Strawberry mousse

This is one of the most popular deserts. You can really taste the strawberries and I like this desert because it's not too sweet. My older son ate 4 cups straight last night!

Strawberry mousse - 12 mini cups or 23 cm (7") glass pie plate
(A)
1pk (454g) fresh strawberries
1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
3 tbsp cane sugar

1 cup milk
1 cup cream (35%)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup cane sugar
1.5 puch (10 g) knox gelatin

1. Put (A) into the blender
2. Pour knox gelatin over 4tbsp boiling water and stir constantly until completely dissolved
3. Put 3/4 cup cane sugar and milk in a pot and melt sugar completely (but do not boil)
4. Pour #2 mixture into #3 and mix well
5. Pour #4 to #1 and blend together
6. Put #5 mixture into either plastic mini cups (will make for 12 cups ) or 23cm (7") glass pie plate and place into the fridge until set

Bean salad

This is a colourful and refreshing salad. I use the "Apetina" feta cheese in oil - pack. You can also make a yummy Spanish omelet with this salad. Just mix with some eggs and pan fried for 8 -10 min. until the surface gets brown and crispy.

Bean salad:
1 canned bean salad
1 canned peaches & cream corm or fresh corm
1 zucchini (cut in dice)
1 Red peppers (cut in dice)
1 yellow peppers (cut in dice)
2-3 tbsp sliced kalamata olives
1 pk Apetina feta (150g) - cheese in oil (put the whole package including the oil)
3-4 tbsp chopped parsley and/or coriander
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Pinch of salt/pepper

Drain the water from the cans (beans and corn), chop the veggies and mix all the ingredients. Quick and easy!

Super easy apple turn over

We all LOVE apple pie. I have a caramel apple pie recipe making everything from scratch. It's sooooooooo yummy but it takes over 3 hours to make! so, I came up with something quick and easy apple pie recipe. It's still as good as my caramel apple pie but it only takes less than 40 min. to make. so, this became our family's "regular" dessert. The key is using a store bought puff pastry. I like the one from the President Choice - "PC butter puff pastry"- it's buttery, flaky and yummy :-)

SUPER EASY APPLE TURN OVER:
4 granny smith apples
2 tbsp salted butter
1/2 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
1 box (2 pre-rolles sheets) PC butter puff pastry

1. Pre-heat the oven to 392 F. (200 C) . Peel the apples and cut them into cubes, add lemon juice
2. Put a butter in a pan, add apples, sugar and cinnamon powder and cook with low heat until the liquid is all absorbed(about 10-12 min.)
3. Once the apple mixture become a room temperature, cut the pre-rolles sheets (I always make 8 pieces in total. I either make triangle or rectangle shapes) and place the apple mixture in the middle.
4. Close the edge of pie sheets, egg wash and sprinkle cane sugars on top. Bake for 20 min.

Croatian chicken noodle soup

I got this recipe from our Croatian friend. This is my younger son's favorite soup and he often brings this soup to the school. I like using the finest egg noodles for this soup but sometimes it's hard to find super thin noodles at the stores, so if I can't find the super fine egg noodles, I use farfalle (ribbon pasta) or mini-shell pasta as substitute.

CROATIAN CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP:
2 onions (cut in half)
5 carrots (cut in half)
5 celery (cut in half)
4 pcs chicken breast (w/bone and skin)

1. In a big pot, put 2-3 L water and all other ingredients.
2. Once the water is boiled, cook for about 2 hours in low heat
3. Add 1-2 veggie or chicken bouillon cubes, pinch of salt and peppers to taste 4. Take the meat out from the bones, cut the veggies in small pieces.
5. Chop some parsley and cook some noodles (or pasta) and add to the soup.

Chicken schnitzels/French fries

My boys's cousin, 7 yr old, is staying with us since Friday evening. They've been having so much fun playing together, but when they are too busy playing, their focus is not certainly eating the meals. Especially the cousin is a super picky eater. He doesn't like fruits or veggies, no eggs, no meat with bones, etc, etc... He likes chips and cookies, but I can't give him chips all the time. For dinner, I thought chicken schnitzel and french fries may work for him. Both of them are something simple and kids friendly dishes. However, my mission was unsuccessful. He only had a tiny bite and went back to eating chips again. I remember his mom told me that how frustrated she was to feed him. She tried to cook a lot of different things but non of them really didn't attract him at all. I can totally understand how frustrated she was. Even though my boys eat pretty much anything and I am lucky about it but still feeding three meals everyday for them is a lot of work. I am really hoping one day when he gets older he will enjoy eating more stuff.

Chicken schnitzels dipping sauce:
2tbsp Ketchup and Japanese okonomi sauce + 1tbsp maple syrup

Filipino beef stew/Organic arugula salad w/maple raspberry vinaigrette

This stew is a recipe from my mother-in-law. One of main ingredients are soy sauce and vinegar. No wonder why they call this "Filipino" stew. For salad, I put arugula, thin slices of apples, pears, grapes, grape tomatoes, roasted pecans and boursin. I used an organic raspberry jam for my salad dressing. It's a quick dressing recipe but the taste is like a real raspberry dressing that you can buy at the stores. I can make my own dressing with no harsh chemicals and it doesn't cost anything. so, it's soooo worth it to make my own salad dressing.

