30 minutes or less chinese food chinese take out dinner meal prep noodles recipe recipes

I Am... Easy Beef and Broccoli Chow Mein Recipe

Anyone else think that they could live on takeout? I definitely feel like I can because give me ALL the Chinese food. When I was a kid, my favorite food days were the days that my mom was too tired to cook. We’d order delivery and there would always always be some sort of chow mein dish. It’s funny because even though we are Chinese and my mom makes perfectly delicious chow mein, there’s something about delivery chow mein that is so much better.

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10 ingredients or less easy recipe recipes salad sides Vegetarian Recipes

I Am... Burrata and Kale

If you’re looking for a quick and easy snack that still has a bit of luxury, look no further than burrata and kale. Burrata is everywhere these days and I’m still obsessed with its creamy, luscious, soft curds. It’s always burrata season!

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chicken recipes japanese food meat recipe recipes sandwiches

I Am... Chicken Katsu Sando: Crispy Japanese Chicken Sandwich Recipe

Shatteringly crispy panko crusted katsu-style chicken cutlets with kewpie mayo and karashi mustard between two slices of fluffy white Japanese milk bread.

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10 ingredients or less chicken recipes dinner dinner & chill easy meat

I Am... The Easiest 8 Ingredient Oven Broiled Tandoori Chicken Recipe

Next to Chicken Tikka Masala and Butter Chicken, Tandoori Chicken is probably the best known Indian chicken recipe. This is a super easy, super delicious, and just really pretty oven grilled chicken recipe that can also be grilled over charcoal if you have that handy. Spicy, fragrant perfectly cooked chicken served with a quick two ingredient kind-of raita. We polished these off in nothing flat with a side salad. So, so good. Cooking Notes Garam Masala is a generic Indian spice blend. Properly in India everyone makes their own and they are often family secrets. Here in the west it’s probably easier just to try to buy a quality garam masala, like Simply Organic's Garam Masala. Garam masala includes pretty much all the traditional Indian spices. Why the other spices then? Like store bought chili powder, because garam masala is generic, it’s often not tuned to your specific dish, and the spices are often not as strong and fresh as they could be. In this case, I wanted more cumin and coriander flavor, and also wanted the chicken prettier, so added turmeric too (which has loads of health benefits, besides being pretty). Although this is dinner and chill, crushing your own coriander is still a great idea. Whole coriander keeps longer in your pantry, and the difference is like freshly crushed pepper vs ground pepper. There’s no contest, it’s not even the same spice. On the other hand, crushing cumin is a major pain , and fresh turmeric stains everything you own, so stick with the ground versions of these spices. Buy small amounts and seal tightly. Dry roasting the spices blooms them and opens up their flavors. You can really smell the difference after just a minute. Be sure to turn on your hood vent for this step. Lastly, traditionally tandoori chicken is colored red from either red food coloring or kashmiri chili, neither of which are dinner and chill style ingredients, but feel free to use these if you have them. What do you need? A baking sheet with a rack that fits, and an oven. How do you serve it? We served ours simply, with a two ingredient raita made of the remaining yogurt and equal parts chopped cilantro. You can also serve with naan, basmati rice, or go really nuts and have an Indian feast with biryani, daal, and butter chicken meatballs.

The Dinner & Chill Super Easy 8 Ingredient Tandoori Chicken Recipe Serves 2
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp coriander (preferably fresh crushed)
  • 1 tsp tumeric
  • 1 tablespoon garam masala
  • 1 tsp Indian chili powder or cayenne powder (very optional)
  • 1/2 tub (8oz) yogurt (preferably Greek)
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/2” ginger, crushed
  • 1lb chicken drumsticks
1. Season your chicken with salt and pepper. 2. Toast your spices in a dry pan over medium heat until fragrant (1 min) 3. Combine with yogurt, ginger, and garlic, and marinate chicken for a minimum of 30 minutes. 4. Preheat your oven to 500ºF. Brush off as much marinade as possible and place chicken on a rack over a foil lined baking sheet. 5. Broil your chicken for 15 minutes, checking back every few minutes to ensure your chicken isn’t burning. 6. Flip the chicken and broil 15 minutes on the other side, or until chicken hits 155ºF in the center. 7. Serve immediately.
Welcome to Dinner & Chill, a new series focusing on quick & easy weeknight dinners with easy to find ingredients, no special equipment, low prep, and low effort. Less shopping, less chopping, less mopping, more eating.

