May the Fourth be with you...

Happy Friday everyone! This has been yet another busy week, swamped with work, family stuff and just the "little things" like errands and chores. It's unbelievable how much time doing dishes, laundry and just general cleaning actually takes! Among the haste, Hubs always manages to make food that looks like it belongs in a food magazine. I'll talk between the pictures ;)

Lamb in a red wine reduction sauce

Roasted garlic and herb potatoes

Sauteed vegetables on the side

Over here in my part of the world, the weather has increasingly become warmer and nothing gets me more excited than summer. Why? Because that means it's camping season! Hubs and I loooove going camping and barbecuing when it's warm. We find excitement in preparing all the food and bringing our trust portable grill out with our daughter to enjoy the weather. I predict this summer will be no different!!

I think it's amazing that Hubs has the skills to make food of such variety, both in textures and tastes. I'm totally opposite when it comes to cooking since I feel like such a novice in the kitchen/cooking department. BAKING HOWEVER... That's more my neck of the woods. We sure can make a great feast pairing our cooking and baking skills together :)

Chicken Hash Open Face Sandwich

This open face sandwich is something I totally love for brunch (and of course Hubs knows that hehee). It's sauteed chicken, potato, onion and carrot dredged in this delicious mushroom gravy over a crispy piece of toast. Doesn't that sound delicious? Well, it tastes better than it looks!

If you would like recipes for any of these, please feel free to email me at belleplusmel@gmail.com. I tend not to write out the recipes as often anymore on the blog post because it comes out very long. If you have questions about substituting any ingredients, feel free to ask as well! I often find that when you're recipe researching, you are almost always guaranteed to be missing one or two ingredients... At least I do. I like to look for recipes based on what I've already bought on my weekly grocery trip so I do end up substituting ingredients in most recipes.

Anyway, I hope within your busy schedules, you're able to find some time to cook yourself a good and hearty meal at least once a week (or have someone do it!).

 

♥B

Food!!

Hubs had an extra day off this week so he decided to spoil me with a nice dinner. I only take credit for slicing the potatoes though. He literally made everything else. So what was for dinner, you ask? Here it comes... *drum rolls*

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Chicken with Scalloped Potatoes!  

The Preparation

diced veggies, scalloped potatoes, stuffing, and bacon wrapping

The Finished Product

And of course, a peek inside :)

 

♥B

Baking Edition: Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Happy Sunday Mel and everyone!

I bought a new toy this weekend...

They're mini springform pans :D! These babies are about 4" in diameter making it perfect for smaller sized cakes. I have regular cake pans but find that between Hubs and I, we struggle to finish an entire cake before it goes bad. Thus, I came across these smaller sized pans that I just had to get. For anyone watching their waistline but not willing to give up sweets, this is a great way to portion out your dessert servings too  ;)

For my weekly baking, I chose a chocolate swirl cheesecake to make. Cheesecake is my absolute favourite type of cake because of how creamy and dense they are. This recipe was my own creation but used the swirl technique from Zoe Bakes - she's a great blogger and always has good recipes to offer! I did make a minor *noob* mistake that caused my crust to not be as crispy but the flavours were there at least.

Preparing the crust!

WARNING:
The following pictures might make you hungry...

Okay, I'll admit I'm a little lazy to post the whole recipe here.

But if you would like the recipe, please feel free to email me at belleplusmel@gmail.com and I'll happily share it.

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

♥B

Baking Edition: Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf

I've been having quite a rough time recently, and have pushed my weekly baking aside. Today sort of pushed me over the edge so I just set time aside for myself for some baking therapy hehe. I won't go into detail or even a smidgen of what's been happening because then I feel like I'd just be spreading the negativity. Instead... why don't I just show you my baked goods? =D

Today, I delved into a classic...

Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf!

Hubs loves this bread and he bought the necessary ingredients for me on our last grocery trip. How sweet! This turned out soooooo good. The loaf itself is buttery, but with the glaze on top, it just made it sweeter and even more lemony lol. I figured I wouldn't post the recipe in this post since I got it directly here off of JoyofBaking. I seriously love this woman for trying baked goods. She has a bible of recipes on her website showcasing over 100 different things that you can try. I tend to modify recipes to my liking but this Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf did not need any modification.

