In healthy way if you want to...

I was cooking dinner. I was tried to think of way to cook little healthy. I did not cook that much for the last two weeks. I was go on easy. Because when you cook, you can easily be burn out and get tired of cooking all the time. That happen to me once a while.

I was explore around on Pinterest.com, I found one good food. I clicked and it is called Slim Potato Casserole. It is same casserole that was family popular food. A little of unhealthy but in good way. For the couple of week, I was craving for potato. I don't think I could survive without potato. Ever since I was little girl, I always love potato. I could live off with them. I mean, I can eat anything that is make of potato. I can go crazy over potato. It was my most favorite food of all the time.

Here is the link for Slim Potato Casserole, however, I did it differently. I do not like Greek Yogurt very much so I replaced with Fat free sour cream. It taste better. Here is the recipe that I used different from her recipe. I was inspire by her.

Twisted Slim Potato Casserole:

1 Large bag (32 oz) frozen shredded hash browns
1 can fat free chicken broth
2 cups fat free sour cream
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Onion Powder
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Italian Seasoning (or 1/3 tsp each of basil, parsley and oregano)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 cup Shredded Cheddar (or any other cheese of choice)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients until well incorporated. Spray a 9 X 13 inch baking pan with cooking spray. Spread potato mixture evenly in baking pan. Place in oven and cook for 45 minutes or until bubbly.

There is another recipe that I just created it on my own. I add some meat to the dinner. I am sure it can be use any of meat like chicken, beef, or pork. I used pork chop, boneless. I used it on the grill because it came out really good. Here is the recipe for it.

Sweet & Zing Pork Chop

2 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon pomegranate vinegar
1 Teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 Teaspoon Oregano
1 Teaspoon Mediterranean Herb (can be found in store)
1/4 Teaspoon Onion Powder
Salt and Pepper
Zip lock bag
Any size of pork chop (I used 4 oz which is one for each person)

Mixed all together as whisk. Put the pork chops in zip lock bag. Pour the marinate sauce in the zip lock bag. And put in fridge and marinate for 1 to 2 hours. Then start up the grill and cook for 30 minutes or more until the meat are done. Enjoy!

Hope you enjoy this delicious dinner!

Fall in love with Summer Pie

In the middle of summer, I was really in mood for pie. I always love the pies since I was little girl. My grandma or my mom will make those pies. It can be anything from apple to cherry to blueberry to mixed berry and to lemon meringue pie.

Lemon meringue pie is always my favorite. It can be easy or hard. It took me a lot of practice to make it into perfect pie. I did it last year and it ended really good. Now, I was thinking of add something in lemon meringue pie. I decided to add the raspberry in it.

I did everything in progress. You can find in my other blog...Fresh Lemon pie

But I will put it up again so that you will know the next....

Fresh Lemon Pie (with hint of raspberry)

1 1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (you can add more for more flavor)
4 eggs yolks, beaten
1 1/2 cup boiling water
1 - 9 inch baked pie shell
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon butter
1 cup of fresh raspberry or any berry
For Meringue only:
4 eggs whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
6 Tablespoon sugar

Combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Gradually stir in cold water and lemon juice. Blend in egg yolks; add butter and boiling water. Bring to boil, stirring constantly until mixture thickens. While it was boiling, I add the raspberry into it. (It will change the color so it won't look like lemon pie. But it came really good and looks great.) Pour into baked pie shell.

TIPS: I mixed all of the ingredient and then I pour it into the pan to bring it boil and also stir it more often.

For Meringue:
Beat egg whites until foamy; add cream tartar and 1 tablespoon of sugar at a time until whites are stiff. Put meringue on hot filling and bake at 350 F degree for 12 to 15 minutes.

The moment that I taste it, it is so good. You could taste the lemon first and then burst of raspberry. I enjoyed it a lot.

I hope you enjoyed it!

At last, Cross-stitch Part 14

Finally, I started the cross-stitch part 14 and had it finish today. I know that it had been a while. Because I took a week off to visit my friend. Also it is best thing for me to have little break from it.

So I started part 14 on June 17th. Now I finished it today on July 7th. It seem a lot short than it was before. This part was hard because it had so many details on it. But I have the feeling that three or four more to go will be little easier. I am hoping to finish it before I go back to school but I doubt it.

Because it will take me a while because I tend to do those part per month. But we will have to wait and see about it.

Here is part 14 of cross-stitch...

Go for a career change

I graduated from college with Bachelor’s degree of Liberal Arts. I went to Ireland for two months for internship program to gain experience for my degree. I decided to take a year break from school and started to look for jobs. Mostly my dream jobs were working in the museum, anywhere. I don’t mind to work in small museum to large museum, unknown museum to well-known museum. I just want to work in museum because I love to work with artifacts and documents. I believe that they are the most amazing things that can be found and find the truth about our past.

I have searched many different jobs over a year. I applied hundreds and hundreds of them. I have traveled to other states to take test that is required for this position. However, I get a lot of rejects as almost every job. I grew frustrated with it. I started to wonder if I made the wrong choice by going to college and study History as results to lead to get my Bachelor degree. I often felt that I am wasting my four year of college that seems to be worthless. Currently, I am in huge amount of student loan debts. I am starting to struggle to pay back. I have decided to look through different jobs because I had no choice. And yet, I get more rejects because I have too much experience. I felt like I am in the middle of something. But I rethink, I did not waste my four years of college to study History. I will find a way to use my Bachelor degree.

