Recipe; Five Spice Beef & Pepper Stir Fry.

Yikes! Been lazing for a long while. Its been awhile since I gave my body a good workout. I need to workout a sweat. But at the same time, my body has been aching, I've been getting headaches, and I'm feeling tired all the time. Its a bad sign of a over-lazing body. Either that, or maybe I've been feeding my body too much recently, now that I'm always excited to try new recipes.

Last few days, I have been trying some old repeated recipes, Hubs says its always good to retry and retry until we get the perfect mix that we like. So I've done Sweet & sour pork on Monday. The taste is getting alittle better. We added more corn flour this time, to give it a better crisp.

Over the weekend, we headed out to Boise for Grand China Buffet ( a review will be coming up soon), and headed to Ross for some last minute shopping. I wanted to try to get some stuff for my Dad. We've bought stuff for most of the family except my Dad. I just didn't know what to get for him. He's birthday is coming up soon, and I still have no idea what is good for him. Hopefully something will catch my eye soon.

Here's the recipe for the Five Spiced Beef & Pepper stir fry which I cooked today for the guy's lunchbox.

Ingredients

• Jasmine rice or short grain white rice, 1 to 1 1/2 cups, prepared to package directions
• 2 cups beef broth or stock, paper container or canned
• 2 tablespoons wok or clear oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 1/2 pounds beef sirloin or beef tenderloin tips, trimmed, placed in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes then thinly sliced
• 2 green bell peppers, seeded and diced into 1-inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1/2 cup dry cooking sherry
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce, eyeball the amount
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder, found on Asian foods aisle of market
• Cracked black pepper
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced on an angle, for garnish
• 1/2 cup smoked whole almonds, available on snack aisle, for garnish

Directions

Boil water for rice and prepare to package directions.

Place beef broth in a small pot over low heat to warm the liquid.

Heat a wok shaped skillet or pan over high heat. Add oil (it will smoke) and meat bits. Stir-fry meat 3 minutes and remove from pan or move off to the side of the wok. Return pan to heat and add peppers and onions. Stir-fry veggies 2 minutes. Add meat back to the pan. Add sherry and stir fry until liquid almost evaporates about 1 minute. Add soy sauce to the pan. Dissolve cornstarch with a ladle of warm beef broth. Add beef broth to the pan, then add cornstarch combined with broth, the five-spice powder and black pepper. Stir sauce until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Adjust seasonings. Add more soy or salt if necessary. Remove stir-fry from heat. Fill dinner bowls with beef stir-fry and top with a scoop of rice. Scoop rice with ice cream scoop to get a rounded ball. By placing rice on top of stir-fry, rice will stay firm and not soak up too much sauce. Garnish with chopped scallions and smoked almonds.

Recipe taken from Food Network, Rachel Ray.

Taste test:
The sauce was a little thick and creamy for my liking, probably shouldn't have added too much corn starch. Didn't add enough black pepper, and needed more colour! I hate bell peppers, so I left them out. I might try this recipe again, with a light dose of sesame oil, and more five spiced powder. Oh, and be careful not to over cook the beef, and really cut them into thin slices. I hate problems chewing into my beef. =(

Yikes! Winter is coming??

The weather is super cold today. The aircon in the house is set to 77F, but when we woke up, its at 71F only. The floor was freaking freezing. No carpeting in our house. Lucky for me, I had my bedroom slippers on.

The locals here always tell us the weather in Idaho is always unpredictable. Winter came early last year. I read the news the first snowfall was in October. And being the first, its always heavier. I saw how the snow covered up houses, to the extent, some houses couldn't open their doors, due to the snow piling up on their front doors. Thankfully, we came in January, where snowfall was much lesser, to a certain extent, being the first experience of snow falling from the sky, we were sort of excited, and kind of enjoyed it.

This year, we'll be going through the entire winter. After experiencing the first time, can sort of expect what's to come. When we first landed, it was in freezing temps. We're talking below 0 degrees celsius. That lasted till March. And it was chilly till end of May. Our last snowfall of the last winter, was in May. The difference in the weather compared to Singapore, was huge. SG is being covered by islands and countries around it. We've been lucky. There's practically no wind in Singapore, just a slight breeze maybe, if you're near the beach.

When we say windy in Idaho, we're talking 40 miles per hour winds. That's 10 times the wind speed in SG. And that's not the max we have experienced. The husband, working on ground, outdoors, told me there's been 40 knots wind speeds before. Equivalent to 20 miles per second.