 Top of the loaf, with lemon sugar glaze :)

Look at the beautiful flecks of black and yellow from the poppy seed and lemon zest

YUMMMM.

As always, I hope you guys will try this recipe one day. The baking process may not cheer you up a much as it did for me, but eating it sure will. Have a great weekend!

Just one more picture... hehe.

♥B

Spring-ing

Wow it's been a while since we both updated! As you can imagine, we're busy enjoying the spring weather outdoors. I went out with the family today and it seriously felt like summer already. Anyway, Saturdays mean prepping food for the week - things like baking, or pre-cooking and freezing food. Today it means CHICKEN STOCK/BROTH! If I'm lazy, I tend to resort to chicken cubes which are in fact high in sodium and probably a bunch of other things that aren't necessary to one's body. Instead, I make my own! It's a nutritious alternative to store-bought stock or broth because you control what goes into the stock.

Ingredients: fresh parsley, celery, carrots, onion, tomato, garlic and raw (bone-in) chicken

That's all. You literally put all that in one pot and cover it with cold water. Let it boil and simmer for at least 4 hours so that all the ingredients can really flavour the water.

No, seriously... Just throw it all in one pot. It's so easy you could probably do this blindfolded.

So hopefully, it'll inspire you guys to make your own chicken stock as it really is healthier. If you're a vegetarian, you can just omit the chicken and you get vegetable stock!

* * *

What else to do while you wait for chicken stock to boil for a few hours?

Finger paint!

 Essie - Chinchilly (3 coats)

Happy Saturday everyone!

♥B

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Here's a meal that I am happy to say was a collaboration between my brother and I... and by that I really mean I cook he eats. Well.. he was the one who made the trip to the grocery store! We were both being health nuts so we decided on loading up on the veggies and protein and reducing the carbs and fat.

Sweet Chilli & Pepper Chicken Breast, Potato Wedges, Baked Carrots, & Romaine Lettuce Salad

♥M

Happy St. Patty's!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! A great excuse to get trashed for most people, but since hubs is working and we've got no one to watch the little ones, it's a stay-at-home day for me. I'm sure most people did their nails green so I jumped on the bandwagon.

Nails: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Green with Envy

I hate how hard it is to capture the real colour of nails in photographs. From the left, I shot that at night. Second picture from the left, that was during the daytime. Both look like two completely different shades. But the best way to describe the true colour of this would be "celery". Yup, I was chopping celery earlier today and realized that it was an identical match. This was about 3 coats with top and base coat.

As for dinner...

Chinese Ginger Beef on Rice

Hope everyone's getting completely wasted tonight!

♥B

Baking Edition: Choco Muffs

Saturday evenings are usually my dedicated baking days since hubs is at work and baby is asleep by then. It's something I try to do every weekend to fill my house with goodies. I love to bake because I know what goes into what treats I'm eating and I can control the amount of ingredients that goes in each baked good. Plus, it's ridiculously therapeutic!

Today's treat is Chocolate Chip Muffins. Just like chocolate chip cookies, there are probably about a million recipes out there that claim themselves to be the best choco muff out there. But you never know until you try. This recipe was adapted from a coworker but I did make some changes to suit my taste. Also, they didn't brown on top as much as I would've liked them to mainly because I forgot to adjust my oven rack so please make sure your oven rack is in the middle rather than the bottom!

Classic Chocolate Chip Muffin

2 cups AP flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup whole milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup unsweetened chocolate chips

1. Preheat your oven to 400F. Line a muffin tray with paper liners or lightly oil them.

2. In one bowl, add the flour, both sugars, baking powder and salt. Mix well.

3. In another bowl, whisk together egg, oil, milk and vanilla.

4. Add the whole bowl of dry ingredients to the wet bowl and mix with spatula. Make sure that it's mixed just enough to incorporate the wet and dry ingredients. It's important that you DO NOT OVERMIX a muffin batter because it overdevelops the gluten in the batter and comes out very tough. You want your muffins light, airy and fluffy.

5. Now take it to your muffin tray and fill, fill, fill! Typically it's recommended that you fill each muffin cup just up to half or a teensy bit over. However, I like my muffins with a nice poofy crust, so I filled it to the top. It's totally up to you!

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes and then let it cool in the tray for about 5 minutes before you indulge.

This makes about 12 medium-sized muffins.

However, if you only fill your cups halfway, I'd say this makes about 18 medium-sized muffins.

