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Thanks!

Honey & Pineapple Oven Baked Chicken

It's always hard to bake a whole chicken and keep it from becoming tasteless and dry. This recipe is my secret to soft, fall off the bone baked chicken.

Honey & Pineapple Oven Baked Chicken

What you need:

- whole chicken

- 1 can of pineapple cubes

- 1/8 cup honey

- minced garlic (1 tablespoon)

- basil

- seasoning (black pepper, garlic salt, salt, crushed red pepper flakes, poultry seasoning)

1. Preheat the oven to 475F

2. Place whole chicken (breast side down) on a casserole dish lined with aluminum foil

3. Pour pineapple juice from can liberally over the whole chicken and onto casserole dish

4. Cover chicken with spices, seasoning and minced garlic

5. Stuff the chicken with pineapple cubes. Spread the remaining pineapple cubes and juice all around the chicken

6. Cover with aluminum foil

7. Cook at 475F for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, remove foil covering and cook at 450F for an additional 45 minutes

8. When it's done cooking, use pineapple juice all around casserole dish and spoon over whole chicken

9. Drizzle honey all over the top of chicken

* Outcome is sweet and super soft chicken. The pineapple cubes inside the chicken and in the outside are what contribute to this.

* You can add a side of sweet chili Asian sauce or sriracha if you want

(Uncooked)

(Cooked) - Darker spots are from areas that had more black pepper and basil - not burned areas

Lime Pepper Chicken with Garlic Fried Rice

I typically cook for myself or me and my bf. Because of this, I can't use all of the meat and vegetables I have for one dish. When I buy chicken breast or chicken tenders, I cook half and save the other half for another dish. In this case, I used the first half of the chicken tenders in the Glass Noodles with Chicken & Veggies dish. The second half I placed in a zip lock bag and marinated overnight.

Lime Pepper Chicken

1. Marinate the chicken with 2-3 fresh squeezed lime, salt, black pepper and a few bay leaves. Mix well, seal and leave in the fridge overnight.

2. Next day - Line a glass casserole dish with aluminum foil.

3. Place marinated lime and pepper chicken tenders on the foil. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and more black pepper on each tender. Add places of lime around the casserole dish.

4. Bake in oven on 375F for about 45 minutes. If you have less pieces, you can cook it in under 45 minutes.

5. After it's done baking, place of plate and have a side bowl of soy sauce and garlic to add as needed.

Garlic Fried Rice

* I usually cook this when the rice is a day old and hard from being in the fridge

1. Before you cook the rice in the pan, break it apart as much as you can

2. Heat oil in pan. Add lots of minced garlic and cook until it browns a little

3. Add the rice and season with garlic salt, black pepper and salt.

4. Add in 2 scrambled eggs and cook

5. Cook and mix thoroughly

Glass Noodles with Chicken & Veggies

The great thing with noodles and pastas, is that it doesn't go bad. I had leftover glass noodles that were in its bag in my cupboard for a while. I decided to use it along with chicken and vegetables I already had in the fridge that I didn't want to spoil.

What you need:

- thin glass noodles (you can buy this at Asian markets)

- batchoy

- bell pepper

- tomatoes

- seasoning (black pepper, salt, garlic salt)

- oyster sauce

- minced garlic

* Before you begin prep soak your glass noodles in cold water and let it sit. It needs to soften before you can cook it.

* I made the noodles separately from the chicken and veggies

Glass Noodles with Chicken & Veggies

1. Cut chicken and veggies into small cube-like sizes

2. Heat oil in pan then add minced garlic

3. Add chicken, season with spices and oyster sauce then let it cook thoroughly

4. Add bell pepper and cook for a short while

5. Add the tomatoes and batchoy. Put the lid on then turn off the heat. The heat from the closed pan should be enough to cook those

* You want to keep your veggies crispy, not soggy

6. Transfer to a plate. Use the same pan with the juices from the dish to cook your noodles. Add more oil if necessary

7. Once noodles are soft, add into your pan and season accordingly. If it gets too dry before it cooks, you can add a little water

8. When the noodles are cooked, transfer to a plate then top off with the chicken & veggies

Week 4: Over budget

Last week my bf and I ended up going to a really nice restaurant for a friend's birthday. Just one of the examples how things don't always go as planned. Without having to go into too much detail on the exact cost, let's just say we blew our budget out of the water.