Over a year, I started to explore little more. I found out that I do have my passion for cooking. Mostly of time, it was art and craft. But I love cooking the most. I looked around and try to find school for cooking. I found one that I really like. It was the Art Institute. It was well-known school all over. I applied and want to explore their programs and made the decision by what I really want. I have planned this since May. I made appointment to meet this person, the assistant director of school. I explored their programs and I really like it. I found out myself that I really like cooking so I applied for Culinary Arts. Because I always want to start my own business as start my own restaurant. At last, I have been accepted.

I am not going to waste my Bachelor’s degree. I will find a way to use it. Maybe in the future, that I will open restaurant and bookstore. Or I can create the history in the restaurant. Who know what the future will hold for me. We will have to wait and see how things go for me.

Part 13 of Cross-stitch

Ah! It came to the last section of the cross-stitch. Right now, it is part 13 of cross-stitch and it is only 5 or 6 more parts of cross-stitch. I had to start new cross-stitch fabric because the one I did from part 1 to 12. The bottom was not enough room. So I had to create the last section of bottom on new fabric. Then later, I will be rejoin them together when it is come to finish.

This part 13 was not the easy thing to do. Because it had so many details in it. I did had few mess up but it look good. I started on this on May 15 and I did had few day off. Because I was gone vacation for a while and also I had a lot of appointment related with jobs. I have not found job yet but not giving up any hope to find job soon. I really want to finish it before I go visiting my friend for a week. So I did finish it today. It was really record of my time, but really I did one hour of it during the night before the sun goes down. It did not get dark around 9 pm. But I did success it anyway.

Here is the image of part 13...

So you see this and later will be more to come. I have this feeling that I will get all done around in Oct or Nov. Because it is summer time, which mean a lot of vacation time or a lot of fun time with family, and include a lot of appointment. So it will take a long time to get it done.

Keep eye out for part 14 in next month...

To Cupcake or not to Cupcake

To Cupcake or not to Cupcake, that is the question....I was incredible in mood to cook dessert and decorate with something on the top. While I was cooking dinner and I had extra zucchini. I was not sure what I really want to do with it. I remember that I bought blackberry. I was wondering if I could make zucchini and blackberry bread. But I was like, it is too simple for that.

I decided to research  and surf on Internet to get some idea. I came across to this Pinterest.com and explore. I know that people always like to post and share with people with the new ideas of everything. I found some interesting that I want to try. Then it started to come in my mind with many different thing. The first thing that I found was called Zucchini Raspberry cupcakes. Here is the website if you want to make: Zucchini Raspberry Cupcakes .

I found that few things that I don't have. So I decided to change it up and make it my own by what I have in the kitchen. Then I changed it to make it into my own. I called it CZB cupcake. It stand for Chocolate Zucchini Blackberry cupcake. I made it and in result it came out really great. I had this great idea is to put a single blackberry and put in the middle. So it came out really good. Here is my recipe that I want to share with you.

CZB cupcake

Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups flour (any will be fine)
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 cups shredded zucchini
- 1/2 cups blackberry (I suggest you to cut it half to make it easier)
- keep 24 blackberry

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F degree. Grease 24 muffin cups or use the muffin tin.
2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, and baking soda in medium bowl, set aside. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in low speed in large bowl until lightly-colored and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, allowing each eggs to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Beat into the vanilla with the last egg.
3. Add half of the flour mixture in the butter mixture. Beat in low speed to mix it evenly. Then add all of the flour mixture and add milk. Beat in low speed for two minutes. Then take spoon and mix it, until it is all blend.
4. Add the zucchini and blackberry, fold it and mixing just enough to evenly combine. Spoon the butter into muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full. Then put the single whole blackberry in the middle and put in but not all the while, just the top of it.
5. Put in oven and cook for 20 minutes, use toothpick to make sure it came out clean. Then cool off for half hour.





You can see those cupcake have blackberry in the middle, it is cool idea to do that.

While, it is cool off. I found out that I do not have any frosting so I decided to do homemade frosting. It is not quite easy as it does. There is many different website that you could find. It is quite challenge for me to do because I did not want to use one ingredient too much so I just want to limit it. But at least it came out really good. I also add lemon juice in it and it taste really good. You can add anything in the frosting as flavor or food color. So I made lemon frosting to add on CZB cupcake. I did homemade frosting but it turned into icing because of the lemon juice that could cause it into glaze but it taste amazing.

Even you can put inside and it will make it even more amazing taste. I did taste it for myself. You can taste the blackberry mixed with lemon. It is so good. See the inside of cupcake, you could see little bit of blackberry. I guess I put the inside of icing in different place but it does not matter anyway. Just be creative!

Part Twelve of Cross-stitch

It came again with the cross-stitch part 12, it was only short part to add on the end of it. It took me a week to finish it up. I started on May 10 and finished today. So it was easy and also I finally found the color that I need and I quickly grab one. Because it was the last one. I don't know why that specific color is always run out. I just need that color for my cross-stitch project. So I was glad to get it.

Here is the part 12, just short version.

Also the whole thing from part 1 to part 12, it came out really good. But there is still more to go. I have the last bottom part to get it done. So it look like it will take me a while to get it done. So it look like it will take another three to four months to get the bottom part done. But the overall, it looked really good.

Here is the whole thing from part 1 to part 12...

It is amazing how far I have come. I started the cross-stitch part one and got it done on October 11, 2011. Then I finished all of part 1 to 6 on January 15, 2012. It is really amazing by how much patience that I took to get it perfect and look beautiful. Then later one, I start on part 7 and got it done on February 12, 2012. Then I finished all of part 7 to 12 from the beginning of February to May. So the the last part will be start on part 13 to 18. It look like it will take me three to four months to finish the bottom part. It look like the whole thing will be done in August or September.

Don't worry, I will keep you update with the part of cross-stitch and maybe the last three that I will might not post on it. But we will see about it.

Enjoy!