Birthday Party

Well, It has been already three months since my son's birthday but I wanted to share what I made for his birthday. He turned 4 this year. I can not believe how time flies. He is such a wonderful boy and I am looking forward seeing him grow up.

Anyways, we invited many of his friends to out place to celebrate his birthday. It was nothing fancy but we had a wonderful time with our friends.

I made bunch of snacks and also lasagna. I forgot to take picture of lasagna but here are the other things I made for the party.

Corn and Bean dip

Buffalo Chicken Dip (This is before baking)

Caesar Salad

Veggie Sticks

Fruit and Cookies

Caprese Salad

For a cake, I decided to make banana pudding this year instead of Strawberry Cake. This Past three years, I made strawberry short cake for his birthday but I know I am not a great baker and it is quite difficult to make a big square cake which is moist and taste good. I remember it was quite hard and dry last year and I didn't want to take a risk this year so I decided to make something which I know it always come out great and always a great hit with everyone.

Banana Pudding (Magnolia Bakery Recipe)

This banana pudding never fails me and everybody loves it!

The birthday party was a success and I am very thankful that my son is a healthy 4 years old. I started this blog more than 4 years ago before I get pregnant with my son. Even though the update of this blog slowed down significantly, this blog helped me a lot and I would love to continue posting whenever I can.

Thank you for your support and I really appreciate my life every single day.

Aidells Chicken and Apple Sausage with Apple and Onion

In many of the supermarket I go to here in the U.S., I see this sausage from a company called Aidells. I tried this sausage for the first time when I was still living in California. I loved their Chicken and Apple sausage so I buy this sausage sometimes and chop it and add to Pasta for an easy quick meal.

Well, the other day I was buying this sausage again. As I was paying at the check out, the lady at the cashier told me that she loves this sausage and tried a recipe from their website which was awesome. She told me the recipe and insist that I should try it.

So, I went home and check their website and found the recipe she was talking about. It was easy recipe and had all the ingredients so I decided to give it a try. Here is the recipe from Aidells website if you are interested in. 

Saute sausage and take it out.

Also, saute onion and apple.

Add wine

Add sausage back and also cream

Done!

My husband and kid loved it. (Even though, my son was only eating pasta...)

It was super easy and tasty. I would use less apple next time but this is a great quick meal!

Stuffed Acorn Squash

How is everybody doing? Everyone must be busy with all the Christmas related parties and get together and preparations.

I actually just came back from Japan. I decided to go there spontaneously and stayed there for three weeks. It was a wonderful trip and my family were super super happy to have us. Our son was very happy to have many people to play with every day. He made my family laughed a lot. It was wonderful to see my family laughing and feeling happy.

I off course ate lots of good food while I was there. The weather in Tokyo was quite nice while I was there. Sunny everyday and the average temp was about 15C everyday which is about 60F.

So now, I am back to NY and experiencing this COLD COLD weather. I really don't like cold weather. Oh well, I should be thankful that I don't have to stay outside all day in this cold weather.

Today, I would like to write about the dish which I made before I went to Japan.

I see lots of pumpkins and squash in fall and I love using those vegetables when it is in season.

I saw a nice acorn squash so I made stuffed acorn squash. I actually made this dish before. I checked when I made it last time and found out that it was 2009. 4 Years ago!! Wow, time flies. If you are interested in the previous acorn post, click here.

I mentioned before also but I first ate stuffed pumpkin back when I was living in California. One night, I went to visit my friend who is French. He got hungry so he got some dinner leftover and ate it. I ate some and that was the first time I ever tried stuffed pumpkin. I thought "Wow, I never had this before. I guess this is some kind of French dish."

I believe they actually used pumpkin but since I found good acorn squash at my local supermarket, I use it. And this time, I added some rice to it also.

I didn't measure anything and I just winged it but this is how I made it.

I cut the top of acorn and took the seeds out. Then, add some brown sugar, salt and pepper and baked in the oven till it is soft.

First, I sautéed carrot, onion and celery.

Then, add ground beef with some spices. I used nutmeg, all spice, cinnamon, etc. When the meat is cooked, I added cooked rice.

When the acorn is soft, take out from the oven and stuff it with rice and meat mixture. Arrange extra mixture around it.

Put the lid back on and serve.

It was good but I made too much mixture. I should have made half of this. Also, I tasted too much All Spice. It has some room for improvement.

By the way, Christmas is approaching before you know it. It is just one week before Christmas!! I am not ready at all but we don't have big Christmas party or anything so I don't feel stressed. We might just go to Manhattan sometime to see the Christmas tree at Rockafellar Center or something like that. It will be nice to do something Christmasy with my family. Also, I would like to make Christmas cookie with my son and husband this weekend :-)

What is your Christmas plan? Hope everybody is having a great Holiday!

Apple Picking and Apple Pie

I love going to Apple picking in fall. A few weeks ago, we went to NJ for apple picking. This year, it was our son's first apple picking so we prepared him by explaining what it is and how to pick an apple.

