Turkey Kielbasa Hash

Another super belated post! This one is from a Christmas potluck-get together my friends and I had last year 🙂

Yummy! Start with your ingredients:

A couple of potatoes, red, green and yellow bell pepper, an onion and turkey kielbasa! I used this recipe and was very happy with the way it turned out!

Peel and dice the potatoes and start them in a big pan. I seasoned with salt, pepper, seasoned salt, garlic powder and onion powder. Not too heavy-handed or else it will be too salty.

Cook the potatoes until they’re golden brown and soft on the inside – and when they smell really good! While the potatoes are cooking, start the kielbasa in another pan until the pieces are brown and yummy smelling too.

Once the kielbasa is done, take them out of the skillet and set aside. Start the bell peppers and onions in the pan.

Pretty colors!

Stir fry the peppers and onions until they’re soft, then add the kielbasa and potatoes into the pan.

Serve hot! Very delicious and easy to make! The recipe makes a lot of food, so it was perfect for the potluck 🙂

Happy cooking~!

-Yenny

Dragonfruit Lychee Smoothie

So my  mom grows a TON of dragonfruit in her yard, and I get a bunch every time they’re in season! I usually give some away since I can’t eat it all but this time I decided to make a smoothie!

I just blended the dragonfruit together with a can of lychees I had in my fridge.

Isn’t that beautiful? I like to peel the dragonfruit skin off since you don’t waste any of the fruit that way. So cut into quarters and just peeeeel it off!

This is how I also peel avocados 😀

Open up the lychees – I buy the kind that’s packed in syrup, which comes in handy for a smoothie!

My immersion blender came with this handy blending cup, so I dumped all the dragonfruit chunks in, then the lychees, and then I added some of the syrup and some water so it wouldn’t be too sweet. Then blend away!

That made plenty of smoothie for me to drink and it was yummy! Sweet and refreshing – I drank it throughout the day 🙂

Easy, quick and pretty healthy! You can even omit the lychee syrup and use water or soy milk.

Enjoy!

-Yenny

Mummy Hotdogs

Happy November! And happy daylight savings time! We all “fell back” last night/this morning and now I guess I have to admit that winter will eventually be here…if it ever gets cold lol. Halloween just passed and I’m a fan of Halloween – the costumes, the parties, the candy and this year, the Halloween potluck my friends and I decided to do!

I made mummy hotdogs! I’m sure you’ve seen this recipe floating around Pinterest but bear with me :). Gather your ingredients – hot dogs (I chose turkey dogs) and crescent dough.

Unroll the crescent dough and cut into thin strips. I was in a crazy rush because I was running super late to the potluck so this picture is kinda blurry lol. Sorry!

Wrap each hot dog in the strips until you’re happy with the way each “mummy” looks.

Follow the baking instructions on the crescent dough can – I did mine at 350 degrees for 16 minutes.

They’re a little light (and were a little underdone) so my next batch I added 2 extra minutes. I also rolled the remaining dough into crescents haha

A lot more golden! I think they turned out pretty well – I didn’t have time to dot mustard eyes on them, so they don’t look very scary but here are some of the other dishes we had!

Meatloaf hand!

Witch finger cookies!

Creepy red velvet cake from Porto’s!

Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!

-Yenny

 

 

 

Summer Vegetable Tian

It’s finally starting to cool down and feel like fall! Even I have to admit it now, especially since I started dragging out extra blankets to snuggle into on these gloomy days =/. My friends and I had an Oktoberfest themed potluck this past weekend, and in my attempt to cling to summer, i decided to make this summer vegetable tian (I don’t know why its called that)

I adapted the recipe to fit more my taste buds and it turned out really yummy! Start with your ingredients: 1 zucchini, 1 squash, 1 potato, 1 onion, 2 tomatoes, minced garlic and cheese.

I don’t have a mandolin (and I would be too scared to use it), so I just sliced my veggies thinly and as evenly as I could.

Dice the onion and saute in a pan with the garlic. I only used half an onion and that was the perfect amount the cover the bottom of my baking dish.

Then the fun part! Start arranging your veggies in three rows, I did the rows simultaneously and just went according to color and making it look pretty lol.

 

Then season your dish GENEROUSLY! I used salt, pepper, garlic powder and chili powder and made sure to get them around the edges too.

Then cover with foil and stick it in the oven for 30 minutes. After the first round of baking, uncover the dish and sprinkle with cheese. Then stick back into the oven for an additional 15-20 minutes. I very lightly sprinkled cheese because I wanted to keep the dish healthier and I’m also lactose intolerant lol.

 

All done!

After it was done baking, there was a lot of liquid at the bottom of the dish, so I VERY VERY carefully tipped the dish over the sink to drain some of the liquid away. I left some in for flavor. And it turned out the be quite the hit at the potluck! Healthy and yummy! The most time consuming part is the prep 🙂

Happy cooking!

-Yenny

 

 

Bubble Up Pizza Bread

Sigh. Once again, I failed at two posts this month 😦 Barelyyyy getting this one in before October! Super easy and carb-filled recipe to share today. Of course, this is another idea from Pinterest and since I love me some pizza, I couldn’t help but make this! And I’ve made it several times now – yummy! But gotta watch those carbs!

