Crunchy baked chicken nuggets

This recipe is adapted from a blog called How Sweet It Is. I didn't have any buttermilk so I just used regular milk and I definitely cut down the amount of panko, flour, and milk. Since I didn't have asiago and I didn't feel like spending a lot of money on fancy cheese, I just grabbed a bag of Italian blend shredded cheese. This recipe made several batches of chicken and I still have left over panko/breading.  I definitely wish they had turned out cheesier and crunchier, but I can fix that later. The recipe included instructions on how to make honey mustard from dijon mustard and honey; I just eyeballed the amount of each, but you could simply buy honey mustard or use whatever dipping sauce you like.

Honey mustard dipping sauce

Finished product

Crunchy baked chicken nuggets

Ingredients

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup low fat milk
• 1 cup panko
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup Italian blend shreded cheese
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• honey to taste
• dijon mustard to taste

Procedure

1. Cut chicken breast into nugget size. Soak in milk, salt and pepper.
2. Preheat oven to 450F.
3. Mix panko, flour, cheese, garlic powder, and paprika into a bowl.
4. Mix honey and mustard in a separate bowl.
5. Coat/bread chicken and place on greased baking sheet.
6. Bake for 7 minutes or until golden brown, then flip and bake for another 7 minutes.

Mango Gelatin

I visited my parents and while I was there, I had the opportunity to eat lots and lots of mango from the tree in my  parent's backyard. I think I ate a mango a day while I was there. We had so many mangoes that my mother decided to experiment and make mango gelatin. It was pretty interesting, but even though the mangoes themselves were sweet the gelatin need more sugar than what we had decided to put in it.

Gelatin powder mixed with cold milk

Mango the size of your hand!

Boiled and blended mango

Mango gelatin mixture before it sets

Finished mango gelatin

Spoon and spoonful of mango gelatin

Mango Gelatin
Ingredients

• 4 packets Knox unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup milk
• 2 med mangoes, mashed/blended until smooth
• 2 tbsp sugar

Procedure

1. Mash or blend the mangoes in a food processor or blender if you haven't already.
2. Transfer the mango blend into a pot and heat until boiled.
3. Add sugar to the mango.
4. Dissolve gelatin in a cup of cold milk. Some small clumps are alright.
5. Pour milk and gelatin mixture into the pot of hot mango and mix well, making sure the gelatin further dissolves.
6. Pour the mango gelatin mixture into a Pyrex dish and let cool/set in the refrigerate for several hours until gelatin becomes firm. Make sure to smooth out the mango mixture so that the gelatin will end up smooth instead of full of pockets where bubbles were.

Experimental Indian Curry or Keema

What could I do with a pound of ground beef? Originally I was thinking of making a dish with the beef and some left over mango. I tried to look up recipes and maybe create my own curry recipe but decided that what I wanted to do would probably turn out bad. So, I took the mango out of the equation and decided to go for an Indian dish called keema. According to wikipedia: "Keema, Kheema, or Qeema  is a traditional South Asian meat dish. Originally this word meant minced meat.^[1] It is typically minced mutton curry with peas or potatoes. Keema can be made from almost any meat, can be cooked by stewing or frying, and can be formed into kababs. Keema is also sometimes used as a filling for samosas or naan." I worked with what I had in the fridge and pantry and came up with something the my roommate and I both enjoyed. This recipe would probably have been better if I had an onion, but I only had onion soup mix. It kind of looks like chili, but with random vegetables in it. I definitely recommend yogurt or sour cream to go with it, especially if you can't handle the spiciness of the dish.