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breakfast brunch japanese food mini recipes

I Am... Mile High Mini Japanese Soufflé Pancakes Recipe

Aren’t these the cutest pancakes ever?! Ever since I made the regular size Japanese soufflé pancakes, I’ve been wanting to make mini ones. Well, what actually happened was that I was talking about them so much, trying to figure out what other ways I could make them fun that Mike suggested mini. And here we are. I think I might even like the mini ones more than the regular.

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link love words

I Am... Friday Finds: 5.24.19

It’s the last Friday in May! No, wait, I just checked the calendar, it’s the second last Friday in May. Regardless, the weather has decided that it is summer and the days are hot and long – not a bad thing but also just a touch worrying with all the global heat-up that has been going on. Anyway, what have you guys been up to lately? I’ve been working a bunch, as well as lurking around on the internet. I”m looking forward to maybe watching the new Aladdin? I’m not sure if we’re going to catch it in theaters but I kind of want to but kind of don’t want to? I’ve also been watching various Youtube videos of all the BTS rage. I’m not ARMY (that’s what BTS fans call themselves) because they seem too hardcore for me, but it think it’s super interesting how they’re everywhere these days and I kinda like their music. Anyway, here are a bunch of articles I’ve read lately. This weekend I’m planning on making some soufflé pancakes – wish me luck! I hope they turn out fluffy ;) Webstuff:

  1. Wholesome internet friends.
  2. I would definitely give this a try but I don’t know about strawless bubble tea.
  3. I’ve watched a couple episodes of Netflix’s Street Food and I like them! This one was particularly good.
  4. This is an insane story.
  5. Why?! Something needs to be done about the rotting fish sauce on the East coast of Canada.
  6. I know it’s trashy, but I love Buzzfeed listacles. This one of summer reads has me excited to get some new books.
  7. Apparently if you love La Croix, you’ll LOVE Spindrift.
  8. I’m not Gen Z but I passionately love closed captioning.
  9. We’re on the verge of the Age of the Slacker.
  10. Ultra-processed foods are even more bad for you than you thought they were.
  11. There’s CBD everything these days – can it really do everything?
  12. Move over soy, peas are here to push their way onto the plant based protein scene.
  13. LOL. AirPods still going strong.
Link Love:
  1. These lil potato dumplings are right up my alley.
  2. Crispy potatoes with garlicky yogurt and pickled red onions? Sign me up!
  3. Oh hello Instant Pot smoked gouda mac and cheese.
I’ve got my eyes on you:
  1. I kinda really want a Cricut so I can do custom t-shirt’s. Does anyone have one? Do you love it?
  2. Thinking of trying out this face sunscreen this face sunscreen because I just ran out. It looks promising. I hate greasy sunscreen face so I figure oil free is the way to go.
  3. This book has been getting a lot of buzz – it’s on my want to read shelf.
Lately on I am a Food Blog:
  1. We’ve been eating jia jiang mian noodle bowls all week long.
  2. I love lemon-y zoodles!
  3. Make this sauce and put it on everything, especially if you’re grilling this weekend.
  4. Chocolate chip cookies for the win.
  5. I miss Japan.
  6. Orange chicken is my friend.
That’s it! Happy Memorial Day weekend friends! xoxo steph

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10 ingredients or less dinner easy keto recipes recipe recipes Vegetarian Recipes

I Am... Keto Friendly Creamy Lemony Zoodles

I love zoodles. I know they’re not noodles, but somehow, just the fact that they are zucchini in noodle shape fools me enough – I find them super satisfying. When I’m feeling fluffy and want to cut down on carbs, I use them wherever noodles are used: in pho; with tomatoes, basil, and burrata; and in a shrimp pasta minus the pasta. My latest thing is creamy lemon zoodles, just like creamy lemon pasta! By happy coincidence, this happens to be a keto-friendly dish! One of our friends is currently on a crazy keto, intermittent fasting diet and he was telling us everything that was okay to eat and while he was describing everything, I was thinking, “Hey, my dinner last night was keto!” This is super quick to whip up – the cream and butter are simmered for a short while to thicken then the zoodles are tossed in the pan for a quick cook before finishing everything off with parmesan. Salt and pepper and a bit of lemon zest for prettiness and dinner is done!

Keto Friendly Creamy Lemony Zoodles serves 1-2
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons cream
  • 1 large zucchini, spiralized
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup finely grated parmesan
  • salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
  • lemon zest, to finish
Melt the butter and the cream together in a non-stick pan over medium high heat, until the butter is melted and the cream starts to bubble and thicken slightly. Add the zoodles and lemon juice. Cook, tossing, until the zoodles are cooked but not mushy. Remove from the heat and stir in the parmesan, tossing so that it melts and coats the zoodles. Season with salt and pepper to taste and finish with lemon zest and more parm, if desired.