I also ended up eating out last Friday because I didn't get a chance to cook anything the night before. The good thing though, is that I still had a lot of food left to cook this week. Although it doesn't make up for last week's damage, it still helps out a bit.

This week I cooked:

1. Glass noodles with chicken & veggies

2. Lime pepper chicken with garlic fried rice

3. Honey and pineapple oven baked whole chicken

Modified Menudo

This type of menudo is my personal modification of the Filipino style menudo. As I mentioned before, I try not to eat pork. However, that shouldn't stop me from eating menudo! Mix this savory dish with plain white rice or a dinner roll and you have good ole comfort food.

Modified Filipino Menudo

1. Get all ingredients ready: beef (thinly sliced-pork is normally used), raisins, carrots, potatoes, tomato sauce, onions, canned vienna sausage (I used chicken vienna sausage but you can also use the regular kind) and seasoning

2. Prep all your food before cooking by slicing the beef, carrots, onions and potatoes into small squares (similar to the size of an almond). Slice the vienna sausage into 4 pieces. Set everything aside.

* When you peel and cut up the potato make sure to soak it in water. If you leave it out, it will turn brown

3. Heat a little oil in a deep pan. Add a little bit of onion and let it simmer

4. Add the small pieces of beef (or pork if that's what you are using) and season with garlic salt, salt and black pepper. Cover with lid and thoroughly cook.

5. Once the meat is cooked add the potato (remove from water) and carrots. Close lid again and cook.

6. Once your carrots and potatoes are cooked and softened, add the raisins, vienna sausage and tomato sauce. Season as needed and keep the dish on the stove until the tomato sauce bubbles.

7. Eat with rice or bread.

* Remember you can always make these dishes vegetarian by not adding any meat or using mock meat.

Turkey Spam Musubi

SPAM SPAM SPAM! The many things you can make with Spam. It's amazing! I love it! Spam musubis are a Hawaiian dish that's a great snack or meal if you eat enough of them. It's your rice and meat all rolled into a seaweed wrapper. A quick, hand held treat. All you need is spam, white rice, dry seaweed and honey teriyaki glaze

I use Turkey Spam because it has less sodium (less salty) and doesn't contain any pork products. I try not to cook dishes with pork. I actually don't really cook pork dishes at all. I always substitute it for another type of meat.

Turkey Spam Musubi

1. Cook white rice and set aside

2. Cut spam in thin, flat strips and cook in a frying pan

3. Take a sheet of seaweed and place a long rectangle of rice in the middle then flatten. Don't add too much because you will add more rice later.

4. Coat both sides of your spam slices in honey teriyaki

5. Stack spam slices on top of the rice.

6. Add another layer of rice on top of the spam.

7. Roll seaweed then cut in half.

8. EAT! =)

Turkey Sausage Spaghetti

Making Italian dishes are really easy. You boil your pasta, get your sauce ready and then you eat! I bought turkey sausage on sale at Ralphs so I decided to use it right away. The spaghetti pasta is cooked by boiling it in water. The sauce is what makes or breaks the dish.

