Miyazaki Movie & Dinner Double Date 

My sister decided to host a Miyazaki movie night at her place and we picked one of our childhood favorite film, Kiki Delivery Service. On the dinner table, we have a fusion of American, Italian and Asian! Thanks to everyone who cooked! Vivian made manicotti, stuff mushrooms, garlic bread and honey garlic chicken wings. Orlie made the salad and mozzarella with tomato and basil. Andy made delicious soft boil soy sauce eggs.  

I wanted to make something that I've never made before and was craving shrimp so I made Thai fried rice with shrimp and pineapple. It was really simple to make and tasted great. Please see the recipe below: 

Thai Fried Rice with Shrimp and Pineapple: 

 

Ingredients:

2 Cups-Rice (made overnight)

2-Eggs (Beaten and Scrambled)

3-Garlic Cloves (Minced)

1 Can-Pineapple Chunks

1 lb-Shrimp (Peeled and Deveined)

1 Cup-Frozen Peas (Thawed and Boiled)

2-Green Onions (Chopped)

1/2 cup-Cashews (Chopped)

Sauce: 

(This is the tricky part, I don't have measurements of how much sauce I used because I always "sauce to taste", meaning I put a little of the sauce then taste it to see if it's good or needs more, so here's an estimate of how much I used.)

Soy Sauce (~2/3 tablespoon)

Fish Sauce (~2 tablespoon)

Sriracha (1 tablespoon)

Lemon Juice (~1 tablespoon)

1) In a bowl, whisk two eggs. Heat a large skillet with high heat and add a little bit of oil or cooking spray. Add egg to the skillet and quickly use a spatula to mix the eggs. Cook the eggs for  ~2 mins then remove from skillet and keep warm.

2) Use a skillet to saute onion with a little bit of oil until it is tender and fragrant. Add the garlic and cook for a minute. Add the shrimp and cook it until it turns pink. Stir in the rice, pineapple, peas, cashews, scrambled eggs and green onions. Mix well...

3) Pour soy sauce all over the fried rice mixture and mix well (this will give it the nice brown color). Add fish sauce, Sriracha and lemon juice- sauce to taste! 

4) Garnish with more cashews and green onions on top when served. Optional-cut up a lime and put on the side for people to add more citrus favor to their fried rice. 

Healthy Recipe Contest: Applications due May 15, 2010

Like to cook? The Charles B. Wang Community Health Center Health Education Department invites you to participate in its Healthy Recipe Contest. All adults aged 18 and older are invited to submit a healthy recipe for the chance to win a prize. Selected recipes will be published in a cookbook. After the first round of recipe selection, ten finalists will be asked to prepare their dishes in a live cooking contest. Finalists will receive the following cash prizes of up to $200. All participants will receive a free copy of the cookbook comprised of selected recipes. All submissions must include the completed application and recipe form. Applications are available online at http://www.cbwchc.org/ and at the following addresses:

-268 Canal Street, 1st floor, New York, NY 10013

-125 Walker Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10013

-136-26 37th Avenue, 2nd and 4th floors, Flushing, NY 11354

-Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, 62 Mott Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10013

After the first round of recipe selection, ten finalists will be asked to prepare their dishes in a live cooking contest. Ten finalists will be informed by June 15th, 2010 by mail and phone. The live cooking contest will take place on July 11th, 2010 at the Whole Foods Market Bowery Culinary Center (95 E Houston St, New York, NY). Dishes will be judged by the following criteria: presentation, aroma and taste.

Call the Health Education Department at (212) 966-0461 if you would like the application mailed or faxed to you or have any questions about the contest. Applications are due on May 15, 2010.

If you have any questions you can post it in the comment box and I'll get back to you!

Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked
• 4 bananas, sliced

Directions

1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, flour, and salt. Add milk in gradually while stirring gently. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is bubbly. Keep stirring and cook for about 2 more minutes, and then remove from the burner.
2. Stir a small quantity of the hot mixture into the beaten egg yolks, and immediately add egg yolk mixture to the rest of the hot mixture. Cook for 2 more minutes; remember to keep stirring. Remove the mixture from the stove, and add butter and vanilla. Stir until the whole thing has a smooth consistency.
3. Slice bananas into the cooled baked pastry shell. Top with pudding mixture.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 12 to 15 minutes. Chill for an hour.

Cooking Demonstration: Chicken and Fruit Salad

Today for our health center's event, I did a workshop on healthy eating and salad making demonstration. This recipes is taken from the Center for Disease Control Website. This website is great! They have a lot of really easy and healthy recipes. What I love about this site is that you can search recipes by certain ingredients. You can choose a few ingredients and see what kind of recipes they have for certain types of meal.

