Blog Archive

July 16, 2017

Creamy Lemon Salmon Collar

One of my favorite parts of parents coming into town is the food you eat when parents come into town. Aside from going to all of our favorite restaurants, making seafood pasta with clams as big as my hand and her infamous Korean BBQ Bulgogi, she still managed to leave our fridge filled for the week. We even opened the freezer to find salmon collars, which we love! Normally I like to bake Salmon in a Honey Ginger Glaze, but with my new little lemon tree growing in the backyard I thought it’s time to start seeing what sorts of recipes I will want to make once the flowers turn into fruit!

We made the mistake the other night of buying frozen salmon fillets from the grocery store thinking, this will be a great way to incorporate more fish into our diet considering I would nothing but meat and carbs for the rest of my life if I could. Salmon is like the red meat of the ocean world so I approve. But boy were we wrong. Do not, I repeat, do not, get the pre-filleted frozen salmons at the store. They came out being way fishier in taste than you ever want fish to be. I think that is why I avoid a lot of seafood sometime, because if you aren’t getting it from a source that is fresh that you can rely on, you will often end up feeling that you are eating something from the bottom of the sea floor. I usually know not to get cheap uni (sea urchin) or shellfish for this exact reason, because for over 20 years I was certain that I didn’t like either of these things, wondering why people paid a premium for the taste of salty sea water; only to realize later that I had just been exposed to poor quality seafood. I will never forget my experience in Tokyo while Jimmy and I were on our honeymoon, we splurged and decided to do omakase at Sushi Bar Yasuda, where Yasuda himself changed my entire perception on the offerings of the sea, by explaining to me that I have just been eating shit until now and unfortunately I was going to go back to eating shit once I left the proximity of Tsukiji Fish Market. Yasuda was a bit cocky in his statements, but after eating his food it felt warranted. I would go back and let him tell me all about our crappy US fish again.

So given we are stuck with what we have here, what have I learned? Never buy the pre-frozen stuff, just go get a whole side of salmon and cut them into freezable sized portions yourself. Or, if you are lucky, maybe your mom will leave behind some fresh salmon and you won’t have to make that choice at all.

Season both sides of the salmon with salt and pepper then dredge in flour; shake off any excess flour.
Over medium high heat, melt the butter and olive oil in the pan. Add the salmon pieces and saute for 2 minutes with the skin side up. Flip and cook for another couple minutes, ensuring that the center reaches 145˚F
Take the salmon off the stove and set aside to rest.
Add remaining flour to the remaining butter and oil in the pan; stir well for a minute then carefully add the lemon juice and chicken broth. Mix thoroughly.
Simmer on low for 5 minutes then add the salmon back into the pan, skin side down. Spoon the sauce over the salmon, add the lemon slices and dill then let simmer for another couple minutes.
Serve by placing it over rice, risotto, pasta, or even a salad. Spoon the remaining sauce from the pan and enjoy!

July 9, 2017

Mom’s Korean BBQ Bulgogi

My mom came into town and she finally agreed to sit down with me and actually break down how she makes her fan favorite, Korean marinated bbq, Bulgogi. Now let me tell you something about Asian parents, they do not measure anything out. Considering my obsession with cooking started from baking, I follow every recipe down to the 1/4 teaspoon. I cringe every time I see a recipe call for “a little salt”. Follow your recipes and your dishes will come out perfect every time. My mom on the other hand has the added element that she lives with a chef. It’s not that my mom doesn’t know how to cook, but why cook? I would probably cook a lot less too if I lived with a master chef – well, maybe not. But the one thing people ask her for all the time is her bulgogi.

I remember being in elementary school, growing up in a pretty white community, I was probably the only asian kid in my elementary school classroom. Once a year my mom would do this thing where she would come into my class and present a little bit about Korean culture. In all honestly, I don’t really remember what she was teaching us or why they let her do that, I guess they just let parents do things like that in grade school. The one thing I do remember though is that it always ended with food – specifically my mom’s “Korean beef”. You know that feeling when you’re a kid and you have the cool new toy? Everyone wanted to be your friend and you knew it was because you had something they wanted but it was still okay. This was like that. Little kids would be upset they weren’t in my 3rd grade class because that meant they wouldn’t get the Korean beef this year. Maybe it was being ethnically unique, maybe kids were just tired of PB&Js, but at that age, it doesn’t matter what made you cool, as long as you had a thing; and my thing came in the form of my mom’s cooking.

