A New Year with Protein Burgers

It's a new year! Happy belated new year to you all and hope you all had a wonderful holiday! :) I'm hoping for great things in 2014, one of them being able to blog more and continue this fascinating adventure I've taken in 2013 in search of a better and healthier lifestyle. I'm quite proud to say that I've lost tremendous weight being relatively average in size through making smarter choices in picking what I eat. Now that the holidays are over it's back to better eating healthier again! I've been feeling the full force of holiday dinners and parties for the last 31 days and they are not pretty. But it's back on track from here. :)

There are certain things I've learned in the last five months in taking control of what I ate and I have to say that eating healthy is really tough in this society. The fact that we have so much fast food chains every few steps it's tempting not to go in and order a large hamburger with fries and a soda, plus it's convenient for most consumers. People! There are great alternatives to eating such high calorie foods by swapping some of the ingredients out for something else. For me, since I love burgers I have them protein styled. Making them at home is so simple and easy with just a few ingredients it makes for a great meal.

Protein Burger
Ingredients:
90% and above lean ground beef is most desirable
Worchester Sauce
Salt & Pepper
Onion Powder
Romain Lettuce
Tomatoes
Onions

Many places that offer protein burgers usually wraps the burgers in Iceberg Lettuces. In all honesty, that is a big no-no in my book. Iceberg lettuce while shape works great in a lot of situations lacks flavor and texture, nutritional value, and overall sustainability in your fridge. Compared to iceberg, romaine has five times more vitamin C and a hundred times more beta carotene. I take the large leaves of romaine, wash them and cut them in half and use those as my buns.

As for the meat we use ground beef, before shaping them we drizzle Worchester sauce, I don't use a spoon, we eyeball when we cook. About three to four seconds of drizzling of the sauce should work for a medium sized bowl of ground meat. After we put in the salt and pepper and onion powder. We use grinder salt and pepper from Costco and we use about four turns when making our protein burgers. Then we shape them into balls the size of an average fist as the patty shrinks when cooked. The tomatoes and onions can be cut however you like them to be. Once the patty is cooked, place them on the lettuce, dab on the vegetables and voila! A hearty hamburger! I normally also eat them with yam fries on the side from time to time. :)

Eat smarter. Healthier life. Happy eating!
~Kitty

Just Another Day...

I give you another easy recipe to work with for those weekend mornings with your loved one. :) Maybe even a bed and breakfast would sound lovely! It's a simple and tasty breakfast choice: Cinnamon French Toast with Powdered Sugar.

You only need a few easy ingredients from your local supermarket: eggs, cinnamon, maple syrup, white toast (try and find thick toast if you can), and powdered sugar.

We cracked the eggs into a separate bowl and added in a few dashes of cinnamon, then mixed them until it's slightly foamy. We then dipped the bread into the mixture and placed them on the fryer. Give it about 3 minutes on the stove before flipping it over (Make sure it's like this golden brown before flipping). Repeat process and place it on the plate after making however many you want. Lastly, shake powdered sugar onto the toast with another light addition of cinnamon. Drizzle the syrup and voila! :) Done! Nice and easy~ Hope you guys enjoy this one too. ^__^ Until next time!

Ciao!
Kitty~

Winter Dinner!

It's getting rather chilly out these past few days in Socal- I had a rather strong hankering for a bowl of soup that wasn't too heavy on flavor. Something light enough to warm the body and Di was craving pasta. After a few minutes of discussion and going out to get groceries, we decided to make Seaweed Egg Drop Soup and Creamy Chicken Marsala Pasta for dinner!

First up, I made the Seaweed Egg Drop Soup since it was so cold and really needed something warm. I boiled a pot of water added a speck of chicken bouillon, tossed in dried seaweed (not available in just any supermarket- I suggest going to a Chinese market) let it simmer until it softens then crack in the eggs. I like to use two, one to break the yolk, one so I can boil the yolk as a whole. Let it simmer again on low heat until serving time. Prep time: 2 minutes, Cook time: 5 minutes.