Turkey Sausage Spaghetti

1. Get your ingredients ready and cut: turkey sausage, tomato sauce, garlic, onions, sweet relish, bell pepper, white mushrooms, seasoning, salt, sugar, pepper, garlic salt, cilantro

2. Boil water and cook pasta. Set aside.

3. Heat olive oil in a sauce pan and then add your onions and garlic.

4. Cook turkey sausage first. I cooked the sausage whole first then sliced it in smaller pieces and returned it to the pan

4. When sausage is done cooking, add bell pepper and white mushrooms.

5. Add tomato sauce, seasoning, cilantro, salt, pepper, garlic salt, sugar, and sweet relish.

6. Taste and make sure it tastes just right. Season accordingly. Let sauce heat and boil.

7. Serve sauce over pasta.

I made my own garlic bread as well but with a twist. I used sweet Hawaiian bread instead of a baguette.

Sweet Hawaiian Garlic Bread

1. Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil

2. Lay down slices of Hawaiian bread

3. Spread a thin layer of non-fat butter then add crushed garlic on top

4. Drizzle with honey

5. Bake in the over for 10 minutes at 350F

6. Remove when done and cut diagonally for triangle pieces.

Week 3

I wasn't able to go to the Farmer's Market this weekend. =( I still went to H-Mart and Ralphs though. Ralphs is expensive and overpriced but there isn't an Albertson's close by so I go to Ralphs. Plus, there are things I need to get from an American market that I can't get at an Asian market because they cost a lot more at the Asian place. I get my Special K or Honey Bunches of Oats at Ralphs. They have a sale right now for $1.99 Honey Bunches of Oats! They're usually over about $4 so I bought myself 5 boxes. =)

I have a budget of $75 this week because my bf is eating meals with more for half of the week. Saturday ate at Red brick Pizza. I had two special coupons that got 1 individual pizza free with a purchase of a large drink. We paid less than $5 for 2 really good personal sized pizzas. Dinner was at a friend's house for their 30th bday.

One piece of advice to save on groceries. Buy GENERIC BRANDS! They are practically the same thing but no fancy schmancy brand name. Trust me. Food still tastes great.

Here's what I spent my budget on so far.

H Mart (crushed garlic, cantaloupe, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes) - $6.09

Ralphs (turkey sausage, bread, lots of cereal, tomato sauce, turkey spam, spaghetti, milk) - $19.74

Red Brick Pizza (Used coupon) - $5

Pho Bac Ky (Ate here on Sunday for lunch) - $10

Total - $40.83

Remaining = $34.17

Cooking with Leftovers: Beef Curry Ramen

If you're like me, then you probably have plenty of leftovers. It's hard not to when you cook a dish and have only one person to eat it. Not many people like them. I don't like them very much becauseI want to eat a freshly cooked dish most of the time.

Nevertheless, food should not be wasted. Although I'm guilty of wasting a LOT of food, I need to find creative ways not to. I grocery shop more often now for fewer items. That means more trips to the market but fresher ingredients when I cook. For leftovers, I find ways to, what my mom used to say, "recycle", them. I try to incorporate my leftovers in new dishes that I cook. That's what I did today. I had leftover chicken and vegetables from last night's Chicken and Veggie Stir Fry as well as a few pieces of beef from a dish I cooked the other day. I had a pack of ramen noodles and a cube of Japanese curry in my cupboard (Can be found in all Asian markets for pretty cheap). I also had eggs in my fridge. So, I decided to put it all together. It took 10 minutes to make and was SUPER easy. Tasted good too! =)

Beef Curry Ramen (Made with leftovers)

1. Boil 2-3 cups of water (I normally don't use a lot of water because I don't want too much soup/broth)

2. When water is done boiling, drop in the curry cube and mix thoroughly

3. Add in the ramen packet and seasoning that come with it

4. While that's cooking (takes about 5 min), cut up leftover chicken and beef into small pieces

5. Drop leftover meat and vegetables with the ramen

6. Turn off the stove and drop in the egg then mix. The egg will still cook because it's still very hot.

That's it! It seriously takes around 10 minutes or less to make.

Chicken & Veggie Stir Fry

This is another quick and easy dish to cook. All you need are a few ingredients and you can have yourself a delicious and healthy meal.

