Korean Soft Tofu Stew aka Soondubu Jjigae

Kimchi soft tofu stew (soup) is a popular Korean dish.  It is comforting to eat on a cold day.  We make it often during cold winter months.  As some of you may know, kimchi has properties that can strengthen your body immune system which comes in handy during cold season.

 
My Korean friend, Maria, has shown me how to make it her way (without the kimchi), it's a bit more elaborate compared to this quick recipe.  She makes the soup broth from scratch with chicken but often I don't have the time to do it, I just want something quick and easy.  So the following recipe is how I make this tofu soup.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookie is an all time American favorite cookie for all ages.  In the corporate cafe where I work, these cookies are gone in a fly, especially when they just come out of the oven - warm and soft.  Kids would snap them in a hurry whenever they see chocolate chip cookies.  They come in soft or hard/crunchy textures.  I like the soft one.  Chocolate chip cookies are readily available at most food places but nothing beats homemade ones - they are fresh, natural, and no preservative.  There are myriad of chocolate chip cookie recipes out there and of course, I have not tried all of them but from the few that I did, I prefer the recipe below.

Sauteed Chard (simply delicious!)

This is a simple recipe that is almost impossible to go wrong. Chard is highly nutritious and considered one of the healthiest vegetables out there.  It has bitter taste that fades with cooking; thus giving its distinctively robust flavor and texture.  I was surprised to find out how easy it is to cook chard and you can be as creative as you want by adding or changing things to the recipe.  Feel free to experiment by adding bits of ham, beans, or parmesan cheese and try different wine or sake.  You may remove the butter and olive oil mix and use regular cooking oil instead. The end result still tastes great.  Even my son who is not particularly fond of vegetables enjoy this sauteed chard.

Chard is great with fish or beef steak or pasta.  I added parmesan cheese on this serving; giving more zing to the final flavor.

 

Teriyaki Chicken

Everybody seems to like teriyaki sauce, be it with chicken, beef, fish or other ingredients.  The most popular one is probably teriyaki chicken, my family is no exception.  We make it once in a while when we crave for it.  Although it is healthier to make the sauce from scratch and it is not very difficult to do so, most of the time we opt to use store bought sauce for convenient sake.  We have tried a few different brands but we prefer "Mr. Yoshida's marinade & cooking sauce - original gourmet, sweet & savory".  We get it at Costco.  The one thing I don't like in the ingredients is the high fructose corn syrup, which is probably why the sauce is really good.  As long as we don't eat it too often, I would say it's not a big deal.  I do try to avoid high fructose corn syrup whenever I could in foods or drinks.  I have tried to make teriyaki sauce from scratch a long time ago but I recall it didn't turn out very good and have never tried it again since then, which I should.  When I do, I will post the result and update this recipe.  In the meantime, here's teriyaki chicken recipe using ready made sauce.

Homemade Roasted Almond

Nuts in general are good for you.  Almond is no exception, it is a rich source of Vitamin E & B, dietary fiber, essential minerals, and monounsaturated fat.  It also contains phytosterols which is linked to lowering cholesterol in our body.  Raw almonds retain the most nutritional values compare to roasted ones; however, roasted almonds taste better and crunchier, in my opinion, so I am sacrificing some nutritional elements in exchange for better taste, which is fine with me.  For convenient sake, usually I buy roasted almonds but when there is a good deal on raw almonds, I don't mind roasting them myself.  The following is my recipe: