Organic vs. Non-Organic

I bought two different types of scallions/green onions - organic and non-organic. Can you guess which one is organic? If you guessed the top smaller one, then you are right, while the bottom, more robust one is non-organic. I just wanted to see the comparison between the two because I find it fascinating that we're enlarging everything - from fast-food value meals, to even our simple scallions. No wonder the result turns out to be: larger obese humans.

Edamame!!

Edamame (soy bean pods) are so delicious and healthy and can be munched on as an appetizer or snack. You can find frozen bags of edamame at the grocery store, and you can either prepare them the traditional way by putting the frozen edamame into boiling water for 3-4 minutes, or you can simply put the frozen edamame into a microwaveable bowl, submerge them in water, and cook them in the microwave for 2 minutes. Drain the access water, sprinkle salt on top and enjoy!

Chicken Fried Rice

To make fried rice, make sure you use day old rice, and non-sticky rice is preferred.

Ingredients:
- Carrots
- Peas
- Corn
- Water Chestnuts
- Chicken breast
- 2 cups of cooked rice
- Soy Sauce
- sesame seed oil

Directions:
1) Start cooking the chicken breast in a pan with medium heat in some olive oil. Cut into little pieces.
2) Put a teaspoon of sesame seed oil into the bottom of a large pan or wok and add the rice.
3) Add the chopped carrots, corn, peas and water chestnuts. Add the cut chicken into the mix and stir fry, adding 3 tablespoons of soy sauce (add more if you like it salty)
4) Serve and enjoy!

Smoked Salmon Penne Pasta

This dish is so easy to make and is really good. I learned it from my favorite Italian, Matteo Milllone! ^__^

[Serves 4]

Ingredients:

- 3 cups of uncooked Penne Pasta

- 1/2 quart of heavy cooking cream

- 5 oz Smoked Salmon - make sure you get free-range raised fish. Farm-raised salmon doesn't taste as good, and it has less than half of the OMEGA 3's that are so healthy for your body!

- 1/2 white onion

- 1 tablespoon butter

- Crushed Black Pepper

- Salt

1. Boil water and add the pasta, and salt to taste. Cook exactly the amount it says on the box for al dente.

2. In a large sauce pan melt the butter and saute the chopped onion until translucent. Add the cut and sliced smoked salmon and a dash of crushed black pepper, and saute with the butter and onion for 1-2 minutes.

3. Pour the cooking cream into the sauce pan and stir with the butter, onion and smoked salmon. Let it simmer until it reaches a light boil (do not let it boil for too long or the sauce will become too thick)

4. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce pan, mix and stir the ingredients together (turn the heat down to one of the lowest settings)

5. Serve and enjoy! (and sprinkle some freshly grated black pepper on top)

Fresh Vegetables and Greens!

The best thing about Korean food are the fresh greens and vegetables.

Pictured here : Chopped green onion, garlic, kimchi, and my most favorite: perilla leaf (or sesame seed leaves / "kkaaeneep" in Korean)

Use these essential ingredients with rice to wrap your Korean BBQ'd beef or pork! Complete the meal with a big bowl of spicy hot kimchi jjigae and you'll have a delicious traditional Korean meal.

Kimchi jjigae

I typically always do a vegetarian kimchi jjigae, but you can make it with pork, or fish and seafood. Here is my simple and basic recipe:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup of kimchi (and its juices)

2-3 tablespoons of gojijjang (red pepper paste)

1/2 teaspoon of gojujadu {red pepper flakes)

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 green onion

1 package of Tofu

1 package of Enoki Mushrooms

Instructions: Put the minched garlic, chopped kimchi and its juices into a pot, and add 2 cups of water. When boiling, add the gojijjang, and simmer/boil for 25 minutes. In the meanwhile, cut the tofu into squares, and cut and clean the enoki mushrooms. Add them to the stew and stir, sprinkling the gojujadu over the tofu. Cover and simmer for another 10 minutes, and at last adding a cut green onion on top. Serve piping hot with rice!

Ingredients!

These are the ingredients for panfried tofu! I made it again recently and I liked how it all looked out as raw ingredients :]

Here is the original recipe blog post --

[http://nomadichimee.blogspot.com/2010/09/panfried-tofu-with-spicy-sauce-dubu.html]