Not enough time....

Ugh, I'm sooo angry at myself....I was planning on making my Pesto Chicken Dish tonight, which entail soaking the chicken breast in Italian Dressing for at least 3 hours. Unfortunately, I woke up later than expected...and I didn't have time to soak the chicken breasts in the Italian Dressing. But fear not...for I still made my dish; I just bypassed the Italian Dressing step....hehehe

Here's a picture of how it turned out...for those of you who are curious:

Still looks the same huh? I love the brown/ black marks on the chicken....makes it look rugged and sexy. Plus it adds some diversity to the chicken...so instead of being white, it's also black and brown!

What's my verdict:
Still tastes delicious! I'll definitely bypass the Italian Dressing if I'm ever in a rush...which means I'll probably be doing this version 95% of the time....

Anyways, gotta go eat. I'm starving! Laaaater

Sunday...Funday!

Today is Sunday...which means laundry day! Yep, I decided to stop being lazy and take the initiative to clean my clothes. So...I trekked over to the neighborhood laundry mat for the first time...apprehensive and scared, much like a college student before his/her finals!

* This is the laundry machine

* and the dryer

Now what I love about this laundry mat is that their machines are all made out of this sleek metal material...which makes it sexy! As well, they have these awesome "shopping carts" to transport clothes from the washers to dryers!

* I kinda wanna steal a few of these for my next trip to the grocery market

Oh, what I also love about doing laundry is that I bought these "3 in 1" Purex Dryer Sheets. In other words, it combines laundry detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets all into one. That means I can stick these in the washer (and not have to put in softener AND detergent) and then transfer these sheets into the dryer! So this really helps stimulate my laziness. Yay!

* it's even packaged in a sexy blue package! How enticing!

Now....for dinner:
I decided I wanted steak...but upon my trip to the grocery store, I discovered that steaks are super duper expensive. However, using my "meat radar," I found these "beef shanks" (which resemble delicious steak) for only $2.99...well, at least they look like steak to me!

*the beef shanks...or whatever they were marketed as. It does look like steak right?

And finally...the finished product:

* looks like steak!

So, I guess this post is another example of my creativity and ingenuity. Woohooo!!!

Blender of Awesomeness

So, unfortunately I won't be cooking dinner tonight because I made a plethora of ribs for myself the night before. However, I noticed this amazing blender that my apartment was furnished with...so I thought to myself, "Hey Mr. Lee, why don't you make yourself a protein shake?"

And that's what I did.

This blender contains ice, almond milk, 1 scoop of protein, a whole banana, and a heaping a teaspoon of peanut butter.

The blender is amazing! It even has that black gizmo you see at the Smoothie Factory to help crush the ice and evenly blend the contents. It's sooo pro! I'm seriously in love with this blender. It took me about 10 seconds (if that) to make my shake!

Anyways, I will be adding more blender recipes to my post...so get excited! Au revoir!

Today's Dinner

It's a rainy day today...crap. To make up for it and help cheer up my day, I decided to cook myself dinner. Curious to find out what it is? Well, a picture tells a thousand words. So here ya go:

*Cantonese style black bean ribs, steamed eggs, and stir-fried romaine lettuce.

So you may be wondering to yourself why I've been cooking so much when I'm in New York, home to a plethora of delicious restaurants. Well, it's because I know after work, I'll be super hungry and too tired to step foot in a restaurant. Plus, I wanna be able to cook delicious food in the shortest amount of time possible. Efficiency is key. Who says being quick is a bad thing? ;)

Till next time

Evan's Chicken

So I've decided to make up something on my own....just outta whimsy. Drawing influence from my Asian side, I used all asian ingredients today! Why? Because asian food is the best. That's why.

Anyways, without further ado, the secret to Evan's Chicken!

Ingredients:

Soy Sauce, "Lee Kum Kee" Black Bean Sauce, "Lee Kum Kee" Chili Garlic Sauce

1) Add the soy sauce and black bean sauce into a ziplog back. Place the chicken in there and let it marinate for about 30 minutes! This allows the chicken to soak up all the succulent flavors.

2) Once that's done, take the chicken out of its bag and place it into an aluminum-lined casserole dish. Then, place salt and pepper onto the chicken and rub them into the chicken. Afterwards, take the chili garlic sauce and evenly spread them all over the chicken. Nothing like a spicy hot chicken for dinner! Muy caliente!

3) Then, place the chicken into the Forman Grill for about 8 minutes.

4) Voila, you're done. Here's my dinner:

Steam fresh broccoli, brown rice, and Evan's chicken!!!

So as you can see, I'm creative and innovative. I thoroughly impressed myself with my sophisticated cooking techniques. Tune in later to see what other crazy concoctions I come up with!

Innovative Chicken in NY!

Hello everybody! It's been raining nonstop today, so I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to cook for dinner...and guess what? I decided to utilize all this free time I have for cooking and made my Innovative Chicken dish! Unfortunately, I didn't have any "Shao-xing" or white wine...so my chicken are minus that important ingredient. However, it still turned out very well, and I'm very impressed with myself!

* how my chicken turned out after it was done cooking in the rice cooker. Look at how meaty the drumsticks are....

I'd hafta say my chicken turned out very well! Now, for my complete dinner:

* from left to right: Steam Fresh Brown Rice, my Innovative Chicken, and Stir-Fried Romaine Lettuce!

