Faith, Hope, & Love

...But the greatest of these is love.

It has been faith, hope and love in Caleb and My's lives these past couple of days.  Caleb got a summer internship with a Supreme Court Judge, which is amazing! I had the strength to go after what I want, we will keep our faith that everything happens.  And our love has kept us strong.

But back to the food.  For Caleb's birthday we went to Wasabi with his friends.  The chef made the rice into a shape of a heart!  It was so cute! And dinner was delicious! We took home pounds of leftovers!

So last night, we had to make a quick dinner in between my work out and meeting with some friends!  I made Quick Lemon Chicken with Garlic and Tomatoes.

Now for this recipe, it is super important to brine the chicken so that it is not dry!  So for this recipe I was in a hurry and didn't take a picture of the two steps required.  1.  put oil and whole cloves of garlic (about 5) into a glass dish, add the cherry tomatoes, salt, pepper, and sprigs of fresh thyme.  Then put the chicken in and mix it all up, I cooked it for 20 minutes at 425, then took it out, added about 2 tablespoons of sliced butter pieces and a half cup of white wine.  Then I cooked it about 15 minutes longer and served it up with some garlic cheese bread that I made the other night.  Super easy.

Also I put on a salad with the same balsamic dressing. YUM! Light and easy!  Put it together and what have you got? Yummy, healthy dinner! Excuse our bites out of the bread, but we were starving!

After dinner I went to hang out with a dear sorority sister, Olivia, she is amazing and you can read her blog here!

Shrimp Scampi

According to Caleb I have too many words and not enough pictures.  Also, "pictures are worth a thousand words" in other words, I should show you guys what I do (like a real food blogger does) instead of telling you what I'm doing.  So yesterday, I got some of our fresh juice, added some protein and headed to the gym.  When I got home I was very excited to start making some shrimp scampi.  I got the idea from Pioneer Woman's Easy Shrimp Pasta.  Also, Caleb's mom gave us a recipe for Shrimp Scampi about a year ago and we love that! It is just mostly butter, so I found this recipe which has tomatoes. 

So I started some salty water for the pasta, and in my skillet I have EVOO and butter.

So then I add a spoonful of garlic and a can of diced tomatoes.

Also in case your wondering, this is my garlic container.  This is so that I can add spoonfuls of garlic and not have to mince it each time!

Then I add some chicken broth, white wine, fresh parsley, and dried oregano, thyme, basil, and rosemary (basically everything remotely Italian).  I stirred and allowed it to just mix up.

While this was simmering I made up some Roasted Tomatoes.  I sliced them up and threw them in the oven with some Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese. 

Then, once all is said and done, they come out looking like this.  (cook for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees).

Then I made up some of mine and Caleb's very favorite homemade salad dressing.  Its super simple, just whisk together: dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil).  I whisked with a fork apparently...

Then I started on the bread for the meal.  Just sliced up some Italian bread and buttered it with country crock, parmesan cheese, and some Italian seasoning. I threw it in the oven and this was the end result.

So then I added the shrimp to the sauce. (It was pre-cooked so I just stirred it around a little to warm it up.)

Then I added the whole wheat pasta.  It was steaming up real good and made the kitchen smell divine! Now at this point I should have added some fresh lemon juice.. but I got so excited about preparing dessert that I forgot! It was still tastey, but if you are making this, please add the lemon juice!

So before I plated up all this stuff I made dessert.  I made s'mores chocolate chip cookies!  That is not exactly the recipe I used.  For mine, I simply just grab a chunk of cookie dough with my hands and form a little bowl and added several marshmallows and some mini chocolate chips. 

Then, for the lid, I formed a flat cookie topping, I rolled it around until it made a nice little cookie ball filled with marshmallow and chocolate chips. And this is what it looks like before it goes in the oven.

So I pop those in the oven and Caleb and I start on dinner! after scooping the pasta on the plate (use tongs and put them on the plate while twisting the plate, it makes a nice big pile instead of a flat mess)  I added some parmesan cheese and fresh parsley. 

Here you can see our feast (it was way too much food again, it seems my portion control is concentrating on leftovers).  I tried to offer some to Kristian, but she declined due to it being pasta... Also we are going out for Caleb's birthday and I think the large amount of hibachi we will be feasting on has something to do with it.

So after we finish our meal, the timer beeps and these babies come out. 

Needless to say, they were delicious and gone in sixty seconds. 