This is best prepared on a grill, or anything that doesn’t allows the juices to pool up like a frying pan. I prefer to do it on this Korean bbq grill my mom got me if I need to cook indoors or over a charcoal grill so the juices drip onto the coals and then steam back up into the meat as it cooks. mmm smokey goodness ^-^

Start by julienning your carrots and chopping your onions into thin slices.
In a large bowl add all of the ingredients except for the sesame oil, onion and meat. Mix everything together, add the sesame oil last, then add the meat in.
Let it marinade in an airtight bag for at least a few hours (overnight is ideal)
Grill alongside the onions until meat is crispy on the edges.

June 7, 2017

Kimchi Fried Rice

The beauty of fried rice is that you can put anything in it. Leftovers? Check. You can find a way to incorporate your favorite foods into fried rice and it will most likely work. Chicken, steak, tofu, leftover BBQ ribs, mushrooms, asparagus, whatever veggies you have laying around in your produce drawer that is about to go bad if you don’t cook it soon, you name it, it can be the star of your next fried rice!

My mom made homemade kimchi the last time she visited and it was started to get a little too sour/spicy with time. It reached a point where one might say it was even too ripe, but it’s fermented right? So it should be okay! But super ripe kimchi is perfect for kimchi fried rice. Fun fact: We have an abundance of green onion in our backyard because it is one of these plants where you can just chop off the tops, stick them in the ground, and expect it to grow, and grow, and grow, until you have so much green onion in your garden you won’t even know what to do! Did I mention it’s best with a fried egg on top? I mean most things are better with a fried egg but fried rice <3

No one in my house ever made kimchi fried rice and once I started really appreciating spicy foods I started ordering it all the time at Korean restaurants. Now that I make it at home it just seems like the possibilities are endless, Kimchi and Spam fried rice, onions and leftover barbeque, steak and mushrooms….. I could keep going, but instead I think I’ll just move along to the recipe.

<3 Nom Nom Nom

*********

Start by preparing the rice. Doesn’t matter if you have a rice cooker or a pot, start by measuring out your rice, for this recipe I used 2 cups of long grain (Jasmine) rice. Long grain rice doesn’t stick together and I personally think it is better for fried rice recipes! Rinse the rice to get some of the starch off of it to help it from being sticky. Then add a little more than 1:1 ratio of hot water, throw it in the rice cooker, and let that do it’s thing. If you are the kind of person that cooks in a pot, well you should just get a rice cooker, it is a game changer. But if you do not have a rice cooker, look up instructions somewhere online, I do not want to lead you astray.

While your rice is cooking – this should take roughly half an hour, I like to use hot water to cook the rice because it speeds up the cooking process quite a bit – start prepping your veggies. Chop up your onion, kimchi, and green onion, then set them aside.

For this recipe, since it is such a large batch, I use a wok. If you don’t have a wok or you are making a smaller amount, feel free to use a regular frying pan. Heat up some oil on medium, wait until the pan is fully heated then saute the onions until they are golden brown. Next, add the chopped kimchi and stir fry, adding the green onion next. If the protein you choose to use isn’t seasoned, this is a good time to add it in so that it takes up the flavor of the onion and kimchi! Continue stir frying until your chicken or beef is fully cooked. Keep the kimchi juice on the side, you will be using this later.

You can add the chili flakes or gochujang paste if you have it to add more of a kick. I like everything spicy so I like to put it a notch up from just the kimchi juice. I made this recipe later and fried an egg and threw it on top and it was perfect. At the time I made it for this blog, I thought we had eggs, but I was wrong 🙁

When the rice is done, throw it directly into your pan, using a mixing spoon, break apart the rice as much as possible, add the kimchi juice, and mix until everything is fully incorporated. When there are no white grains left and they are all the same orange hue, drizzle the sesame oil, white vinegar, and soy sauce over the rice, mix everything for 1 minute until it again is fully incorporated. It will be much harder to tell if it is fully mixed in since it will not change in color like it did before, but when in doubt, just mix it some more. PSA: Sesame oil can be a very overbearing taste if you have too much clumped together!

