What I Ate: White Bean and Chard Stew

after i took the photo, i proceeded to spill the entire contents on the floor. thankfully there were extras in the fridge and more thankfully Bounty is the quilted quicker picker upper.

Sun-dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breast with Roasted Carrots and Celery

i have to say that i find chicken breast rather bland and dry. sure there are ways to perk it up via marinating but that seems like too much effort to me nowadays.

what's more, i also had a bunch of carrots and celery that i ambitiously though would be turned into soup a week back so they definitely needed to be eaten. one carrot even had to be scarified since it was more than a little floppy and had black bits everywhere. (sorry little carrot!) celery is one of my least favorite vegetables and i wasn't too excited about trying to think up what to do with them. fortunately a quick browse through the interwebs told me that roasting was an option.

chicken breast:

- chicken breast

- sun-dried tomatoes (i just used 1 here)

- dijon mustard

- honey

1. cut up some sun-dried tomatoes. slice an opening in the chicken breast and place them inside. drizzle a little oil in (i wasn't sure if the sun-dried tomatoes would burn or not just sitting inside)

2. mix the mustard and honey together in a separate bowl. pour over the breast. cover breast with foil.

3. oven 350F for 30 mins.

the chicken breast came out quite juicy, with the mustard and honey on top sort of reminding me of chicken mcnuggets. the sun-dried tomatoes contributed a nice sweet pop of flavor. honestly this is how i usually make my chicken breast if i don't marinate it for stir-fry. its just really easy and pretty good.

where it can go wrong:

- it turned out too dry. this happens occasionally, i find the thicker the spread, the less likely it will dry out. having something stuffing the breast helps too.

- you didn't mix the mustard and honey in a separate bowl but though you could just squeeze the condiments right on top (yes... i did this). this doesn't work that well. you basically end up having a hard time getting them to combine on top of the breast while just pushing them around a bit. just put do it in a separate bowl.

celery and carrots:

- carrots and celery...obviously
- oil
- spices: you can go with the old standby of just salt and pepper, which is always tasty but today i decided to add cinnamon, roasted garlic powder, pepper and ginger powder. i skipped the salt since the roasted garlic powder seems sort of salty to me.

1. cut up veggies. thinner slices will obviously roast faster but i find thinker slices are more satisfying to eat.
2. lay them out on baking sheet.
3. drizzle with oil and mix with spices.
4. oven 400F for 20-25 mins.

i have to say that the celery came out much better than i expected. they tasted a lot sweeter and less watery than just eating them raw. if left with bunches of celery in the fridge this method will be used again. not sure why i never think of doing them this way and can't really think of where it could go wrong aside from burning them.

let's eat that!

Beer-Cheese Bread

sometimes...things in life just don't turn out the way you want. take my attempt at making beer-cheese bread for example. after a get together with friends, i was yet again left with bottles of beer. this is barely an issue for most civilized folk but i, unfortunately, don't really drink. so 5 bottles of beer is not a win-fall and instead leaves me wondering how i'm going to clear these out of my fridge.

enter Alton Brown's Beer-Cheese Bread Recipe!
low and behold the results!

Rosemary Cashews

having an abundance of cashews and realizing that i probably should have bought salted ones instead, i decided to look up ways of making them more exciting.

thankfully, i also had some fresh rosemary and so proceeded to make Ina Garten's Rosemary Cashews. there are so so awesome! perfectly sweet and savory, the smell of the rosemary makes your mouth water even before you taste them

where it can go wrong:
- her recipe calls for a roast time of10 mins at 375F. this is much too long. it only took about 5 mins before some of the cashews were burning. 

- issues with the dry ingredients adhering to the cashews. some people had this issue in the comments of the recipe. i poured the butter one first then sprinkled all the dry ingredients after. this sort of worked. i suspect that if you melted the sugar with the butter and then poured everything on, it might work better. 

upping the ante:

- i added some paprika in as well. didn't seem to do much though i only added a little.

- i didn't have cayenne pepper flakes (and probably never will) but did have "gochugaru" (korean style dried pepper flakes). these i think are milder than cayenne but still adds a slight pop of heat

let's eat that!

What I Ate: Green Soup with Pumpkin Seed Baguette

today, i started thinking about doing a post on breakfast and cereal but then i got lazy and went out shopping instead (that doesn't bode well for the start of a blog now does it). so, in replacement of that, here is picture of what i ate for lunch.

this soup is wonderfully tasty and especially perfect for when you've felt like you've done your body wrong. nothing like a soup made of leafy greens to correct any injustice. will post tutorial later perhaps but main ingredients are: leafy green of your choice (in this case, kale and leeks), and stock.. among other things.