Chicken & Veggie Stir Fry

1. Cut chicken breast into small pieces

2. Cut vegetables you want to add to the stir fry. I had sweet onions, red bell pepper, batchoy and white mushrooms

* Remember to cut your meat and vegetables in similar sizes.

* You can add other veggies if you want like carrots, string beans, broccoli, etc.

3. Heat oil and add sweet onions

4. Cook sweet onions (I love the smell of this cooking!)

5. Add chicken breast and season with black pepper, garlic salt, basil, a pinch of salt, oyster sauce, sriracha (Asian

spicy sauce-I add this to lots of things because it's so good!), a little squeeze of lime or lemon

6. After chicken is cooked, add vegetables (batchoy, mushrooms & bell pepper)

7. Stir for about 5 minutes and turn off the stove. You do not want to over cook the vegetables or else they will be

soggy instead of crispy.

Baked Salmon with Honey Teriyaki Sauce

Baked Salmon is probably one of the easiest things to cook. I love baked salmon not only because it's easy but it tastes good and you can do other things while it's baking in the oven!

Baked Salmon

1. Line a casserole dish with aluminum foil and place fresh salmon filet in the casserole dish

2. Add basic spices: black pepper, garlic salt, (sea salt if you like), minced garlic

3. Cover salmon in aluminum foil

4. Bake in the oven for 45 min - 1 hour at 350F. Remove foil cover at around 30 minutes

Honey Teriyaki Sauce - Easy to make!

1. In a small saucer, pour teriyaki sauce (available at all grocery stores, esp. Asian markets)

2. Once hot, stir in honey, minced garlic and cilantro (fresh flavor)

3. Stir in saucer until it boils and set aside

* Once the salmon is done cooking, remove it from the oven and pour your sauce over it. That's it! =)

Week 2 Continued

My week started off well. Did a lot of grocery shopping to last me for the week and probably a little of next week. My budget is almost doubled for this week since half of my meals this week will be shared with my bf. We went back to H-Mart to buy more meat, veggies, fresh salmon filet, juice, eggs, cheese, ramen noodles, bell peppers, batchoy and other basic ingredients like oyster sauce and garlic salt.

On Monday for lunch, I ended up going to El Torito to have lunch with my coworkers. I couldn't say no so I ended up spending $15 for a salad and fresh guacamole.

I have a lot of food in my fridge to cook for this week so I shouldn't be eating out anymore. It'll defeat the whole purpose of what I'm trying to do with this experiment. Wouldn't want to do that now would I?!

Budget for week:

Left since Saturday = $25.10 + $25 (Bf's portion) = $50.10

El Torito - $15

H-Mart - $29.58

Remaining = $5.52

Embutido - Filipino style meatloaf

I love making Filipino food! It's like soul food to me. I modified this recipe so it did not have any pork in it. It's usually made with ground pork but I used ground beef instead. Also, Vienna sausage is used in this dish as well but I didn't use it for my version.

Embutido

* Make sure all the ingredients are diced and cut into very small pieces.

* Boil 2-3 eggs for hard boiled eggs. Slice when done and set aside to use later.

1. Mix the following: ground beef, 3 eggs, diced cilantro, diced carrots, diced bell pepper, diced onions, minced garlic, oyster sauce, sea salt, black pepper, basil, cumin, pepper spices, garlic salt, coriander spice, sweet relish, and raisins.

2. Squeeze 1 lime

3. Hand mix everything well

4. On a sheet of aluminum paper, put some of the ground meat mix in the middle and flatten to look like a rectangle.

5. Add hard boiled egg slices in the middle. This is when Vienna sausage is usually added as well, but I didn't add any to this.

6. Use ends of aluminum foil to roll the meat over the egg

7. End result is a tube like shape.

8. Seal inside the aluminum foil and twist ends to close. (looks like a tootsie roll)

This next step you can do either one. I did both because I didn't have a real steamer. I improvised and made a steamer of my own using a metal colander.

