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!