Super Easy Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of the most easiest thing I've ever baked. It's super delicious and it smells so good! I found this banana bread recipe here. It has the perfect amount of sweetness and banana flavor. My mom rarely asks me to make something for her to eat...actually this is the only thing she ever asked me to bake for her lol. She complimented on how she prefers this over bakery ones. It all thanks to this recipe. I highly recommend giving this easy recipe a try! =)

Thai Red Curry Chicken Recipe

I decided to give red curry a try after my finance made some canned ones for dinner one time and told me it was really good. That made me wonder how good  it can be from a can. One day while shopping in a local Asian supermarket, I found some red curry paste. Its the same brand as the can ones he had...so I decided to make some. It was my first time making red curry and also my first time having some. I made some on the weekend and got great response! Not bad for first try! =D

Kobe's Christmas Doggie Biscuit Treats

This Christmas I decided to do something different for a very special guy. His name is Kobe..my fiance's family dog. I've been together with my fiance for almost 12 years...since high school! and I've known his dog Kobe just as long. Kobe is not the most obedient dog...would pee in places he shouldn't, etc. but he definitely has his cute and good side as well. For the last 3 months, I've been cooking at his house on the weekend and he would be around in the kitchen. I would like to think he's there to keep me company but I know he's just waiting for me to accidentally drop food on the floor. haha. Nevertheless, I always look forward to seeing him on the weekends. Kobe is such a loveable fella! An important member of my family.

I've been searching online for some dog biscuit recipes and almost all of them require the use of wheat flour. I'm not sure if he's allergic to wheat but I know he's ok with rice...so I made these biscuits with the use of gluten free white rice flour. My original idea was to make him turkey dinner biscuits...with cranberries, potatoes, and turkey...but I wasn't sure if I have to keep the biscuits in the fridge coz of the meat. My in-law's fridge is always full of food. I decided to go with bananas and cranberries instead coz he likes bananas...and cranberries is part of typical Christmas dinner? After I made the first batch, I actually ate a couple...its not bad...definitely not much flavor...has a bit of sweetness to it...but it has a nice smell of bananas.

On Christmas day, we gave him one and he finished it quite quickly. That made me extremely happy! =D It was worth the time to make these!~

Homemade Lasagna Recipe

Here is another post today! Yes now that all my Christmas related activities are done, I'm pretty free~ I also have tomorrow off so I can stay up late and figure out what to make for Saturday's dinner. I love lasagna and I'm sure it's a lot of people's favorites as well. It's a great dish to serve during family dinners and friend gatherings. Making it is not hard at all too. In fact it's quite easy and fun! It does take a bit of time though...but it's totally worth it! coz my fiance said he likes it! =D

This recipe is another recipe I found online. Like other recipes I tried, I tweaked this one a bit as well. The original recipe calls for fennel seeds but I didn't add any. In my opinion, it tastes better without it. I also adjusted the amount of certain ingredients for my convenience as well. 

Christmas checkered cookies

Merry Christmas everyone! I had a pretty busy Christmas this year. Aside from work, (busy with centerpieces!) I did quite a bit of baking and knitting. I made my brother a scarf as part of his Christmas gift. I had to pull 2 all nighters just to finish it. x_X...but it was worth it! I also made a lot of cookies as small gifts for my coworkers and a batch of doggie biscuits for my fiance's family dog, Kobe. He is such a cute dog!

I was given quite a bit of kitchen related Christmas gifts this year. I'm such a lucky girl! Thank you very much for the wonderful gifts! I got my pink kitchenAid stand mixer. Its been my #1 item on my wishlist for the longest time! so happy!~  I also got a bunch of Cuisinart pans, pots, toaster, kettle, etc from my sister and brother in law. They brought them over from the states in one of their luggage. It was opened for custom inspection coz of the amount of metal detected. They never returned the luggage lock to them. >__> kinda sucks. They probably broke it or something. I really appreciate the thoughtfulness! and sorry about the trouble!

This year I wanted to try making some checkered cookies. I discovered checkered cookies from one of my Japanese craft books. It was a book on how to make different food items from felt fabric. There was a section on bakery goods and there it was. I searched around after and discovered its just a combination of chocolate and non chocolate butter dough cut into stripes, stacked together, and cut into slices. I gave the recipe a try and it was more work than it sounds. lol As usual, I changed the recipe slightly and the cookies turned out delicious!~

French Baguette Recipe

A couple of days ago I tried my hands on making French baguette from scratch. I wanted to make garlic bread to go with my lasagna. In the past I've made buns and stuff but never plain bread...so that was an interesting experience. It was surprisingly easy too....all thanks to this recipe I found Here. I did adjust the recipe a little bit and it worked out great! I don't have a bread machine nor a electric stand mixer...just a electric hand mixer...but it still worked out fine! Fresh bread smells so good! and it tasted great too! It was however a bit time consuming to make but if you already have the ingredients in your pantry and have some time to spare, why not give this recipe a try?

