The first time I had a chicken teriyaki bowl was at Whole Foods.  It became one of my favorite lunches to get there, as it was wholesome, healthy and not to mention, delicious!  Because the Whole Foods that I go to that makes it fresh to order is far from I live, I decided to make it myself, and it’s become a favorite dish in our household.

It’s so simple, and its so filling!

Ingredients I Used:

Brown rice
Chicken breasts
Salt and Pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Steamed Brown Rice
Scallions
Teriyaki Sauce
Sesame seeds

How I Made It:

Brown rice takes a long time to cook, so I started that first.  Thank goodness for a rice cooker.  I followed the directions on the package.

Then, I spiced the chicken breasts with salt and pepper.  Then, I heated a pan and put some EVOO on it to prevent the chicken from sticking.  I cooked the chicken for about 15-20 minutes and then cut the cooked chicken into strips.

While the chicken was cooking I cut up the scallions. Depending on how much you like scallions you can use one or two. I used two since it was a dish for me and Glen.

Once the rice was cooked, I put the rice in separate bowls, followed by the chicken, teriyaki sauce, scallions and topped with sesame seeds. That’s it!

End Result:

A simple, dinner that can be cooked in less than an hour, and delicious too!

Today’s my mom’s birthday!  It was a simple birthday celebration at my parent’s house.  I had offered to buy dinner and bring it home, but she had insisted on cooking herself.  In the Filipino culture, birthdays are celebrated by cooking a dish called pancit, which is a noodle dish with vegetables and some kind of meat.  My mom chose to put chicken it it.  She even grilled some spare ribs!  My sister bought this delicious chocolate cake.

Of course, I had to take pictures of the food, and especially the cake.  It looked beautiful and was delicious.  Now that I think of it, I wish I had taken some home when my mom had asked!  Oh well… I’m trying to lose weight, and the cake won’t help! Hah.

My mom blowing out the candles on her cake.  See the flowers?  Glen gave those to my mom, how sweet!   I’m holding my nephew, who looks like he wants a piece of that cake!

And also, we celebrated our dog Lex’s birthday too!  We think he was born around November since he was 2 months when we adopted him.  He’s 4 years old now!

Ever since November started, I’ve been thinking a lot about Thanksgiving. The food, the desserts, the turkey! Glen had an interesting idea… lets cook our own turkey and other Thanksgiving food… this weekend! We got a small turkey, about 12 pounds and pretty much winged it. After thawing the bird for about a day, we were able to cook it in the oven today. It came out well!

Things I learned about a turkey:

• A turkey needs a LOT of time to thaw.  A LOT.
• It’s best to marinate the bird in water and spices for the best flavor – not that our bird wasn’t good, it was, but it could have been better.
• Make sure the gizzard is out of the bird, as we had found it after carving the turkey, in a plastic bag.  It was deep in the turkey’s butt?   We thought they take that out before packaging the turkey!

Of course, we had to make stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy.

As dessert, I made candied yams!  This is a really easy dessert to make.  Seriously.

I used 1 big can 40 oz. of Bruce’s Yams, 4 teaspoons (1/2 stick) of butter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and crushed ginger and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg.  I mixed it up in the Kitchenaid mixer and then added it to a rectangular pan.  I topped it with marshmallows and placed it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes.  Done!

And this was my plate of delicious Thanksgiving-esque food.  I couldn’t even finish the bit of turkey I had!  At least we have leftovers!  …for days.

At least we get to enjoy Thanksgiving again in a few weeks, and I won’t have to do a thing!  Maybe I’ll bake something and bring it to the Thanksgiving dinner we will be going to!

For some odd reason, I was craving hot dogs today.  I used to live in NYC and you really couldn’t go wrong with a $2 hot dog, which you could pretty much find on any NYC street corner, and they were quite tasty!  Since NYC is now far far away, I had to settle with just buying some hot dogs at the grocery store with buns, but then my fiance, Glen suggested we make chili cheese hot dogs with chopped onion.  Definitely made the hot dog a bit more, sophisticated than your plain dog.

Ingredients I Used:

• 4 Beef Jumbo Hot Dogs
• 1 Can of Hormel Chili with Beans
• Chopped Onion
• Shredded Cheese
• Hot Dog Buns

This is considered a pretty budget friendly meal, since everything above cost under $10 altogether!

How I Made It:
First, I boiled the 4 beef hot dogs in water for about 10-15 minutes. Then, in another small pot, I heat up the chili, and while that was heating up, I chopped half of an onion, toasted hot dog buns and that was it. Brought the hot dogs, chili, chopped onions altogether, with cheese on top and done!

End Result:

This is a totally simple recipe which just consists of boiling, cutting and putting ingredients together… so it really didn’t take a long time, and all that food definitely gets you full fast! We both had 2 hot dogs each and I got only 1 and 1/2 eaten. LOL.

I also made some oven fries as a side, but by the time they were done, I was too full to eat them… I guess I can save them for lunch tomorrow!