Yuuuuuummmmy.

♥B

Another Long Day

I had to go downtown for a training workshop early in the morning. Grabbed myself a little pick-me-up.

SURPRISE MEL!

I ordered one of Mel's fave by the way. Caramel Macchiato. YUMMMMMM.

It definitely hit the spot when I needed that morning boost.

Got home this evening to make one of my comfort foods. I wasn't going to post the recipe since I hardly think this is authentic to the real thing but I guess this is just my adaptation of it. Mel wanted to know how I made it so I decided to post it. Plus, the recipe is easy peasy.

Minced Pork on Rice
1 lb ground pork
1 cup of julienned carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 small white onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of chinese five spice
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp chinese cooking wine
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cold water
2 stalks of green onion, sliced
2 eggs

Cook some rice however you would usually make it. I use a rice cooker.
In a small pot, bring water to a boil and gently submerge two eggs in for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, take out of water and run it under very cold water for a few seconds. This helps the shell come off a lot easier, trust me. Set these gorgeously peeled hard boiled eggs at the side.

Brown your ground pork on medium-high heat and season with salt and pepper.
Add carrots, white onions and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes with the meat.
Add chinese five spice, soy sauce and chinese cooking wine and cook for another 10 minutes. Now, add the 1/2 cup of water and put the hard boiled eggs to soak in the sauce. Bring to a simmer and cover with lid for about 15 minutes.
Remove the lid, add the green onions and let the water boil out some more.
Mix the cornstarch and 1 tbsp of cold water to make a cornstarch slurry. This is used in many asian dishes to increase their viscosity and thicken the sauce.

Then, serve with rice and you're done! Notice how I didn't have to use any salt besides on the meat? Quite healthy!

Hope you enjoyed it. Time for me to catch up on my hockey and basketball games. Goodnight :)

♥B

Shrimp Salad.. yummy yummy

I decided to get a bit crafty with some leftover ingredients which were: shrimp, celery, avocado, cucumber, spinach, and arugula.. all tossed in a light mayo seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, dill, and a squeeze of lemon! It's as simple as it sounds and quick to prepare. 

1. Chop vegetables while boiling an egg and shrimp

2. Dice shrimp and egg to desired size (I kept mine in chunks so you don't lose all that goodness with the other ingredients)

3. Dress your salad and eat as a sandwich or even on it's own! ;)

♥M

Oodles of Noodles

This was a 'nabeyaki udon' inspired dish.. Since the past few days have been extremely chilly, I wanted to have something nice and warm and hearty. This definitely hit the spot.

Udon w/ chicken&veggie dumplings, shrimp, assorted mushrooms & egg

♥M

Hot Hot Hot

So I had a craving for something hot and saucy.. and what else but "bul dak" aka fire chicken to satisfy that craving? Something about that burning sensation through my nose and sweat that gives me a thrill. Call me strange but I absolutely love it. I adopted this recipe from a basic online recipe found here. Over the past while, I've been expanding my knowledge in korean food and getting to try more and more different things thanks to my boyfriend and his mom. I've always been a huge fan of Korean food but never knew how much of a delicious and mouth-watering variety there was to offer. I found a new love for korean food.. and it has become something I need to have on the daily. I'm making myself hungry as I blog..

* * *

On another irrelevant note... I want and need this from chapters..

♥M

110%

Give everything you do 110% and you'll be satisfied with the results. Food can be included in this category too.. A lot of people have been pointing out the fact that my dishes are always so done up.. but what can I say? You eat with your eyes! Whether it's a meal for one, two, or a bunch, I always like to keep it clean and appealing to the eye - without sacrificing its taste of course.

Lunch

Turkey & Spicy Ham, Havarti Jalepeno, Arugula & Baby Spinach Sandwich w/ Mushroom Soup

put the two together (literally) and you get AWESOME

A simple yet fancy sandwich. I took the extra effort to tweak a couple things that made a huge difference in the taste and flavour of my sandwich. 

1. Lightly toss your vegetable (Arugula and Spinach in mine) in olive oil, salt, pepper, and a hint of lemon, add to your sandwich!

2. Saute your mushrooms in a pan for only a couple of seconds* with some garlic and butter and add to your mushroom soup. This is because the cooking process will continue and mushrooms will wilt once added to the soup. You want to try and keep some of the earthiness and bite to the mushroom!

