ginger lime chicken and bok choy

as mentioned previously, it has been requested that i write

more posts on what i cook in my little kitchen

so here is a quick and easy dinner we really enjoy

we love to grill! especially in the summer months

almost all our dinners are grilled, it's relatively quick

and pretty healthy!

this recipe is a new favorite

ginger lime chicken marinade 

ingredients:

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 2tbsp ginger, minced
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 garlic clove, minced

instructions:

1. blend all of the ingredients.
2. marinade the chicken at least 2 hours.
3. grill!

for a side dish, i like to make bok choy

the girls love bok choy and get a kick out of saying it really really fast

at least 20 times in a row

sauteed bok choy

ingredients:

1. one bunch of bok choy

2. 2 tbsp of garlic, minced

3. 2 tbsp of olive oil

instructions:

1. heat olive oil in a pan

2. add garlic

3. stir fry bok choy for a few minutes

4. drizzle with oyster sauce if desired

serve both with a side of steamed jasmine rice!

happy lunches

one of the many mommyhood challenges

that i face five days a week

is preparing healthy and yummy lunches for zoe to bring to school

she has been having lunch at school since last year

so preparing lunch for her to bring to school is not new to me

but it certainly remains challenging!

i am lucky in the sense that zoe is not a really picky eater

and once she likes something, she really likes something

she can eat it everyday if i let her

right now she is really digging nutella sandwiches

she has had it almost everyday since school started

i found these super duper neat sandwich cutters

they cut the sandwich into neat shapes and take the crusts off (bonus points!)

i alternate her snacks between fruit, cheese sticks and granola bars

and zoe doesn't like juice ( makes our dentist visits way more pleasant!)

so she brings water everyday

i also stick a little "love note" on her sandwich container with

happy tape... because happy tape makes everything happier!

now, i just need to brainstorm more lunch ideas 

for when the time comes and she decides 

that she doesn't want nutella sandwiches anymore

sigh...

weekend snapshots

this weekend was super duper busy!

saturday afternoon, we dropped the girls

off at my parents house

 my parents wanted to take the girls camping--in their backyard!

hubs and i took advantage of our "grown up" time

and headed to fort langley

we walked around and hit up a few of the antique shops

(side note: our antique shops up here are not necessarily very good and

are always overpriced!)

nevertheless, it's nice to have a lookie loo

and it just so happened that i spied this sweet tea cup

to add to my collection

after our lovely stroll we had made plans with my sisters

my future bro-in-law, our favorite couple and one of our good friends

to meet for dinner at this charming cafe.

everything was quite delicious

but let me tell you, this apple pie was devoured in about two seconds

by my hubs and me-- i knew i should have got my own piece!

after dinner we headed back to our house to watch insidious

ok, i must clarify that i haven't watched a horror movie in years

this one pretty much scared the living daylights out of me that

i swore off horror movies forever

so unfortunately, i couldn't tell you if it was scary or not

because a blanket was over my head most of the time

the next day we slept in 

(is 7:40 a.m. considered sleeping in? for parents like us it is!)

and picked up my sisters and future bro-in-law 

we headed into the city for some brunch at the red wagon cafe

there was a little bit of a wait

but the food was incredible and the service was excellent

(if you are a local, it's a definite must try!)

my hubs and future-bro-in-law got the pulled pork sandwich

my sis got the rueben sandwich which boasted home made corned beef

and i got the crisp pork belly

after brunch we hit up a local farmers market

to purchase some "pesticide free" veggies

(as my sis likes to refer to them)

and then made our way towards an antique fair

like i have mentioned before, vancouver doesn't have much

of a antique/vintage selection ( we are still such a young city)

but hubs and i decided to go anyways because of the "what if" factor

and of course, we didn't see much 

but just as we were about to leave, 

i spotted this sweet rusty milk container

and the sweetest part? it was 50% off!
(pays off going on the last day right before they close!)

and then on the way home we grabbed some of our favorite

bubble tea for the ride home

then we picked up our sweet girls and headed to a birthday party

see! told you it was super duper busy weekend!

what was your weekend filled with?

bitter melon IS yummy

like i have mentioned before i am far from a culinary expert in the kitchen

but my mom on other hand is the best cook

i know, i know, everyone thinks their mom is the best cook

but my mom is seriously the best cook

when i'm in the kitchen i try to make

traditional filipino foods that my mom made for me growing up

it's nice knowing that my girls are enjoying the same food that i grew up eating

and like my mom often says, she won't be around forever, 

so i have to learn her recipes now

the only downside with learning to cook from my mom is 

she doesn't measure ingredients when she cooks

so when she is telling me how to make something it goes something like this

my mom: ok, now add a little bit of this, a little bit of that

me: what's a little bit mom?

my mom: oh, you know, a little bit...

oh man! i tell you there have been times

when i have been crying over the stove thinking that it's not working, 

telling my hubs he better run out and get some dinner and voila! 

it somehow turns out and tastes just like (well not just like) my moms!

so, i'm going to share with you a fairly simple filipino dish called

ampalaya (bitter melon) with egg

it's a fairly simple recipe and bitter melon is very nutritious 

don't be turned off by it's name because it is very delicious!

and don't worry i include measurements!

ingredients you will need:

3 medium sized ampalaya or bitter gourd, sliced thinly

1 clove of  garlic, crushed

1 onion sliced thinly

3 tomatoes, diced

4 eggs, beaten

some salt and pepper to taste

fish sauce to taste

directions:

1. in a pan, saute garlic, onion, and tomatoes until slightly tender

add some patis or fish sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

2. add ampalaya and 1/2 cup of water. let it simmer for 5 minutes.