Chicken and Fruit Salad
Number of servings: 4
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cups of Fruits/Vegetables Per Person 2

Ingredients:
1 lb roasted chicken breast
1 medium-size bunch spinach
2 medium-size pink/white grapefruit
2 medium-size red delicious apples
3/4 lb seedless green grapes
1/2 cup fat– free Dijon salad dressing

Directions:
1) Remove and discard skin from chicken; tear chicken into bite size pieces.

2) Chop 1 cup loosely packed spinach leaves; set remaining leaves aside.

3) Cut peel from grapefruit; remove sections with knife. Cut unpeeled apples into 3/4 inch chunks.

4) In large bowl, combine chicken, chopped spinach, fruit and salad dressing; toss to coat. To serve, arrange remaining spinach leaves on platter; spoon chicken salad over spinach leaves.

Happy New 2010! Last meal of 2009....

Sorry, no time to update but I will finish blogging and put the recipe out soon!! The ham was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD! One of the best ham I've ever made! Stay tuned.....

Glazed Pineapple Cupcake

I used the Duncan Hines Pineapple Cake Mix. I chopped up some pineapples from the can and stuffed it into the batter after I put the batter into each individual cupcake paper cups. I wanted to make sure that each bite of the cupcake there is also a bite of pineapple. One tip is to use the pineapple that is in heavy syrup. I tried to be healthy and used the the other one but the pineapple turned out to be a bit too sour.

I thought the cupcake was too plain and sour so I decide to put a glazed on it. I used some condense milk with the pineapple syrup from the can and cooked it for a little bit. Thanks Andy for the idea! The glazed turned out creamy with a bit of pineapple taste which was really good!

Last Minute Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

My Thanksgiving Dinner 2009:

4 hours of food/supply shopping

5+ hours of cooking

7 dishes

Spending thanksgiving with people I love = Priceless

Our thanksgiving feast:

This Thanksgiving we did everything last minute! I planned what I wanted to make and shopped the night before thanksgiving. I was going crazy running around finding ingredients for each of the dishes. After all the shopping, I was just too tired to start prepping so I told myself I would wake up really early (at 7am) to start everything...I over slept and totally missed my alarm so I woke up around 9. I was panicing because dinner is suppose to start at 2ish. I didn't think I could finish all 6 of the dishes in 5 hours but with the help of my father and sister (Vivian) we managed cook everything we wanted to make. Yay!

So this year I decided to make 7 dishes, 2 of them are my all time favorite potato shrimp salad and corn casserole (I make these every year! My fans, I mean my family members always request them). Five other dishes are new recipes which came out great!

Lumpia Shanghai (Flipinino egg rolls): I love Filipino food so I wanted to attempt my favorite Filipino dish. Special thanks to Maribeth and Joanne for their recipe:

String bean casserole:

Shrimp and prosciutto with alfredo sauce

Crab quiche

Crown Jewel Cake

Let me know if you want any of the recipes, everything was so simple to make!

Mel's Thanksgiving '08 Part II: Cecille's Potluck with Friends

Cecille has been talking about having a hangout/potluck for a long time and the perfect time to do it would def. be during Thanksgiving! A time when good friends getting together to eat and spending time together. Everyone was suppose to bring a homemade dish and I decided to make one of my favorite, corn casserole! I've been making this recipe for the past 3 Thanksgiving and everyone loves it!

Corn Casserole:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 (15 ounce) can cream-style corn
• 1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 (15.25 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (I use 3 cheese or taco cheese with seasoning-more favor)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped onion (I think it taste better without it)
  
• 1 (4 ounce) can diced green chilies, drained (I don't like chilies so I don't put it into the mixture)
  
• 1 (8.5 ounce) package dry corn muffin mix (I use only 1/2 box, the first time I used 1 box it turned out to be like a corn bread instead of corn casserole)
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, cream style corn, sour cream and melted butter. Stir in whole kernel corn, cheese, onion and chilies. Stir in the corn muffin mix until just moistened.
3. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven for 75 minutes; or until an inserted knife comes out clean and the top is golden. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Check out what we had that day! So much food:
Chicken wings by Maribeth
Bon Chon Chicken from Jenny (yes she made it! =P)
Some dish I wasn't sure who made it but everything was awesome!

My corn casserole and ratatouille.
Andy's Jamaican oxtail stew:

Khin's sausage meatloaf with mashed potato bite:

Khin's cheddar potato skins

Nadia's couscous salad
Deserts: Bread pudding, apple pie, tiramisu and chocolate moose cake:

Thanks Cecille for hosting this wonderful potluck and thanks to everyone who cooked or bought things to the party! We had so much fun! I can't wait for next year <3>