3. Top your soup off with shredded cheese (I used marble) and watch it ooze off your spoon from your lips

Bon Appetit my friends!

♥M

Catching Up

Finally got the chance to blog. I'm typically busier on Mondays and Tuesdays than I am any other day of the week. The biggest reason being that hubs has these two days off, and work is always hectic on these days as well. Wednesday is almost one of those relief days for me since I get to just sit back and relax after a long day of work and errands. Errands being... cook, clean, tend to the daughter and whatever else that needs to be done.

Anyway, for the past couple of days, I've been eating such yummy food I had to take pictures and share them! Most of them were actually made by hubs (he's the chef in the family) but no recipes though. If you want them, feel free to email us at belleplusmel@gmail.com and I'd be happy to let you in on some secrets hehe.

A) Roasted Lamb with homemade fries, green beans and grape tomatoes - Okay, I can't take credit for this at all. Hubs totally made this for dinner on Monday night and mymouth had several orgasms.

B) Shredded Chicken open-face sandwich - Made with crisped up potatoes, some carrots and drenched in delicious gravy over whole wheat toast

C) Mapo Tofu with vegetables and spam - This is one of my daughter's favourite meals. It's literally just rice, tofu, green beans and little bits of spam. She already knows what comfort food is!

D) Chicken in mushroom gravy with asparagus and garlic whipped potatoes - This was just my dinner tonight :) Nothing special but still good.

Hopefully that made your stomach ache a little because it definitely makes me hungry all over again...

On another note, I have a clinical addiction to oranges lately. I seriously eat 2-3 a day almost everyday. I have one a day at least. I guess it's better than being hooked on someting unhealthy. So in celebration of having such a nutritious addiction, I painted my nails just that colour! Yay!

This polish is from Joe Fresh, most commonly found in Canada's Real Canadian Superstore (formerly known as Loblaws). I bought these for a ridiculously great price at $10 for 3 bottles or $4 per bottle. And these weren't even on sale... Surprisingly the formula was great. It's heavily pigmented which only required two full coats. The colour is Pineapple but as you can see, it's almost identical to my oranges! I would've thought pineapples were a bit more yellow but oh well. It's a really cute colour especially for spring. Definitely check out Joe Fresh if you can find their products.

Goodnight. 

♥B

Better Days

Saturday mornings are the best - the ability to sleep in and actually have time to make a hearty breakfast. Today my throat felt a little sore so I reverted to my regular comfort breakfast food - macaroni and spam in soup. It sounds like peasant food but it's one me and Mel's top breakfast favourites :) This is a great meal to make especially when you're on a low budget. Mel made this last week which made me crave it this morning. The only addition to her recipe I made was adding ginger, green onions and garlic to the chicken broth to steep. Other than that, I stuck close to our original!

I absolutely LOVE this meal.

Hope you guys try this one day!

♥B

Friday Night In

TGIF! I've honestly learned to appreciate my weekends a ton more now that I'm working full time again. Usually I bring work home to do, but I opted to take it out of my bag to refrain from going into workaholic mode on a Friday night. Instead, I made a nice meal while waiting for hubs to get off work.

Chicken Stirfry with Steamed Egg on Rice

I decided not to do a specific recipe because this is totally easy to recreate. In fact, you could add whichever vegetables and meat that you want. It's one of those "clear your fridge" meals! All I used were carrots, red bell peppers, green beans, onions, garlic and shredded (already cooked) chicken. In terms of the sauce and seasoning, I added a bit of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, chinese five spice, sugar, salt and pepper. For the steamed egg, believe it or not, just mix eggs with a bit of water, salt and green onions and pop it in the microwave for 3-4 minutes. I topped the stirfry with chopped salted peanuts. The peanuts gave some crunch and flavour since I only used a pinch of salt for the entire plate!

This yummy and healthy stirfry was just THAT simple. I love to make meals that are colourful since they always say: You always eat with your eyes first. Mel and I enjoy plating most of our meals prior to eating, picture or no picture. There's nothing like sitting down, visually enjoying your culinary creation, and then emptying your plate. Hopefully some of our recipe-less posts will inspire you to reach into your inner chef (we all have one!) and create food on the spot that is delicious yet nutritious. Happy Friday everyone!