Also, I would like to add a very special Happy Birthday to Caleb, my loving fiance, best friend, and soul mate.  I am so excited for what our lies ahead in our lives.  He is my better half, making every day better than the last.  I love you, Caleb!

Juice Mania

Well I don't even know where to start, I thought Caleb and I went juice crazy yesterday, but today was no joke.  However, before I get into that, we took Hercules to play some of his favorite, Frisbee!   Obviously he is much happier in this short hair cut, and he can play frisbee longer!

Also, Hercules enjoys ear rubs.  And although this picture is from Sunday, I thought I'd share his favorite car riding position: asleep and being cuddled.

Now back to dinner, last night we had Asian night.  Nothing special, just some Soy Glazed Salmon, spicy green beans, and spicy sweet potato fries.  For the salmon I used two different recipes.  Actually I used Rachel Ray's cooking technique and used the soy glaze concocted by Martha Stewart.
It was super easy, I started with cutting the sweet potato and then in a large bowl I mixed together vegetable oil, salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, and paprika.  I didn't measure anything which is why I thought they were too spicy and Caleb thought they were too perfect. 

For the green beans I just steamed them for about 5 minutes, then put them in the pan with some olive oil for a few minutes then added the sauce (a mix of sriracha, soy sauce, minced garlic, and honey).  Now if you don't know what sriacha is, you are crazy! Caleb LOVES the stuff and its great on asian food.  Its basically a chili sauce with a rooster on the front.  It lasts forever and it goes great on tons of stuff.  For you cheap college kids its great on ramen noodles!

So then for the salmon (easiest part) I first rubbed EVOO all over it and then seared it skin side up in a cast iron, after about 3 minutes I flipped it over, added the glaze (soy sauce, brown sugar, white wine, EVOO) and then threw the whole thing in the oven for about 4 more minutes.  The sauce was not as thick as I liked so to finish it off I removed the salmon and cooked the glaze down on the stove. 

It was super easy and very delcious! Here you can see our gigantic plates! We had way, way too much food! Don't worry we didn't finish it all, and I'm eating our leftovers for lunch today!

As you can see Hercules is more than willing to eat our leftovers! Thanks to Caleb for capturing this picture! (See my hands in the background getting ready to move the plates so I can start eating.

So, even though I try to make things spicy enough for Caleb, it seems that it is never enough.  Here I have caught him adding more sriracha! That bottle is almost empty and we'll soon be restocking!

 So after Dinner we are off to juicing! We got so excited we forgot to clean up all our dishes!  But we went juice crazy again! From left to right you can see we made: 1. Grapefruit, 2. Strawberry-cantelope, 3. Orange-cantelope, 4. Orange-apple, 5. Celery, kale, carrot and apple, and 6. Spinach, apple, orange, strawberry.  Obviously, the straw indicates that I enjoyed (and split with Caleb) that last concoction right after juicing with Caleb. 

Whirlwind Weekend

What an amazing weekend Caleb and I have had! We absolutely love trying new restaurants, and that is exactly what we did this weekend! We spent the weekend in Nashville celebrating his birthday! First we went to Zoe's Kitchen in Green Hills.  It was fresh and delicious Mediterranean food! I got a greek salad with hummas and Caleb had a chicken salad sandwich with a delicious potato salad!

Then I bought my very first pink blazer! It was 50% off at NY & Co.! Love that!  That night we got to see The Hunger Games with his Mom, Dad, and brother.  What an amazing movie! It left out several details from the book but still followed the story pretty closely! Loved it!

On Saturday, Caleb and I went on a bike ride with his brother, Chris.  We went 8.7 miles! So to splurge, we went to Noshville, holy cow, it was awesome! I had a huge pancake, bacon, and egg; and Caleb had a Pastrami sandwich, both were amazing!
That night, we went out with his family to celebrate his birthday at Battered and Fried a Boston Seafood House.  That was incredible! We ordered different 4 sushi rolls and each couple split the famous fish n' chips, which were so so so delicious!  After dinner we walked over to an ice cream shop called The Pied Piper Creamery, which was amazing! Please, go look at all of the different fresh, homemade flavors!

Then, to top off the birthday celebrations, his parents gave him a juicer! Caleb has been talking about that thing for months! Now, needless to say we got started juicing as soon as we arrived back in Knoxville.  Before going juice crazy, I was able to make a light dinner (light because we ate so much good food while in Nasvhille!)