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10 ingredients or less air fryer recipes easy gadgets recipe recipes sides Vegetarian Recipes

I Am... Easy Roasted Air Fryer Asparagus

Springtime means it’s time for asparagus! I see those delicious green stalks popping up everywhere and it makes me so happy. What also makes me happy is this super easy air fryer asparagus. Perfectly crisp and green and super healthy.

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10 ingredients or less recipe recipes

I Am... Ginger Scallion Sauce: The Green Sauce You’re Going to Want to Put on Everything

If you’re looking for a quick and easy flavor booster, this is it! If you’ve ever eaten at a Chinese BBQ place and ordered the soy sauce chicken, they give you a little dish of green yellow sauce that looks not-so-great but tastes amazing. It’s ginger scallion sauce and it’s one of my favorite sauces. I love it mixed with noodles, fried with rice, drizzled over meat...It’s one of the most versatile sauces you can keep in your fridge. It does tend to loose its vibrant green color after a day or two, but if anything, it tastes even better with age.

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travel words

I Am... 24 Hours in Nagoya, Japan

In between visiting the udon capital of the world and heading up to the west coast of Japan, Mike and I stopped by for a quick 24 hours in Nagoya, in the middle of Japan. Nagoya isn’t Tokyo, or Osaka, and it’s certainly not Kyoto. No one visits Nagoya. It’s the kind of city that most people pass over, and it’s been voted the most boring city in Japan, at least twice. That’s not to say that Nagoya locals don’t have pride, indeed they have a lot! We went in with open hearts and empty stomachs and I was very pleasantly surprised. Pulling up to Nagoya station, you’ll find your typical busy Japanese metropolitan neighborhood. Since we were only going to be there for one night, we booked the most basic station side hotel you can think of – it was extremely convenient. After checking in and leaving our luggage in the tiny room (still bigger than Tokyo rooms by far), we set out to explore the city. Our first stop was Nagoya castle, known as one of the three most famous castles in Japan. Happily, we were there right at the peak of cherry blossom season, so we decided to buy some snacks and drinks at a close by combini for an impromptu hanami party. The cherry blossoms at Nagoya Castle were breathtakingly beautiful. The tree branches brush low to the ground and you feel like you’re walking in a pink and white petal wonderland. There were little snack stands set up and the whole feeling was incredibly festive. I loved the cherry blossoms here even more than the cherry blossoms in Tokyo. 10/10 would recommend. After we watched the sunset, and finished our snacks and drinks, we set out to find dinner. Much like Kobe is famous for beef, Nagoya is known for cochin, a special breed of chicken. Of course we wanted to try some, and what better way than yakitori: charcoal grilled chicken on sticks. Mike looked up a place using trusty old Tabelog and we set out to find it. Torisei (鳥勢) was a cute little yakitori joint filled with locals. In fact, it was so filled that when we arrived, the waitress kindly asked us if we had a reservation. We didn’t, of course, but she squeezed us into two counter seats, right by the yakitori master. Mike and I have eaten a lot of yakitori in our lives and this place was good! Smoky and crisp and charred to perfection. We had our fill of our usual favorite sticks and even had some special cochin chicken as well. It was the perfect little dinner and such a great intro to Nagoya. After Torisei we called it a night so we could wake up bright and early (early-ish) to grab a true Nagoya breakfast. In Japan, traditionally breakfast was a set meal kind of thing: rice, miso soup, and some small side dishes. It wasn’t until recently that bread (and therefore toast) became a popular breakfast item. But when it did, a special breakfast set called “morning service” came about. Essentially, at most coffee shops in Nagoya (the prefecture and the city), you get get a free small breakfast-y type snack with your coffee, for FREE. Free things are straight up unheard of in Japan, so morning service is ridiculously awesome. Most morning services are a slice of toast and an egg. Sometimes they’ll offer a sweet red bean paste –azuki– to put on top of your buttered toast. The red bean butter toast is so popular (they call it ogura toast) that it’s the specialty KitKat flavor from Nagoya. We headed to the ever popular Komeda’s Coffee for their morning service. I got a hand drip coffee (basically pour over) and it came with a thick slab of buttered toast and azuki. Mike got the same but with egg salad. He also got an extra order of toast and it was the BEST CALL EVER because that toast gave me life. It was fluffy and crisp and perfectly butter and so good, especially with the sweet red beans. It was one of my favorite breakfasts in Japan. Definitely check out morning service if you’re ever passing through Nagoya. After our morning coffee, we walked to the center of Nagoya, towards our next food destination: Yabaton. Yabaton is a miso tonkatsu specialist – crispy deep-fried panko crusted pork chops drenched in a super savory red miso sauce. If you love tonkatsu and you love miso, you should definitely come here. It’s super popular and kind of kitschy because everything has the very cute pig mascot on it. Kind of weird because you’re gonna eat him, but at the same time cute too? We got there shortly after it opened and the line already was around the side of the building. When we got to the front of the line, we were handed menus and we ordered even before stepping foot inside. When you get through the door, there’s a little area to the side the sells souvenirs as well as some counter seating. There’s also a narrow staircase where you wait in line some more before you head to the floor that’s indicated on the plastic card they give you after you order. Once you sit down, it’s only a couple of minutes until your food comes out. The tonkatsu is crispy and juicy and the miso sauce is super savory. There’s fluffy shaved cabbage and rice and everything was delicious. We tried two other things in Nagoya. One was the regional specialty, tenmusu. Tenmusu are little onigiris stuffed with tiny tempura shrimp all wrapped up in a nori coat. They’re bite-sized, portable, and super yummy. There are several well known tenmusu places in Nagoya and we picked up a package each from the two of the most well known. We had one pack in the park, with some beer and the other pack we saved so we could eat them on our shinkansen train ride to our next destination. I also had a french fry coated deep fried cheese dog which was AMAZING. We were on our way to see if we could stuff another meal into our tummies because we both wanted to give kishimen a try. Kishimen is a flat kind of udon that is particularly popular in Nagoya. We were walking to the place when I saw a huge line up of cute, young Japanese girls. “Oh my gosh,” I said to Mike, “kishimen is so popular!” Turns out the girls weren’t in line for kishimen. They were lining up for poteto chizu dogu, or potato cheese dogs! Super stretchy melty mozzarella cheese coated in little cubes of potatoes and deep fried. The kishimen place next door had no one inside and it looked a little sad so I surrendered to the cheese dog pull and got in line. Mike was nice enough to wait in line with me even though he wanted no part of it. His loss though because it was AMAZING. Seriously so good. I know it was probably ten thousand calories because it was deep fried cheese with potatoes, but it was worth it. Those Japanese girls knew where it was at. I was so happy I got one. The cheese dog was the last thing we at in Nagoya before hopping on the train to head north to Niigata, the home of rice and sake. It was a good 24 hours in the city. I didn’t think I’d fall in love with Nagoya, but I did.  

