be KIND

One of my recent obsessions are KIND bars.

Almond & Apricot and Cranberry Almond + Antioxidants. I've had both of these, and they're both really delicious!

I never thought I would like a granola bar that much, especially some of the flavor combinations they have. All of the ones I've tried so far, such as Mango Macadamia + Calcium, Almonds and Apricots in Yogurt, are really amazing though. Plus, they're healthy for you!...Unlike some of the granola bars out on the market that contain a lot of sugar and processed junk. They are all natural, have a low glycemic index, 5g of fiber, non gmo, and have low sodium; and are free of gluten and wheat, trans fats, dairy, and sulphur dioxide.

What's your favorite flavor?

Note: Products were purchased by me, with my own money. All opinions are my own.

Korean Inspired Chicken

My next chicken dish is completely different from my last post even though I'm using the same cut of chicken, the chicken thigh. This time around, there is a longer wait time since I used a marinade for the chicken. I used a Korean BBQ Kalbi Marinade, typically used for pork short ribs. The chicken was marinaded in this sauce overnight before baking. The chicken was baked for about 45 mins at 350 degrees, with flipping the chicken halfway through.

Alongside the chicken, I made some steamed white rice and stir-fried veggies. The zucchini and baby bella mushrooms were seasoned with just salt and pepper and stir-fried in some olive oil. Simple, tasty, and healthy.

I also had a side of kimchi. The easiest comparison I can make is that kimchi is similar to pickles except it's more spicy than sour, and instead of using cucumber, the main ingredient is napa cabbage (chinese cabbage). The kimchi I had was napa cabbage that was pickled/fermented with ginger, green onions, garlic, salt, and chili pepper.

Two different brands of kimchi.

Here is the complete dish with the chicken!

Simplicity

I recently bought some chicken thighs at the grocery store that were on sale, $0.77 per pound! So the next two posts will consist of two different chicken dishes. I wanted something simple and easy to make, but still tasted like it took a lot of effort to prepare.

All I did was take some chicken thighs and generously sprinkle lemon pepper seasoning and extra black pepper all over the chicken. I opted to not add any extra oil to them because chicken thighs are the more fatty part of the chicken, and the skin was also still on it. I baked the chicken skin side up for about 30-40 mins at 375 degrees until the skin was a nice crispy golden brown. Since the extra fat should melt right off of the chicken as it's baking, I put the chicken on some foil with the edges turned up so that the foil catches any of the extra liquid. All of this is put on a cookie sheet so everything was easier to transfer in and out of the oven.

Since the chicken is a dark meat, I decided to serve it alongside some romaine lettuce with sun dried tomato vinaigrette to balance the fattiness of the dark meat and the lightness of the salad.

This meal tastes great the next day as well. I took some leftovers for lunch at work and it was really satisfying. I do recommend though that any time you pack a salad, to pack the salad separately from the dressing so it does not become soggy.

A Corny Wine Weekend

This was probably one of the funnest weekends I've had in quite some time. I was visiting one of my friends I hadn't seen in over a year. First thing on the list of to dos was to go to a local farm that had a corn maze. I realize this technically doesn't have anything to do with food, but I did have roasted corn from this local farm...so I'm posting pictures from the corn maze because it is made of corn!

Yummy roasted corn!

Entrance into the corn maze. Called "The Maize"...I really like the pun.

The picture of the maze on the board is a real picture of what the maze looks like from the sky. Even though I saw what the maze looked like on their website, I assumed that it wasn't a true picture of what the maze would be like and that it would be easy, but boy was I wrong!

The maze was actually more challenging than we expected. My friend even said "I thought this was going to be more like a leisurely stroll." I think we were in the maze for almost an hour and a half. Though we did take a few breaks for water (they have 2 areas with free water), and breaks on some of the bridges that make you feel like you're on top of the highest mountain top looking over...CORN, heh. It was nice to breathe in some fresh air and admire the gorgeous blue sky from those bridges.

Success!!

The corn maze was really fun! We also got to shoot corn cobs out of an air gun. I never thought I would ever do something like that!

Next on our to do list was to go to Llano Estacado, a local winery. This was my first experience to go to a winery and go on a wine tour, which also included a free wine tasting. I had a really great experience and the people working there were extremely nice. I was expecting wine snobs, but they were all genuine and used language we understood when describing each kind of wine. Between my friend and I, we ended up tasting about 8 different wines. I've never been very good with picking out wines that I like (especially since you can't try the wine in the grocery store before buying it), so the wine tasting helped me pinpoint specific kinds of wines that I enjoyed. I ended up coming home with 2 bottles of wines, the Gewurztraminer and the Viva Rosso. And my friend came home with the Sangiovese.

Description from the wine menu:
Gewurztraminer - "Said to be the spiciest of all grape varieties, this wine becomes an excellent complement to hot spicy meals. The ample residual sugar in the wine will actually 'put out the fire' on hot peppers."
Viva Rosso - "A blend of Brachetto d'Acqui and Moscato, Viva Rosso is a lighter, effervescent Italian Red Frizzante wine with a delicate sweetness that is perfect for any occasion. The Brachetto d'Acqui qualifies as a DOCG wine in Italy."
Sangiovese - "This Sangiovese is made in a light, fun, fruity style. Its floral aromas are coupled with flavors of black cherry and plum."
Moscato - "The unique tangerine-zest, key-lime aromatics come from the grape and a special process known as 'stopped-fermentation.' Through this process we are able to retain the natural sweetness and flavor of the grape along with a touch of 'frizzante' (effervescence)."