I made Pioneer Woman's Chicken with Mustard Cream Sauce and it was delicious! I bought a package of boneless/skinless chicken breasts and of course used half for this recipe and I'll use the other half later in the week. 

Now this was super duper easy.  I started by browning the chicken in oil and butter, then added garlic, white wine, grainy mustard, and some dijon mustard.  I let that cook down, then added some heavy cream and chicken broth.  After letting the breasts simmer in that for a little I served it up with some yummy braised spinach and cornbread.  Nothing fancy, just cornbread out of the box (I had a coupon for it!) and then sauteed the spinach in oil, butter, salt, pepper, white wine, chicken stock, and red pepper flakes.  Yummy dinner! 
Hercules is giving the evil eye because Caleb had two huge chicken pieces and he had none.


Now I only had a half of the chicken breast (I saved the rest for lunch leftovers).  Caleb had the biggest breast half as well as another and in my head I was thinking there is no way he will finish all this food and he put his fork and knife down after the first big breast and I screamed "I KNEW IT!" So to prove me wrong, he finished his entire plate... True love at its finest, proving each other wrong, one plate at a time.

So to finish up the day we started juicing like crazy! This is the brand of juicer that his parents got him, and the first concoction we created was celery, carrots, kale, and apples. 

 It was surprisingly delicious!  However, the vegetables were not very cold, so Caleb decided to shake them up with some ice and pour them into little shot glasses in case we didn't like them.

So he shook up the juice with some ice and poured it up for us.







We were very nervous and unsure about how this was going to taste! But it was delicious! In fact, I drank the rest of this yummy juice today with my lunch!

 So then I cut up an entire pineapple! I was so nervous, but luckily the instructions were on the tag and it was super easy! I wanted to keep the top part, but Caleb insisted that we had no room to grow a tree. Sad day, I know.

 So after juicing an entire pineapple and three oranges we had this delicious juice which we split and drank while watching Amazing Race and The Good Wife. Typical Sunday night, with the addition of some refreshing juice!

Best Kept Secret

Okay, so I may have lied about yesterday being my last post, but I just can't contain my excitement about the little secret that we stumbled upon yesterday.  Caleb and I ventured to a new (2 months old) little sushi restaurant called Ebi (located inside of NV Nightclub).  Well. WOW! It was not only delicious but CHEAP! I mean it was half price rolls night and regularly they are $4-7! It was incredible! So thinking that each roll we got would be about $3.50 we each picked out two! As did Andy, Kristian, and Haley.  We also ordered edamame as a side dish, which was delicious!

However... Caleb had never had it and I wanted him to try it (it is basically soybeans) so I hand him one not thinking and he pops the whole thing in his mouth! Haley, Kristian, and I could not contain our laughter and Caleb just kept chewing it up! (You are supposed to wiggle out the beans inside and eat only the inside bean)... Needless to say, Caleb thought that it was too fibrous and gross... Hahahahaha hilarity ensued... But once he ate one the right way, he too was an edamame convert... YUM!

Now back to the sushi, it was so delicious and I was even adventurous enough to try a new roll! It was called the Hawaii Roll and it had pineapple, tempura tuna, cucumbers, and cream cheese, now it was pretty huge so I had to cut each roll in half to eat, but man oh man was it delicious! So we all had leftovers (expect for the boys). So we gave all of our leftovers to Andy!  Here he is with my leftovers (just the Philly roll because I ate all of the Hawaii one) 

Then  Kristian and Haley with their leftovers, which they also gave to Andy. 

So we all highly recommend you go out to half price sushi night at Ebi! Also, on Thursday's they have certain hibachi at half price! Now what a deal, what a deal!  Also for their happy hour (5-6 p.m.) They have $2 rolls every weekday! Great place!

Also, this is just a side note, but Caleb's Mom got us tickets (we are going to Nashville today) to go see Hunger Games at 7:30 p.m. Friday! YAY!!! Goal: finish Mockingjay today! I CANNOT wait!!!

Comfort Food

Some days you really just need that comfort, comfort food that is.  That is where Italian food comes into play for me.  Being Asian, you would think that Asian and Filipino food would comfort me, but no no no, Dad would always make chicken alfredo or marinara with italian sausage in it.... That makes it feel like home to me.

