Ground Beef and Tofu

Day 1 without Mom. Yep, Mom will be gone for a few weeks, so now begins the survival test. And we're doing a good job of surviving actually. My dad and I did a joint effort of cooking a dish that my Mom makes a lot. This is a more Asian styled dish. I just have to say that it was wonderful being home and eating real rice for once. Enjoy this dish because I like it a lot.

Ground Beef and Tofu

prep time: 5-10 min, depending on whether you need to thaw or not
cook time: 15 min,

1/2 lb ground beef or turkey

1/2 -1 lb tofu

1/4 cup oyster sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tbsp sugar

Brown the beef or turkey in a skillet. My parents actually prefer turkey, but sometimes we get beef. While the meat is cooking, cut the tofu into half inch cubes. When the meat is done, add the tofu, and 3/4 cups of water. Add the different sauces and sugar and mix it all together.

 Let it boil in the skillet for about 5-10 minutes until the sauce starts to look a little thicker. Serve with rice.

This is with the thicker sauce if you can see past the steam

Thousand Island Tilapia

Okay, so you know Parmesan Chicken? You know, the chicken covered with mayo, Parmesan, Italian seasoning, and bread crumbs and baked to yummy goodness? Well, one time last semester, I was making it and had extra Parmesan/mayo mix left and I was looking through my fridge thinking, "What else can I use?" Then I saw the tilapia fillet in the freezer and threw that in with the rest of the chicken in the oven.

Tasted great, but that's not what I'm trying to get to. I started to think, "What if I tried a different sauce/mix that wasn't mayonnaise based?" Once again, I'm staring at everything in the fridge and the Thousand Island dressing catches my eye. Dare I...?

The first time I did it, last semester, was in the oven. When I was doing it today, I didn't feel very patient for the oven (it's finals week, did I mention that? O_O), so I tried to microwave it. It wasn't the first time for me to microwave tilapia, but it was for Thousand Island. My advice: If you want to try doing this in the microwave, pour the Thousand Island in the last 15-30 seconds or else your plate is going to look like this:

Thousand Island Tilapia


prep time: 2 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes

any desired amount of tilapia fillet

1/3 cup Thousand Island dressing for each fillet

Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees. Have your packaged fillets run under lukewarm water, just enough to make it easy for you to take them out of the packaging. Or if you have time, let them thaw properly. Place fillets on a baking sheet and cover them with the dressing. Bake for about 20 minutes or until you fillets are ready. You can tell this by sticking a fork in there to test if they flake by twisting it a bit.

Mango Lassi

I would have done a much better job of presenting this, but I never really thought about making a post for this until I was halfway through sipping my lassi. Lassi is an Indian yogurt based smoothie. My first experience with lassi was at a friend's wedding reception. She had done a summer field study in India one year and came back in love with everything the culture had to offer, so of course she was going to incorporate lassi and chupas into her wedding. In fact, now that I remember it, I was one of the ones behind the scenes helping to make the lassi before and during the reception... I got stabbed by a knife cutting those mangoes. Good times.

Please igore everything in the background; we're in the middle of packing

This recipe is sugar-free. I made this because one of my roommates is on a sugar diet until her marathon is over (three more days!). Since I couldn't make cookies or cakes for my all my roommates without leaving her out, I decided to make her sugar-free mango lassi instead.

Mango Lassi


I actually don't have a solid recipe to give :/ These are all guestimates, but this basically what I did:

3 mangoes, peeled and diced

1 cup plain yogurt

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

All you really do is cut some mangoes, throw in the yogurt, pour the milk, vanilla, and blend it all together. How much yogurt and milk really depends on how thick or thin you want it, so you don't really have to follow the recipe.

If you want a more sweeter flavor, put in a bit of vanilla ice cream. I've never tried it, but that's what I was told to do. Also, if you aren't really into mangoes, go for strawberry lassi! Or even plain lassi and just add a little extra vanilla extract and sugar.

Cake Batter Truffles

This would be the second time I've made these; the first time I hadn't made this blog just yet, but now I can post it! I found this recipe on Pintrest from the Six Sister's Stuff blog:

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com

I did a few things differently, so here's the modified recipe I used

Cake Batter Truffles


prep time: 15 min
crafting time: approximately 1-2 hours
servings: makes around 15-20, depending on the size of your balls.