April 25, 2017

Cinnamon Rolls

Filling

1/2 cup, packed ‏brown sugar
2 tablespoons ‏cinnamon
1 tablespoon ‏flour
1/4 cup, room temperature ‏butter

Frosting

4 ounces ‏whipped cream cheese
2 tablespoons, room temperature ‏butter
1/4 cup ‏sugar

Last year Jimmy’s dad was in town for his birthday, we were driving around and I remember asking him what we should get his dad since the day had been a little uneventful. We were close to a donut shop that knew they used to go to and I remembered that he had mentioned getting the cinnamon buns there. Perfect, his dad loved cinnamon buns! I thought this would be a great little surprise to bring back, only to realize they didn’t have cinnamon buns, but cinnamon rolls, you know those big swirly type donuts; totally not the same. We came back and I felt pretty lousy about it, not only was it a small gesture, but it wasn’t even the right small gesture.

I come from a family where we celebrate birthdays big – it’s probably because we all have birthdays within 10 days of each other – we call it the family birthday – and it’s sort of a big deal. I fly home every year, we go out to a big fancy dinner, there are lots of bottles of wine and of course a big present reveal. So regardless if anyone ever tells me that they don’t want anything or birthdays aren’t a big deal, I always will consider a birthday a big deal. It’s the one day of year you can pick a restaurant you love and your friends won’t battle you to go somewhere else. It’s the one day where you can wake up and declare that this will be an amazing day and most people will go along with whatever plan helps make it that way. Birthdays are great and everyone deserves to at least have one day a year don’t you think?

This bothered me for days until one morning I woke up and it seemed so obvious. I could make cinnamon rolls. Sometimes life has a way of letting all the clutter fog up your mind and then like Karl the Fog, the sun comes out, and it’s gone. I even had cream cheese already in the fridge! The stars were aligning and we were going to have buns!

I will say that the recipe that I went off of told me to use parchment paper but the dough was so sticky and I probably didn’t flour the paper enough, so I had a bit of a nightmare when it all started sticking to the paper. But nothing was going to get in between me and birthday buns. With patience and much precision, we managed to roll the buns without getting paper stucked and baked into the dough.

What I didn’t anticipate was how dangerous it would be to know how to make cinnamon rolls on a whim. Oh well, all in the name of a happy birthday.

***

Melt butter in the microwave and set aside to cool. Mix together the milk and yeast then set aside.
In a large bowl (or in my case a plastic bucket), mix together the bread flour, salt and sugar.
When the butter has slightly cooled, add it into the milk and whisk.
Add the beaten egg and mix thoroughly.
Add the milk mixture to the dry mixture and stir together until fully incorporated. The dough will be pretty wet. Cover with plastic wrap and let it proof for 2 hours. Proofing: Leaving dough to rest and rise during the fermentation process.
In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar, cinnamon and flour. Mix and set aside.
Line an 8×8 pan with parchment paper.
*After 2 hours* The dough should have doubled in size. Generously flour your surface and your hands. I taped down parchment paper and it still stuck. >.<
Using a rubber spatula, drop the dough onto the floured workspace and dust with an additional layer of flour. The dough will be very soft and potentially sticky so be generous with the dusting.
Roll out the dough to a 14″x20″ rectangle and spread 1/4 cup room temperature butter out evenly over the dough. As weird as it sounds, the easiest way to do this is to squeeze soft butter between your palms, rubbing your hands together and then spreading the butter like you are lightly massaging the dough. I know, I know, it sounds weird but it’s very effective.
Evenly layer on the cinnamon sugar mixture and then starting at a short edge, roll up the dough.
Cut into 9 equal pieces. I recommend putting 8 even little notches in the dough before committing to cutting into the dough. There is no turning back.
Place each piece into the lined pan and cover with plastic wrap, all this to proof for another hour (you can leave these in the fridge overnight if you are preparing for the next day, these buns are best served fresh so time your buns appropriately.)
Preheat the oven to 350˚. Bake for 35 minutes.
While the buns are baking, prepare your frosting by creaming together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the whipped cream cheese then set aside in the fridge until buns are done.
You can frost 2 different ways, if you are going for the Cinnabon style, frost your buns immediately to melt the frosting. If you are looking for the frosting to keep its hold, allow your buns to cool until you can add the frosting without it melting immediately. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

April 7, 2017

KitchenAid Strawberry Ice Cream

Strawberries

2 1/2 cups ‏fresh strawberries, sliced
1/3 cup ‏sugar
1 teaspoon ‏lemon juice

THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE MAKING THIS RECIPE:

You will need to freeze your mixing bowl for 12 hours, so start prepping this the night before! Need to make something faster? Try one of these.
Raw eggs come with the risk of carrying bacteria, while this recipe calls for pasteurized eggs which are safe to use because they’ve been heated to 140°F, killing any harmful bacteria. Pasteurized whole eggs can be pretty difficult to find, so for a recipe like this I recommend getting a carton of ready to pour eggs (like these).