The main dish was the Creamy Chicken Marsala Pasta of course, Di boiled the pasta to al dente before mixing the chopped mushrooms, garlic, onion, and chicken with melted butter, 3/4 cups of Marsala Wine, chicken broth and heavy cream. We let the sauce boil in a pan until it was lightly thick then we mixed the two together then topped it off with Parmesan cheese and Voila! Dinner! Prep time: 10 minutes, Cook time: 15-20 minutes. Here's a link to a more detailed recipe: http://blogcritics.org/tastes/article/creamy-chicken-marsala-pasta/

Hope you guys enjoyed this dinner entree as much as I did as it did warm up my body from head to toes! :3 Until next time!

Ciao!
Kitty~

Six Two Six

I live in an area which many people refer to as the San Gabriel Valley, also known as the "626" within our community. It's given itself a reputation for good and authentic Chinese food, boba milk tea, and large Asian neighborhoods. It's a bustling jumble of culture! I'm what anthropologists called: "parachute kids", but instead of being a child shipped from Asia living in the United States, it's vice versa for me. For a good part of my childhood I've resided in different areas of Asia, Guang Zhou, Shang Hai, Hong Kong, you name it. I was then brought back to the United States to attend grade school when I was older. So, I was lucky enough to be brought up with a palette for Asian and American food. But I find that living within these two cultures, I'm still more amazed at the versatile use of ingredients within my own culture. Here's just a few of the dishes that I enjoy the most when I go out to eat:

First, we have the famous, Minced Pork over Rice or sometimes referred as the Pork Stew over Rice. Whenever I went back to Taiwan I was notorious within the apartment building as the girl who inhales bowls of these! It's relatively cheap, usually $3-$4 within the SGV. It's just your basic marinated pork pieces drizzled deliciously over white rice with a side serving of tea marinated egg and slices of yellow pickled radishes.

Here we have Hainan Chicken with Rice. Tender chicken with lightly oily rice, oil that originates from the chicken itself when they prep it. I really like the one from ABC Cafe and one from Savoy Kitchen whom are quite famous for them. This dish usually ranges from $7-$9 depending on which restaurant you go to.

For more dessert-like dishes, my favorite would have to be the Brick Toast (cinnamon or the coconut butter flavors are my favorite). The one from Tom n Toms is the best from the ones I've tasted so far and it's super close to my house so there's no fuss on how far I have to drive to get one. Although TnT is usually located in DTLA Korea Town... The closet one near the Walnut/DB area is on Goldensprings. These usually range from the $5-$7 give or take.

Those are only just the tip of the iceberg from the massive list of my favorite dishes but drop by the SGV if you're ever in the area or if you're craving good Chinese food! :) Until next time!

Ciao!
Kitty~

Sugary Goodness!

Wasn't feeling too well last night, so we decided to stay in for the night. :) After a light chicken noodle soup with rice for dinner we decided to bake some desserts. We scoured the web to look for something I would want to eat and we fell upon a recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread. It looked delicious and we had all the simple ingredients at home already. So off to the kitchen to try it out!

We started out with all purpose flour and, sugar, yeast, whisked eggs, melted butter, milk, and vanilla extract. Later made the filling with nutmeg, cinnamon, and more sugar.

Whisked it all together, waited for the dough to rise before rolling it out and putting the cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar mix. We then cut the dough into equal strips vertically and horizontally.

We then stacked it together and placed it in a PAMed glass loaf pan and let sit for another 10 minutes for it to rise.

We preheated the oven to 350 degrees, wrapped the two loaves to let it rise some more for another 10 minutes. We then set the timer for 35 minutes and placed them into the oven after.

35 Minutes Later...

Warm, delicious and yummy Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread! :)

Here's the link to the recipe that we used: https://sites.google.com/site/foodsnotsprintablerecipes/cinnamon-and-sugar-pull-apart-bread. It only took us about two hours because of all the rising/waiting that needed to be done. But I had so much fun making this and I hope sharing this recipe gives you guys the same feeling. ^__^