Ginger rice with pork chops and fried egg!

I can eat a fried egg with almost anything...

Ginger rice:

1) chicken broth

2) rice (2 cups)

3) ginger: diced into small pieces (1 tablespoon)

Cook rice with chicken broth and ginger pieces.

Pork chops:

1) pork chops

2) soy sauce

3) garlic cloves (smashed into little pieces)

4) hoison sauce

Mix soy sauce with hoison sauce ( I use 1/2 soy and 1/2 hoison because I like my sauce a little sweeter) and garlic cloves. Put pork chops into a freezer/sandwich bag and add the soy sauce mixture into it. Close the bag, making sure to get as much air out of the bag as possible. Let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. I usually sauté my pork chops with a little bit of oil, but I think baking them will also be good.

Green Beans:

1) green beans

2) garlic

3) oyster sauce

Rinse and cut green beans into 2 inch pieces. Sauté it in garlic and oyster sauce until cooked.

Before serving, fry up an egg (Ross likes his sunny side up, and I like mine over easy) and place it on top of the rice. Sprinkle on a little bit of siriracha, hoison and soy sauce to taste.

Enjoy!

Pho!

My fiance was feeling sick and requested pho for dinner tonight.

Pho originated in Northern Vietnam. It is a beef broth based noodle soup. Mostly eaten as a lunch item in Vietnam. It's also a GREAT hangover food!

The following recipe is the easiest pho recipe that I know, and its delicious! My fiance thinks that its one of the best pho that he's ever eaten (and he's not biased... or so he tells me!).

You will need the following:







* 1 container of pho soup base
* fresh pho noodles (in the egg noodles aisle)
* rock sugar
* beef or chicken bones
* salt and pepper to taste
* pre roasted chicken (shredded) - used because I was feeling lazy. Usually I would make the broth with a whole chicken and simmer for 3 hours and shred the meat of the chicken after. You can use beef, tripe, tendons, meatballs, or tofu instead of chicken. I just like chicken pho.
* sirracha
* hoison sauce
* bean sprouts
* basil
* lime


You will need to make the broth first, which takes about 2 hours to make. Start off with boiling some water in a big soup pot (the amount of water used is the amount of broth that is needed to serve). For my boyfriend and I for dinner tonight, I used around 20 cups of water. When the water starts to boil, add in the beef or chicken bones. Most Asian supermarkets offer bones for customers to take home and make broth with. For 20 cups of water, I used 3 large beef bones (the more bones you put in, the more flavor the broth will contain). I then add 4 table spoons of rock sugar, and 1 table spoon of salt. I let the broth simmer for 2 hours, covered on low heat. When 2 hours has simmered by, add about 1/4 of the pho soup base into the broth and let simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

When it nears serving time, put another pot of water to a boil. Dip the fresh pho noodles in the water for about 5 secs and then put it in individual serving bowls. Add the shredded chicken, bean sprouts, basil, a squeeze of lime, and siracha and hoison sauce to taste.




Enjoy!

Winter Melon Soup

I'm back! This time though, nothing about business but a lot of stuff about cooking! I have decided to keep up with my blog and showcase the meals I cook for my fiance and I. I am not a chef, but a self proclaimed "pretty decent" cook =). I love to make ethnic food, especially from my heritage, Vietnam. I am not a stickler for tradition and likes to make my own twist to each dish. I like to make quick and easy meals, so do not expect to see a long list of ingredients for the dishes that I cook.

The first dish I will be showcasing for this blog is Shrimp Winter Melon Soup. It's a vietnamese staple dish. In Vietnamese culture, our meals consists of a bowl of rice and a few dishes to eat with the rice. Usually those dishes consist of a protein dish, a vegetable dish, and a soup. The soup is usually eaten with a little bit of rice, but tastes great by itself as well.

Winter melon is a vine gourd and is packed with nutrients. Its full of Vit C, Zinc, and Calcium. To start off with this recipe, you will need the following ingredients:

1) 1 winter melon; peeled and chopped into small bite size pieces.

2) 6-8 shrimps with their heads on; Rinsed, peeled, and deveined. Cut the heads and put it aside

3) 1 can of chicken broth

4) water

5) a handful of cilantro; finely chopped.

6) table spoon of oil

7) salt and black pepper

8) fish sauce to taste

9) rock sugar

10) dried red chili or chili flakes (optional)

11) 2 scallions, finely sliced

Start by cutting the peeled shrimps into little pieces. In a small bowl combine the shrimp and the heads, scallions and about a table spoon of fish sauce. I then add a pinch of dried chili flakes to the mixture (optional! keep it out if you can't handle the heat). The shrimp heads makes the broth extra "shrimpy", so add it if you like a more intense seafood flavor.

Place a pot on the stove and put it on medium high heat. Add about a teaspoon of oil into the pot. Then add the shrimp (and head), scallion, and fish sauce mixture into the pot and stir fry the mixture until the shrimp is cooked. Add a 14 oz can of chicken broth and water. The amount of water you put in there depends on how watery you like the soup and the size of the melon. Today I'm using a small melon, roughly 7 inches long and 3 inches wide, so I will be adding 3 cups of water. I then add 1 teaspoon of rock sugar to the broth. The small addition of rock sugar makes the broth a nice mellow sweet flavor.