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single serving restaurant reviews tokyo travel

I Am... Nogami Bakery, Tokyo

Nogami Bakery, Tokyo Overall Rating: 3.75/5 Difficulty: 3/5 depending on the lineup Yumminess: 4/5 Go: If you love shokupan, Japan’s answer to fluffy white bread and you’re willing to wait for it. You may not know it, but white bread is all the rage in Japan – it’s what they eat for breakfast in the Kansai region – even more than miso soup and rice. Nogami is known for their shokupan and people literally line up in the hot sun to purchase a loaf, or five. Nogami‘ s loaf is fluffy, every so slightly sweet, mochi mochi, soft, and pliable with a perfect crumb. Order: There are really only two options here, a whole loaf or a half loaf. Get the whole loaf, it’ll get eaten a lot faster than you think. Each loaf comes in a plastic bag that is tucked, but not sealed, so that the loaf can breathe and any warmth or condensation can gently dissipate. There’s a golden twist tie notched around one of the crisp and white paper bag handles for when you need to keep your loaf fresh. Just make sure you don’t order more than 5 loaves – there’s a sign in Japanese that says that you’re truly a selfish person if you do. Oh, and there are some jams that you can get too, if you’re into that sort of thing, but let’s be honest, you’re here for the bread. Feel: There will most likely be a line when you go, unless the bread craze has died down, which very well might happen – the food world is fickle after all. But if there’s still a line, just know that once the line extends past the twisting, turning partitions and goes past the storefront and around the corner, you’re looking at a minimum 45 minute wait. When you get inside the bakery, you’ll find it light filled and quite zen, with the side wall filled up with bags and bags of loaves waiting to go to their forever homes. They only take cash and each loaf at the time of writing is a little over ¥800, which makes it a little luxury that many people are willing to pay. Details: There are many, many branches of Nogami in Japan, but the one in Azabu Juban is open every day except for Tuesday. The closest station is Azabu Juban, exit 1. 1-9-7 Azabu Juban, Minato-ku, Tokyo

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cookie recipes small batch

I Am... Small Batch BA’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Bon Appétit says these are their best cookies. Are they?!?! Read on to find out.

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