Maple raspberry vinaigrette:
3tbsp raspberry jam and olive oil and 2 tbsp maple syrup and white wine vinegar, pinch of salt and pepper. I normally put them all together in an empty jar from the jam and shake well together.

Organic Whole wheat pizza

My boys love to make pizza. I normally make the dough and let them take care of everything else - They shape the dough and create their own pizza with their favorite ingredients. My older son likes veggie pizza and the younger one is a bacon monster. We also made a mini-pizza for lunch at the school.

Indian chicken curry w/butter garlic basmati rice and homemade naan bread

I like eating this curry with either basmati rice or wild rice. When you cook the basmati rice, soak the rice in cold water for 30 min. before cooking. Then, place about 6 cups water into a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add 1 cup rice, return to a medium boil, then add 1 tsp salt, 2-3 bay leafs and 2-3 cloves of mashed garlic. Cook for about 5 min. Then, Drain the rice, add 2 tbsp butter and a pinch of pepper.

Organic oat cookies

This is our family's favorite cookies. The original recipe was chocolate sandwich cookies. I followed the recipe once but I preferred to eat with no chocolate with this recipe and also the original recipe was too sweet for me, so I reduced an amount of sugar to 1/2 cup instead of 1 cup from the recipe.

http://theyellowpage.tumblr.com/post/3309587894/lacey-chocolate-sandwich-cookies

Beets lover - Pink soup with grissini/Beets and zucchini salad

I love beets. It's probably my top 5 favorite vegetable. I am not a vegetarian but I prefer to eat a lot of veggies/fruits and less meat. so, tonight was our veggie dinner night. (But my boys ate the soup and meat lasagna). My boys named the soup - "Pink soup" and they like to dip grissini. My main meal salad was cooked beets, thin sliced zucchini, roasted pecans and boursin cheese, drizzled with organic white wine maple vinaigrette dressing.

My ultimate dumplings - Gyoza

I don't even know how many dumplings I've made over the past 10 years. Maybe over 10,000??? This dish became my "ultimate" dish and everybody just loves it. I don't put anything special - grand pork, Asian chives and soy sauce. Nothing else, just those three things but it turns out something very special. Crispy outside, tender and moist inside. I always make a lot and freeze them, so this is also our convenient frozen food (a.k.a. "I need to make something quick. or I don't know what to make tonight. Help me!" dish) that we always have in our freezer.

Japanese beef stew - Hayashi rice

I don't know why we called this "Hayashi rice" in Japan but this is a Japanese style beef stew. Using very shin sliced "shabu-shabu" beef.

Back to basics - A typical Japanese dinner

I love eating! Any kinds of food from any places in the world. However, I sometimes have cravings for Japanese food, not Sushi but something that I am very familiar with like my mom's home-made style Japanese dishes. I grew up with eating miso soup and rice in Japan, so I made a typical Japanese dinner - Rice w/pickled plums (umeboshi), Miso soup (Enoki-mushrooms,fried soybean curd and Asian chives), Enoki mushroom omelet and my famous Japanese BBQ Chicken. I made a chicken wrap for my boy's school lunch next day.

MY FAMOUS JAPANESE BBQ CHICKEN;
1kg - Bone-less, Skin-less, Chicken Thighs
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Maple syrup
1/4 cup Honey
1/2 squeezed fresh lemon juice
2-3 Minced garlic cloves
1 tbsp Minced ginger

Mixed all together and marinated the chicken for at least 5-6 hours or over night. BBQ with a charcoal BBQ, it really gives extra flavors!

I always make some extras for next day. You can arrange this chicken with a lot of different things. I especially like to make pita sandwiches with this chicken. Put a piece of chicken and fresh arugula with home-made basil curry mayo. Yummy!

Zucchini bread

"Eggless Zucchini bread" - I've got this recipe from my friend. Very moist and you don't really taste zucchini at all. My younger son is not a veggie lover, so it's nice to have this recipe. I can chop and hide the zucchini. My son asked me last night that "What is this green thing?" He finally noticed that something "green" was inside....but he still loved this bread!

http://www.food.com/recipe/Delicious-Eggless-Zucchini-Bread-57947

Vegetarian cheese cream soup

I made a "Mac & Cheese" the other day and made an extra cheese sauce to freeze it. I had some left over veggies in the fridge, so this is my left over soup. It's very creamy and reminded me a taste of a Japanese white stew package that I used to eat when I was a kid.

Super moist chocolate cupcakes

This is a super moist and super easy recipe. My boys don't like the butter cream or regular icing, so I always put a chocolate cream (* 250g dark/milk chocolate and 180g whipped cream mix) instead. I cut the cupcake in half and put the chocolate cream in the middle to make more chocolatey.

http://www.bigmamashomekitchen.com/2011/04/super-moist-chocolate-cupcakes.html

Mini trifle cups

I made a banana chiffon cake and didn't turned well. so, I transformed the cake to this cute trifle cups. It's a good summer cold desert.

French onion soup

It takes time to make this but it's sooooo worth it!

Strawberry tart

Slow cook veal and white kidney beans/Stuffed quinoa swiss chard rolls

Danish pastry

Easter egg cake (Pear and chocolate mousse)

Apple danish

Birthday cakes

Organic breads