The Best Carrot Juice ever for me

I am not really crazy about carrot juice. The juice I have had from store is either too strong and bitter, or too sweet yet  too much "carrot" taste without any other taste. (of course it's carrot taste because it's carrot juice...) But I changed my mind after I had this one. I use organic carrots because then I don't need to peel the skin. Carrots have a lot of nutrition near skin. But at the same time, non-organic carrots have pesticide or other chemicals on the surface and it could make juice taste bitter. That's why I use organic carrots. Just wash well and cut the top and put in the juicer.

Carrot Juice
( Makes 2 litters)

Ingredients:

1. Organic Carrots: 3 kg (6 lb 8 oz)
   
2. Organic Strawberry: 7 big pieces or 200g
3. Organic Fuji Apple: 1

Direction:

1. Put everything in the juicer.
2. Save carrot bits from juicer for carrot cake or muffin!!

Chicken Drumsticks with Shiitake Mushroom and Tomato Red Wine Sauce

Another my favorite chicken drumstick recipe. It's fantastic dish for economically challenging time. It's fantastic dish for not so economically challenging time too. Again, easy. But this time I took time to cook chicken (1 hr) to make very tender. Make sure you take out skin before you cook (for health benefit = less fat). It will still taste really good without skin flavor.

Chicken Drumsticks w/ Shiitake Mushroom and Tomato Red Wine Sauce
(Serving: 3~   / Prep time: 5 min / Cooking time: 1 hr 45min)

 

Ingredients:

1. Chicken Drumsticks skinned (1 kg)
   
2. Onion: 1 medium-large (200 g) sliced
3. Organic ripe Tomato on the vine: 4 large (400 g) cut in 1/8
4. Shiitake Mushroom: 120g, sliced
5. Chicken Broth (low sodium): 1 cup
6. Red Wine: 1 cup
7. Bay leaves: 3 leaves
8. Sea salt: 1/2 teaspoon
9. Olive oil: 1 tablespoon
10. Butter: 1 tablespoon
11. (option) Marinara sauce: 2 table spoons
12. (option) Worcestershire sauce: 1/2 tea spoon

Direction:

1. In the pan (I use cast iron skillet to cook), melt butter and saute onion for 5 min and set aside.
2. In the same pan, pour olive oil and saute seasoned (sea salt) chicken for 5 min flip the drumsticks and cook additional 3 min till surface is lightly brown.
3. Add cooked onion, shiitake mushroom and tomato and saute for 2 min until mushroom is cooked.
4. Add red wine, chicken broth, bay leaves. Cover (mostly, but not completely) and cook with low heat for 1 hour.
5. Uncover and (add marinara sauce and worcestershire sauce for more taste if you need) cook with medium low heat till sauce gets thick about 30 min. Stair sauce occasionally.

* Sauce tastes better when you use fresh organic ripe tomato on the vine and it will make difference in taste where and when you get tomato. If the tomato itself is tasty, then you don't need to add marinara sauce.

* Originally this recipe was cooking with white wine. But I start using red wine and I like it. So I changed the recipe a little bit for red wine.You can substitute red wine with white wine.

The best and healthier Pancakes : Whole wheat Blueberry Pancake with soy milk

This is by far the most healthiest pancake recipe using whole wheat flour and unsweetened soy milk. Although it sounds bland, it tastes actually really good !! As you can see, I don't put any refined sugar in the ingredients. I use maple syrup (real maple syrup) instead. 

Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancake w/ soy milk

( Makes 8 large pancakes)

Ingredients

1. Organic Whole wheat flour: 2 cups
   
2. Baking powder: 1teaspoon
3. Baking soda: 1/2 teaspoon
4. Fine grain sea salt: 1/2 teaspoon
5. Egg (organic): 2 large
6. Unsweetened soy milk: 2 cups
7. Unsalted butter: 2 tablespoons melted
8. Maple syrup (organic, grade B): 2 tablespoons
9. Organic Blueberry (frozen or fresh): 1/2 cups

Direction:

1. Melt butter. Use microwave (for convenience) for 20+ sec till butter just melt.
2. In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt). Mix well.
3. In a separate bowl combine eggs, soy milk, melted butter, and maple syrup. Mix till all ingredients are well combined.
4. Add wet mixture into dry mixture. Use spatula combine the mixture like slicing the batter. Don't mix too much. Flour doesn't need to be completely mixed.
5. Heat the griddle to medium high. Pour batter and equally divided blueberry on top and cook till bottom is golden, edge of the pancake is cooked and till the bubble shows up on the top side batter. Flip the pancake and cook the other side. Repeat with remaining batter.

* Using pancake griddle makes it perfectly even heated pancake. If you don't have it, use non- stick coated pan. Then you don't need to worry about putting extra butter or other grease on the pan to cook. The batter already contains butter in it. Butter is saturated fat. It's not good to consume much.