When I was little my mom let me plant some strawberries in our backyard, I watered them every day until next to the little white flowers grew little green strawberries and those turned into big juicy red strawberries. I had a crazy sweet tooth so my mom let me to have a spoon of sugar with them and I would dip the strawberries into the sugar, watching as the sugar started to turn pink from the juice. While I’m no stranger to sweets, as seen clearly on the rest of the blog, I don’t find myself these days craving pure white sugar, especially for my fruit. After my childhood, I never really saw that delicious pink sugar ever again.

Well…. up until now.

One of the gifts of getting married (pun intended) is the fact that someone you know might think, “hmm.. I feel like Heidi and Jimmy would like it if we got them an ice cream maker.” And you know what, that friend would be correct. While I’ll always give different ice cream flavors a fair shot, realistically it’s always going to come down to one of 3 flavors: cookies and cream, chocolate cookie dough, or strawberry. Growing up, we always had ice cream in the freezer, coffee for my parents, and strawberry for me, so it only seemed fitting that our first round of ice cream would be strawberry!

And that’s when it happened. Pulling the chilled strawberry mixture out of the fridge, I remembered that childhood pink sugary goodness. Making homemade ice cream was nostalgic and honestly felt really good putting ingredients in and having it taste straight out of a pint. I’ve seen recipes that call for egg, some that require you to cool the egg mixture on medium heat, and some with no egg at all. But for this recipe, we went the egg route.

Disclaimer: The use of unpasteurized raw eggs increases the risk of food borne illnesses like Salmonella. Please use pasteurized eggs for any recipes where you are going to be using raw eggs!

Place your KitchenAid ice cream mixer in the freezer for at least 12 hours to fully freeze. Once you’re ready to use the mixing bowl, you’ll want to be ready to pour in your ice cream immediately as it will start thawing immediately. If you are looking to buy on, you can find the one we used: here
Wash then dry the strawberries. Slice them and set them aside in a small bowl.
Pour in the lemon juice and mix the strawberries until they are evenly coated in the juice. Do the same with the sugar.
Cover and place in the fridge for at least an hour.
Whisk eggs for 1-2 minutes until light and fluffy, whisk in the sugar until fully incorporated, then the cream and milk.
When the strawberries are ready, use an immersion blender to puree, then add to the ice cream base.
Churn the ice cream for 20-30 minutes then move the ice cream (it will be soft) into an airtight container and allow it to freeze for a couple of hours.

March 27, 2017

Spicy Coconut Braised Chicken Thighs

Chicken has always been something I’ve loved, whether it is cooked on a rotisserie, in a sandwich or in the form of nuggets. I’m always cautious to order chicken when we’re out though, unless a place is known for being super juicy, you risk paying a premium for something that can come on your plate dry and sad. It might sound silly but I feel very strongly that there’s nothing worse than a piece of dry chicken at a restaurant, especially when people around you got something delicious and you just blame yourself the entire meal because you knew this could happen. So even more of a reason to perfect a recipe to make at home!

America is obsessed with chicken breast, specifically white meat – I remember hearing that on a podcast once. The more I thought about it the more I realized they were right, chicken sandwiches are always made of breast meat, the chicken on salads are always white meat, and yet the juiciest piece, in my opinion, is the thigh! I feel like I see thigh meat in Asian cooking all the time, so it was no surprise that I went to the store and had a hard time finding the right kind of thigh meat. Most of the major grocery stores around us were selling breast meat with one thigh options and it was always skin-less and bone-less, I’ll admit I had to go to a couple before finding any with the skin on, and this is crucial because you want something for all of that seasoning to stick to. If you’re close to an Asian grocery store, though, that’s your best bet as they love thigh meat and in their opinion, breast meat is boring and has no flavor – and they’re right!