When we first arrived, and started shopping for our furniture and stuff, piling stuffs on our supermarket trolleys, I remembered how our boxes flew off in the wind. The entire plastic box practically flew out of our trolleys, over the cars in the carpark, and almost hit a woman. We were chasing after it. And it was very cold then. I wonder how this winter is going to be, I can feel it coming already. The summer heat has gone, and the wintry breeze is back.

I hope I have the strength to go through this winter, which I can feel its gonna be much worst than what I have went through earlier this year. Especially this time, with the husband going to be away for 3 weeks this time. Sigh. I will be strong.

Recipe: Easy Peasy Dijon Mustard Chicken that even 5 year olds can do!

This must be the easiest marinade I've ever mixed up for chicken! I bought a bottle of Dijon Mustard after watching Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen.  There was one episode where he questioned the Chef's what were the 5 mother sauces. In my head, I was thinking, Oyster sauce? That's like one of the sauces I use every meal! And maybe soy sauce? What about Hoisin Sauce? I was horribly wrong. They were naming things like tomato sauce, mayonnaise, dijon mustard, and so on. I've heard of mustard, but I can't comprehend how is it a mother sauce, so the next day, when we went out grocery shopping, I bought one home to taste and try cooking with it.

I searched for recipes but I realise I kept lacking some ingredients, like herbs and spices and stuff. I like to cook simple and easy and fast. Minimal effort, maximum taste. Of course cooking can never be "little" effort. I like flavours in my dishes, without having tons of things to complicate the palate. I swapped out the ingredients of recipes I found on online, and I think this one is a keeper! The husband loves it. =)

Recipe: Easy Peasy Dijon Mustard Chicken

Ingredients:
3 chicken drumstick
1 egg white
3 tablespoons of Dijon Mustard
a drizzle of honey


1. Mix the Dijon mustard with the egg white until smooth. Marinate chicken with mustard egg mix. Make sure marinate goes under the chicken skin as well, if you're leaving the skin on. Leave 2 hours to overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 395F. Place chicken on a tray. Reserving the marinate. I like to line my trays with aluminum foil, so its easy to clear up. Set timer to 10 mins.

3. Drizzle honey over the remaining marinate, whisk until smooth and set aside. Once timer is up, take chicken out of oven, and flip it over, and brush with honeyed marinate, put back into over. Set timer for 10 mins. Repeat this for 4 times, or until chicken is well cooked.

Your kitchen is gonna smell good, and you're gonna love biting into it. This will change your view of yucky mustards, if you hated the taste like I did before! As for now, I'm gonna keep finding new recipes for my new bottle of Dijon!

Sweet punishment.

So my body has been lucky to get away from being worked out for the entire roadtrip, and i've been lazing since I came back. Feeling the need to build some muscles and start sweating abit, i decided to go to my favourite blog for some inspiration. I needed an easier workout. My body has been resting since the 5th of this month. After browsing thru her archives, I thought the Sweet Punishment workout would be an easier one, using body weights only, and they seem enough for me to do.

Well, WHAT DO I KNOW? I breezed through the first part pretty easy. 4 minutes interval training, backward jump lunge? No problem! I did 11, 9, 10, 10, 10, 8 on the 6 intervals of 30 seconds with 10 seconds in between.

The 2nd part LOOKED easy. I haven't worked up to doing full push ups yet, so I did the push ups on my knees. I tried bringing my knees to my elbows but it just won't work. So I did 10 push ups. Next, was 30 reps of One jump forward, and 2 jump back. The first 20 reps were easy. But when u reach the 25th to 28th, you can feel your sweat dripping and your breath running out. I did manage to complete it though. When it came to the side crunch, I could do it alright on my ride side, but I had a hard time getting up on my left side, and I have no idea why. After about 7 side crunch on the left its almost like jabbing my side with a knife. I did push on to the end to finish 20 on each side.

Well, that was for the 1st round of 3 rounds. 2nd round, knowing the exercises already was easy. I did the normal on the knees push ups, followed by 30 jump forward and 2 jump back. Did 20 crunch on my right, but by the time I came to my left side, I'm exhausted. I did like 7 times, and gave up. I'm still very weak.
I still need time to work my body up to tougher routines, shouldn't have let my muscles rested for so long. But then again, I didn't want to be obsessive with exercising. I wanted to enjoy it, while building up my health. I believe that's the right way to do.