Cake Batter:
1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup Funfetti cake mix (original recipe asked for yellow)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/8  tsp salt

4-5 tbsp milk

Truffle Coating:
16 oz (8 squares) almond bark (or vanilla candy coating)

4 tbsp cake mix

Cream butter and sugar together. Add cake mix, flour, salt, and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Add 3 tbsp of the milk and mix, adding another tablespoon one at a time until the batter is about right. You'll know if it sticks together and can be formed into shapes. If desired, mix in sprinkles (if using Funfetti, that's already taken care of ;D). Roll dough into one inch balls and place on a parchment or wax paper lined cookie sheet.

Since I'm a poor college student who is almost done for the semester, I tried just lightly flouring a surface instead of parchment or wax paper. Chill the balls in the refrigerator to firm them up, approximately 30 minutes.

I could only find Kroger brand candy coating, which came in a nice, microwavable pan!

While dough balls are chilling, melt almond bark or candy melts as the package instructs. Stir in the extra cake mix (here's where the Funfetti isn't that fun, unless you want sprinkles mixed into your coating :/) If you want to make cake pops instead of truffles, here's what you need to do: Stick one end of the lollipop sticks into the coating and then insert it into the balls.

I also find that it helps to add a little more coating in the surrounding area as extra reinforcement for them to hold together. Refrigerate them. Once all the balls are ready, dip them into the coating and try to shake of excess if you can. Note that depending on how cold your cake batter is, your coating will start to harden after a while and might need another 30 seconds in the microwave after a few truffles. If you don't want cake pops, use a fork. Chill the finished truffles. Something I noticed was that if you accidentally leave any uncovered parts of the batter, it expands and start squeeze itself out of the hole. What I did was since I had extra, I would just dip that little section into the coating and hope that would be enough.

My awesome, make-shift pop holder. Notice that my recipe sadly does not make the most round and perfect cake batter truffle, but I'm slowly starting to get the hang of this and hopefully you will too.

Enjoy. I must warn you, they're very sweet :D

Spaghetti with Zucchini Sauce

So here's the first post! A friend of mine made this recipe about a year ago and I wanted to make it again. The recipe came from a family cookbook that his mother had.

I added mushrooms to it because I happened to have a can in my cupboard and with the semester ending shortly it had to be sued sooner or alter. Also, instead of a garlic clover, I used garlic powder and sadly I didn't have basil or bay leaves, but it still tasted great. You can't see it in the picture, but there were two slices of Kraft cheddar cheese on top and beneath the spaghetti since I didn't have Parmesan and spaghetti without cheese is not acceptable. Anyways, this was definitely tasty.

Spaghetti with Zucchini Sauce

prep time: 15 minutes

cook time: 25 minutes

servings: 5-7

1lb ground beef or turkey

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic

4 medium zucchini, sliced

2 14oz. cans stewed or diced tomatoes

1 8oz. can tomato sauce (optional for thicker sauce)

1 8oz. can mushrooms (optional)

1 tsp salt

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 cup water (optional for thinner sauce)

Parmesan cheese

spaghetti

In a small pan, brown the ground beef (or turkey) and drain. In electric skillet, saute onion in hot oil until crisp-tender. Add meat, zucchini, tomatoes, salt, bay leaves, pepper, basil, and oregano. Simmer covered for 15 minutes. Uncover, add mushrooms if desired, and simmer 10 minutes longer. Discard bay leaves. Serve cooked spaghetti topped with zucchini sauce and Parmesan cheese.

How This Came About

Hello everyone! This is an exciting moment for me to start this blog. My name is Melinda and one day when I called home, my mom told me she would be visiting her sister and mother for about two months during the summer. I wish I could go with her, but she leaves before I'm done with school and would be coming home after I start my summer internship, so I need to stay home and feed the rest of my family. It will only be my dad (who will be working), my little brother (who is too young to cook), and me, but it's still a daunting task ahead of me to satisfy their appetite.

I didn't start cooking until this school year since my dorm has a kitchen. Sadly, my mom's home cooking are done from memory and I don't have a cookbook to follow, so that's where the adventure begins! Being a novice and having to feed my family this summer, hopefully I'll get a more generous grocery budget and get to let my creativity go and make any recipe I have or find on Pintrest (or dare I try and imitate my mother's wonderfully talented cooking). It'll definitely be interesting to see how my picky little brother will react or what my dad thinks about my creations (although he no longer cooks, he worked at his brother's restaurant for years before he got married).

Enjoy this blog as I document entrees, snacks, deserts, and who knows what I'll make this summer and for the years to come as well :)