I also really liked Llano's Moscato (description above), but I didn't buy it at the winery since I've seen it at local grocery stores. The other three wines are only available at the winery or off of their website (though I believe you cannot order the Viva Rosso online because it does have a slight carbonation so it cannot be shipped). The description of the Moscato was right on, I could actually taste the key-lime aromatics which really intrigued me and is definitely on my grocery list.

It was a great weekend and I already miss my friend. Hopefully we will have more fun adventures next time we see each other!

Weird Food of the Day

I was walking around World Market and I stumbled upon this:

Torani flavoring syrup in BACON. (Excuse the quality of the photo, it was taken with my phone)

I'm a bit curious about how it tastes since I do like bacon, but a bacon infused sweet syrup?...I'm not so sure; especially as a flavoring in my coffee or an Italian soda, which is typically what I use Torani for. Maybe it would be something nice to use during breakfast.

Would any of you try it?

Dan Tat (蛋撻) aka egg tarts!

One of my favorite dim sum items is "dan tat". "Dan tat" is literally translated to egg tart. It is basically a pastry shell filled with a smooth, sweet egg custard. The pastry shell can be light, crispy, and flaky, similar to a puff pastry; or more dense and heavy like a shortcrust typically used for pies and tarts. I've noticed over the years that the crust has changed over time and seems to adjust according to how traditional or nontraditional a restaurant is; and if they have someone with the ability to make the crust from scratch. It is traditionally known to be a Cantonese baked good, but I've also seen Portuguese and Macau style egg tarts. Each kind having its own distinction. They even have flavored ones now like green tea egg tarts!

Cantonese style egg tarts during brunch in Los Angeles. I do not remember the name of the restaurant, but it was a traditional dim sum restaurant with the steaming carts full of goodies.

 Portuguese style egg tarts. This was at very non-traditional dim sum restaurant where they served dim sum straight from the kitchen and not from those carts.

My parents came to visit me this weekend, and my dad's first request..."will you make dan tat?!"

I've figured out how to make the egg custard part, but haven't attempted making the crust from scratch yet. I use store bought pie crust instead. I use a wine glass to cut out circles from the pie crust which I then roll out to make them thinner. They are pressed into a muffin tray. I then make the egg custard using this recipe that I've adapted from different recipes online:

Preheat the oven to 350-375 degrees.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1/4 cup evaporated milk
 <1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Scramble the eggs.
2. Then add the milk and mix thoroughly.
3. A trick to making sure everything is incorporated is to add the water in parts. Add half first, mix, then add the rest, and mix again.
4. I used two different types of sugars because the powdered sugar dissolves more easily, so it's added after the regular sugar, which then has more time to dissolved. Add the regular sugar first, before the powdered sugar.
5. Add the vanilla extract.
6. Pour the mixture through a sieve to remove any egg that didn't completely mix. The sieve helps to make sure your mixture is homogenized and that the custard will be smooth after baking.
7. Carefully pour the mixture into the pressed crusts in the muffin tin.

Bake for approximately 20-30 mins. or until the center is set.

This recipe makes 12 egg tarts. 

I really like these straight out of the oven when they're still warm. The next time I make these, I will attempt to make the crust from scratch. Wish me luck! I'll let you know how they turn out.

My First Descaling

This post is about a couple weeks late...I really need to stop slacking and publish posts immediately. My lame excuse is that I didn't have time to edit the pictures. Anyways, better late than never, right?

I've been so busy this past week with traveling for a friend's wedding shower, spending almost 6 hours at the ER with a friend the night/morning I got back into town, and research research research. I haven't had much sleep, or any healthy, homemade food. I've been slacking horribly this week and getting takeout way too much for my liking. So time to cook something homemade!

I bought some fresh salmon yesterday. Isn't it a beauty?!

It was a pretty large fillet of salmon (longer than a foot), so I ended up cutting it into 5 single servings...and to my horror, I realized that the skin on the salmon still had the scales. Yikes!! I've never descaled a fish for the fact that I typically get filleted and skinless fish because I'm LAZY. I guess there's a first for everything though. I took the challenged and dived head first, or I guess knife first at the scales. It was sooooo worth it! The salmon came out really tasty. I kept it pretty basic and just used the seasonings I already had in my pantry, lemon pepper salt mix, a little extra black pepper, and some parsley; and some olive oil in a hot nonstick skillet was used to cook it.

The salmon had a perfect sear, and the skin was nice and crispy. It reminded me of those salmon skin sushi rolls many Japanese sushi restaurants serve.

I served the salmon with some wild mushroom herb couscous (from a box, please don't tell anyone!). As you can see, I took a bit of the salmon before I remembered to take a picture of it, oops!

What's your favorite way to prepare salmon?