of course when I tried to put mayo and mustard on my sandwich this morning, I found both containers expired. I guess I should clean out my fridge more. Either that or try to make stuff at home so I can use more of it. Anyway, I had to take some packets from co-worker so that my sandwich would not be so dry. 

 

The chips were Cape Cod Jalapeno Chips and the sandwich was cajun turkey and american cheese. I haven't made a sandwich for work in awhile so it tasted pretty good.

 

No leftovers for lunch tomorrow so I think I'm gonna get me some mcdonalds...haven't had that for awhile.

Meatball Parm Hero

Was craving me some meatball parm so I decided to make myself a hero. It sounded simple so I figured what not give it a try. Went to the supermarket and picked me up some mozzarella, bread and some other things. They didn't have any hero bread so I had to settle for a loaf of Italian.

I didn't like the bread. It was a tad hard. I think if I had a hero, it would be have better. Plus, it was just too much bread. A hero would have been smaller.  And of course, I used frozen meatballs. Making meatballs from scratch is just too much work for me. Overall though, it wasn't bad.

Ate half a grapefruit (the big one - I think it's called something else). H was suppose to eat the other half but he failed. Notice the salt at the bottom of the plate. I like to dip my apples/grapefruit in a little bit of salt.  I think it's an Asian thing.

Chicken with Guacamole Pita Pockets

So I was finally able to get the timing right on my avocados.  Too bad as I was smashing them, I found out that H ate all my grape tomatoes. So you'll notice that my guacamole is missing some color...

Looks yucky right? It tasted the way it was suppose to though!

Picked up half a chicken from a neighborhood Spanish place. It's much better than that Stop & Shop one I got the last time.

So there's your final product. Chicken, guacamole in a whole wheat pita bread. I usually dip that in some bbq sauce and Tabasco. It was a good and healthy dinner ;)

...I ate the leftover for lunch the next day also.

Chicken, Mash & Stuffing

So what was for dinner tonight? It was suppose to be pita bread stuffed with chicken and homemade guacamole. What did I end up eating? Chicken, mash and stuffing. How did that happen you ask? Well, my damn avocados went bad. I bought them about a week ago and they were hard as heck. I figured I would eat them in about a week or so later but I guess I waited a few days too long. I was suppose to make it last Thursday/Friday but my weak self has not been able to control my eating out urges. Anyway, the end result was me throwing out the avocados (for the 2nd time), making stove top stuffing and mash potatoes from a box. Oh and I bought the rotisserie chicken from the supermarket (where I went to get my pita pockets). One day, I will cook the chicken and mash potatoes from scratch!

 $7.49

The chicken wasn't that good. Pretty dry and not that tasteful.  I guess that's what I get for being lazy. The next time I need a chicken, I'll pick it from Pio Pio on my way home.

 

I'm not sure if I can do anything to make this picture come out better. The lighting in my living room is pretty bad so I always have to use flash when I take pictures. The flash usually makes the picture come out bad. I wonder if there's some sort of settings that can fix the above picture. The mash potatoes just came out too "white".

Trying to fulfill my daily calcium requirement. Milk with my dinner! It's like I'm a kid back in school again. Was it me or it seemed like milk tasted good with everything back then? Now, it's like milk with pizza? Ewww....

Pizza Pizza

So today was the first time I made food at home since my first post. I think it's been almost 3 weeks? I guess it's safe to say that I definitely haven't been cooking as much as I wanted to. ;) Ah well, maybe today's cooking will kick off the week right. 

So what fancy dish did I cook tonight??

Pepperoni Pizza! Real fancy right? ;) Anyway, I think this was my 10th(?) time making this. Every time I cook this thing, the bread ends up being a bit too crunchy. I think it's because I tend to leave it in the oven for a bit too long. I like my pepperoni crispy. Well, I decided to try something different today. I opted to bake the pepperoni by itself first. I figured this would be good for two reasons: (1) I can lessen the time the pizza is in the oven and (2) I can reduce the amount of oil on the pizza by draining the pepperoni on a paper towel. 

Results:

Closeup:

I don't know if it was because I cooked the pepperoni separate or because I actually got fresh bread from the bakery today, but it tasted pretty good. The bread (Italian) was just right. It was crispy but also tender as well. The more I think about it, I think it's really because of the bread I got. Today's bread was really fresh and soft. Maybe I should start getting bread from a bakery instead of the supermarket bakery. 

For the past 6+ months, I've had this damn bag of buffalo wings from Costco. I've been too lazy to throw it out but today I finally decided to do it. When I told H that I was going to toss it out, he told me to throw out all the drumsticks and just cook the mid-joints for him. So even though it had been "expired" for 2 weeks, I decided to cook it anyway :) Oh BTW, the left side are my left over Korean wings (H bought chicken and rice so he couldn't finish all the wings that day).

I think the picture makes it look better than it actually was. After eating one, H told me to throw the rest out. Apparently, it was already bad. I tried it myself and it wasn't that bad. I ate the skin off a few of them and tossed out the rest. 

We finished off the meal with a bowl of chef salad (bought from Pathmark...). H threw in some banana peppers, croutons, Italian dressing and yummy yummy.

My 1st attempt of Kangkung Belacan

So I was looking through Yelp this past weekend for some new restaurants. While going through the Malaysian section, I saw a picture of one of my favorite vegetable dish - KangKung Belacan! Feeling a little inspiration, I decided to start off my "cooking routine" with this dish. So off I went to the Chinese market on Ave U. and got my ingredients.

Here is what I wanted to cook:

Here is what I ended up with:

Closeup:

1st attempt - failed. When I was looking through the recipe this past Saturday, I somehow figured it was okay to leave out the most important part of the dish (at least my favorite)...the dried shrimp/chili/etc paste. For some reason, when I saw that part, I thought that the Belacan would be good enough. I was totally wrong.

Overall, it was not a bad attempt. It was edible but definitely not KangKung Belacan.

Lessons Learned:

-I need to make the dried shrimp/chili paste

-I need to cut the vegetable into more pieces

-Gotta figure out how to not burn the garlic as easily

Since H is a meat eater, I decided to drop by chinatown and pick up some roast duck to complete the meal. I bought it from that corner restaurant on baxter and canal street.

I was fairly disappointed with the duck. It was kinda oily and the meat wasn't that good. H said they gave me the crappy part of the duck because I ordered in English. Maybe, maybe not. I've had worst duck before but I don't think I will be heading back to this place. (1/2 duck was $9)

Lastly, I finished my dinner with some frozen blueberries. Yummy! According to H, it's much better than ice cream.

This meal left feeling very unsatisfied. I ended snacking on some chips and cheese dip. The cheese dip expired in Dec but I ate it anyway. Sad right? :P