Goal: To create flavorful meals (with Asian flair when I can) which will last for Rhina and Charm for a few days, and Rhina can also be creative with the left over ingredients. The budget is $20.
Wednesday, Auguest 8, 2012
It is becoming more like a Wednesday thing, rather than Monday. So we changed the title to "Wednesday Menu". Until Rhina's kitchen is complete, we could do very limited thing, but that does not prevent us from enjoying food. We are also discovering the neighborhood stores for food shopping. I was planning to do Peruvian ceviche, but I did not like any fish at the super market, nor I knew any fish store in her new neighborhood. So we did instead:
- Chicken legs cooked in Soy, Coke, Ginger and Garlic. (Rhina's favoirte chicken)
- Greek Briam- which is Potetoes, Red Pepper, Zucchini, onion and whatever vegetables cooked in tomato sauce.
Red pepper makes the dish sweeter, and lots and lots of olive oil makes this dish very flavorful. And most importantly, Charm ate all the food on the plate!!!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Ok, so there has been some time off.....not that I was not cooking for them. But I was cooking in the midst of Rhina's move to the new apartment. And whatever is happening in your life, you still have to eat! And I finally got to cook at Rhina's new apartment with new kitchen utensils (she threw all the old ones away when she moved), and here is what I did. Very simple.
- Fresh Tomatoes with spaghetti (now is the best season for tomatoes. Just boil the fresh one for 1 min and peel the skin off, and chop it up and mix with sauteed onion, garlic, Italian parsley, celery with good olive oil)
- Broccoli with Parmesan cheese and lemon, of course, drizzled with olive oil.
Rhina does not like tomatoes so much, she said, and I wanted to convince her that summer tomatoes are GOOD!!!
Monday, June 18, 2012
- Green Salad with whatever vegetables Rhina has in the fridge.
- Cilantro Chicken Soup - I was inspired by Green color soup I had at a Peruvian restaurant. Since Rhina was under the weather, I thought some Chicken soup might do her good. Yes, it was that green.
You cannot do wrong with cilantro.
No. I did not make chick pea salad for Charm this time, but she did ask me a few times whether I am making chick pea salad for her. According to Rhina, Charm lives on chick peas.......
Monday, May 28, 2012
-Turkey Chill Soup
- Greek Salad (sort of) with Feta cheese, cucumber, dill, lettus, lemon, and of course, good extra virgin olive oil.
Charm LOVES beans of any form. So I try to incorporate different beans with different flavors.
Mon, May 7, 2012
I cooked for 3 more adults since Rhina had a meeting at her place.
- Chicken Coconuts Curry with Rice on the side
- Chick Pea salad for Charm. (throw in whatever vegetable Rhina has in the fridge and make it very colorful...I put chopped up red onion, yellow pepper, cilantro, cucumber, lemon, anchovi paste, and of course extra virgin olive oil.....Charm loves chick peas so much so that we have to tell her that all other veggies are also "chick peas" to make her eat them!!)
Wed, May 2, 2012
AgainWednesday, instead of Monday.
Rhina had a lot of left over from a party she had attended a few days ago. So I just prepared some light salad and vegetable dish.
- Chick Peas and Spinach (cooked with tomato sauce, cumin, olive oil toasted and mushed bread)
Charm is addicted to Chick Peas!!
- Corn Salad (red onion, cilantro, lemon, red pepper and whatever she had)
Very Colorful Corn Salad
Wed, April 25, 2012
AgainWednesday, instead of Monday. Well, we still have to eat whether it's Monday or Wednesday...
Rhina did a lot of grocery shopping over the weekend, and I tried to use as many ingredients from the fridge rather than buying. So here is what I did..
- African Peanut Soup
- Sauteed Kale
Peanut Soup is very flavorful with ginger, garlic, cayenne pepper, onion, tomates, sweet potato, chiken and many more ingredients. Rhina had told me before that she does not like sweet potato, but she told me yesterday that she like the sweet potato in this soup. Not sure if Charm liked the soup since she was too full from the snack, and did not join us for dinner...Well, Rhina will find out in a next few days since there is still a lot left.
Wed, April 18, 2012
Skipped a week due to some unpleasant coughing. Stayed away from Charm at all cost..
With Rhina's special request for some bean salad which Charm absolutely loved and Collard green which her Mommy loved, I repeated some of the same dishes this time.
- Chick pea salad (anchovy pasted, lemon juice, scalion, cilantro, cucumber, tomatos and EV olive oil, of course, as always. Anchovy paste always adds some "gourmet" flavor. I always use canned anchovy and chop them up or cook them. You can buy anchovy paste in tube.)
- Stir fried collard green with garlic and lemon.
- Chinese egg and corn soup.