So yesterday I made one of my very favorites (and I made sure I had plenty of sauce left over for lunch!)  I sort of used Pioneer Woman's Recipe for Tomato Cream Sauce.  Because of course, she is a genius, I have picked up lots of her tips throughout her posts.  So to start off, I got everything ready (because Caleb must have meat in every meal, I put baked chicken in the sauce). 

So Monday while I was making the Chicken and Dumplings, I also cooked the other half of the chicken package (I used one and half breasts in the Chicken n' Dumplings and the other one and a half in the spaghetti).  The chicken for the spaghetti was brined and then cooked by first searing it in a cast iron then putting the whole thing into the oven (375 degrees for about 30 minutes) with some white wine to help give it flavor and not stick. 

So I enlist Caleb's help to shred the chicken while I start the rest of the sauce.  I saute onions with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and oregano.  Then I add two roma tomatoes, diced and saute that after adding some rosemary and thyme.  Also, another tip... SUGAR! It counters the acidity (so I'm told) of the tomatoes, but mostly just makes it delicious!  Then I add a can of tomato sauce (no seasoning - found in the canned vegetable aisle next to the canned tomatoes), fresh basil, and about a cup of red wine. I let all of this simmer while I cook the pasta (whole wheat linguine) and the garlic cheese biscuits (well Caleb cooked those).  So then after letting it simmer for 20 minutes or so I add some heavy cream (yes, heavy :)).  Stir it all together, and what have I got? Yummy, Delicious, Sauce!  So after all of that I also add some mozzarella cheese as well as Parmesan!

So, since learning from the best (Pioneer Woman) I also add some parmesan to the noodles before putting the sauce on top (I also added basil, but you can't see it because I forgot to before I took the pictures)

So then I top the pasta with LOTS of the sauce and add some more cheese (PW says you can never have too much cheese and I completely and utterly agree).  Then voila! One of my favorite meals!  Now please, please, please make your own spaghetti sauce! It is so so so much better! (We do have a can of ragu, but we use it for the turkey meatballs we sometimes make on the weekends). 

So here is Hercules with my plate (mine is about the same size as Caleb's because, let's face I could eat pounds of this stuff...) Now you can tell by the color of the sauce that it has cream in it because my spaghetti sauce is usually much darker (usually due to the addition of red wine).

This is Caleb's plate, and let me tell you what, we scraped those babies clean... mmhmm I love spaghetti oh so much.

Also, for those keeping up, I finished Catching Fire last night... WOW (I may like it more than the first). And I've started Mockingjay.... Can't wait... I've heard such mixed reviews that I want to be able to have my own opinion on it, which of course I'll share with everyone. 

Now don't get worried, but this will be the last post for the week. Caleb and I are getting half priced sushi tonight with his friend Andy, and my friends Kristian, Brooke, Haley, and Arae. Then we are heading to Nashville to see his family. I CANNOT wait! First of all, I love his family, second of all, I love Nashville! Maybe I'll blog about our adventures there, but I won't be cooking, I'll be enjoying delicious food with his family! Something that is hard for me to master... Southern fare.  I try hard, but it's just never as good as with his Mom and Mama Lou.  Just like my asian and friend rice is never as good as my Mom's. 

The Last Day of Winter

Well what an interesting last day of winter yesterday was!  It was beautiful outside and in celebration of the last day of winter I made Chicken N' Dumplings, Pioneer Woman style.  I have a slight obsession with Ree, aka Pioneer Woman, and all of her recipes, in fact I've tried a lot of them already.  But this chicken n' dumplings was beyond delicious! (This is the second time I made it, so I didn't make as many mistakes as last time!)

Also, her recipe calls for tumeric, which is a spice I don't have, so I omit (she doesn't use very much).  But other than that I follow her recipe, well I don't make homemade biscuits, I use off brand bisquick and they work just as good!
It was so easy and yummy, and all in one pot, my dutch oven! Just brown the chicken in butter and oil, add celery, carrots, and onion; add thyme, stir stir stir; add chicken stock (I added chicken broth because that is what I had in the pantry, and yes there is a difference!  See difference here.
Anyways, so then you add apple cider and let it simmer with the chicken in it for about 20 minutes, then take out and shred the chicken then add it back! Then add some heavy cream and add drop the biscuit mix in and simmer another 10 minutes and voila! Deliciousness is going on...

See my simmering pot:

So then I let it simmer and pour up some bowls for Caleb and I.

Look at Hercules' face, that should tell you how good this was... A little warm of weather for this type of food, but nonetheless it was still amazing!

