Category: Sugar - feeding my ohana

What's Cooking This Week--On Time!

7/30/2017

Korean Mushroom Tofu Scramble!

Started Sunday off with a good leftovers roulette omelet with Friday's
Korean Mushroom Tofu, plus a squeeze of Sriracha for brunch.

And now a quick post for what's cooking this week. We are finally settling into a semblance of planning with grocery shopping and a good Sunday meal with Birdie. I've never been a slave to routine, but it is nice, finally, to have some consistency.

Proper Sunday Dinner with the Birdie
Bulgogi, rice, salad, since non-beef-eating birdie picked dinner last week. I do love the smell of meat and caramelizing shoyu on a Sunday afternoon.

See recipe at left. Thank you Birdie!

Bonus Sunday Baking by Birdie
We also had haupia brownies and peanut butter maple cookies.
Birdie says Haupia Brownies are Very Simple to Make.

Box of Chewy Brownie Mix (Duncan Hines)
One package of Haupia mix
Make the Haupia according to the directions and set aside. Make the brownie mix according to what the package says, and then swirl some haupia into the mix before baking. That Is All.

The cookies started off vegan, but since the only coconut oil in the house is used as a skincare product, we switched to the un-vegan butter. Look for a recipe and what we substituted next week.

#MeatlessMonday aka "Teeny Tiny Friday"
Sabih, with purchased pita and hummus from the Falafel Stop. Still worth the drive “all the way over” to Sunnyvale.

Stir Fry Tuesday
General Tso’s Chicken. A quick stir-fry with a recipe from awhile ago. Getting re-acquainted with some throwback favorites.

#LeftoversRoulette on Wednesday
Bulgogi Wraps with bean sprouts, but with the leftover short ribs. My Fitness Pal says I need more protein, so I'm heeding its advice! :)

Thursday
Quiche—spinach, artichoke hearts, red peppers, zucchini with Colby Jack this time. One for the empty nesters and one straight to the freezer. Not going to any of the birdies.

Aloha Friday—or it could be date night!
And with that, have a good week all!

What's Cooking This Week--Empty Nest Cadence

7/24/2017

Can you see the pickle mango?

It feels good to get back into a rhythm of cooking again, but boy, is it an adjustment. Two middle-aged adults eat significantly less than a family of four with two metabolism-busting children. But the upside is that foraging works much better and with zero parent guilt! Here's what's cooking this week.

Foraging in the Fridge Monday
The last of Mediterranean Lamb Stir Fry, tomatoes, bread and some cheese.

Grilling on Tuesday
Grilled Teriyaki Chicken and Yaki Corn. Short commute and Daylight savings means weekday grilling is in play!

Fish on Wednesday
Cornmeal Fish and My Daddy's Tartar Sauce. Note to self--tartar sauce, or some kind of condiment is a requirement. Plus salad.

Thursday Night with the 'Rents
La Paloma, a nice, homey, non-chain Mexican restaurant in Santa Clara. Another note to self--exercise extreme self-restraint on free AND unlimited chips and salsa.

Pie and new dishes. So fancy!

Friday is #MeatlessOneDay
Korean Mushroom Tofu, with bean sprouts and watercress from the Korean grocery, plus some kim chee and rice.

Bonus
A peach/raspberry pie and a boysenberry crumble pie from Avila Valley Barn Bakery. A convenient stop on the way back from Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo. Their sandwiches are also quite good.

Can you believe August is next week?! Have a great week all.

The Weekly Menu Returns!

7/16/2017

Eating on the new dishes is so fun!

Having a lot of fun getting acquainted with the new kitchen. A 10-minute commute means I get home, shed the work clothes, get a drink and snack, and can start cooking in about 20 minutes. Full disclosure, this week, the husband has taken over cooking, but with joint planning.

Easy stuff to get back into it.

Wednesday
Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs.
As you can see, husband likes bambucha meatballs. Where I can get about 35 little ping-pong sized ones, we had about 20 total this time. More efficient he says.

Tuesday
Fish Jun with Kochojang Sauce.
Plus rice and some leftover Orzo Salad from the proper Sunday meal. It sounds like a very weird combo, but worked out well.

Also on the new plates

Thursday
Mediterranean Lamb Stir-fry. We learned that the Safeway in the new 'hood does not stock lamb as an everyday item, but Sprouts does.

Aloha Friday
No Meat chili that we froze from last week. With cheddar cheese, tortilla chips and pineapple cider. A good pau hana dinner!

Bonus Breakfast
The husband's Ridiculously Good Scones with the leftover heavy cream we had from making lilikoi ice cream.

Already looking forward to the weekend!

Mouth full. No yelling

11/13/2016

Vote for cookies.

