All posts by Annie

Chinese Beef Stew with Tendon

Stewed beef tendon has hearty flavor with a wonderful mouthfeel.

Chinese Beef and Tendon Stew

Well, I’ve been working for two weeks now and I’m beginning to feel a bit better although I’m still overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do every week. The hardest part has been coming home to cook after a long day at work. Some days, it’s really rough trying to get into cooking mode when all I want to do is lie down and veg! I have a new respect for all you working moms out there. If you have any tips for me on how to cope, I sure could use them.

Anyway, because of that, my weekends are now my major cooking days. Or at least one of the days, I try to make into a cooking day. The other day (usually Saturday), I put my foot down and insist on some rest—which means no cooking!

Yesterday, I decided I was going to make Chinese Beef Stew. It is something I’ve not made before but I remember distinctly having it at a friend’s house. She had used oxtail so it had a lovely beefy flavor along with the wonderful fragrance of cinnamon and star anise in the broth. She also told me that it was quite easy to make.

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Spiced Pork with Fried Ginger and Curry Leaves

Savory, spicy pork tenderloin – so delicious!

spiced pork with fried ginger and curry leaves It’s been a while since we posted. So much has been happening with us. The most important news is that I just got a new job!

I haven’t actually worked full-time in forever and this is my first job in more than 10 years. I started today actually, and I’m quite blasted after a whole day of orientation and meeting people in different departments. But I felt a need to write a post tonight.

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Nutella Rocks; No-Knead SUCKS

WARNING: Our entry for this year’s World Nutella Day should not be attempted.

world nutella day 2010

I LOVE Nutella. (Perhaps you can relate?)

Recently, I found some Nutella on sale at a grocery store here. The price was surprisingly reasonable. The catch? It was going to expire within a month. Ahhh! But so what? The way I eat Nutella, it doesn’t take me all that long to go through a jar of it. So I bought two jars!

I came home and decided that one jar was going into some baked goods. I remember Jaden from Steamy Kitchen doing a "no knead" challah with Nutella and Hazelnuts last year and so I went in search of some recipes. I was planning to do Jaden’s challah but got distracted by another post on Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy, who did a Nutella-pistachio "no knead" brioche. The picture of the Nutella oozing out of this really soft, yummy-looking bread and topped with pistachios just got me drooling big time. I just had to make it.

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Black Bean Chicken and Bell Peppers Stir-fry

Loving bell peppers is easy when stir-fried with chicken and black bean sauce.

Black Bean Chicken and Bell Peppers 1

When I was younger, there were certain vegetables that I didn’t care for—bittermelon, celery, watercress and bell peppers (specifically green bell peppers). These vegetables tasted bad to me except for watercress (that one I just didn’t like because it was so stringy—we mainly had it in soups and I could never chew it enough to swallow it).

When I met Nate, he had his own food dislikes but they didn’t match mine. I was incredulous that he didn’t like mayonnaise, bananas, and asparagus. Those were all things that I loved. So it didn’t come as too much of a surprise to me that the things he loved, I didn’t – especially bell peppers. And this particular dish of stir-fried chicken with bell peppers in black bean sauce is one of his favorites.

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