* Eat with Maple syrup.My favorite - GRADE B ORGANIC. More amber flavor and nutrition.

My Shopping List: Organic Whole wheat flour, Grade B organic maple syrup, 365 Organic Unsweetened Soymilk
Where: for flour:  Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market 
for maple syrup, soy milk : Whole Foods

Roasted Rack of Lamb with Glazed Soy Maple Syrup

It's about the time to celebrate the going year and coming year. It was interesting year for me and I am excited about the new year. So, I just cooked this very easy lamb dish to get ready celebrating! I heard this combination of soy sauce and maple syrup is good to tone down the distinct lamb's gamey flavor. I use organic "Grade B" maple syrup. This unrefined sweetner is not only tasty as caramel flavor, but it's nutritious rich in minerals and vitamins. I will talk about that later more in depth. 

Roasted Rack of Lamb w/ Glazed Soy Maple Syrup
( Serving: 2+ , Cooking time: 20 min.)

Ingredients

1. Lamb rib rack (frenched: fat is already cleaned and bones are exposed and ready to be cooked): 1lb +
   
2. Low sodium Soy Sauce: 1 tablespoon
3. Maple Syrup ( Grade B): 1 tablespoon

Direction:

1. Heat the oven to 375 °F.
2. Mix low sodium soy sauce and maple syrup.
3. Marinate Lamb with sauce and sit for one hour in room temperature.
4. Roast Rack of Lamb bone down for 20 min for medium rare (time varies). 

My Shopping List: Lamb rib rack 1.15 lb $13.79
Where: Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market

How to enjoy food with less fat

I hope everyone had happy Thanksgiving. I had a wonderful one and I ate so much. Thanksgiving dinner has actually pretty healthy ingredients. We just need to look at and notice how to cook and how to eat these healthy ingredients not to be super fat dinner. Here is the few easy trick to cook same ingredients but less fat at the end. Start this and make it as your dairy habit.

1. Take out skin from meat
2. Eat sweet fruit and vegetable like kabocha, sweet potato, banana instead of butter base sweets
3. Cut vegetable lager so, when you cook, oil or other cooking agent will absorb less.
4. Flash the fat with boiled water for fatty meat like pork and beef. It will also help make taste absorb into meat better.
5. For stir fried vegetable need to be cooked longer time, use microwave to cook 70% and then cook in the pan with oil, such that it will use less oil.
6. Steam instead of sautee.
7. Bake with oven or toaster oven instead of deep fried. Need only little sprinkle of oil.
8. Use coated pan to cook. You need less oil or butter for non- stick pan.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti w/ Shrimp and Peas and Garlic Butter Sauce

I got the 100 % whole wheat spaghetti, which I was not really the fan of because it's not that chewy as normal pasta. But I want to replace the habit of eating white flour to whole wheat flour for the health benefit. We consume so much of flour product, and benefit of white flour is really nothing besides it helps to make stomach bigger. Whole wheat pasta has more than twice the fiber ( ave.5g fiber for 2oz dry pasta) than normal pasta (2g fiber for 2oz), which we all know how good fiber does in our body. What I don't  like about the whole wheat pasta is that the texture of pasta and surface of the pasta doesn't absorb spaghetti sauce well. To ease this problem, I cook pasta little bit longer to make softer and add small butter right away to mix with hot pasta. And add this sauce! The richness of the sauce and lightness of whole wheat pasta matches pretty well.

 Shrimp and Peas w/ Garlic Butter Sauce
( Serving: 2, Cooking time: 15 min.)

Ingredients

1. Uncooked shrimp
   
2. Yellow Onion: 1/4 medium large chopped
3. Green Onion: 3 sprig chopped
4. Green Peas (frozen)
5. Crimini Mushroom (Fresh Italian Brown Mushroom) sliced
6. Olive oil : 3 tablespoons
7. Garlic: 1 clove chopped or pressed
8. Butter: 1/2 tablespoon
9. Parmesan Cheese
10. Salt / Freshly grounded Pepper

Direction:

1. In a pan, put olive oil and heat it. Add onion and green onion and sautee for about 5 min. 
2. Add shrimp, garlic, mushroom, 1 tablespoon water, little bit of salt and pepper and cook till color of shrimp change to orange. Do not cook to long as shrimp will get dry and tough.
3. Add Parmesan cheese and butter, cook additional 1 min.
4. Pour over cooked whole wheat pasta!

*It's like pasta with cream sauce, but no heavy cream. 

Cheese Omelet with Bolgnese Sauce

Here is what I make next morning with Bolgnese sauce I made yesterday.
Cheese Omelet with Bolgnese sauce !! I use Gruyere cheese. For less fat, make egg white only omelet with low fat swiss cheese instead. (or no cheese, it's still really yummy.)
Besides the spaghetti, I can eat anything with this sauce !