Oven Fries

My boys asked for some French fries. I had some potatoes. I didn't want to do clean up afterwards.

My solution was 'cook' potatoes in the oven!

First, slice potatoes to the shape you like. Then, coat them with olive or vegetable oil.

Bake the potatoes in the oven at 375F for 20 to 25 minutes.

That's all!

Crispy Oven Baked Zucchini Fries

I started browsing more meal ideas on Pinterest. Never heard of it? It is a bit difficult to describe what it is. Here is the site is about: http://m.pinterest.com/about/

I bought one zucchini specifically for this recipe:

http://pinterest.com/pin/232779874460585808/

The recipe calls for panko, Japanese bread crumbs. It is available in the international or ethnic section at most grocery stores.

I make my own. Here is how.
1. Dry sliced bread for about half a day.
2. Make crumbs in a food processor.
That's it! I usually use 8-10 slices of bread. I keep them in the freezer.

These were very good! Next time, I will increase the amount of garlic powder and paprika, and add a little of salt. Even my super picky son said good and actually ate some. :-)

Useful Websites

Boy!  I have not posted anything about two months!  I try to update at least once a week from now on. 

I would like to post a few useful websites:

Calorie Count
I modify baking recipes A LOT to reduce the amount of sugar and fat.  I use this web site to find out how much calories I was able to reduce. 

The tool I use is called "Recipe Analyzer."

Once a Month Mom
I found this website recently.  I have quite a few freezer friendly recipes already, yet this site offers more than recipes!  I haven't fully utilize this website yet.  I'm hoping to add more freezable recipes to my recipe collections.

Meal Planning: 40 Recipes for Shredded Chicken
We buy chicken already frozen.  This is something I would like to try. 

King Arthur Flour
For baking recipes, this web site is my go to site.  I found most of the treats recipes are way to sweet for my taste.  I cut sugar by 1/2 at least. 

Homemade Granola

My first (successful) granola!

Japanese Hamburger （ハンバーグ）

My husband does not complain if I make stir-fried veggies, but he gives me a hint that he wants to have beef or pork in the dish. 


Okay, okay. 


How about this?  Japanese Hamburger

Hamburger Buns

I don't know what made me wanting to try baking hamberger buns on Sunday.  For bread baking recipes, I always check the recipes at the King Arthur Flour web site.  Beautiful Burger Buns is the recipe I tried this time. 

One of the best wedding gifts we received.  This bread machine has been working faithfully almost eight years.  I use this machine for kneading only.  I prefer to transfer the dough in to bread loafs and bake them in the oven.

I used the dough cycle.  This was after 1.5 hours from the beginning. 

Divide dough in eight pieces using my electronic scale.  You don't need to do this way, but I like to get each dough ball close to the same size. 

Flatten each dough ball with a rolling pin.  Let them raise for about one hour.

Brush the buns with melted butter.

Bake for 15-18 minutes at 375F.

I made a portobello mushroom burger.  Mmm!

Preparing ahead...

This week is going to be busy! 

As soon as I come from grocery shopping, I wash and prepare packable fruits and veggies such as grapes and celery. 

I recently purchased these BPA free plastic lunch boxes (set of four on the right) from Amazon.  There are three compartments.  I filled the smaller compartments with cut fruits and veggies.  I can pull the frozen sandwich in the morning to put in the main compartment, or fill with something else.  I hope this will save me several minutes in the morning this week.  



Flourless Chocolate Cake

To accompany the latte, we needed something chocolaty (coffee and chocolate - perfect combination, right)?

The quick easy chocolate cake recipe is Flourless Chocolate Cake.  I love King Arthur Flour products and recipes.  I actually flew all the way to Vermont to take their baking lesson. 

Here are the main ingridients.  I'm sure the recipe was tested by their bakers, but I always cut the amount of sugar in half even for a recipe I never baked before.

The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup of sugar, but I only used 1/3 cup here.

I used 1/2 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of unsweetened chocolate to even reduce the sugar content. 

Melt butter and chocolate (in microwave for 1.5 minutes).  

Mix well.  The texture should be very silky.

Espresso powder is optional.  I used probably 1/4 spoon to enhance the chocolate flavor. 

Add sugar, eggs and a pinch of salt.  Mix well.  Add cocoa powder.

Ready for baking!