I am not sure if he understood completely but he was mimicking us how to pick an apple from a tree and put it in a basket. He also learned a letter A for an apple and he found an apple tree in a book and saying "apple picking! Apple picking!" so he was absolutely excited about it.

In the past, we went to upstate NY for apple picking but this time we tried going to NJ. We went to this orchard called Sun High Orchard and we absolutely love it there.

The orchard was not too big and was actually perfect size for us and they had homemade apple cider, apple cider doughnuts, ice cream etc.

The owner of the orchard came to talk to us and told us about the orchard and which apple is the best right now. He was very friendly and I really liked that.

They also had some animals like this.

Our son enjoyed apple picking so much! The tree was not too tall and there were many apples on the lower part of the tree so my 2 year old son could easily pick them by himself.

So we got lots of apples in different kinds.

It was also Halloween season so there were many pumpkins there. Big pumpkins were bit pricy for us so we bought 4 small ones and those were very very reasonable price. And they are so cute! We gave one to our friend.

Our son likes apple so he eats apple if I peel them but since we have a lot of them, we decided to bake apple pie. Apple pie is also one of my favorite fall thing. When I smell apple pie, it makes me feel very happy and cozy. Since I am not good with making pie crust or any kind of dough, I decided to cheat and use frozen one. It came out perfectly!

We ate hot apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It seems like our son enjoyed ice cream more than apple pie but he also ate some apple pie and was very excited that it came from the apple he actually picked himself.

I am very happy that we took him for apple picking. I didn't think he would enjoy this much!

So I can check off the apple pie from the list of what I want to make in fall. Next is pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup! Well, actually I already made pumpkin soup so it is only pumpkin pie! Wish me luck!

Chicken Noodle Soup

In the U.S., when you have a cold, people eat Chicken Noodle Soup. Since I have a cold and I made roasted chicken the night before, I decided to make chicken noodle soup.

Some of you might know already but everytime we have whole roasted chicken, I made chicken stock from the bones of the chicken. If you are interested in how I made my chicken stock, here is the recipe.

It is super easy and freeze well and much better than store bought chicken stock!

So, in my opinion, if you have good chicken stock, you can not mess up chicken soup. You just add whatever vegetable you like, add some chicken (or not) and egg noodles.

Here is what I did,
Chopped ginger and green onion

Saute them in a pot with olive oil.

Chop other vegetables of your liking. I used carrot, zucchini, celery and red bell pepper.

Toss them in the pot.

When the vegetables are tender, add chicken stock. Bring it to boil, add egg noodle. Cook.

Then add cooked chicken, heat it through add salt and pepper for taste and done!

It is super easy and nutritious and kids love it also. It is chicken noodle soup but I sometimes omit chicken.

Enjoy!

Michael Symon's Roasted Chicken with Salsa Verde

I saw this recipe on a commercial one day. Iron Chef Michael Symon was showing this recipe. When I make salsa verde, I always think about Skirt Stake and that is what I always did so seeing him poruing salsa verde over the roasted chicken was quite a revelation to me.

Michael Symon is one of the Iron Chef on the food network show in the U.S. I always liked him but I got to meet him in person and take a photo with him last year. He was really nice and friendly so I like him even more now.

Even though I liked him,  this was actually my first time trying his recipe. It was pretty straight forward and came out really good.

The whole chicken was on sale this week so I decided to try this recipe.

Here is the link for his recipe on The Cooking Channel website. Click Here. 

The chicken came out juicy and flavorful from the lemon and herb. His recipe didn't call for the other stuff around the chicken but I tossed some potato and onion in it.

My son and my husband loved it also. What makes this chicken special is the salsa verde. My son helped me to make it and he was tasting it while we made. It is quite strong taste but he liked it.

This salsa verde has anchovies in it. I didn't tell this to my husband since he is not a big fan of fish. But he loved this sauce so I was very happy. (He might change his opinion if I tell him that there is anchovies in it though..)

The air is getting cooler and time to use oven again. Roasted Chicken is a perfect family meal which makes everyone happy. (Plus, you can make chicken broth with the leftover bones!)


By the way, my 2 year old son is definitely being 2 years old lately. He has a strong will sometimes and if he doesn't like something, he really doesn't like it even when it is a small thing.

Also, he is such an artist so he draw something and even when I think it looks great, if he doesn't like it somehow, he gets upset and cross it out. I think he is very good at drawing and I am so curious how his drawing develop over time.

He is also very much a daddy's boy. He is so attached to him and if my husband is home, he want to do everything with his daddy. Sometimes when I come over to them, he tells me to go somewhere else. I am happy that he loves his daddy but at the same time it makes me so sad that he doesn't want me around. He is not like that when he is alone with me but when his daddy is home, I am a third wheel.