3. when ampalaya is tender, stir in the beaten eggs and cook for another 5 minutes. the ampalaya should be a light green colour, if it's dark green, it has been overcooked.

**you don't want to cover cook the ampalaya! it taste best when it still has a bit of crunch when eaten**

 

serve over jasmine rice by itself or as a side dish. 

taste super delicious when paired with

any kind of barbeque dish!

it's quick, healthy and delicious! and my girls love it!

our favourite summer dinner

a few weeks ago, a friend of mine (and a blog reader)

was telling me how much she loved reading my blog

she also told me she wanted me to post about

what i make for dinner

i started laughing out loud

because i am far from a giada de laurentis

i said to her, what i make is usually pretty easy, not gourmet at all and quick!

(quick is the key in my kitchen, especially on weeknights)

to which she replied, well that's all everyone is looking for

so i thought why not?!

now, please keep this in mind

i am by no means a gourmet chef

i pretty much started cooking out of necessity

when i got married 7 years ago, i had no clue how to cook

i moved out of my parents house straight 

into a home of my own with my husband

except for a year in london, england and another year in toronto, ontario

i lived at home until i got married, a home where my mom did all the cooking

so most of my cooking skills are amateur

but what i do prepare for my family is simple, relatively healthy and delicious 

(at least that's what they tell me )

so, i'm going to share with you our favorite summer dinner

no other beverage says summer to me than an iced melon drink 

(melon to my filipino readers)

it's a traditional filipino iced drink made from cantaloupe

it's super easy to make and quite refreshing!

 ingredients:

• 1 medium size cantaloupe
• 4 cups of water
• sugar (to taste)
• lots of ice cubes

you will also need:

• melon scraper (a scraper designed for scraping melon or coconut) if you don't have a melon scraper, a fork will work as well
• pitcher

how to make iced melon drink : 

• cut the melon in half, remove the seeds.
• shred the cantaloupe meat using the melon scraper over your pitcher
• add the water and sugar to the melon shreds
• stir and add ice
• pour into glasses and serve cold.

 **the amount of sugar depends on how sweet you like your melon drink, just keep adding

more sugar if you want it on the sweeter side**

 our side dishes was a berry salad made from the berries that we recently picked

and fresh local corn purchased from a farm

the main dish was ribs

i know you are thinking ribs?

we are big grillers in this house (especially during the summer)

and my husband loves ribs, but we haven't made them in our house yet

so we thought we would give it a try

and see if the girls would like ribs too

season the ribs with seasoning salt

bake the ribs for 2 hours in the oven at 350 

throw the ribs on the grill 

slather with your favorite barbeque sauce

grill for 10-15 mins on each side

and if you are wondering if the girls liked them or not...

as you can see from the photos above

it's quickly become our favourite summer dinner

it was a bread making and jam making kind of day

 the day before yesterday i had plans to make jam

but the night before that

i was over at my parents house and spotted some freckled bananas

just begging to be made into banana bread

so how could i refuse?!

the girls and i baked the banana bread together

(we used this simple and yummy recipe--you can never go wrong with martha!)

when the batter was ready to go into the oven

it was time for me to start the jam

every time we go berry picking

i always say that i am going to make jam but never do

this years' berry picking excursions resulted in an over abundance of berries

so i almost had no choice but to make jam! we had so many berries!

i was a little nervous because it was my first attempt at jam making

i used this recipe which looked easy enough

i made my jam

and right when the jam was almost ready

my oven timer went off

yum! banana bread right out of the oven is the best!

i had just enough time to slice the girls  each a piece

before i had to ladle the jam into mason jars

because of the canning process

i had to wait 24 hours before i could sample the jam

i was so excited that when i woke up in the morning, 

the first thing i did was go downstairs to look at the jam

i toasted some english muffins up 

and the girls and i sat down 

to taste the first batch of jam i have ever made!

boy! was i nervous until zoe said

"it's so yummy mommy!!"

yay! once i knew that they tasted yummy

i packaged up a few to give to family and friends

it was seriously so easy and so fun to do!

i have enough berries to make another batch
which i plan to do closer to christmas and hand out as gifts

if you want to make your own jam
i used this as a canning resource and there is a link above to the recipe i used
Also, a big thanks to Therese and Becky for your "jammin' tips"! they came in quite handy.

weekend snapshots: portland edition- day 3

 on our third and final morning

we set out early to grab some breakfast

this time around, the hubs and i decided to forgo slappy cakes

and try a new place called gravy

but when the girls heard this, they weren't impressed

and insisted that we go to slappy cakes

so slappy cakes it was....

in all honestly, i didn't mind because i do love slappy cakes!

it's lots of fun and the food is super yummy ( i told you i say yummy a lot)

i always, always order the toadstool but this time i ordered something different

the migas, which was scrambled eggs and bell peppers, 

red onions and tortilla strips

boy oh boy was it ever yummy!

after breakfast it was time to hit the road back home

but before we did, we made a pit stop at saint cupcake to get some cupcakes for the road

but they were closed!

but we spotted another cupcake bakery and decided to give that one a try

i like the name... don't you?

i ordered my usual red velvet

pia got chocolate with chocolate buttercream icing

and zoe got vegan vanilla with vegan icing ( i don't think she realized it was vegan)

but before we got back to our van, the hubs got distracted by a cigar store

(if you know him in person, please tell him cigars are bad for his health!)

so the girls and i sat down to patiently wait for him

but before we knew it, we had eaten all our cupcakes!

 

when my hubs came out of the store the first thing he said was

"where did all the cupcakes go?!"

opps! 

so  then we were cupcake-less for the ride home

a special thanks goes out to our favorite oregonians for letting us crash

at your place once again!

we love you guys!

check out our portland day 1 and day 2 here!