Ah, Monday.  The weekend goes by so fast!  I braved the work day, and got home and got right to cooking dinner.  I was thinking shrimp because it’s been a while since I had shrimp, and I’ve been wanting to try this recipe by Melissa d’Arabian of Ten Dollar Dinners.  I watched an episode of her show and was instantly a fan of the concept of low cost, easy dinners that seem like gourmet meals!

I made the Lemony Shrimp Scampi pasta dish and thankfully I had most ingredients.

Lemony Shrimp Scampi Pasta (from Melissa d’Arabian) – Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 6 garlic cloves, pressed or grated
• 2 lemons, zested and juiced
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 pound medium shrimp (21 to 25), peeled, deveined and butterflied (reserve shells)
• 1/4 onion
• 3/4 pound thin linguini
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 small bunch parsley, leaves chopped (unfortunately, I didn’t have any of this on hand)

How I Made It:

First, I took out the shrimp from the freezer and put it in a bowl of water to defrost.  While that was defrosting, I cut up 6 garlic cloves, since I don’t have a grater.  It took me a while to peel and chop, which made me come to the conclusion I need to pick up a garlic press or grater.  I then put together the marinade which consists of the garlic, 1 lemon – add juice and zest (which I also didn’t add either), olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

I went back to the bowl of defrosting shrimp and peeled them, placing them into the bowl of marinade.  I took the peels and put them into another small pot, added some water and the onion to make shrimp stock.  While that was simmering, I added water to another pot for the pasta to cook in.  When the water  started to boil, I added some salt, followed by the pasta.  I used vermicelli since that was the only thin pasta I had.

By then, the shrimp stock should’ve been done, and the pasta needs to boil for about 4-5 minutes.  I then turned the stove off, and took a 1/2 cup of pasta water and 1 cup of shrimp stock, and set it aside.  By this time, it’s time to cook the shrimp.  I heated another pan and once it was heated, I put the shrimp into the pan and cooked until pink and carmelized.  I added in the rest of the marinade from the bowl and let it cook for a minute.  Then I added the pasta water and shrimp stock and let it cook altogether until it becomes it thickened.  Then I added the butter and lemon juice.  And finally, I added the shrimp and pasta and let it cook together for a few more minutes.  Yay!  Food is done, and can be served immediately in a bowl.

End Result:

If you like lemony, shrimp combined with pasta, you’ll definitely love this dish.  It even has a spicy kick to it because of the red pepper flakes which makes the dish even more divine.  The best part is, most ingredients are usually on hand if you have a fully stocked kitchen!

I’ve always made macaroni and cheese the easy way, using the good ol’ Kraft Mac and Cheese in a box, but today, I felt like making mac and cheese a different way, from scratch! I found a Baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe online and decided to give it a whirl.

The recipe itself is very simple, took less than 20 minutes to prepare, and another 30 minutes to cook. By the time the dish was done, I was totally ready to eat!

I preheated the oven to 350 first. I boiled 1 1/3 cup of macaroni pasta for about 10 minutes. Didn’t want to fully cook the pasta, yet. I mixed one egg, about a cup of milk, 3 tablespoons of melted butter and a cup of shredded cheddar cheese together in another bowl. Once the pasta was drained, I transferred that to my baking dish, and then added the mixture. I mixed that all together, added about another cup of shredded cheese and salt and pepper and mixed once again.

In about 30 minutes, this is the result of my baked mac and cheese!

It didn’t taste too bad either, although it could have used maybe a 1/2 cup of milk more (it was kind of dry) and some more salt and pepper. Glen said it would be cool to add some bacon or ham, which is definitely not a bad idea. It would definitely give some more flavor to the dish.

If you really want to try this recipe, you can use the AllRecipes.com recipe and change the serving count, depending on how many you’re cooking for. I set my servings to 4 since it is enough for me, Glen and some extra for lunch tomorrow.

I’ve never had tuna casserole before, until I met Glen (my fiance). I was at his house and his mom had made tuna noodle casserole and I thought the idea was kind of weird. One, because I’ve never had any type of casserole in my life (thank my mom for not making mostly Filipino dinners) and I’ve only had tuna in a sandwich. Yes, I probably sound pretty sheltered huh? Anyway, once I had my first bite of tuna casserole I absolutely loved it. The flavors of the cream of mushroom soup and tuna together was excellent and I knew I had to find out how she made it.

I didn’t have to go crazy finding out how to make it because, it’s a Campbells Soup recipe! It’s pretty easy too but requires ingredients you probably have to go to the grocery and buy, unless you have a lot of cans of tuna, curly egg pasta, cream of mushroom soup, milk and breadcrumbs.

There are several recipes and variations of making tuna noodle casserole, even using cream of celery soup, which I don’t know if the flavors are much different or not.

I used this recipe, except I only put 1 cup of peas (2 looked like way too much) and made more breadcrumb topping because it’s a really yummy touch to it! (I added about 6 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and 3 tablespoons for butter)

Here is the result, I was kind of anxious (and hungry) so you’ll see I already got started eating it.

Glen said it tasted the same way his mom makes it (except it was creamier). As the casserole sits though (out of the oven), the creaminess gets thicker, which is good. Tuna noodle casserole is also good the next day, and we definitely had enough to bring to work for lunch tomorrow!