Its been a while...

Yes, It has been a while since I posted last time. A lot of things happened since then.
Because of the Hurricane Sandy which hit East Coast, our house was flooded and we lost lots of stuff...

I knew the Hurricane is supposed to be a big one but I never thought it will change our life like this.

Well, good thing is we are alive and healthy.

We can not go back to our house and who knows how long it will take to everything go back to normal.

It was heartbreaking to see our house and our city destroyed like that. I cried. I miss my city, my house and my neighbors and friends.

But life has to go on and we have to move forward. We found a new apartment and we are moving in very soon. It will be a bit away from where we used to live but it is not too far away so I can visit our friends sometimes.

It was a very difficult time for us but at the same time, we received so many support from our friends and family. Everybody is trying to help each other and it is heartwarming to see this.

So, that was why I hadn't updated my blog for a while.

Don't worry, after I moved to a new place and settled in a little bit, I will start cooking a lot and posting more pictures.

One thing I am so excited about is that I finally bought Le Creuset Dutch Oven!! It is Oval and 6.75qt.
(I know, I shouldn't be buying these things when I don't even have a place to live but it was such a great deal and I couldn't pass it. Plus, I wanted to have this for a long long time anyways so I guess it is a early Christmas gift for me!)

Anyways, I am looking forward to cooking more stuff with this Dutch Oven. I hope I can update my blog sometime soon with new dish I made :-)

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.

Ellie Kreger's Autumn Vegetable Curry

So, I have been cooking from this Ellie Kreger's cookbook lately and this is another recipe from her. This is called Autumn Vegetable Curry. This has tons of vegetable in it and healthy yet tasty.

Well, it has some curry power and coconut milk. In the recipe, it required only 1 cup of light coconut milk but since I love coconut milk, I just used the whole can. (plus, it was not light) so I think mine is little bit richer than her original recipe.

Here is the link for her Autumn Vegetable Curry recipe. 

My husband and my son loved it and I was also very happy with it. I cook my son's separately and made it less spicy for him. I was not sure if he would like all these vegetables but since it is cooked well and soft, he didn't mind eating all these vegetables. He even liked chick peas!

I think this is a great way for you and your family to eat more vegetables. I think when I make something with curry, I and my husband always like it. We love curries!

I also made another dessert from her cookbook. This time, Peanut butter cookies!

This one has some whole wheat flour so they are little bit healthier than regular peanut butter cookies. We don't give much sweet to my son yet (also not yet peanut butter) so he didn't eat these but my husband loved them. For some reason, I didn't expect him to love it so much so I was a bit surprised.

When I was watching her show on FoodNetwork, I didn't find any recipes which I wanted to try so I am quite surprised to find so many recipes which I wanted to try and liked from her cookbook.

When I borrowed it from the library, I had no expectations but it sure was a great cookbook. I tried many new things from this book.