The original recipe calls for glaze, but this is sweet for us. I occasionally serve this cake with whipped cream. My husband likes to eat with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.





Latte

I thought June would be warmer and sunny.  It has been rainy and cold.  :-(

It was a perfect time to have a cup of latte...

We don't have an espresso machine.  I don't remember when I purchased this stove-top espresso maker, but this is at least eight years old.     

While waiting for espresso to be brewed, I warm milk in the microwave.  I love this milk frother (Aerolatte).

Milk frother in action!

Ready... 

My New Favorite Magazine

I used to subscribe a few magazines. Since I found I could check them out from a local library, I didn't renew the subscriptions.

SAVEUR - I never heard of this magazine before. How did I find it out? The super great subscription deal was posted on a couponing website. It was only $13.50 for a three-year subscription! Of course, I checked the magazine reviews at Amazon first.

The magazine is pretty thin (80 pages), but loaded with beautiful pictures. What I like the most is featuring cuisine from around the world. I'm going to try a recipe from Senegal, "Màfe Ginnar (peanut and chicken stew)" this weekend!

Freezing Nutbutter and Honey Sandwich

We don't buy bread from store for a few reasons: 1) cheaper to make than buy, 2) no yucky stuff in the bread, and 3) who doesn't like to eat the freshly baked bread?

I'll post my bread making process at another time. 

I bake two loaves of sandwich bread at once and freeze one loaf.  I read the other day that you can freeze peanut butter sandwich!  We like peanut butter and honey sandwich.  Some web posts say that honey gets crystallized when frozen.  Hmmm...  When not sure, test it out!

Here are my loaves of bread.  I mixed all purpose flour and white whole wheat flour this time. 

I decided to use my almond butter this time. 







Assembly line.

Mmm...

Ready to go into the freezer.

I was not sure how the texture of honey would turn out when thawed.  Therefore, I only made three sandwiches. 

Sandwich was at least frozen eight hours before taking it out from the freezer.  I took the frozen sandwich to work today for part of my lunch.  I could not tell it was frozen!  Honey was a tiny bit grainy, yet it did not bother me.  This will save tons of time for prepping lunch in the morning. 

Vanilla Extract

I stopped buying vanilla extract as I would go through so much with the amount of baking I do.  After an internet search, I learned I can make my own vanilla extract.  Yippee!

All you need is vodka and vanilla beans.  I bought the least expensive vodka I could find.  I purchased the madagascar vanilla beans from Amazon.  The price changes frequently at Amazon, but the shipping is included!  Great deal.  :-)

It is difficult to see in this picture.  I cut the beans vertically.

 

Beans and vodka in the bottles (cut in half due to my bottles are short - like me!).  These bottles are kept in my pantry.

Day 3.  I wanted to show the difference. The one of the left I shook the bottle every day.  The one of the right, I did not shake it.  I will shake them once a day every day.  The vanilla extract will be ready in four to six weeks!  I'll post updated pictures later this month. 

Homemade Almond Butter

I saw Justin's Nut Butter (Classic Almond) was on sale at Moscow Food Co-op.  I'd been always wanting to try almond butter, yet I was a bit hesitant to spend 80 cents for a small packet for a taste test!

My research began.  I learned that I can make almond butter at home.  Yay!  Some people add oil and others used almonds only.  Many recipes used roasted almonds, but I decided to use raw almonds for my first experiement. 

I used 1 cup (about 4 oz) raw almonds.







About 30 seconds later...  Almonds were coarsely chopped.

After five minutes. 

It felt like rough clay.  Kept scraping every two minutes or so...

 It started to look like paste!






Scrape.  Turn on the food processer.  Stop and scrape.  I must have repeated process at least 10 times.






Oil started showing up.

 My first almond butter!  It took about 18 minutes. 

Costco sells this 3-lb bag for US$13.20.
3 lbs. = 48 oz

4 oz of homemade almond butter = US$1.10  Not bad at all!  The little packet of almond butter contains 1.15 oz.  I believe regular price is 99 cents at co-op.  I could be wrong...   










I thought that almond butter was slightly sweeter than peanut butter.  I can not wait for almond butter and honey sandwich on homemade bread.  Mmm.....

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello!

I started cooking when I was six years old.  Since then I have developed a passon for making other people happy (through their stomatch)!

I would like to show you how easy it is to creat home made meals and baked goods.  It is not that difficult!  Really. :-)