My timing for the 2 rounds was 12 minutes and 13 seconds. Weak!!! But at least I attempted it! I will work on it though. And hopefully come back to a better score in the future.

I finished off my workout today, with some free weights exercise. Working on giving my arms alittle more tone, and strength, so I can enjoy my housework, without feel the aches. LOL. You'll be surprised how alittle exercise can help you breeze through the day to day much easily.

Recipe: Sweet corn with Pork soup

I have no idea what's the correct name for this soup, but I do know that this soup is what his mum always cooks when we were back in SG. The husband has been missing home quite a bit, and he's been slightly under stress, so I want to replicate something that he might be missing from home, to make him feel slightly better. It sure did turn out great, and he loved it. Drinking this soup made me think of family too. I miss mum & dad alot.

Recipe: Sweet corn with Pork soup (serves 3)

Pork ribs / loin, cut into bite size pieces ( i used 3 pieces of pork steaks here, we're huge carnivores)

1 corn cut into 3 pieces

2 dates

2 carrots peeled and sliced thickly.

1. Boil enough water to cover all the pork. Pour the pork in when its boiling, leave for 15 mins. There should be alot of scum and oil on the surface. Remove from heat and rinse with water.
2. Refill the water to desired soup amount, ard 2 litres, at medium heat, and let it go to a boil.
3. Add in corn and dates, and put to low heat. Set timer for2 hours.
4. Add in carrots and set timer for another 1 hour.Season with salt to taste.
5. Soup is now ready to be enjoyed.

Recipe: Easy & Yummy Teriyaki Chicken

There's only a couple of Chinese restaurants in this little small town that we live in. And even so, the food never ever tastes like what we eat back home. As what they always say, home cooked food is always still the best. When we used to live in Aaron's parents place, they had a maid who would cook the meals everyday, and we were lucky enough to enjoy his mum's yummy recipes everyday.

I never knew how to cook, or how dishes were created. When I started working and preparing towards our wedding, my hours and location at work, forced me to pack my own food to work. It was costly to eat in town, and the food were prepared pretty unhygenically. There were rats and insects all over.

Being here now in USA, we really miss the convenience of the hawker foods. I have to cook our meals, as it takes a 20 minute drive out to get proper food. Every week day, I cook to pack food for my husband's lunch/dinner box, for him to bring to work. I know how hard he's been working, and how tired he is everyday, and I prepare every meal with love hoping it will make him feel better with the yummy food that he puts in his mouth.

Today's lunch box consists of Teriyaki Chicken and Bok Choy with Oyster Sauce.

The Teriyaki Chicken recipe is adapted from:
I have tried several recipes from here and they're all great and easy to cook.. Will update with pictures as I go along.

Recipe: Teriyaki Chicken

1 chicken thigh (you can choose to debone it, but I left the bones on.)
2 tablespoon mirin
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
drizzle of cooking oil

1. Marinate the chicken in mirin, soy sauce, and sugar for 30 mins.
2. Drain, reserve the marinate.
3. Cook the chicken in cooking oil skin side down. When browned, turn and cook the other side.
4. Add 3 tablespoon of water to the reserved marinate, and pour over chicken. Cover and simmer until cooked through. ( about 15 mins)
5. Remove cover, raise the heat until sauce is reduced to a glaze.

You may choose to slice it now, or if you're rough like me, serve it as the whole thigh, and bite into it like a carnivore. ;)

This recipe is only for 1 chicken thigh. I usually cook 1 thigh for each person, so just multiply all ingredients with the number of people eating. The guys pretty liked the chicken I cooked the last time, and I'm sure they'll enjoy it again today.

I apologise for the lousy food presentation, but I only remembered to take a photo of it after packing it into his pyrex containers. I'll try to improve on the presentation part. But its still yummy! ;)

Great shopping haul for the kitchen!

I had an amazing kitchen shopping haul this time. The friends were commenting on how funny it is that I traveled hundreds of miles to buy kitchenware to cook. They were loading up on branded clothes at the factory outlets.


Here's what I got:
- Japanese egg cooking pan
- Food scale ( I couldn't get one in the entire Mountain Home, and boy am I glad to get it on this trip, finally I can start baking!)
- steamer pan
- egg molds
- donburi pan
- knife/ scissors sharperner

These may seem like minute items, but they add up to big scale differences in my kitchen... Will try to take some pics to show you how they look like. I'm actually pretty psyched and crazy about using them already! ;)