Bring the water to a boil and then add the chopped winter melons. Reduce the heat so the broth is simmering and cook the melons until they are translucent in color. Remove the pot from the heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Lastly, add the chopped cilantro and serve the soup hot! I like to eat it with a little bit of rice, but that's optional, because the soup is nice and hearty and makes a good soup appetizer.

Seller's Permit

Obtaining a seller's permit/sale's tax permit is harder than I thought it would be! I was so confused...

The application was easy to fill out, but there were two things we did not expect. First, as a corporation or LLC, after you file for the article of organization with the secretary of state, you have to refile within 90 days for a statement of information. We did not do that! OOPS... so that cost us $250 for a late filing =(. You have to include your statement of information with the application for the seller's permit. Second, you have to take aside some money from your venture capital to deposit to the state for tax purposes. They require that you put aside some money either through a cash deposit, a savings account, our surety bond in case you do not pay them taxes. It's kind of like a safety leash for them, just in case you are a shady business person. The amount of money will probably be in the thousands. That was quite a surprise for me, so make sure you allow some money in your bank account for that!

Opening your own business: DBA or no DBA

A Fictitious Business Name or DBA ( "Doing Business As") should be created if you do not want to use your own legal name as the title of your business or if you're a Corporation, LLC, etc and want to operate multiple businesses.

Sole Proprietors can use their full name in their business, ie. James Gunford Interior Design. If you have multiple partners or if you use first names ie., Joe's Garage, you have to file an assumed name or DBA. A DBA also lets you use a typical business name without creating a formal legal entity like a corporation or LLC.

For Corps and LLC, it allows you to open multiple businesses without having to create a legal entity for each business. For instance, you're a S-Corp and want to open multiple optometry offices. You can set up a corporation name like Eye Corp and open an office called Opto World in one city and Eye World in another.

When you figure out a name for your DBA, you should trademark that name, especially if its retail or food industry. Go to http://www.uspto.gov/teas/ to find out if the name has been taken and file an online application to get it trademarked. The fee is $250 and the process takes about 2-3 months. Concurrently, you need to file your DBA with the local county office or state government agency. In California, after you file for your DBA, you have to publish a notice in your local newspaper and submit an affidavit to show that you have fufilled the publication requirement.

Opening your own business: obtaining a lease

Figuring out what a lease entails can be quite confusing, especially for someone like me who did not know anything about business. But from the past 6 months, I have learned a few things about leases, so I will pass on my knowledge, although not much!

So you have found the perfect spot for your small business and are ready to discuss lease terms with the property manager. What are some few things that you should ask? 1) price per sq footage ( it will be good to know the average price that people are charging in your area). 2) Tenant improvement: how much will the property owner give you to do your tenant improvements in the building. For the most part, the longer the lease term, the more money the property owner should give to the tenant for tenant improvement. 3) Gross lease, double net lease, or triple net lease: Gross lease is when the tenant pays rent and the owner takes care of everything else, which is commonly used in residential properties. Double net lease is when the landlord commonly covers parking, heating and cooling system, and the structural integrity of the building. Triple net lease or True net lease is when the landlord has no responsibility related to building upkeeping. This can be good for the tenant cause they have complete control over the property. A triple net lease can be risky for landlords because tenants may allow the building to fall into dispair. 4) How long is the landlord going to give you free rent for tenant improvements. Usually landlords of commercial buildings will allow 1-6 months of free rent so the tenant can build their business.

That's all that I know for what to look out for during lease discussions. If I am missing something, please leave a comment so other people can be informed as well.

Opening your own business: corporation, LLC, sole proprietorship?

So what is the next step after you have written your business plan? Figure out how you're gonna get money!! Most cities offer loans from their redevelopment center in small amounts ( roughly 40K) with small interest rates, so that would be a good possibility to look into. If you're going to do business in San Jose, CA, the redevelopment Agency offers a max 40K loan with a 3-6% interest rate. There is an Opportunity Fund that can give up to 200K in small business loans. Just contact the city that you're thinking of doing business in for more questions about their loan programs. Good luck on that!

While you're figuring out how to get money for your small business, you should start looking into what kind of business entity you want to be: sole proprietorship, corporation, partnership or LLC. How do you decide? Here are some websites I found helpful:

http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/ObjectID/ED01121A-B4BF-498A-8BC0DBD121A0C869/catID/BAAE1B67-F54A-41B4-91943A51F56C3F79/111/182/245/FAQ/

http://www.themoneyalert.com/Corp-Entity-Table.html

http://nolo.com/article.cfm/ObjectID/63773C59-44CB-488D-8F3659FDE5C899DB

http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/3FD19141-DB91-4FCA-BDB93416A4D05479/111/182/147/ART/

http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/BC12D427-ED89-439F-AECBD53DC24EB012/catID/DA9428C8-2E99-47F2-A24C1190FE5F24E7/111/182/275/ART/

Once you have decided what kind of business entity you would like to go with, you will need to come up with a name and register that entity with the state that you're doing business in. I found Legalzoom.com very helpful. You just have to fill out information about your business and personal information and they compile it together and register it for you in your state of choice. You will have to pay a little more than if you did it yourself, but saves you time and headache

Ok I hope that helped! Stay tuned for the next step. Ciao!