Sausage and Spinach Meatball

It's been awhile since my last post, but I have good reasons for the hiatus - I moved from PennState to Delaware! The move has been exciting so far, but extremely exhausting and time-consuming. It has been more than a week since I first arrived at Delaware, and there are still boxes to unpack. Plus the windows are not yet covered by blinds so any curious neighbors can easily peek in right now, and half of the living room furniture still has not arrived. However, I do get to cook in my new kitchen, so life is good :)

Armed with new gadgets and tools, I am more motivated than ever to try out new recipes. I have only made meatballs once before in my life, and I didn't like how it turned out. In fact, I do not like meatballs in general - I would never order them in a restaurant or elect to eat them when I do not have to. However, this recipe just looked so good that I had to try it. The meatballs are not made from just ground beef or pork; it contains a secret ingredient... Hot Italian sausage! The sausage definitely gives the meatballs a slight kick and flavor. I also love the spinach in the meatballs, because then the meatballs are not a pure ball of meat. The new oven cooked the meatballs well, and the meatballs paired very well with some red-sauced pasta!

Portuguese Paella

After experiencing paella at Don Pepe II for the first time, I always wanted to make my own. Rama, a good friend from the MBA program, gave me some saffron as it is a common ingredient in Indian dishes (I am trying to venture into the Indian cuisine), and I just couldn't resist the temptation to try out paella. However, I diverted away from my original plan of making a Spanish seafood paella, because I am trying to use up drumsticks that have been in my freezer. Therefore, I stumbled on the perfect recipe - Portuguese paella! It involves cooking chicken thighs (which I substitute for my drumsticks) and then add seafood on top of that (also have those sitting in my freezer). 

The cooking process was a little hectic - I had to stop in the middle after cooking the drumsticks, seafood, vegetables, and chorizo to run to school really fast. I also already added the rice in the mixture, so I was afraid the rice would turn out too soft and the seafood overcooked. However, despite the disruption, the paella turned out very delicious! Also, this is the first time I used the Arborio rice, and I love it! It's much more chewy than the regular Chinese rice (I believe that's Jasmin rice), with a texture that resembles barley. I will definitely use this type of rice again, as well as the paella recipe!

Asiago Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta

"Best Pasta Ever!" Marc exclaimed as he put a spoonful of this Asiago sun-dried tomato pasta in his mouth. I think because of the multiple ingredients that goes into this dish, plus the delicious Asiago cheese, this pasta has a very rich and savory taste. This pasta took a decent amount of prep time, but thanks to my light semester, I managed to prepare a lot of the ingredients the day before so that cooking this pasta did not seem very tedious. However, I have to say that working with very dull knives do slow down the prep time. Cutting an onion takes almost 5 minutes, because I can't cut through more than a couple of layers of onion at a time without chopping off my fingers. Therefore, I have to cut almost layer by layer. Good thing I am not the type to shed tears while cutting an onion, or else I think I would feel very dehydrated after prepping this dish!

Garlic White Lasagna

I never made lasagna before because of how time-consuming the prepping process is. However, the temptation settled in when Matt & Jackie gave us some lasagna noodles as they went on their diet and cleaned out the cupboard. On a mission to try cooking all kinds of recipes, cooking lasagna is a must.

I decided on a white lasagna with Alfredo sauce instead of the traditional lasagna with tomato sauce. I have to admit, although it took early an hour for me to assemble all the ingredients, making lasagna is fun! With only 6 noodles on hand, I made a 3-layer lasagna. The ingredients in each layer include spinach and ricotta cheese, and Italian sausage with chopped onions and roasted red peppers. Oh, and of course, lots of mozzarella cheese in each layer as well as on top of the top of the lasagna.

The cooking time was 1 hour, but the long time is necessary to cook the lasagna noodles all the way through. The recipe did not call for boiling the noodles before layering and putting the dish in the oven.

I was surprised at how well the lasagna held its shape as I cut it and served it. The layers complement each other very well. Therefore, I would count my first attempt at cooking lasagna ... a success!

Slow Cooker Thai Pork with Peppers

Apparently, putting pork chops in the slow cooker is not a popular cooking technique. However, I have bought 8 pork chops and I have no recipes in mind for them. I blame this on the "buy more, save more" deals that entice me to purchase much more meat than I need. Furthermore, I have been itching to use my slow cooker. Because of my schedule of trying to hit at least two gym classes a day, plus classes, plus meetings, I have not been home enough to use my slow cooker. And although people say that it's safe enough to leave it at home to cook for 6-8 hours, especially if you are cooking on low heat, I still don't feel safe leaving my slow cooker on for more than 2 hours without me being home to peek at it once in awhile. Therefore, I searched for a slow cooker recipe that involves pork chops! I was pleasantly surprised when it led me to a Thai recipe, and besides adding one more scoop of peanut butter than the recipe asked for, I followed the recipe exactly. I really enjoyed the flavors and the textures, and it went very well with rice.

Chinese Almond Cookies

For my vegetarian friends out there, I tried to make a vegetarian option for the "International Cultural Explosion" event to go along with the wontons. However, I found it difficult to find a savory Chinese dish out there that is pure vegetarian. A lot of times it's just the vegetable, cut up, sautéd in oyster sauce or soy sauce, and served. Therefore, I decided to go with a dessert instead. Finding a Chinese dessert turned out to be difficult as well, because the traditional desserts like egg tarts or sesame balls need special ingredients like glutinous rice flour (which I totally attempted to find in three grocery stores, and failed) or need some special tools (like a tart mold). Then, I randomly came across the Chinese almond cookies recipe. Cookies! That's not hard, I make cookies all the time! Woohoo!

Although the recipe is even easier than a chocolate chip recipe, I did find the consistency of the batter a little difficult to handle. I guess the dryer batter is what makes the little cracks at the edge of the cookies, but I will cut down the flour by 1/4 cup next time and see what happens. I do also like this recipe's suggestion to brush egg white on top of each cookie prior to baking - this step gives the cookies a brownish look. I would say the cookies almost reminds me of a biscotti, so I would pair it with chocolate milk or coffee. Thus, this is definitely a good recipe for hosting a tea party or when I want to bring dessert to a potluck!

Sichuan Wontons

The MBA program hosted an "International Cultural Explosion" event, where people set up tables to represent their countries with food, dance, costumes, etc. I am not exactly the one to speak to about Chinese traditions and cultures, but I volunteered to cook some Chinese food for support. However, after I volunteered, I went into a panic attack because I realized... I don't know how to cook traditional Chinese food! The Chinese food that I have been trying to cook are classified as "American take-out" Chinese food, or "Asian-fusion." I had to spend a lot of time on searching for traditional Chinese food recipes that 1) I know where to buy the ingredients, 2) I understand what the ingredients are, 3) I know what the cooking techniques are. It wasn't easy!!! Finally, I came across one recipe that I am vaguely familiar with because of wonderful childhood memories of watching my grandmother and my mother wrap wontons. However, because I had to transport the food from home to school, I did not want to make wonton soup - Therefore, I decided to make Sichuan Wontons, which would cause less of a mess.

Wrapping wontons is definitely a lot of fun (although time-consuming). 

I think they look so cute once they are all lined up neatly, waiting to be cooked! 

I could not find Sichuan peppers in the Chinese store - Maybe it was my lack of Chinese reading that caused my inability to locate the ingredient - So after staring at the sauces for 15 minutes, I bought the ready-made Sichuan sauce (so ashamed). Timing-wise, it turned out well because I totally did not have the time to mix the sauce before running off the school. I am happy and satisfied in the end that after 28 years of being Chinese, I finally made my own wontons!