We got a Le Creuset dutch oven for a wedding present and I’ve been dying to try a new recipe in it, I found this great one while perusing Foodgawker and just had to try it! I had a few people over and figured I could get in some meal prepping too. I love anything that has a little heat, and the coconut milk created a perfect balance to the spice. I’m obsessed with this and plan to make it again the next time I spot chicken thighs at my local grocery store.

I love the one pot dinner idea so we just cooked the green beans in the sauce that it was braised in, making clean up no bid deal. Expect more one pot dinner recipes to come! ^-^

In a dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat.
Mix the paprika, cinnamon, salt, black pepper, and chili powder in a small bowl.
Pat the chicken thighs down with a paper towel until they’re dry.
Sprinkle on a layer of the spice mixture on both sides of each piece of chicken and then when the oil is hot, place the chicken skin-side down in the oil. Brown each side for 4-5 minutes. Remove the chicken from the dutch oven and put to the side for now.
Leaving just a tablespoon, remove any additional oil from the dutch oven. Lower the heat to medium and add the shallots. Saute for 2 minutes then add the garlic and chili paste. Stir for another minute.
Make sure to shake up the coconut milk before adding it to the pan as it separates. Then add the lime juice and basil to the pan. Stir and once it’s come to a low boil, return the chicken to the pan, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. It’s always best to check the internal temperature, especially when dealing with chicken, so you’ll want to make sure it’s 165˚!
Feel free to toss any veggies in to cook along side the chicken and eat over rice or potatoes!

NOM!

December 26, 2016

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treats

Christmas is here!! I really can’t contain my excitement! I’ve been waiting for this since before Thanksgiving, I’m totally one of those people that listens to the 24/7 Christmas stations and had a Christmas Countdown on my desktop so I could always check just how many days, minutes and seconds we were away from today! Traditionally, Christmas Day is spent watching A Christmas Story on repeat and baking Christmas cookies, but since Jimmy’s aunt sent us a giant box of cookies this year, I heard him cringe a little when I started talking about my plans to bake a fresh batch.

I recently baked up a batch of toffee cookies that sort of came out how I had wanted them to and was planning to work on the recipe until it came out blog-worthy, and then I looked down and saw the hopeful eyes of our fur-child, Sophie. And then it hit me… if I had to eat the same meal morning, noon and night and my humans were constantly cooking amazing things, I’d like a Christmas treat too! So we threw on the Minions movie, which I’ll admit isn’t a Christmas movie, but it is on Netflix and it did have a few scenes with snow! And I lucked out because our pantry is full of all kinds of dog-friendly ingredients: pumpkin, peanut butter, both things that dogs love and can digest! I ordered these adorable corgi cookie cutters that I saw once on i am a food blog’s recipes and had a couple more I had bought for this very occasion one day.

Jimmy’s parents are here for the holidays and they did a great job humoring me, though I’m pretty sure they think I’m nuts for spending the afternoon whipping up cookies for the dog, but Sophie is more than just a dog, she’s our family too and she deserves little corgi shaped Christmas treats. I also might be a little crazy, but if it’s at the expense of this little nugget in her Santa outfit, then I think I’m pretty okay with that!

In Nomday news, I started an Instagram page as well, so if you want to see updates on your phone, follow me at @forevernomday! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone, and thanks for all of your support! I promise next year will have even more exciting and (hopefully) more frequent updates – just got to get past the whole wedding thing and we’ll be back to normal!

<3 Heidi

Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a small bowl, sift the flour and stir together the cinnamon and oats.
In a mixing bowl, add the pumpkin puree, eggs, and peanut butter and mix together.
Slowly add the dry ingredients in and mix until the dough has balled up and pulled off the side of the walls of the bowl.
Lightly dust your hands with flour and ball up the dough until there aren’t any creases in the dough. Creases will cause cracks in the shape of the cookie once you’ve rolled out the dough.
Lightly flour the surface you plan to roll your dough on, then roll your dough out to 1/2 inch thick. I tried rolling the dough out on parchment paper, thinking it’d be easier to peel off than my counter, but it just caused a lot of tears in the paper and it was even harder to release from the surface! I recommend doing it on a hard surface or a silicone baking sheet, they came off almost instantly when I used a silicone sheet. Also, make sure your dough is rolled out evenly, different thicknesses of cookies will call for different cooking times, or else you’ll come out with some underdone and some overdone.
Press your cookie cutters and using an offset spatula (or a knife) bake on parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet for 30 minutes.
Allow to cool on a cooling rack for 5 minutes before serving to your pup!

