Mom’s garden

Chong and I packed some food and went to visit my mom at her garden on Saturday. This was the first time we visited this year. I didn’t take a lot of good pictures so I’ll have to go back to take more.

A small snack of Caprese salad

I love her sea of flowering green onions.

Thai basil, one of my favorite

Rhubarb from my Aunt’s garden

Rhubarb and strawberries freshly picked from my Aunt’s garden. The strawberries on the left are from our garden.

Korean-style Fire Chicken (Buldak), Part 2

I finally finished making the Fire Chicken and it turned out to be pretty good. It was a little sweet and savory, the chicken was really moist and I really liked the toasted sesame seeds on top. Although I didn’t add the Thai chili peppers, Chong still thought it was pretty spicy. He said that all he could taste was the spiciness. I thought it could’ve used the Thai chili peppers.

Broiled marinated chicken thighs

Added the sauce

Mozzarella, pre-broiled

Mozzarella, post-broiled

Look at that yummy deliciousness

Korean-style Fire Chicken (Buldak)

I’m a big fan of Serious Eats and have been wanting to make this dish for months. I just made the sauce and am letting it cool to room temperature before I marinate the chicken thighs. The sauce is pretty delicious on its own. Will update the final dish later.

Chicken thighs and bones marinating

Afternoon tea

I’ve been obsessed with afternoon teas lately so I decided to make my own. I couldn’t decide on if I wanted an Asian tea party or cucumber sandwiches so I made both. And no, they both weren’t done on the same day or even the same week.

Asian theme afternoon tea spread

Eggrolls, spring rolls and pork belly kimbap

Lao pork sausage, pork and ginger meatball (leftover from the potstickers) and more pork belly kimbap

Potstickers

Thai shrimp noodle casserole

Why is it that you spend so many hours prepping and cooking but only minutes to eat? By the time I finish cooking, I was so exhausted and just wanted to put my feet up. The pork belly kimbap were good but a little bland. I couldn’t find a good substitute for Ssamjang so it was dry and needed something to give it a punch.

My “traditional” Afternoon tea spread was not very traditional as I didn’t want to stick to just sandwiches so I just made mini appetizer-ish snacks.

Pigs in a blanket, cucumber sandwiches, bacon cups, stuffed mushrooms and bacon pinwheels

Lemon tres leche cake, cranberry scone with jam, butter and homemade lemon curd and raspberry cheesecake cupcake

I spent two days making clotted cream but Chong accidentally threw it out, hence the sad pat of butter. And he also decorated the cupcakes. 🙂 Can’t complain as everything was delicious.

Fruit garden

Besides strawberries, I’m also growing one rhubarb plant that doesn’t want to die, a dwarf peach tree (I’ll have to double check to see what type it is) and a Romeo tart cherry bush. I planted these last year and this is the first year they’re producing fruit. I can’t wait until they’re ripe.

Hello Summer!

I’m so excited to be back after a very long hiatus. I can’t believe it’s been 6 years since I last updated my blog. Sorry folks. I’ll try to be more consistent going forward.

So far this spring/summer, Chong has been a golfing addict and has been golfing almost every week. I’ve been working in my garden and have been harvesting a lot of lettuce, green onion and cilantro. I’ll probably harvest the last of my lettuce sometime this week and plant some more cilantro. I’ll also have to plant some more cosmos.

Fortunately and unfortunately, my mom gave me a bunch of tomatoe seedlings so I’ll have tons of tomatoes in a couple months. That also means that I won’t have any space to plant my dahlias and gladiolus. I’ll have to figure something out.

I just picked 7 ripe strawberries from the garden that Chong and I devoured. There is something delicious about the scent of freshly picked strawberries.

And Chong’s been craving mussels so he made mussels and jalapenos in oyster sauce.

Protected: Two Months In

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Two Weeks In

What a busy two weeks it’s been.  We’re still not fully unpacked yet–everything is at a half unpacked status.  For example, the master closet has most of our clothes but we keep finding more boxes with clothes hiding around the house or garage.  I never knew how much clothes we had until it was all in one room.  I really love our master closet.  It’s a walk in closet and has a built in storage dresser.  I’ll upload some pictures later this week from my phone.  I didn’t take any pictures during the move because everything was crazy.

Chong’s waiting for me to use my new steam mop in the bathroom so I’ll update later.  Good night!

Welcome home!

What a weekend it’s been. I just have one word to sum everything up: hectic. Chong and I are finally fully moved in but are still not done unpacking. Is there such a thing as being completed done unpacking?

I wanted to thank my parents, family and friends who helped us moved. It only took 3 hours to get everything moved to our new house. I also wanted to thank our great realtor, Steve, who is awesome and very, very patient. And also Rachel from our mortgage company. She was great and answered all our questions and was also very patient. The seller, who is also a real estate agent, was quite impressed with how fast Rachel and her company worked that he is now going to refer his clients to them.
Like I said, it’s been a very hectic three days. Lots of cleaning, shopping, and organizing. We haven’t even gotten any rooms in the house fully organized yet. Everything is half or almost done. We just got new rugs today and will pick them up tomorrow so hopefully the living room will be ready. We still don’t have any internet yet so I’m blogging from my phone. I have to call my internet provider later tonight.
I’ll post up pictures when everything looks more presentable. I have hundreds of boxes and bags everywhere. Chong and I are p

One More Week To Go

Sorry of the lack of updates. Chong and I have been extremely busy this past month trying to get everything in order. We’ve been packing, cleaning, and buying things that we think we need (more like what we want). Chong’s been getting all our paperwork ready and calling all the utility companies–I really do appreciate the fact that he knows what needs to get done and does it without having me to ask him. He’s in Michigan right now visiting his family while I’m in Minnesota finishing all the little things.  I wasn’t able to go with him due to my job but they will probably visit us this summer.  That’s it for now.  Will definitely update you when we close in 6 days.