I’m getting hungry just looking at this picture! Start with your ingredients:

Grands biscuits (or any kind of ready-to-bake biscuits), pepperoni, cheese, chili flakes, garlic powder, olive oil and minced garlic. Of course, feel free to use your favorite pizza toppings! I prefer to keep it simple with pepperoni (turkey in this case!)

Cut each biscuit into quarters, and try not to squish them too much!

 

Toss together in a large bowl with the olive oil, cheese, pepperoni, garlic powder, garlic and the chili flakes. I did this in batches so the biscuits and toppings would be evenly distributed.

Spray your pan well with cooking spray, or you can use oil or butter as well. Then dump the pizza biscuit mixture into the pan. Spread it out evenly so it has room to bake and puff up. I topped the mix with some more cheese and chili flakes 😀

Bake according to the directions on the biscuit tube, then test for done-ness. I noticed that sometimes, they were ready to eat after the recommended time, but I usually baked them a little longer until it got a little browner on top. The following pictures are not all from the same batch… but they were all delicious!

A super easy and delicious meal! Eating it is true carbi-cide but hey, a girl’s gotta indulge every once in a while! 🙂

 

Happy pizza baking!

Yenny

Turkey, Spinach & Basil Lasagna

I’ve been wanting to make lasagna ever since I discovered there are now no-boil lasagna noodles! GENIUS. So as usual, I browse Pinterest for a recipe I’d like to try. I landed on this one and added my own tweaks – most significantly was that I added ground turkey to the recipe 🙂

Yummy!

This picture is of the lasagna on the next day. I ran into some problems with the lasagna as I was making it… you’ll see 😛

Start with your ingredients

Spinach, basil ( I have a basil plant that hopefully won’t die), marinara sauce, no-boil lasagna noodles, an onion (optional), ricotta cheese, ground turkey (optional), mozzarella cheese and spices (minced garlic and red pepper flakes). I started by seasoning the ground turkey (I used about half the tray) with garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Cook until no longer pink and throw in the onions. Cook until the onions are soft.

I poured the whole jar of marinara in. Taste and season if needed.

And that’s all the cooking you need to do! Now for assembly!

Pour a layer of the sauce mixture onto the bottom of your dish

Add a layer of no-boil noodles-

Then a layer of ricotta. I tried to make my layer relatively thin because I didn’t want my lasagna too cheesy.

Layer of mozzarella~

Layer of chopped spinach and basil~

Add another layer of sauce, noodles, ricotta, mozzarella and spinach & basil. The original recipe calls for three layers but my pan was full after two-ish layers. I topped the top layer of spinach and basil with the last of the sauce and red pepper flakes.

Then one last layer of cheese

Those layers!

Cover the lasagna with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Then uncover and continue baking for 15 minutes. I added an extra 10 minutes because my lasagna didn’t look ready yet.

After 30 minutes baking, covered in foil

The final result!

I KNEW my lasagna was too wet/wobbly to be sliced into nice layers the second I started cutting into it. The only reason I can think of was that the fresh spinach and basil released a lot of water during baking and made everything all wobbly OR I didn’t have enough layers like the original recipe called for.

More like lasagna soup 😦

Luckily it was still tasty! And after letting the lasagna cool on the stove, the layers set up beautifully! We were able to scoop the pieces out of the dish and into tupperware just fine. YAY! And it held up GREAT the next day!

I don’t know what exactly went wrong – maybe I needed to use a bigger lasagna dish, or maybe I needed to cook the spinach and basil first so they wouldn’t have released water during baking, or maybe I needed another layer of noodles. Or maybe I simply needed to let the lasagna sit for a while and re-heated it! That seemed to do the trick 🙂

I’m glad I finally got to use the no-boil noodles, they are such a great time saver! I will be making lasagna again, definitely with more tweaks 🙂

Happy cooking!

-Yenny

Roasted Corn Salad

*sigh* I was trying my best to publish two posts a month, but I definitely did not accomplish that for July =/. But hello August! Hopefully I can get back on track. This dish is a continuation of last month’s post. This roasted corn salad is the second dish I brought to my friend’s 4th of July potluck BBQ. Of course, I found the recipe on Pinterest 🙂

Super simple and delicious recipe from Trader Joe’s – I just omitted the feta cheese (not my taste). Start with a little butter in the pan~

Throw in your chopped red onions

Saute until the onions are soft but not caramelized. Throw in one bag of Trader Joe’s roasted corn (in the frozen aisle).

Stir until corn is completely thawed. Then add the cayenne ( I used Japanese togarashi) and the lime juice (I used lemon) until you like the taste.

Then add chopped cilantro as your last step and mix together!

All done! This salad is DELICIOUS and super easy to throw together! For an even healthier spin, you can omit the butter, but it really does help bring out the flavor in the red onions. You could also use regular frozen corn if you can’t find the roasted corn (or if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s in your area) but the roasted corn already has spices and flavorings in the bag. So you can just add more spices and flavors to taste!

Happy cooking!