Normally, I am OK with it but when he cry and screams for his daddy when I am right in front of him, I feel useless and sad.

I was talking about this to my mother the other day and my mom told me that he is like me when I was little. I was not that extreme but I was definitely daddy's girl and I didn't like it when my mom was close to my dad. She told me don't worry and don't feel bad about it. She assured me that my son loves me. So I guess my son got this from me. This kind of made me laugh.

I am glad that I talked to my mom. She always makes me feel good and make me feel like everything is going to be fine :-) She knows exactly what I need to hear. I hope I can be like my mom to my son. I want to make him feel good and happy and safe :-)

Tyler Florence's Ultimate Potato Gratin

I learned this potato gratin long time ago from my friend in California. She told me that she saw this on Food Network once and made it for me. It was super rich and really good so I wrote down the recipe and made this a few times after that.

I always thought she told me that this is a recipe from Jamie Oliver so the other day I checked online for his potato gratin recipe but I couldn't find same recipe from Jamie Oliver.

Then, I found this recipe from Tyler Florence which was exactly same as the one I wrote down. So, it was actually Tyler Florence's recipe.

Whenever I try Tyler Florence's recipes, I love them. I think him and I have a similar taste in food :-)
So it was not surprising to find that this recipe I love was actually from him.

Anyways, this is so yummy but super rich and most likely very high in calories so you can not eat a lot at once. I think it will be good when you have some people over.

If you are interested in his recipe, here is the link to his recipe on Food Network site.

It is a bit time consuming but the flavor is well worth the time in my opinion.

First, saute bacon, cabbage, green onion, garlic, etc.

Cut potatoes and soak in heavy cream.

Layer potato and cabbage mixture oven dish.

After layering, add heavy cream and sprinkle cheese over it.

Bake in the oven.

Look at this! Isn't it tempting? It is really good. It a perfect dish for a cold winter night! I think this is also good as a side dish for some meat dish.

Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork

Pulled Pork is one of my husband's favorite dish to order when we go to BBQ joint. I tried to make it at home once but the result was not what I hoped for.

The other day, one of my friend got huge piece of pork shoulder and gave me some of it since they can not eat them all by themselves so I decided to try making pulled pork again.

I think I didn't cook enough last time so I decided to cook as long as it need this time.

And this time, I used this recipe which I had been very curious about.

Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork. Here is the link to her recipe. 

I love Dr. Pepper. I try not to drink it normally since sodas are not good for you but if you ask me what kind of soda I like, the answer will be Dr. Pepper. And, I drink them occasionally. Especially in summer when it is really hot and you are super thirsty, cold glass of Dr. Pepper with lots of ice taste super delicious!

Anyways, so I was curious about this pork recipe using Chipotle Chili and Dr. Pepper.

I like Chipotle Chili in Adobo Sauce but I know it is quite spicy for me so I decided to use half of what recipe called for.

And, I used my Le Creuset for this dish. After 4 hours in the oven, the pork was already fork tender.

After shredding the pork, put them back in the cooking liquid.

This pulled pork came out really good. The first night, we ate it with cole slaw and hamberger buns and the next day we ate with corn tortilla with salsa and chopped cilantro.

Since this recipe has Chipotle Chili with Adobo sauce in it, I tasted better when I ate with tortilla and cilantro. It was super good.

Since it is quite a big portion, I froze some of them. Now, I have pulled pork in my freezer anytime I want it!

Ellie Krieger's (again??) New Classic Meatlof

I know. I have been cooking from this book very often and quite obsessively but I think this post will be the last one from this book at least for a little while.

This time, I made meatloaf from her book. This meatloaf if a healthier version of regular meatloaf and it has lots of veggies and some oats.

Click here for her recipe. 

It was good but was not great. I think the reason why I didn't love it was because I used 98% fat free ground beef. The recipe called for 90% and higher and I chose to use 98% fat free to be extra healthy.

However, I think this decision backfired me. Since there was not much fat in it, it came out little dry.

It tasted really good and I love the fact that it had lots of vegetables in it so if I used 90% fat free meat, it should have been juicier and better.

The sauce was quite rich and yummy.

Even though I didn't love this meatloaf, my son loved it and he ate at lot of them. He ate it with pasta and also with rice.

This is a great way for kids to eat vegetable without even knowing.

For the side, I made roasted potatoes. Just simple potatoes with salt, pepper and olive oil.

I don't make meatloaf too often but next time I make it, I will use meat with more fat. That was the lesson I learned.

Anyways, I am running out of food pictures to post. My camera is in repair right now. It has been more than two weeks but has not been fixed yet.

These photos are from few weeks ago and I have been cooking some fantastic stuff since then but I don't have a camera to capture those fantastic food :-)

I hope we will get our camera back soon because we are having Halloween party with all my mom friends and also also I am going to take my son for trick or treat on the day of halloween.

I need my CAMERA!!!

The book I used for this meatloaf is this.