9. Place in steamer or bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour

10. After it is cooked, you can slice it into pieces and serve with either sweet chili sauce or Jufran banana ketchup.

I had 2 rolls of embutido leftover, so for lunch on Sunday, I cut up the pieces and pan fried it a little. Mixed with cucumber yogurt and it was gooooood!

Week 2

Saturday

I did pretty well for my first week. I spent about $2 less than my $50 budget for meals. A few of my meals were shared with my boyfriend too. Yay! Last week two of my lunches didn't cost me anything because they were business meals. Maybe that's what helped put me under my budget?

Anyways, my $50 started again today. I went to my local Farmer's Market and Asian market for this week's ingredients. I bought two cantaloupes, 2 large sweet onions, 3 mini cucumbers and 3 containers of homemade hummus. The hummus was 3 for $10 and the rest of the things cost me $4. I spent $14 total at the Farmer's Market. Not bad considering the hummus should last me a few weeks as my snack food or light meal (hummus and pita bread). =)

I spent another $10.90 at H-Mart. Here's what I bought.

1. beef

2. green pepper

3. cilantro

4. 2 carrots

5. 1 pack of white mushrooms

6. sweet chili sauce

7. crushed garlic

8. rendang sauce (pre-made sauce for rendang-Malaysian beef dish)

Total spent for weekend:

Farmer's Market - $14

H-Mart Asian market - $10.90

= $24.90

Remaining = $25.10

Cream of Chicken & Cayote Pita Pocket - An experiment

Friday

I love to experiment with food. I often take recipes I already know and modify it here and there. I don't know how I came up with this one but I just did. Haha! It came out pretty ok. Not anything to rave about but still tasted good. This actually came about because I was thinking about cooking cream of mushroom chicken. But I didn't have any fresh mushrooms. However, I did have cayote (Asian green vegetable) and I didn't think using cream of mushroom would work so I opted for cream of chicken.

Cream of Chicken & Cayote Pita Pocket

1. Heat olive oil (I use olive oil for cooking all the time) and sautee diced onions and garlic

2. Add chicken breast sliced into small square pieces. Add seasoning: black pepper & garlic salt. Cook chicken.

3. Add cayote sliced in small squares/cubes. Cook cayote. (Don't overcook it or else it will become too soft)

4. Add one can of cream of mushroom and mix until it starts bubbling.

This next option you don't have to do, but I did just for experimentation purposes.

5. Mix in white rice with the cream of chicken and cayote.

6. Cut pita bread in half to make 2 pita pockets.

7. Stuff pita pockets with cream of chicken and rice.

It came out ok. Next time, I don't think I'll add the pita bread portion. It took away from the taste of the dish. It was better with rice only.

TGI Fridays & Del Taco

Wednesday

This was probably the most challenging day for me this whole week. Breakfast and lunch went smoothly. I had my usualy Special K cereal for breakfast, leftovers from dinner (Kalbi beef and rice) for my lunch and the fruits I bought for snacks. Dinner was going to be at TGI Fridays to meet up with my friends. I decided to eat a small dinner of leftovers from home before I met my friends up. This way, I wasn't super hungry and order a large plate of something I wasn't going to finish. I tend to do that. I go to restaurants starving and end up order more food than I can eat. I end up feeling too full and wasting food after. Not good. At TGI Fridays, I shared an appetizer and dessrt with my friends. Total amount spent on food was $12. (I had a cocktail that was $8 but alcohol isn't not part of my food budget, so I'm ok.)

Remainder from last time: $19.35 - $12

Remaining = $7.35

Thursday

I had a business meeting for lunch so that didn't affect my budget. I hung out with 2 good friends/coworkers after work and we grabbed Del Taco for our late dinner. Spent $5 there.

Remainder from last time: $7.35 - $5

Remaining = $2.35