-Yenny

 

Spicy Garlic Chicken Drumsticks

Happy (belated) 4th of July everyone!! I went to a BBQ at my friend’s house on the 4th because everyone has a BBQ on Independence Day! I made two dishes but this was the first one – spicy garlic chicken drumsticks!

Oh they were sooo good!

I was trying to follow Chungah’s recipe from Damn Delicious but ended up making some modifications – mainly, I used chicken drumsticks because I couldn’t find chicken wings at the store (I didn’t think to look in the frozen aisle lol)

Ingredients for the marinade

Luckily, all I needed to buy was the honey! Combine them all together

Then get your chicken prepared –

I removed all that extra skin and fat before baking it. Arrange the cleaned drumsticks in a single layer in a 9×13 pan.

I used 12 out of the 14 drumsticks because I didn’t want to overcrowd the pan, but I realized after the dish was done that I totally could’ve fit all 14 drumsticks in! Pour the marinade all over the chicken

And bake! I set my timer for 25 minutes so I could flip the drumsticks over. This is what it looked like after 25 minutes:

Turn the chicken over and bake for another 25 minutes. This is what it looks like after!

The chicken definitely reduced in size, which is why I think I could’ve fit all 14 drumsticks in the pan! =/ I was supposed to broil the chicken for 3-4 minutes but for some reason, my oven won’t turn to broil. So I turned it up to 550 degrees and baked the chicken for 5 more minutes.

The result!

It definitely didn’t get as sticky as it was supposed to, but the chicken was moist and flavorful and a big hit at the BBQ! I think the recipe calls for a little too much marinade, since the pan was half full of it (and spilled in my car while I was driving to the BBQ 😦 ) In hindsight, I should’ve poured the sauce into a container and scooped it over the chicken when I got to the BBQ hahah. I’m definitely going to try this recipe again with wings and see if I can replicate the original! Yum!

Happy cooking!

-Yenny

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey & Spinach Tortilla Roll Ups

Happy end of May everyone! I went to a friend’s Memorial Day BBQ on Monday (yay for 3 day weekends!) and since it was potluck style, I decided to make something I’ve been seeing all over Pinterest – tortilla roll ups! I love tortillas and I liked the idea of making something bite sized and didn’t need to stay warm.

Just a few simple ingredients

I went with whole wheat tortillas and lower sodium turkey breast to make them healthier than the original recipe called for. Be sure to get the chive and onion cream cheese!

Spread a thin, even layer of the cream cheese on the tortilla

Lay the spinach out

Don’t place your filling all the way to the edges! I learned that when you roll them, everything starts shifting and I ended up having to trim the turkey breast in some places.

It’s a little messy, but I wanted turkey in every bite

Roll it up! Make sure to “seal” the edge with some cream cheese so the whole thing stays together.

Repeat with all the tortillas. I kinda ran out of turkey breast, so I only ended up using 7 tortillas. Plastic wrap each roll and stick them in the fridge for about 30 minutes so the cream cheese can firm up again.

Use a sharp knife, and don’t saw!! Just press straight down and it should cut cleanly

I had to put some more cream cheese on a few of the edges to seal them more securely. Also, the ends are too ugly/have no filling so I ate them and didn’t bring them to the party 🙂

I stacked them into a tower!

Tower!

They were a big hit!

I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out! When I make them again, I’d buy more turkey breast and put a double layer of both the spinach and turkey to make fatter roll-ups. The chive and onion cream cheese really made a big difference!

 

Happy cooking and hello summer!

-Yenny

Black Bean & Corn Enchiladas

Wow, April has passed by in a flash! I almost forgot that I had made a resolution to post twice a month 🙂 So here’s another food-related post! I seem to be doing more and more of those lately – makes me wonder if I should’ve chosen a different blog name… Oh well!

If you’re like me, then you love Mexican food! It’s probably my second favortite type of cuisine (after Japanese) and I was really craving enchiladas the other day so I decided to make them!

Gather your ingredients

I ended up filling my enchiladas with black beans and corn because 1) I forgot to defrost chicken and 2) even if I had defrosted chicken, I probably would’ve been too lazy to cook it 🙂 Good thing I love vegetarian dishes!

Put your filling about 2/3 of the way on the tortilla

Then roll it tightly and carefully, keeping the filling inside. Put them into a 9×13 baking dish, seam side down.

I fit six enchiladas into my pan

Pour the enchilada sauce carefully over the tortillas

Sprinkle some cheese

And then I added some corn and red pepper flakes for good measure

I ended up adding more sauce and cheese before I popped it into the oven.

Yummyyyyy

So I made these to take to work for lunch the next day so I didn’t try them right out of the oven. Please excuse the paper plate I ate these on 😛

So good!

The black beans, corn and cheese all melted together and created this super creamy and flavorful mixture! I forgot to say that I seasoned the black beans with garlic and chili powder to give it some heat. I also sprinkled a BUNCH of red chili flakes on top for even more heat before baking them. Delicious and leftovers for DAYS! Yum! But it will definitely be a while before I make these again – just too much food! 🙂

Happy cooking!

-Yenny