Not gonna lie. This past week was brutal. It was not our country's finest hour, by a long shot.

My creative outlet was cooking. My co-workers/testers approved the cookies. More importantly, the husband liked them. The best compliment was, "It tastes like maple syrup and pumpkin pancakes."

That is the comfort response I was going for.

Make these for Thanksgiving and find the joy in the small moments of life. They are there. Plus if mouths are full, there can be no arguing.

Click here for recipe.

What's Cooking This Week--Diversions from Real Life

11/7/2016

Godzilla sculpture in Tokyo--such a clever diversion from real life!

Middle age is definitely not the chaotic fall-of-the-Roman-Empire-Black-Death-Dragons-and-Crusades upheaval of the real Middle Ages.

Middle age is full of adjustments--empty nest, aging relatives, and serious work commitments/travel. But it has also included learning how to SnapChat, a milestone anniversary, a really lovely wedding, and the down-in-your-soul-quiet-happiness that your birdies have wings. And can fly!

Add to that an election cycle that has also consumed my psyche. Those of you who are connected with me personally on Facebook--thank you for your support of my post. I purposely kept the Feeding My Ohana voice away from the body politic, and this week, I definitely needed cooking as both diversion and solace.

Thanks to the election, here's what's cooking this week as I keep trying to figure out how to cook for two. The freezer is chock-full of stuff, so I'm still learning!

Meatless Monday
We have been making a full-ohana portion of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and keeping it in an airtight container. Sometimes it's Greek Salad. Sometimes it's just this with with mozzarella and bread. The rest of the days, we use the rest as a side salad, sometimes by itself and sometimes adding leafy greens.

Election Tuesday--Go VOTE!
Jambalaya with toasted green onion bread to watch returns. I'll use the last batches of homemade tomato sauce from earlier this summer. About half of the jambalaya will go into the freezer.

Recovery Wednesday
Whatever happens on Tuesday, we will need a respite. Gyros sounds about right. Another way to use the tomatoes and cucumbers.

Thursday
Myles Last Resort Meatloaf sandwiches. Have not made this in awhile. Will use some of the green onion bread as part of the ingredients for meatloaf and then the rest for sandwiches that include, you guessed it, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Friday
Leftovers. Or maybe date night?!

Bonus Stuff
Homemade Granola--sometimes we ship this to Birdie #1, but not this time!

Maple Pumpkin cookies--this is a new recipe I will post this week. I guinea-pigged it at work today and the not-secret-at-all voting was unanimous as a repeater. I might make a batch for Thanksgiving too.

This election has tested everyone. Vote tomorrow and be kind to each other.

We Have Plenty of Time

9/11/2016

As many of you know, I’ve gone back to full-on, full-time onsite employment at a Silicon Valley Techie company. And yes, I’m the only female in my immediate team, one of the few female managers in the larger team, and many times the solo female in meetings, but that is a story for another kind of blog.

Anyhow, with the global-mobile workforce, and the normal one-up-man-ship culture in the quest for ‘the next big thing,’ hours can get long, and my beloved FeedingMyOhana has suffered longer periods of inactivity than I would like. It wasn’t looking good for this past weekend.

So I was shocked when one of our Big-Time Executives responded on Friday night regarding work I was planning to do over weekend.

"Don't work over the weekend on it. Not that important. We have plenty of time."

Let’s be clear. In all my years of working in Silicon Valley, this has NEVER HAPPENED. The paranoid part of my psyche wonders if this means I’ll be laid off (also a common thread in Silicon Valley), but still, it was a blast of fresh air and perspective.

Here is what happens when your Boss-boss-boss tells you not to work over the weekend.

You cook a proper Saturday dinner with a couple of friends and your beloved baby birdie.

Crock Pot Kalua Pig

Not-so-tropical fruit salsa. Mangoes were looking bad at the store, and peaches are in season. Easy swap.

Apple/Watercress/Beet Salad. I’ve been making all sorts of ‘weird/wonky’ salad combos. This is an actual new recipe that works well. And I even created the page for it!

King Eggrolls because they are awesome and on the way back from where the husband and friends were golfing.

Banana pudding. Which we didn't get quite get to after all of the above-noted food, so my co-workers will have to eat some this week.

Butterscotch banana bread. Baby birdie made this one, and I need to get the recipe.

For a Sunday encore, a batch of fresh tomato sauce because the tomatoes were still so pretty.

And now we're ready to start the week off right.

Banana Pudding--Maximizing Taste/Effort Ratio

4/25/2016

The weekly menu will have to wait because there's banana pudding to be made. And eaten. Right now, as I type, and I am Very, Very Happy. Plus, I promised a Feeding My Ohana-er I would post this recipe today, so here it is.