Gingerbread Man + Royal Icing Recipe

 
It's the time of the year for some major holiday baking! Gingerbread cookies are one of my absolute favorite cookies to eat and make. I love the smell and taste of the spices and the decorating part at the end is so much fun! I had a bit of trouble trying to get my hands on some fancy molasses at the grocery stores. I had to go to 4 different stores coz the others were out of it! I'll make sure next year molasses will be the first thing on my holiday shopping list! I also found a great local store that sells a lot of baking supplies. They have a great selection of sprinkles and confetti for baking...and of course they have some Christmas ones. I bought some sprinkles and tiny gingerbread confetti. They are absolutely cute!

It's been a while since the last time I made gingerbread man cookies so I had to browse around for a recipe. In the end, I decided to try this recipe out.  Link I did change the recipe a tiny bit and the cookies turned out wonderful! As for icing, I decided to go with egg white royal icing instead of one that uses meringue powder. Maybe next time I'll try the meringue powder. I wonder if there's a huge difference in terms of taste...

Sweet BBQ chicken calzone

After watching the latest episode of Parks and Recreation where they had a calzone party in the show, I decided to try making one. (not the best reason...haha) I haven't had calzones in a long time...so it was nice to finally have it again. I decided on sweet BBQ chicken coz you can't really go wrong with it. I made this last night for dinner and it was delicious!

This calzone can be made with store bought pizza dough or homemade pizza dough shown on my blog here: homemade pizza dough

The following recipe was made using homemade pizza dough.

Matcha swiss roll with anko

Matcha (green tea) powder is used during Japanese traditional tea ceremonies. Over the years, it became a popular ingredient for baking and for making different types of beverages. Matcha is the powdered form of green tea leaves so they are kinda bitter in nature. Sweetener of some sort is needed in the recipe to enhance the flavor and make it more sweet.

I love matcha desserts...matcha ice cream is my favorite. This matcha swiss roll with anko is pretty good as well. The anko (red bean paste) goes really well with matcha. This recipe was adapted from this video. Its easier to make than it looks.

Basic miso soup recipe

Miso soup is very healthy and easy to make. I can have miso soup everyday and won't get sick from it. That's how much I love it! Besides the basic ingredients, you can add seafood, noodles, and vegetable to it. Sometimes when I want a fuller meal, I like to add udon and fish cakes.

I've had miso soup from different places. Ones from Japanese restaurants, Japanese supermarkets, the instant powdered ones that you can buy in packages, and ones in instant noodle cup like thingy. I like my miso soup homemade the most coz you can adjust the amount of miso paste and what type of miso to use. I like to use shiro (white miso) coz its less salter than aka (red miso) but still taste very delicious!

The following recipe is how I like mine to taste. The amount of ingredients can be adjusted according to your preference.

Homemade pizza dough recipe

I always wanted to try making pizza at home...but thought pizza dough would be hard to make. I was under the impression that you have to toss the dough up in the air and stuff...which I didn't want to do. I don't want it to land on my head or on the floor. haha

Recently, I stumbled across a youtube video on how to make pizza dough and I was surprised at how easy it is to make it...and of course the dough doesn't need to be tossed. The thing is though, the recipe requires yeast. I never like using yeast. I don't like the taste of it...and no matter what I do, it doesn't go away completely. After watching the video, I decided to search for no yeast pizza dough. I found a whole bunch but they all have mixed reviews...like how it doesn't taste like pizza dough, too crunchy, etc. I thought maybe I'll give the yeast pizza dough a try. The video did get quite a bit of views so it can't be that bad right? Maybe if I follow it precisely, I won't be able to taste the yeast?

...so I gave it a try today. I made calzone with the dough and it turned out very good! I couldn't taste the yeast at all! Very pleased with that!~ The following pizza dough recipe was adapted from this youtube video: original recipe video 

Green Grape Jelly - First recipe post!

Finally my very first recipe post! I've always been a girly girl. I work with flowers almost everyday, have a huge doll collection, enjoys sewing and knitting, and I used to do a lot of arts and crafts. However in terms of cooking, I never really got into it until a few months ago. There's so many fun and delicious recipes out there that I want to try! Its very rewarding too when the recipe's a success! and of course that makes my tummy satisfied too. =) A lot of the recipes that I will be posting here are modified versions of other recipes that I came across. Of course there will be ones that I put together. =)

Couple days ago I made a batch of green grape jelly and thought it'll be a great first recipe post. I love green grapes a lot but I never seem to find green grape jam anywhere. I thought maybe I can try making some. I've seen different youtube tutorial videos and recipes on different websites on how to make grape jelly. It seems like everyone has their own way of making jam but the ratio of the ingredients are pretty much the same. The following recipe was how I made my batch.