Cooked myself a feast...to bad I won't be able to cook like this in the next few weeks....:(

Till next time...au revoir!

Chinese New Year...in NYC!!!

Howdy folks! So I finally moved myself into New York. It's a great neighborhood...it's an old town, but it's a quaint, quiet town...something that I very much enjoy. My apartment is also very nice and spacious for New York. It's super clean, well furnished....and not too plain and boring!

Yesterday, I celebrated Chinese New Year....which meant having a delicious elaborate dinner! And yes, I did take pictures of the food:

 

dishes included: delicious steamed large mouth fish (it's illegal to serve!), eggplant, scrumptious lobster, egg plant, and "dou-miao" 

this picture includes: "gai-lan," peking duck!, sweet and sour chicken...and of course, the staple of every chinese cuisine: steamed rice! 

So now that I'm in New York, I will be blogging about my adapting to New York. Stay tuned for these exciting posts!

Leaving for NY tomorrow

:(...it's time. I'm leaving tomorrow early in the morning. It's going to be a bittersweet moment for me. I hope I don't cry. So, in order to maximize my time here and make the most of my day...I took pictures!

 yummy food!

 damn, i look good in this pic

 Pucky says hi!

 And there's PJ!!!

 BJ!!! (the name doesn't stand for what you think it does)

 Dinner at Uncle Julio's! Delicious lobster tail and chicken fajitas!

 UNCLE JULIOS!!! WHERE MEXICAN DREAMS COME TRUE!

Hi mom!

Hotpot!!!

Sadness ensues. I will not be able to enjoy the simple luxuries I once did in Texas. So...to make up for it, I'm spending my last few days at places I won't be able to enjoy in New York. Today's place is: Mei-xin (Maxim's in English). It has very delicious hot pot at a very reasonable price....and yes, you guessed it. I ate to my heart's content. AAAAND, that's what I had for dinner.

Doesn't that look delicious??? So it's half spicy, half normal. Can you guess which one is which? :P

Also, what I love about this place is the plethora of garlic that's available. As everybody knows, my love for garlic knows no equal...so my sauce for dunking my food in consisted of sesame oil, soy sauce, "SATAY" sauce, AAAANND mounds and mounds of garlic.

Let your eyes feast upon this picture....and I will be back tomorrow!!!! :D

Moooney!!!

Again, nothing to do with cooking because I've packed all my cooking utensils.
This money clip gizmo reminds me of my $10-wallet and $1-bow tie.  Good memories. Gaaah, 3 more days until I move to New York!!! Sooo nervous...and excited.

Steeeaaakkk!!!

I'm sad. Why? Because although I'm super excited to be moving to New York, there are many things that I will miss in Texas. One of them is Texas. No longer will I be able to purchase and cook a nice, big juicy piece of steak. And it's on that note that I decided to have steak for dinner tonight!

*My last decent piece of t-bone steak in a while..


And of course, I always have to couple it with my favorite fries:

*garlic and olive oil fries....soooo delicious!

I will definitely miss my "elaborate" home-cooked meals, unless my apartment has a nice stove and oven

:( as you can tell, I'm very sad. I'm going to go lay on my couch and hope these feelings go away!

Wish me luck!

This is not a food post

Yep. That's right. Today's post has nothing to do with food. Instead...I learned how to iron my shirts and pants today! Yippeeee! I thought I'd just post some photos to show ya'll:

* i'm ironing my shirt! yea buddy, look at that concentration

* the man (aka my dad) making sure I don't mess up. He's got high standards. Luckily, I passed with flying colors.

I am now a pro ironer. If you have any questions on how to iron, please don't hesitate to reach out to me, and I will gladly help! :)

Chicken Soup in Rice Cooker

Howdy! So I figured that I'm going to be in a very cold climate now that I'm making the move to New York, so I thought I'd learn how to make an easy soup to keep myself warm! Hence, it's time to get creative with the rice cooker (yet again) and make my favorite soup in the whole wide world: Chicken Soup!!!

Ingredients:

From left to right: several cloves of garlic, 1 thick piece of ginger smashed, 1 Cornish game hen

1) Half -fill the inner pot of rice cooker with water. Then place it in the cooker. Put 1/2 of the little cup of water between the inner and outer pot. Then turn rice cooker on

2) Meanwhile, wash the Cornish game hen and snip off the fatty part of the butt. Yep, that's right. You heard me.

* that lil bumpy part is the butt! It was plump.


3) Next, stuff garlic cloves and ginger inside chicken cavity. Make sure there are no gizzards inside the chicken... Gross!

4) Then, throw the chicken into the cooker when the water starts to boil. Add more water between inner and outer pots. Sit back and relax for another hour or so.

5) After an hour or so has passed, add in two of these. Cover the lid of  the cooker, add more water between the pots, and let it cook for another 40 minutes or so.

* ssshh...this is my secret ingredient, so please don't tell anybody.

6) When the time is up, take the inner pot out and allow it to cool. Then cover it up and put it in the fridge overnight.

24 hours later.... 

7) So now it's the next day. Take the pot out of the fridge and you'll see all the yucky grease coagulated on the top. This makes it very easy to scoop off that solidified grease, leaving me with a healthy pot of chicken soup

8) Now put the almost clear soup back in the cooker, add half a cup of water between this weird contraption, press the on switch and wait.  When the button pops up, delicious chicken soup is ready to be had! (unfortunately, this is missing all the bells and whistles my madre uses....)

YUMMY!!!