 

♥B

On the Grind

Today was an extremely hectic day at work. I couldn't wait to get home, play with my daughter, and get some grub in my tub. Mel's meals are making me ridiculously hungry all the time so I decided to treat myself to some comfort food since I've been relatively light on my meals lately.

Entree Pan Fried Meatloaf in Bell Peppers (adapted from Sunny Anderson's recipe)

1 bell pepper (any colour), sliced in 1-inch rings

Stick these in the oven at 350F for about 15 minutes while you prepare your meatloaf.

1 lb ground beef

1/2 onion, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 egg

2 slices of bread, torn into little pieces

Herb du Provence, salt and pepper to your taste

In a mixing bowl, put all the ingredients together and mix well. Take out the bell peppers from the oven and heat up a pan with a nub of butter or oil. Simply stuff the meatloaf into the bell peppers and saute them for about 5-7 minutes on each side until done. Garnish with parsley!

On the side Onion Potato Gratin

4 potatoes, thinly sliced

1 onion, sliced in rings

2 garlic cloves

2 cups cheese (preferably gruyere or parmagiano reggiano)

1-2 cups milk

3 tbsp butter

1 tbsp rosemary

1 tbsp thyme

1 bay leaf

Preheat your oven to 350F and prepare your baking pan by rubbing butter on it to prevent sticking. Thinly slice your potatoes - I used a mandoline. Meanwhile, saute your onions and garlic in 1 tbsp of butter until they have softened. In a separate pot, melt 1 tbsp of butter and add your milk, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf. Let that boil for about 5 minutes. Now layer the potatoes, onions and 2/3 of the cheese. This is what I did:

One layer potatoes... add a bit of salt and pepper

One layer onions

One layer potatoes... add a bit of salt and pepper

One layer cheese

And I kept doing that until I finished using the potatoes. Pour the boiling milk mixture into the potatoes and top off with remaining butter. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Then pull it out, and put the remainder of the cheese and finish in the oven for 15 minutes.

Ta-da! Okay, this does take a bit of work, but boy was it well worth the wait and effort.

Just like Mel, I completely demolished it. Teee heee. Now excuse me while I delve into a new episode of Criminal Minds and unwind :)

♥B

Hump Day

Am.
Time to get back on that health tip. I love having a cup of jasmine green tea in the morning.. it instantly warms me up and makes me feel refreshed! Lunch consisted of a seasoned chicken breast, broccoli florets, sauteed mushroom, and avocado. I made sure I had an extra large portion of vegetables to sub for all the carbs that I had devoured the past few days.. can't go wrong with having too much veggies! As a snack I had a kiwi.. not a huge fan (because it makes my tongue feel funny) but it was the only fruit laying around the house for me to eat.

They call me "Miss Teacher"

Outfit of the day.

Nude lips - to be blogged, Striped long sleeve shirt - H&M, Trousers - H&M, Faux Leather Bag - H&M

Pm.

Here's another simple recipe that turned out DELECTABLE - Chicken Souvlaki w/ Tzatziki sauce. The idea came from out of the blue.. but somehow putting together ingredients that I had to use up worked! For those who aren't familiar with this, it's a popular Greek food which can be made of small pieces of any type of meat (usually pork, chicken, or lamb) often served with vegetables, rice and/or potatoes, and a 'tzatziki' sauce. My sides were wild rice with sauteed mushrooms (as you can see I love mushrooms) and zucchini. Here's the deal.. you will need: 

for the Chicken Souvlaki 

1 Chicken Breast

1tsp of each S&P

2 tsp oregano

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp olive oil

for the Tzatziki Sauce

3 tbsp plain yogurt

1 tbsp sour cream

1 tsp of each S&P

1 tsp oregano

1 tbsp creamy cucumber salad dressing (due to my lack of cucumber I replaced this with a Kraft salad dressing which substituted it quite pleasantly!) 

1 clove of garlic, finely minced

Note: I strongly stand by Michael Smith's secret to a recipe which is simply cooking without one! Most of my measurements are done by eyeballing or by taste and personal preference - so don't be afraid to alter the proportions. I was highly impressed by the results of making this for the first time.. It was absolute heaven and I can't wait to make it for my family and friends! I definitely see my self making this in the future and tweaking it to perfection. Enjoy!

GOOD night.

♥M