November 28, 2016

Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Jar

It’s Christmas time!! Well not yet, but it’s officially post-Thanksgiving which means it’s acceptable to listen to all day Christmas music radio stations, go searching for the perfect Christmas tree, and of course, all things sugar and spice!

Every year my company puts together gift baskets around the holidays and raffles them off to raise money for charity. This year my team decided on the theme of “by the fire” so think big cozy blankets, mugs filled with cocoa, and of course, warm cookies for Santa! Probably the best thing about growing up and realizing there is no Santa is that you can keep all the cookies for yourself. Considering warm cookies are best when they’re, well… warm, it’s probably best to put something that can keep into the basket. Over the years I’ve tried to make interesting takes on everyday recipes, but sometimes it’s nice to just bake a solid chocolate chip cookie. I’ve seen the cookie in a jar concept around on Pinterest and in stores for the holiday and figured it’d be perfect for not only our gift basket but gifts in general. I mean let’s be real, if people want to gift me food, I’m happy to take it. The trick is to make sure that the items in your jar aren’t perishable, and that you don’t require whoever is receiving the jar to have too many special items. This means, make sure that all they need are the essentials: butter, eggs, water, milk, etc. The worst part about making a recipe is realizing you have all but one thing, only to have to go out to the grocery store for a single item and feeling like you’re applying far too much effort. Why take the fun out of baking when you can gift someone the ease of not having to measure anything out or have to worry about all the cleanup of each measuring tool later. Just dump, mix, bake, and nom!

In a small bowl measure out your flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix thoroughly and using a funnel if you have one, slowly pour the dry mixture into the jar. I like to use the funnel to make sure that flour doesn’t puff up all along the side of the jar walls – I like a nice contrasting separation of each ingredient in my jars.
Add the remaining ingredients one by one, packing down each layer as you go. The order I like to do it from bottom to top is flour, chocolate chips, brown sugar, and white sugar, but you can do it however you like. Other ideas: by gradient, contrasting each layer, maybe if you have a themed jar, by alternating the layers based on the color of your theme.
That’s it! Well, you’ll want to write a little tag or note to attach that has the baking instructions. I plan to stock up in the $1 bins at Target and set myself up for the rest of the year but Michaels has good ones too if you don’t plan to cut and make your own.

On the Tag:

makes 2 dozen cookies

Preheat oven to 375˚
In a small bowl beat, 3/4 cup softened butter, 1 large egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla
In another bowl mix cookie jar mix until even, pour in the wet bowl and mix until you don’t have clumps!
Drop by tablespoon onto a baking sheet
Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown
Wire rack to cool

November 25, 2016

Thanksgiving Round Up

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday because I spend it the same every year but our traditions are different than most of my friends. Most of the people I know go home to spend a big family dinner with aunts, uncles, cousins and everyone in between. I always hear about turkey feasts covered in cranberry sauce, stuffed with stuffing, and sweet potatoes with marshmallow toasted perfectly golden brown on top. I also have a pretty large subset of friends who don’t have a traditional “American Thanksgiving” and will be getting together with their families at a local Chinese restaurant as Chinese places are always open on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas (I mean where else will people go when all the other restaurants are closed?) I’m part of one of those families that a) doesn’t have much immediate family in the country and b) doesn’t like turkey! So our Thanksgiving is always filled with friends, whoever they’re dating at the time and prime rib. I’m grateful that my mom and dad are in the same boat as me because someone is going to have to explain cranberry sauce to me. I like cranberries, I like fruit sauces, but I feel strong about fruit being spread all over my poultry. Also, what are marshmallows doing on sweet potatoes? I feel very confused by traditional American Thanksgiving food but it seems like the rest of the country is on board so it must just be me. If there’s someone out there that’s a huge fan of this food, leave me a comment and let me know your favorite Thanksgiving food and why!

This year before heading home we threw a small last minute Friendsgiving where we had mostly homemade items, except for the Costco rotisseries chicken (did I mention it was last minute and we don’t like turkey?) and the brisket brought back from Rudy’s from a friend who was flying in from Austin (I’m thankful for friends who travel and bring us back Texas brisket!) Who says everything has to be 100% homemade, sometimes you just have to accept that when short on time you don’t have time to stuff, tie, and make your own rotisserie chicken and that is OK.

