Make, Bake, Be Happy!

On Friday I discovered an interesting sandwich at Starbucks.  I don’t know about you, but I love the sandwiches at Starbucks.  They’re not too expensive and they’re healthy and quite filling.  I usually get the turkey and swiss on wheat bread, but I had found a different turkey sandwich variation called, “Grandma’s Turkey Sandwich” which has cranberry, stuffing and turkey on whole wheat bread.  It was actually REALLY good, and today I decided to create that sandwich myself.

I basically took multigrain bread (the only bread we had on hand at that moment) and toasted it really well.  I cooked some Stovetop Savory Herb stuffing and opened a can of cranberry sauce.  I had bought some turkey breast at Publix at the deli to last for the week.  And seriously, that was it.  I put it all together and voila!  My own Thanksgiving-esque sandwich.  It’s quite tasty, and I couldn’t even finish the whole thing!

Who says you can’t have Thanksgiving early?

I packed up my lunch before leaving for work today – an Almond Butter sandwich (on multi-grain bread), some string cheese, and avocado in milk with some sugar.  I was totally happy with eating that but then, as I was picking up a gift for my mom’s birthday, I realized there was a great sushi place I hadn’t been at in a while!

This place is kind of a little hole in the wall (which I love) in the corner of a plaza.  There’s kind of a story behind how I found this place.  It was by total chance, and I thank my good friend Olivia for checking this place out.  We were hungry, and she pointed out this sushi place called Yokohama Sushi.  We then discovered that they had a 50% off menu on their sushi menu!  After that day, it was definitely a place we frequented a lot, and even the waitress knows us!

So, today I ended up getting a Mexican Roll (for only like $5.50) and enjoyed it fully!

Here’s a closeup of a roll – a Mexican roll is basically shrimp tempura, spicy mayo, avocado and lettuce with sesame seeds.  Not the healthiest, but moderation is key, right?

A bit later, I had my avocado dessert.  This is something that my dad would make whenever we had avocado in the house, and I had decided to make it for myself. 

I’m planning to check out a gym near my place, and then veg out after.  I’m excited about the gym though, because I NEED to get into shape.  Wedding dress fitting is coming up fast!!

After I went out to exercise, which consisted of some jogging and walking, I got home and tried to figure out this week’s food consumption for the week. Planning ahead always helps, and saves money too. We’ve been pretty lazy lately and went out to eat a lot last week, so I wanted to cook more this week. For some reason, I stumbled upon sushi recipes online and was intrigued enough to try doing it myself. Sushi isn’t cheap and after my stint of DIY sushi, I totally understand why.

Sushi requires a special rice, which is stickier than regular white rice. I also learned that you have to add flavor to the rice using a sugar/rice vinegar combination, and that I need more practice rolling sushi, but for a beginner, the end result wasn’t too shabby.

Ingredients I Used:
Sushi Rice
Rice Vinegar
Sugar
Sushi seaweed
1/2 a cucumber
1 small avocado
2-3 pieces of imitation crab

How I Made It:
Depending on the type of sushi rice you get, you probably should follow their instructions. I used 2 cups of sushi rice, washed it and added 2 1/4 cups of water and mixed it on high heat until it boiled. Then I covered the pot with the lid and reduced the heat to low and let it cook for about 25 minutes. After that, I took it off the heat and let the rice cool still with the lid on.

To make the sushi rice seasoning, I used 6 tablespoons of rice vinegar and 5 tablespoons of sugar in a small pan and let the sugar dissolve in the vinegar. Once dissolved I then put the seasoning into a small boil to cool off. Once cooled off, I put mixed the seasoning into the rice. I set the rice aside and began to cut the veggies.

I cut the cucumber into skinny strips, as well as the avocado. The imitation crab is already in strips but I cut them in half, lengthwise. That’s all I cut as far as the sushi ‘filling.’

Then, using my bamboo placemat, which emulates those sushi rollers that sushi chefs used, wrapped in plastic wrap, I placed the seaweed on top and put the rice on top of it, covering all the seaweed. Then, I added the filling at the end (the end right in front of me) and began rolling. I realized that I really should have rolled as tight as possible, otherwise, it results in falling apart rice and sushi filling. I learned this in the first round. The second round of trying to make a roll was better, but the third was probably the best, I guess because I learned from my mistakes!

Once the roll was made, I cut through it, making little sushi pieces.  I also decided to add some sesame seeds on top just because I love them.

End Result:

Yay!  By the way, this is the best wasabi in a tube I’ve ever had with Soy Sauce!

And here is me, proud of my attempt of sushi and being silly.  It was a pigtail type of day.

I think with more practice I can make my own sushi, and try making other sushi favorites of mine such as salmon skin rolls and dragon rolls!  Ever try to DIY sushi?

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!

In honor of football Sunday, I decided to make barbecue chicken pizza.  I’ve never made pizza before, but I knew it couldn’t be that difficult, considering I was using already made pizza dough.  All I really had to do was provide the toppings.  I decided to make a barbecue chicken pizza because I was craving those toppings.

Ingredients I Used:

• 2 small chicken breast cutlets – spiced with sea salt, ground pepper and garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil (for cooking the chicken breasts)
• 1/2 a large red onion
• 1 package of shredded mozzarella cheese (about 2 cups)
• Your favorite barbecue sauce – I used Sweet Baby Ray’s
• 1 Package of Pillsbury Pizza Crust

How I Made It:
I took two chicken breast cutlets, spiced them with sea salt, ground pepper and some garlic powder and sauteed it in a pan with extra virgin olive oil for about 10 minutes.  While that was cooking, I cut up some red onion.  Once the chicken was a bit cooled, I cut the chicken breasts into small cubes.  I took the rectangular pan and sprayed some cooking spray on it so the pizza dough won’t stick.  I then opened the pizza dough and laid it out on the rectangular pan.  I took some barbecue sauce and spread it all over the dough, acting as the sauce.  Then, I took the chicken and spread it throughout the dough, followed by some shredded mozzarella cheese, and finally spread the red onion onto the pizza.  I also made a crust along the edges.  For baking time, I followed the directions for baking the pizza from the Pillsbury Pizza Crust.  In about 13 minutes or so, my pizza was done!

End result:

As far as taste goes, it was delicious, although I noticed I should have added more sauce closer to the crust.  I honestly did not realize how much more topping I could have put.  Live and learn!  Not bad for a first time making pizza.  I love how the Pillsbury dough is so easy to use and saves a lot of steps for the whole pizza dough part.  I’ll definitely be making more pizzas using this crust in the future.