Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas holiday! Us? We did but it was a tad busy, shuttling back and forth between 3 nearby cities. The perils of having a huge families on both sides, lol! As such I don't have a new recipe to share with you from the holidays, BUT I have two very easy recipes from our new homeschooling blog that you'll love because of its simplicity! Below are the links to the recipes which I now branded as "Simplified Recipes by Issa", haha! Feeling Martha Stewart much! ;-)
2-ingredient healthy cookies - Yes, there's only 2 basic ingredients for this healthy treat! You can add more of course, but why complicate life? When you're a busy mom, every second counts. The faster the chore (cooking) gets done, the better it is for our sanity! Haha!
Chicken Cacciatore ala Issa- Instead of pan-frying the chicken like in the original cacciatore recipe, this one has no frying involved but just as yummy! No frying = less cooking time which means (not-so busy) happy mommy!
Give the recipes a try and tell me how it went okay? I love feedback! :) And to wrap up, once again, a happy new year to all of you! May you achieve all your goals this 2014, and may you be a good force here on Earth!
Pregnant this Christmas season? What a pity! You can't drink alcohol, have to say no to sweets, eat just right (not for two! haha)~ which are all hard to do when you're bombarded with yummy Christmas food almost every day! And the never-ending parties? Temptation through and through! :p
So what's a pregnant lady got to do? Find safe for pregnancy non-alcoholic holiday drinks and healthy (AND scrumptious) party food of course! :) Here's an oldie but goldie drink recipe that I loved when I was pregnant for the first time in 2009:
3 ounces pomegranate juice 2 teaspoons white sugar 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated ginger 3/4 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice 1/2 ounce lime-flavored club soda 1 tablespoon raw brown sugar (garnish) *1 lemon twirl (optional garnish)
Heya everyone! It's been 5 looong years since I last updated this blog and I was thinking of retiring it for good. But when I checked the pageviews, I (surprisingly) still got a lot of visitors from Google! And I thought that if people still come here to get information then I should not close the blog. So here I am, blogging again about food and recipes. And because it's Thanksgiving, I'm sharing one of my favorite low-fat turkey dish from Delish.com :) No, it's not a roasted turkey recipe nor a Thanksgiving stuffing / side dish as we don't really celebrate Thanksgiving here in our country. I hope you enjoy it! And if you have any yummy turkey dish to share, feel free to comment below. Happy cooking dearies!
Bobby Deen's New-Fashioned Meat Loaf
Ingredients:
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp yellow mustard
1 large egg
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup 1-percent milk
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Kosher salt
Pepper
1 cup (from about 3 slices bread) fresh whole-wheat bread crumbs
2 medium carrots, coarsely grated
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 sweet onion (such as Vidalia), finely chopped
1 1/4 pound lean ground turkey
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with nonstick foil. In a small bowl, combine the ketchup, brown sugar and mustard.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, tomato sauce, milk, Worcestershire, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; stir in the bread crumbs. Add the carrots, garlic, and onion and mix to combine.
3. Add the turkey and mix just until incorporated. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet and shape into a 9- by 3 1/2-inch loaf. Brush the loaf with the ketchup mixture. Bake until the internal temperature registers 160 degrees F, 40 to 45 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
This recipe will yield 4 servings. Cost per serving is $1.25 :) Total time is 1 hour and 5 minutes (prep time is 15min). ENJOY and Happy Thanksgiving!
In most parts of our country, Thanksgiving (that the US celebrates every fourth Thursday of November) is not a known event. Needless to say, we don't celebrate it. But with the advent of online shopping, we became more aware of this event because of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. The former happens the next day after Thanksgiving and the latter, on the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. Both, of course, have retailers offer massive discounts and deals to consumers and signal the start of the holiday shopping season ^_^
This year, I decided that we'll celebrate Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for and I wanna glorify the Lord's uber-goodness with my cooking =) But no, we won't be having a turkey, (it's too big for the 3 of us!) just roasted chicken and some stuffing plus other dishes to go with it. For this Thanksgiving post, I'm sharing recipes from RecipeSecrets.net and a video on how to properly carve a turkey (or chicken in our case). Now, let's get on with the cooking!!
Southwestern Cornbread Stuffing
Ingredients 4 chorizo sausages 2 cups yellow corn meal 2 tsp baking powder 1 tps baking soda 2 cups buttermilk 4 lrg eggs 1/4 cup melted unsalted butter 2 cups canned cream style corn 2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese 2 cans (4 oz. size) diced peeled green chilies 2 sml onions, grated 1/2 cup minced fresh coriander
Procedure 1. Heat the oven to 350 F. Cook chorizos in small heavy skillet until brown on all sides, then cut into 1/4 inch slices. 2. Mix corn meal, salt, baking powder and baking soda in medium bowl. Stir chorizo chunks and remaining ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until thoroughly blended. Add the corn meal mixture and mix well. Divide batter between two well-seasoned 10" cast-iron skillets (or bake in 2 batches). 3. Bake the cornbread until brown on top and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Let cool completely on wire rack then crumble coarsely for stuffing.
Blueberry Cheesecake Pie(not really a traditional Thanksgiving dessert but hubby adores this so much!)
1. Mix the crumbs, sugar, cinnamon, and butter in a nine inch pie pan or spring form pan. Mix until the crumbs have absorbed the butter and the mixture is uniform. 2. Press the crumbs across the bottom of the pan and up the sides. 3. Bake for ten minutes at 350 degrees. Note: This is a crumb crust that will tend to burn during baking. To reduce the chances of burning, use a ceramic pan or a bright silver pan. A ceramic pan will tend to insulate the crust and a silver pan reflects heat.
Filling 2 8-ounce packets of cream cheese, softened 1/2 cup sugar 2 large eggs 1/2 teaspoon almond extract 1 21-ounce can of blueberry pie filling
1. In a bowl, beat the cream cheese until soft. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. 2. Add the eggs one at a time and the extract. Continue beating until smooth. 3. Pour into the pie shell and bake at 325 deg until the center of pie no longer jiggles. 4. Cool on a wire rack. Spoon the prepared pie filling over the cheese filling.
Mexican food always get the bad rap of being unhealthy -- it's too oily, high in cholesterol, etc, etc. But I love Mexican cuisine and I just couldn't bear not eating my favorite empanadas, tortillas, chimichangas and burritos for "health" reasons! Thank god I stumbled on a copycat recipe of Chi−Chi’s famous healthy Baked Chicken Chimichangas. Nomnomnom! =) You can use ground pork or beef for this recipe but that would defeat the purpose of eating healthy so try to use chicken or turkey or any white meat. Me, I use leftover chicken -- no skin of course!
Ingredients: 2 1/2 cups chicken, cooked, shredded 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 cup onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, minced 1/2 tablespoon chili powder 16 ounces salsa 1/2 teaspoon cumin pinch of salt 6 − 10 inch flour tortillas 1 cup refried beans Olive oil (for basting) Sour Cream Guacamole
Method: 1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. 2. In a large saucepan, saute onion and garlic in oil until tender. Stir in chili powder, salsa, and cumin. Stir in shredded chicken. Let cool. 3. Grease rimmed 15 x 10 x 1 baking pan. 4. Working with one tortilla at a time, spoon a heaping tablespoon of beans down center of each tortilla. Top with a scant 1/2 cup of the chicken mixture. 5. Fold up the bottom, top and sides of tortilla; secure with wooden toothpicks if necessary. 6. Place chimichangas in greased baking pan, seam side down. Brush all sides with the oil. 7. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and crisp, turning every 5 minutes. 8. Serve with sour cream and guacamole. This recipe has 8-10 servings.