For this post I tried to incorporate a lot of the recipes you can find on the blog and a couple new ones. Everything is relatively easy to make and bring to any sort of potluck or Friendsgiving – with the exception of the pecan pie, but in a rush you can always just buy store bought dough!

There aren’t as many prep or details photos in this post as we scrambled to make sure that everyone got to heat up their food a bit before starting dinner and by that point I think everyone wanted me to stop taking photos of the food so they could start eating.

Turkey Meatballs – Okay so I don’t like turkey all that much unless it’s deli turkey in a sandwich or ground turkey so these meatballs are a perfect moist and juicy alternative to the traditional cuts of turkey breast if that’s not your thing.
Yorkshire Pudding (Popovers) – Popovers are a great item with a lot of flexibility, you can pair them with a sweet jam, or in the case of Thanksgiving dinner, they go great with gravy! Just tear them open and use the pockets of air as little gravy boats!
Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes – While I typically have rice as my carb of choice, for occasions like the holidays… or really any other time I’m feeding a large group, I usually opt for potatoes and nothing beats this crowd favorite!
Honey Dinner Rolls – Our friend, Alex, came and he’s recently picked up bread making. These dinner rolls were to die for. Remember how I said rice was my carb of choice? My house was never really a dinner rolls kind of house, these were a game changer. I’ll have to see if he’s willing to part ways with his recipe for a guest nomday post.
Butternut Squash – I just recently realized that the gourds that we use to decorate around the holidays can actually be eaten after and roasted into a delicious veggie option. 2 birds with 1 stone, heck yeah!
Gouda Mac and Cheese – My best friend, Nicole, brought this and it was just as delicious as cheese puns are gouda. It proba-brie wasn’t the best idea to go for seconds but I couldn’t help myself. All right, I’m sure you’re all feta up with the puns, I’ll stop.
Pecan Pie – This pie is part of my Thanksgiving tradition, when I was younger I got the recipe for this pie from a friend who always brought it to our house for dinner. Now that she lives in NY, I’ve continued on the tradition! It’s super mapley and my favorite part about the holiday!
Moist brisket from Rudy’s BBQ – Hands down my favorite brisket in all of Texas! And our friend Joel brought it straight over by plane. What a time to be alive!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

August 8, 2016

Cornflake Chicken Nuggets

Yep, I’ll be the first to admit it, I totally let Forever Nomday fall by the wayside. Woops! No one tells you though that when you get engaged that everything is about to become second priority to picking your date, then hiring all of your vendors, and figuring out every single one of your closest relatives updated addresses. Somewhere between moving to a new house and figuring out where everyone’s going to sit, I even realized it had been a while but couldn’t do anything about it because every time I’d start at a new recipe, a) I’d realize my bowls or measuring spoons were packed in an unknown box somewhere and b) I’d email a DJ a few days later only to find out that they just booked my date. So, at the risk of not having some cruise ship DJ on my special day forcing everyone to do the funky chicken, I apologize for being a little behind. But we’re all moved in, and it’s time to start cooking again!

I’ll admit, I got the inspiration for this recipe from watching back to back recipe videos on Facebook this morning (sort of my Sunday morning in bed ritual). You know, the ones that shows you step by step how to make something delicious and you think, yea I can do that! I added a little twist of my own and then whipped up a homemade honey mustard. While I have a mini deep fryer that I love, sometimes you just want that deep fry feel without the grease! My recipe was a little sweeter as I used Honey Bunches of Oats (so that I could eat the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow, hehe) instead of just plain corn flakes, so I recommend using a sauce that balances the sweetness, like a honey mustard, BBQ or buffalo 🙂

Welcome back everyone, I’ve missed ya! *nom*

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Start by washing the chicken, pat dry then leave out until it reaching room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350˚F

Place the corn flakes, garlic powder, salt, pepper and paprika into a food processor and chop until fine. Whisk the egg yolks in a small bowl and put the flour and the processed corn flakes in two separate bowls.

Cut the tenders up into 1 inch cubes, then one at a time, coat the chicken in the flour, then the egg yolk, then finally the corn flakes until fully coated. Place them on a greased sheet pan. They can be very close to each other if you’re cramped for space because they will not expand at all.

Bake for 18 minutes.