Mon, April 2, 2012
- Greek spinach rice
- Chick pea salad (with chopped up vegetables and herbs Rhina already had in the fridge, with anchovi paste and splash of lemon juice)
Charm ate all the chick pea salada which made us very happy. Since Rhina had most of the ingredients, I only spent around $10.
Spinach rice was served with lemon and yogurt on the side
Mon, March 26, 2012
Her Webmaster, Jose and his wife Carmen joined for the dinner.
- Garlic and Lemon marinated potatos and chicken cooked in the oven. (did not have time to go buy fresh rosemary. I used the ove of my place, and brought it over to Rhina since her oven is small. cooking time about 1.5h)
- Couscous salad with all the vegetables she had in the refregerador (scallion, lemon juice, cilantro, tomatos, cucumber, sweet red pepper, celery and raisons)
- Collard green stirred fried with garlic with squeezed lemon.
Such a big bunch becomes a handful portion after cooking. You can never overdose greens.
Rhina really liked the collard green and I ended up making it twice to use up the rest of the bunch.
Chicken and potatos also disappeared from the plate, and I was very happy. Marinating in lemon juice makes the meat so tender, and I also like to squeenze lemon just on anything.
Mon, March 19, 2012
Rhina had all the ingredients in the fridge. So here is what I made...
- Fried rice with assorted vegetables (broccoli, onion, carrot, red pepper, and celery)
- Chicken porridge for Charm (making sure that vegetables are going there, too). There was left over grill chicken. So I shredded the meat, and made it into a porridge. Adding ginger, soy sauce, and topping off with cilantro gave the dish a bit of Asian flair.
Mon, March 12, 2012
- Risotto with mushrooms
- Tuna salad (with lots of greens including cilantro with sesame soy dressing)
- Lemon chicken for Charm Vida
Risotto - Sort of looked like this.
Rhina told me that her body may not be handling nuts (including sesame) well when she is tired and her immune system is down. So we will stay away from nuts for a while and see what happens. Our body is so closely connected to our mind that you never know how your body reacts to certain food. Though I have NO food allergy in general, once I reacted to fried squid badly and broke out in hives over my entire body which lasted for days. That was when I was very down. Many months later, I tried squid again, and I was fine. We need to listen to our body so that we know what's healing our body and what's adding more burden to our body.
Mon, March 5, 2012
- Arroz con Pollo - (with brown rice which Rhina already had. BIG mistake. It took forever to cook Brown rice to absorb the broth and the flavor, and I ended up running to a store to buy other ingredients so that Charm has something to eat. I cooked a 20 min dish - pasta with tomato souce with ground turkey) Rhina told me a day after that Arroz con Pollo taste good today.
- Green Salad with Alfaalfa Sprouts.
Mon, Feb 20, 2012
- Couscous Salad packed with Veggies.
- Coke Chicken (Chicken legs cooked in coke and soy sauce with ginger and garlic. Cooking meat in soda or beer makes the meat unbelievablly tender...)
Rhina is not a soda drinker, and I saw a bottle of soda sitting there for ages. So I decided to use it for cooking. We did not take any food pictures, but the food somewhat looked like below:
Mon, Feb 13, 2012
Clear the fridge day! We did:
- Pasta with meat sauce (using ground turkey Rhina had in the freezer),
- Salad with homemade dressing (soy sauce, sesame oil and mayo and a bit of this and that), and
- Soup with left over broiled veggies. Broiled veggies from last week was cooked with with bit of noodles in chicken stock and added garlic and bit of soy sauce for flavor, and topped with cilantro when served. We were happy Charm ate all her soup with packed with veggies. Today's spending was only $1.50 for cilantro.
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| Soy Sauce - My version of Sofrito |
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| Sesame Oil Works for anything |
Mon. Feb 6, 2012
- Turkey tacos (ground turkey, cheese, diced tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro and all the good stuff)
- Broiled veggies (potatoes, carrots, broccoli, & yam...I looked for cauliflower, but could not find it at a supermarket near Rhina's place) with extra virgin olive oil and lots of herbs.
I found out that Charm likes broccoli. It is encouraging to see 2 year old cheerfully stuffing her face with broccoli. I will bring more broccoli next time, and cook it in a different way.
Mon. Jan 30, 2012
- Chicken soup with a whole chicken, broken angel hair pasta, and veggies (celery, carrots, potatoes, left over cabbage, and whatever I saw in the fridge)
- Chicken Salad with Soy Sauce, Sesame, Mayo dressing
Take out the chicken from the soup and shred the meat. It can be used for various things. Rhina told me that she changed the flavor of the soup in the middle of the week, and continue to enjoy, and finished the soup.
Mon. Jan 23, 2012
- Yakisoba Japanese Stir fried noodles with Veggies with sausage
- White bean soup with winter vegetables with sausage
After this meals, Rhina told me that she could only eat chicken, turkey and seafood. So pork and beef are out. Rhina also told me that it was Charm's first time to eat cabbage.