Keema in the pot

Keema served with rice and sour cream

Experimental Keema
Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef (lean)
• 8 oz frozen mixed vegetables (the kind with peas)
• 1 1/2 tsp garam masala spice mix
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 plum tomato diced
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp onion soup mix
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 8 oz can tomato sauce
• serve with sour cream on the side and some rice

Procedure

1. Melt butter in a large pot and cook the minced garlic in it. Once the garlic becomes slightly golden, add the rest of the spices and the frozen vegetables.
2. When the frozen vegetables seem mostly defrosted, add the ground beef to the pot. Break apart the meat and stir occasionally.
3. Once the beef no longer looks pink, add the chicken broth and the tomato sauce. Cover the pot and let it come to a boil. 
4. Mix pot occasionally and let simmer for about 20 minutes.
5. Serve over rice with some sour cream or plain yogurt.

Shepherd's pie

Who doesn't love a good, well-rounded dish like shepherd's pie? Technically ground lamb should be used but I used ground beef. I've heard it called "cattle herd's pie" if ground beef was used. Anyway, I love mashed potatoes and the added bonus of veggies and beef make this meal a one dish dinner. Typically Worcestershire sauce is used, but I never have it around so I just tried to substitute it with a mixture of soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Who doesn't love frying up onion and garlic in a pan?

Mmmmmmm mashed potatoes

Ground beef and veggies added to the onion and garlic

Foundation of ground beef and veggies topped off with mashed potatoes

Shepherd's pie served up with a sprinkle of shredded cheese on top

Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef
• ~ 8 oz frozen mixed vegetables (make sure mix has carrots and peas in it)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp of dried rosemary
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• garlic salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• 4 large red potatoes peeled and cut into 1.5 inch cubes
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 of a large onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Procedure

1. Cook the garlic and onion in the olive oil in a large pan. Preheat oven to 400F
2. While garlic and onion is cooking, boil potatoes in a large pot of water. When potatoes are mashable, drain water and mash potatoes. Season potatoes with butter, garlic salt, and pepper. Add milk to make the potatoes creamier.
3. When the garlic and onion start to turn golden, add the frozen veggies to the pan. When most of the frozen veggies seemed defrosted add soy sauce, vinegar, rosemary and ground beef. Add some pepper to taste. 
4. Cook ground beef until the beef is no longer red.
5. Pour the ground beef and vegetable mixture into a 9x9 inch baking dish. Then smoother over the mashed potatoes on top of the beef and vegetable mixture.
6. Bake the shepherd's pie at 400F for about 20 min or until mashed potato layer becomes slightly golden brown and crusty.

Apple pie from scratch...even the pie crust

I decided to try baking a pie from scratch since I had the time and I didn't feel like spending money on a pie crust. Now I know how much butter is really in a pie crust and that making pie crust is way harder than I originally thought. I have already mastered the apple pie with store-bought crust thanks to all the pie-baking I've done with my good friend Sierra. The crust tasted good, but I don't have the technique down so the texture isn't quite right. The apple filling made up for anything lacking in the crust. I wanted to do a cross-hatched/woven top crust, but I couldn't get the dough to hold properly. It kept crumbling so I just made a crumble top. Anyone trying to make the recipe better not be afraid to get their hands dirty. This is a messy process. Grating butter is harder than I originally thought. It's easy until you get close to the end you're holding that's getting all melty and hard to grate. Also, I was lucky enough to have a pie plate leftover from a store-bought pie to hold the pie since I didn't have a glass pie dish.

Grate frozen sticks of butter into the flour mixture

Mix in the butter and the flour mixture until it's all crumbly looking

Large flat surface for rolling out the dough

Thinly sliced apple arranged inside the pie. Both aesthetic and most space efficient.

Pie!

Pie crust recipe (adapted from Simply Recipes and All Recipes)

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 sticks of unsalted butter frozen over night
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 7 tbsp ice cold water

Procedure

1. Mix flour, salt, sugar in large bowl.
2. Grate butter into the flour mixture and cut in the butter with two butter knives until you have coarse crumbles.
3. Stir in water a tablespoon at a time. 
4. Create two dough balls for top and bottom crust.
5. Spread one dough ball evenly over the pie pan for the bottom crust. Wrap the other dough ball in Saran wrap and refrigerate both the dough ball and the dough in the pie plate.

