Things I made before I went to Japan

I know. It really has been a while since I updated my last post. I went to Japan for a while to spend some time with my family and friends. I took my son to Japan for the first time. We had great time! We were so busy that I didn't even have time to blog while I was in Japan. Plus, I didn't cook anything while I was there.

Now we are back and back to our normal life, I am cooking again.

But before I post the things I cooked recently, I have many things which I cooked before I went to Japan so I would like to post those first.

First of all, I would like to show you some of the things which I made with my mom friends during our cooking play date.

First one if the pound cake. One of the mom had the recipe from someone she knew and we tried this recipe. We were supposed to use a tube pan and my friend asked me if I have one. I said "Sure!!! I have tube pan." thinking my loaf pan is what she meant. Though we were actually supposed to use tube pan (bundt pan or ring pan), it came out great. ( Well, it took a lot longer than it suggested since we used different type of pan). It was moist and very tasty. We had this pound cake with some tea. What a wonderful afternoon tea time we had!

This recipe was from a book which someone my friend know made from using all her friend's recipes. I think this is a great idea to make a recipe book with your friends or family. Maybe I should try it sometimes.

Next one if the one which I made with one of the mom friends when others couldn't make it to the play date. This was when St. Patrick's day was around the corner and we wanted to make something Irish.

First, we cooked ground beef with some veggies.

Then, you covered it with mushed potato which you made separately.

Sprinkle some cheese and bake in the oven .

Serve. This was really good! I never thought about making Shepard's pie so this was great experience for me. Our son had some also and he liked it too!


Then, one of the mom friends whose mother is from Guyana taught us her mom's special chicken curry.
First, cook chicken with spices and vegetables.

Then, you add water and cook until the chickens are tender and fall off the bones. This was super delicious! I loved it. This time, we didn't make it spicy but I would have loved it more if it was little bit spicier. Maybe I will try to make this by myself again and make it spicy!

The rest are the things which I made by myself.

This is the beef cooked in red wine. I had red wine left over which I had to use so I made this dish. It was good. Strong wine taste.

Then, lemon pound cake. After I realized that I don't have a tube pan. I bought it when it was on sale. I wanted to use it so I made lemon pound cake with this pan. It was delicious. My husband loves lemon pound cake so he ate a lot of them.

Pour over some lemon glaze.

This is scone. When we went for a two days trip to up state NY, we bought clotted cream which I was searching for a long time. So I baked this scone in order to enjoy the clotted cream which I finally was able to purchase. I really liked the scone which I had at the Plaza Hotel in NY so I tried to find the recipe and found something so I tried. For some reason, it didn't rise and was kind of flat but the taste was amazing! Plus the clotted cream and jam makes it even better!

This is a chunk of beef which I bought by mistake. I wanted to buy something different but I ended up buying this and I didn't know what to do so I just bake them in the oven with some spices. I don't quite remember what exactly I did with it but it tasted good.

And the last one was from the Jeremy Oliver book which I borrowed from the library. It is called Mustard Chicken. This has some leeks in the sauce and I love leeks so I used a lot of them. This was also delicious but the potion was just too much for two of of so I will try to make it in half portion next time.

Well, the summer is here and the time for BBQ. We had our first BBQ the other day. I love BBQ. This year, I would like to try something new to BBQ also :-)