Click here!

I’ve gone a little “Julia and Julie” with The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. So far, I've made four items and all were pretty successful, but I’m posting the By Far the super easiest and potentially the most flexible.

Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding.

Make it today! Lot of recipes on backlog, sorry! Will trying to add them on.

Experiment Report Card--Mixed Bag

11/22/2015

This was good

We've been trying a lot of new recipes lately, and the household has weighed in on these three.

Appeltaart, Dutch apple pie/cake
Inspired by three visits to Winkel's in Amsterdam and FoodNouveau for the base recipe.

Verdict
Not exactly Winkel's, but true to an ex-pat Amsterdam friend's advice, it does taste better after sitting for a couple of days. It needs to use a little less orange zest (I used a whole orange, but it really should be half), and I would like to use something closer to speculoosdkruiden (Dutch spice medley) rather than a straight cinnamon, but definitely worth making again, and also company-worthy. Perhaps a Christmas party item.

Tastes good, weird texture

Pear Clafoutis, from Apple, Pear via Bookmobile
A clafoutis is a sweet version of a frittata. This one was from a pear/fig recipe, but I'm not a huge fan of figs, so it was pear and almonds only. Instead of flour, it uses ground almonds

Verdict
The taste was A-OK! Pear and almonds were meant to be good friends. However, the texture was weird and sort of grainy.

Won't do this again, but will look for a more cake-y recipe with pears and almonds.

The photo...

The reality!

Apple Parsnip Soup,
also from Apple, Pear, Bookmobile
This ended up looking Very, Very Different from the fancy photo in the book.

Verdict
While it did taste much better on the second and third days, my baby birdie said it best, "If you are going for a curry soup, you may as well just make curry" A good try.

Happy to share the recipes if you are interested. I'll make appeltaart again for sure, but probably not the other two. Love to hear any suggestions or comments for making these Feeding My Ohana worthy!

Happy Monday!

What's Cooking This Week--Dinner by Bookmobile

11/15/2015

Simple is sometimes best.

Every two weeks, the bookmobile comes to my workplace. This means new cookbooks and the occasional brain candy. This week, the ohana is guinea pig for a crock pot book of soups and an apple/pear cookbook. Perfect for the early nights and cooler weather.

Sunday
Pork Loin from Scratch, Bri's Butternut Squash with a sprinkling of Za'atar. A bonus of Apple/Parsnip/Onion Soup as a side soup, and Pear/Almond Clafoutis for dessert, both as experiments.

Monday is #MeatlessOneDay
French Onion Soup, crock pot version. It started on Sunday afternoon, and can be re-heated quickly after yoga class in evening. Experiment #2 is an Apple/Beet/Watercress Salad and some bread.

Tuesday
Salmon in a Bag. It's like a school lunch bag, only for dinner.

Wednesday is #DinnerByFreezer
A few of the Chicken Gyoza I made awhile ago. If it's cold they will be wonton soup. Otherwise, it will be crunchy gyoza and ponzu sauce with the fancy yuzu a friend got me from Japan.

Thursday
General Tso's Chicken and rice. A quick stir-fry for volleyball night.

Friday
Bacon Sweet Potato Galettes, another experiment. If it works out, it could be a Thanksgiving side.

Starting to think of old favorites and new ideas for Thanksgiving. Have a good week all!

Two Non-Sequitur Recipes

6/28/2015

I've been traveling quite a bit lately--to New England, Washington DC, and LA. Thus, a lot of eating has been going on, but not necessarily a lot of programmatic cooking. These two have been well-used lately.

Breakfast of Champions (at some point!)

ALL PURPOSE SMOOTHIES
I have settled on an all-purpose smoothie as my consistent work-day breakfast. Two cups go to work Monday through Friday. One with hot milk for making coffee at the office.

The other is the "Who needs to spend $5 on JambaJuice" smoothie that I manage to make in the morning, and still get to work on time. And then the "second shift" of either husband or birdie has the other half.

One important caveat on the aesthetic of a slightly less than freshly-made smoothie. If you store the second serving in the fridge, it will separate and look really quite gross after a couple of hours. IT IS STILL TASTY! Simply give it a good stir. Close your eyes if you must, but trust me, as long as you have it within the same day, it will be yum. Click here for recipe.

Aloha Rhode Island

JANE'S BAKED SCALLOPS
My New England (Mass and RI) ohana is simply awesome. As much as I would love to, I cannot eat lob-stuh, due to food allergies, Jane's Baked Scallops give me that seafood fix in a simple, comfort-food fashion.

Nothing fancy, just good fresh food that is easy to make. Click here to make it this week.