So after scarfing some of this down (don't worry there was plenty, I'll be eating this for lunch this week!) I head to Power Yoga class to meet up with Kristian, Brooke, and surprise, Arae! (All sorority sisters). Man oh man, was this class intense! We were all sweating like mad men! Then at the very end of the class we are laying in the dark and all of the sudden..... SNORING! From some random man behind us in the back of the class room! I guess yoga REALLY wore him out!!

So for a reward for going to yoga I decide to make a yummy fried apple caramel recipe for caleb and myself.  And I served it with yummy vanilla bean ice cream!  The recipe is supposed to be a copy-cat of Cracker Barrel's and it was delicious and had a surprise ingredient... lemon juice! But it worked so well!  Hercules always tends to gravitate toward the food... but can you blame him? Well this was amazing, and Caleb and I shared the whole bowl, hence two spoons! We are getting fat, good thing he has the bikes to adventure all over town!

Bikes, Bikes, Everywhere!

What a crazy weekend! St Patrick's Day and many other fun events! Colorful weekend, is putting it lightly.  On Friday I got to have dinner with Kristian and our good friend Brittany and her friend Kelly.  Call it a girls night if you will.  Then Saturday morning Kristian and I get up super early (8:30 a.m.) to meet Brooke for spin class at the YMCA.  It was an hour long! HOLY COW was that hard... we couldn't sit down for hours and it still hurts today! Then we met up with Caleb after his test to eat some delicious Pete's! Now I don't know if you've ever been there, but it is pretty much amazing!! Then we spend the rest of St. Patrick's day at the pool and go out for Mexican later on! Great day!

Sunday, Caleb and I go to the grocery store and I saved $27.21 in coupons and store savings!!! What a deal! (We did spend $92.09 though), but still! I was very excited, even mom said she was proud! (I learned to be stingy from her). 

So then Caleb and I decide to go on a bike ride from his apartment to mine... (8 minute drive) an hour later we are so out of breath and water you'd thought we ran a marathon!!!  So after catching our breath and refilling our water we make the trek back to his apartment (it took another 45 minutes).  This is the end of our journey and I can barely pedal up this small hill!

So after our monstrous bike ride with my already sore legs, I make dinner.  Best part of my day is cooking :).  So last night I made Broiled Salmon with Marmalade-Dijon Glaze.  Super easy, and another way for me to use the orange marmalade I bought for the Chicken Bundles Recipe.  To go with the salmon I also bought some green beans and a sweet potato to make Green Beans with Lemon and Garlic and Sweet Potato Fries recipe by Melissa D'Arabian, which I saw on her show 10 Dollar Dinners from this past Saturday.  On her show she recommended adding cayenne for a spicy kick, which I did, just for Caleb.  So everything was super easy! Especially since I was so tired and didn't feel like making too much.  Also, didn't break the bank with the recipe because all I had to buy for the whole meal was salmon ($5.11 for both of us), green beans ($0.71), and a sweet potato ($0.53). How much cheaper could it get?!  

So since the sweet potato fries need to cook for about 30 minutes I started those first by peeling and slicing them, then adding them  to a bowl where I had already mixed a little vegetable oil, cayenne, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Then baked those babies on a whopping 450 degrees! Then I boiled and blanched the green beans and then cooked them in some butter, garlic and red pepper flakes in a saute pan. Super easy, just some tossing around then a little lemon zest, but that was not enough lemon flavor so I added some lemon juice! 

Then for the salmon, I brushed on a mix of orange marmalade, dijon mustard, garlic powder, grated ginger, salt, and pepper. Broiled it for 6 minutes then brushed it again and broiled another two minutes... Now I would consider our piece pretty big (about .72 pound) and this definitely over-cooked the salmon. Nonetheless, it was still good, just over-cooked, next time I'll probably cook it about 4 minutes re-brush the glaze, then 2 minutes... Fair warning.

And of course, no post would be complete without Hercules and his cute face.  

Now for the best part, since Caleb and I basically biked for almost 2 hours, we decided to treat ourselves.... to our very favorite Cook out milkshakes! Usually we split a banana pudding flavored one, but since we were treating our selves we each got one that the other does not like.  He got chocolate chip mint, which I hate.  And I got orange push up, which he hated, but at least tasted.  MMHHMM Good! And Hercules got a nice little treat too, just not a milk shake! So we enjoyed our shake while watching Amazing Race and The Good Wife! So many good shows on Sundays! :)