Apple Pie filling

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 6 cups of thinly sliced apples  or as much as is needed to fill the pie (I prefer Jonathan or Jonamac apples)

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 425F
2. In a medium-sized bowl, add the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Mix until combined. 
3. Peel, core and thinly slice apples one at a time. Arrange the apple slices in a circular pattern in the pie dough covered pie plate. Sprinkle the flour and sugar mixture over each layer of apple slices. Do this until pie plate is full to the brim with alternating layers of apple and flour-sugar mixture. If you have remaining flour-sugar mixture, sprinkle the rest on top of the last apple slice layer.
4. Take out dough ball from fridge. To make the crumble top crust, crumble the dough ball over the top of the pie until the pie is covered in crumbled dough.
5. Bake for 40 min until crust is golden.

Potato and Leek Soup

I was at the grocery store with my roommate and saw leeks. I had been looking for leeks for a while and was going to make this awesome vegetable soup but decided to make something new: potato and leek soup. This recipe is a hybrid of several recipes I found online. The amounts of onion, green onion, and chive are all estimated because I wanted to use up the left overs in my fridge. Mushrooms were added on a whim because they are delicious and they needed to be eaten soon. I might have gotten a little carried away with the onion, but the soup turned out really  delicious. Also, most of the recipes I looked at online required a food processor or immersion blender. I don't have either of those so I just used a potato masher and a hand mixer. Who needs all those fancy gadgets? If I were to tweak this recipe, I would add a little more leek or even out the leek to onion ratio and also add either garlic salt or garlic.

Thinly sliced leek and green onion, finely chopped onion, and finely chopped mushrooms 

Magically transformed potato and leek soup after mashing

Close-up of soup served in a bowl

Potato and Leek Soup Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 leek, sliced thinly (green and light green parts only)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• half a medium onion finely chopped
• 2 tbsp chives, snipped into small pieces
• 1/2 cup green onion thinly sliced (green and light green parts only)
• 6 medium red potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 tbsp butter
• 4 oz mushrooms finely chopped
• 4 oz of sour cream
• salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

1. Cook leeks, mushrooms, onion, green onion, chives, salt, and pepper in the butter for about 5 minutes in a large pot.
2. Add chicken stock and potatoes.
3. Cook covered for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are soft enough to be mashed.
4. When potatoes are ready, add sour cream into the pot and mash the potatoes. Mash until you get the consistency you want.

Vegetable Panang Curry

This recipe always reminds me of my close friend who showed me how to make this curry. You can always tell how hot a curry is by the color and I will never forget that.Whenever she made it, I couldn't stand the heat but the curry was also bright red-pink. So, I have adapted her recipe and the curry I make is a respectable pinky-orange color.

Not so secret ingredient

Delicious curry cooking in the pot

My dinner!

Ingredients

• Half a medium onion, diced
• one 16 oz bag of frozen vegetable blend (I used Japanese blend)
• 3 medium potatoes peeled and cut into eighths
• 2 carrots, diced into approx 1 inch cubes (only add this if your bag of vegetables don't include carrots)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 2 tbsp Panang curry paste

Procedure

1. Boil the potatoes in a pot of water into cooked but still a bit hard. Drain and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, pan fry the onion in some oil in a separate large pot on medium heat.
3. Once the diced onion is a little golden, add the carrots.
4. Defrost the frozen veggies in the microwave according to the instructions on the package.
5. When veggies are defrosted, add to the large pot with the carrots and onions. Also add the cooked potatoes.
6. Stir in the curry paste and the sugar into the large pot with the vegetables. Mix well until curry paste is evenly distributed.
7. Finally, add can of coconut milk then cover the pot and let the curry come to a boil. Then let the curry simmer for about 10 minutes.
8. Serve with rice.