Tasty Tip 3.

Sorry for the weeks upon weeks of neglect. I had some storage issues that have now been resolved, and I am back from the Christmas happenings. But before Christmas dinners and celebrations, my mom celebrated her birthday on Dec. 18, and my brother took us to this very nice "local" French restaurant that was absolutely fantastic! The consistently busy restaurant is located in a corner of a street right in downtown West Palm Beach. The place is very cozy and welcoming. The owners, who are husband and wife, are very hospitable and speak with wonderfully friendly French accents.

This is what my mom ordered, a crepe filled with spinach, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, and cheese. It was served with breakfast potatoes. Yum!

 

They also gave us slices of fresh French baguette with strawberry jam. Yummo!

Mine was a crepe with eggs over-easy inside, served with breakfast potatoes and slices of bacon.

We ordered other things, but apparently I was too busy stuffing my face to take pictures of the delicious food. And not to mention their delicious coffee!!! Highly recommended!

Last Week.

So... last week. I don't even remember what happened. But I did see from my last post that I was supposed to put up pictures of our two dinners from last week. So, here they are. My memory is a little fuzzy, maybe because of the two final exams I just finished. But I will try to remember as best as I can.

The first dinner on Wednesday was with two classmates and B. It was planned very last minute when we got all excited about our last class of the semester. Since I was planning to make tacos that night, I just made extra for two more people. I sliced up lettuce from a Spring Mix I had, tomatoes, and some onions. I also bought tons of cheese that I forgot to bring out for dinner. So we had tacos without cheese! Oh the horror!

But oddly enough no one noticed.

Our two classmates made and brought a layered dip, which I forgot to take pictures of before we started pigging out on it cuz' it was delicious!

Here are the tacos, one with a mixture of ground beef and ground turkey and another with Mexican "pulled chicken."

And here are our friends. We played Apples to Apples! Fun!

Here's what I got. I won third place!

For dinner #2 on Thursday night, I got really excited about preparing a whole dinner by myself that I think I overwhelmed myself with too much excitement. If that makes sense. I just remember being so stressed out before the dinner guests arrived. Anyway, here's the menu.

Here are the ingredients for the meatless Lumpia (Filipino spring rolls; they're probably not called lumpia anymore).

And here are the ingredients for the mushroom/shrimp stir-fry. I didn't put up pictures for the pork because 1) I was in a hurry, 2) I already posted about it, and 3) I was overwhelmed. :)

Here they are. Minus the pork, which was still in the oven. Oh, and I also made Jasmine rice. Yum!

Phew! The end. Thanks for your patience.

Mint M&Ms!

Even though I still have two take-home exams to drudge through, I still feel like my first semester of grad school is over... and it feels great! Following such a stressful week, B and I planned to host dinners with good friends two days in a row [tonight was the first; photos to come].

But anyway, all I can say is "PHEW!" There are definitely things that I would change and improve on: time management is a biggie, de-stressing activities would be good, changing some study habits perhaps, you get the picture. This semester was super busy, and I am just as curious as you are as to why I started a blog. Needless to say, I am overwhelmed with excitement for the upcoming Christmas holiday. First of all, it's my favorite holiday. Second, I get to have an "actual" break. Not like last year when I was down with a really bad cold while trying to study for the graduate entrance exam. This year, I get to actually take a break, spend time with family, relax, cook, and cook some more.

Anyway, I don't even know where I was going with that. I guess what I wanted to say was that I was so excited for Christmas, and especially this year when they came out with mint M&Ms! They are bigger than normal M&Ms, they're so addicting, they're hard to find, they're expensive, and they're worth it! Try them. Love them.

Breakfast and Dinner.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. If I didn't have a test to study for, I would've cooked food all day. I would've been in the kitchen for hours experimenting on recipes. But I only cooked breakfast and dinner. :(

So for breakfast, I made scrambled eggs with turkey sausages. I used four 1/4 cups of "eggstirs" and 1 "real" egg for the scrambled eggs, which equaled 5 eggs. I then added 1/4 cup of skim milk, 1 torn-up slice of cheddar cheese and lastly, salt and pepper.

I browned some turkey sausages on the stove.

Then, I sautéd some red onions first until they were soft and then added the egg mixture.

I topped the eggs with some green onion, added toast and a few slices of banana, and voila! Breakfast.

For lunch, I just had a snack because I didn't have time to cook or eat for that matter. What I did have time for (not really) was to prep for dinner. So I made this brown sugar, lemon, five-spice, parsley mixture and brushed it on some lean pork tenderloins.

For these 5 pieces of pork, I used 2 tbs. of brown sugar, a tbs. and a half of lemon juice, about a tsp. of lemon peel, a tsp. of five spice powder, and about a tsp. of dried parsley (or fresh!). I seasoned each cut with salt first, then brushed it with the mixture.

Then I covered it up and put it in the fridge. It was there for about 4 and a half hours. Then I cooked it on 375 degrees for 15 minutes, and then transferred it to the top rack and broiled it for about 2 minutes.

I cooked some yellow rice with it, but I wanted some mixed vegetables, so I heated up a package of Bird's Eye Southwestern Rice that had red peppers, peas, and corn and just mixed it with the rice I made. 

Tada!

B really liked it. I did too, it reminded me of Christmas. The smell and the flavor of the spices were just reminiscent of Christmas morning (or evening). The pork was very flavorful and not dry. I'm definitely saving this recipe!



Chicken and Shells.

It was almost lunch time. My stomach started grumbling. I went in the kitchen, opened the fridge and didn't know what to do. So, I just started pulling out some stuff. An onion, a tomato, half of a green bell pepper, garlic, and half of a green onion. Hmm... Then I remembered I had two chicken breasts left, so I pulled those out. Also, we had rice yesterday, so no rice. Pasta! It was all coming together.

Whole grain pasta shells!

Onions sauteing in olive oil.

Onions and garlic.

Onions, garlic and green peppers.

... + tomatoes. I made sure that the tomatoes were soft enough to mush.

... + bite-size chicken pieces. Just brown it on one side of the pan, then mix it with the vegetables.

Season with salt and pepper.

Add the pasta. I only used less than half of what I cooked. I really didn't know where I was going with this in the beginning, so I just cooked a whole box, but I didn't have enough veggies and chicken.

Mix. Mix.

Save the rest of the noodles!

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese (or that Three-Cheese blend I had).

It was delicious! Enjoy!

Soupe de Leftovers.

Translation: Soup of Leftovers. We had a lot of chicken, rice and corn left over from last night, so I thought I'd make fried rice for lunch today. But the weather was suddenly chilly so I decided to make soup instead. So I took the chicken off the bone and started boiling some water with the bones and 2 cubes of chicken bullion. While that was boiling, I chopped a medium onion and cut the chicken meat into small, even pieces.

I then scooped the bones off with a slotted spoon and just discarded them.

 Then I added the onion and chicken meat and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. 

Lastly, I put in the bowl of leftover rice and corn and stirred it for a few minutes until everyone was happy and flavorful!

Now obviously this soup is pretty plain and you can add tons of other vegetables to it like carrots, celery, peas, etc. But I wanted to use just the leftovers. The soup itself was very flavorful because of the chicken's marinade (see yesterday's recipe and how many ingredients went into marinating the chicken).

It was simple, delicious, and perfect for an unexpected chilly day!