Today was really hot again...well, not as hot as So.Cal summer hot. But it was pretty sunny and my kids and I were outside all day. Sweat a lot!
So I tried to use as minimum heat (stove) as possible for tonight's dinner ;=)
Chicken with black sesame dressing
Pumpkin with bacon and mushrooms
Moyashi namul (seasoned bean sprouts)
Leftover bell pepper salad with bed of Mizuna
Here's the recipes of the day:
Chicken with black sesame dressing
Chicken breast---2
medium pot full of water
white wine---1/4 cup
salt---2tsp
dressing
*ground black sesame---1/4 cup
*soy sauce---2tbs
*sugar---1tbs
*sushi vinegar---3tsp
*sesame oil---1/2 tsp
1) Boil water in a medium pot.
2) Put chicken, white wine, and salt into a boiling water. Cook for 5min then turn off heat. put aside until serving.
3) Mix all the *sauce ingredients together.
4) Slice Chicken then pour sauce over chicken.
If you can cook this first, you can put the chicken in the broth until serving (30 to 40 min later). If you don't have time to set, you can slice the chicken before cooking. Put them in the boiling water to set aside for a little while until chicken cook through (should be cooked between 5 to 10 minutes).
Pumpkin with bacon and mushrooms
I use Kabocha pumpkin.
Kabocha---1/4
Bacon---2slices
Mushrooms---10
Oyster mushroom---1
*salt and pepper
*soy sauce---drizzle
*butter---1/2 tbs
1) Wrap kabocha in a saran wrap, then microwave for 2 1/2 min on 1000W.
2) Scoop out seeds out of pumpkin, then cut in bite size.
When you take pumpkin out of microwave, it's so hot you want to use a big spoon to scoop out seeds. It's easier to scoop out seeds when they are cooked inside.
(I microwave pumpkin to speed up cooking time on the stove.)
3) Cut bacon and mushrooms in bite size.
4) In a large skillet, cook bacon until oil comes out, then add mushrooms. Season with little bit of salt and pepper. When they are cooked, take them out to a plate to put aside.
To speed up the cooking time at this point, splash some white wine (or water) to steam cook.
5) In the same skillet, use bacon oil, cook pumpkin on both side on a high heat to get a little grill marks. Then add back those bacon and mushrooms to the pumpkin.
6) Put butter and drizzle soy sauce from the edge of the skillet. Lightly mix.
Moyashi Namul
This side dish is actually Korean.
I believe it's called Kongnamul in Korean.
But hey, I don't speak Korean, so I say Moyashi in stead of Kong.
Namul is often seasoned vegetables with salt, pepper, and sesame oil.
This one is simply just that.
Moyashi (bean sprouts)--- 1/2 giant bag (or 1 regular size)
Vinegar---2tbs (if it's large pot, 1tbs if it's medium pot)
*salt and pepper
*sesame oil
1) Make boiling water in a pot, then put bean sprouts and vinegar. Turn off the heat then set aside until the water get colder.
(By doing this, protects from over cooking sprouts.)
2) Drain water, then put them in a large mixing bowl.
3) season with salt, pepper and drizzle of sesame oil. I don't know the exact amount of seasoning to put in, but you can taste them as you mix. When it is a little bit on the salty side, it's the best as the sprouts waters down the salt a bit when you serve.
It was pretty hot today, I think.
I went to LA ZOO with my kids for several hours as an activity. Since we were out all day, I was so hot to be in the kitchen for too long.
I wanted to use as minimum heat as possible so I would stop sweating so much.
The dinner became pretty refreshing with vinegary salad and chicken.
Since I gave a birth to my second child, I hadn't been exercising at all!
I've got to exercise since I have 10 more pounds to shed my pregnancy weight!!!
I'm a nursing mom, so I'm hungry pretty much all day... Try to eat more vegetables and healthily as much as possible...but maybe because I'm eating pretty light and healthy stuff I catch myself eating large quantity of them!
ahhh... I hope I can get back to my pre-pregnancy weight before it's too late -sigh
It's already Friday tomorrow, wow. Time goes pretty fast this week I think.
Here's the bentos' for my boys...
Picture of the day:
My favorite animal.
I think they've got the most biggest and cutest eyes!!! ;p
