Ellie Krieger's Sesame Chicken & Mini Cheese Cake

Using this book again, I made Sesame Chicken and Mini Cheese Cake! Sesame Chicken is my husbands' favorite dish when we order in Chinese food. Normally, it is battered and fried and coated with sweet and sour sauce with lots of sesame. This Ellie Krieger's version is not deep fried but more like stir fried which makes this dish little bit healthier and lighter.

I cooked broccoli too long so the color of broccoli is not great but this sesame chicken was great. It is not exactly like the sesame chicken we order from Chinese restaurant but this one is good substitute when you make it at home. You don't have to deep fry your chicken and it was quite tasty. The sauce has quite strong taste so I end up eating lots of rice....

I like it with lots of sesame and lots of green onions. 

 Also, I tried making this mini cheese cake. It is cupcake size and perfect for little dessert. 

However, when I dissolved gelatine powder, I guess I didn't dissolve it well so when we ate the cheesecake, there were chunks of gelatine in it. It was not pleasant texture and we couldn't eat it. 

It tasted pretty good so if you follow the recipe well and if you dissolve gelatine well, the result must have been much much better. Oh well, I will be more careful next time.....

Even though it did not come out well I think it is a great idea to have such a small cupcake size mini cheese cakes. It looked really cute. I think I should try this again.....

Ellie Krieger's Broiled Buffalo Wings & Broccoli Cheddar Soup

I borrowed another cookbook from the library and made these two dishes from the book I borrowed.

The book is called "Comfort Food Fix" by Ellie Krieger

She used to have a show on Food Network. She always cook something healthy and good for you. I think she is a nutritionist and have a few cook book published. 

I normally don't look at cook books which are focused on healthy food but this one is called Comfort Food Fix and she tried to recreate all the comfort food in a healthier way. I was interested so I borrowed it and I found quite a few things which I wanted to try out. 

One of them was Broiled Buffalo Wings. I love Buffalo chicken flavor but I don't normally make Buffalo wings at home since I don't want to fry them. But this is broiled and you don't have to fry them. I was a bit skeptical but wanted to give it a try. 

First, she ask you to boil the chicken. I liked this idea. Actually, one of my friend did this for BBQ and I really liked the idea of boiling chicken (especially skin on and bone in ) before broiling them. It will take some of the excess fat and also you don't have to worry about the chicken being undercooked inside. 

Anyway, then broil the chicken in broiler until crisp and brown. 

I liked this and my husband also liked this. It is not greasy since it is just broiled and still very tasty. I also made Blue Cheese Dip from the book. I need Blue Cheese Dip when I eat Buffalo Chicken! 

Since I wanted to eat some vegetables also. I made Broccoli Cheddar Soup from the book. 

This was also great. In the recipe, it asked to use low-fat milk but I didn't have low-fat milk at home so I just used regular milk. Also I didn't have enough Cheddar Cheese so I used a lot less Cheddar Cheese than the recipe required but it came out great! 

I pour this Broccoli Cheddar Soup over rice and gave it to my son and he loved it also. I think he eats a lot more Broccoli this way. 

If you are interested in cooking healthier but still want to eat those comfort foods, this is a book to go. I was quite impressed how she made them very tasty yet more healthy. I am planning to try her Sesame Chicken recipe tonight. I will let you guys know how it turned out! 

Grilled Salmon Salad with Quinoa and Yogurt sauce

It has been quite nice temperature here in NY lately. I can definitely feel the fall approaching but not too cold to wear short sleeves. This weather reminds me of areas in California where I used to live.

I loved the weather in California. It was dry and warm all year around but one thing I realized after I moved to NY is that you appreciate summer more and also you can actually enjoy four different seasons in a year. I like warm weather and I don't like cold weather but at the same time, I kind of enjoy   a little bit cold fall night when I feel like baking or cooking something hearty.

Anyhow, I always buy salmon from Costco and this is also from Costco salmon. I froze half of it and used the other half for this salad. This is definitely a summer dish. I made this dish on Sunday.

Grilled Salmon Salad with quinoa and yogurt sauce!

The salad itself is very simple with romain lettuce, cucumber and corn with some store bought Caesar dressing.

On top of that, I added some quinoa with cilantro, raisons, pine nuts and garlic. This is something my friends told me about and I made it once before. The recipe is from Food Network. Here is the link for the recipe if you are interested. 

For salmon, I just sprinkle salt and pepper then sautéed with olive oil in a pan 6 mins each side.

Then, I made this yogurt sauce which is with greek yogurt, chopped cilantro, grated garlic and lime juice plus salt and pepper.

My husband absolutely loved this salad and especially the yogurt sauce. He was so impressed how I came up with this sauce but I have seen yogurt sauce with salmon in many places and I don't think it is nothing new but he was quite happy. Normally, yogurt sauce for salmon has dill but I only had cilantro so I used cilantro for both quinoa and yogurt sauce. For someone like us who love cilantro, this was great.

This is a great light dinner for hot night. It is super easy and healthy and delicious.

Enjoy!