Fact: I will eat just about any food but my favorite dishes are usually simple to prepare, fresh in flavor, and can be made very quickly. Cooking for me is about being flexible, creative, and resourceful. And I can’t help but be a little proud of myself when I make something so deliciously good with such little amount of effort.
For instance, today’s pasta dish was inspired by Aglio E Olio (warm olive oil and garlic pasta), the bounty of summer cherry tomatoes, fresh basil growing in a tiny plastic pot next to the kitchen window,, and fresh lump Dungeness crab meat to top it all off. The addition of fresh lemon juice brightens everything perfectly. We now have a light summer dinner meal bursting with flavor to delight the palette as well as the stomach. [click to continue…]
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I’m excited to share with you one of my favorite Korean noodle dishes, jap chae. My mother taught me how to prepare jap chae the Korean way. She learned from her mother, my grandmother, who owned a Korean restaurant near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Korea before immigrating here in the 1970s.
Jap chae is one of the more common and widely recognized dishes in Korean cuisine. It is not only beautiful in presentation but comforting to eat. Commonly made with thinly sliced beef, today I’m sharing with you a vegetarian version. This version is also vegan and gluten-free when using San-J Wheat Free Tamari soy sauce. [click to continue…]
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I love my friend and fellow food blogger, Jennifer Perrillo. In September we were roommates for BlogherFood09 in San Francisco. During our time together she was so kind to give me all sorts of wonderful things to bring back to Seattle. This included a copy of Japanese Hot Pots: Comforting One-Pot Meals
by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat. I was so thrilled because I had been looking through it in our hotel room asking questions about it. During my flight home I scanned through each recipe. With every turn of the page my appetite for hot pot grew. Browsing through the book one can’t help but notice the stunning food photography -the photos are beyond beautiful. The first recipe I tried was Kinoko Nabe a.k.a. Mushroom Hot Pot. And fyi, I’ve made this 4 times since reading the book! [click to continue…]
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When I think of Thai food I think of Pad Thai. Ever since discovering Joy’s Thai Food online 2 years ago, I’ve been making an adapted version of her recipe which I think has to be as good or almost as good as the local Thai restaurant we frequent. For 15 years I have had a love hate relationship with this popular Thai noodle dish. I loved eating it but hated preparing it. You see, I have this weird habit of trying to re-create dishes I love eating out at home. Most recipes I found used ketchup. So each attempt at making Pad Thai always resulted in ketchup tasting noodles. I even tried using boxed Pad Thai kits with not so good results. I wanted to be able to prepare Pad Thai as good as the local Thai restaurant down the street. This would be the only way I would ever be satisfied with preparing this dish at home. [click to continue…]
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Here is a mac and cheese recipe that is easy, simple, and filling. It makes a wonderful main or side dish, perfect for a weeknight supper. [click to continue…]
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