Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

Ever since falling in love again with Everyday Italian by Giada de Larentiis on Food Network, I've tried replicating her garlic and olive oil pasta. But every time I do, the taste doesn't seem quite right. Although I think it's because I use Spaghetti made of quinoa so it could at least be healthy. And if you've cooked quinoa pasta, then you know if you're not careful, it could easily be a miss. I've had a couple of misses so of course pairing it with just olive oil and garlic doesn't really improve much on the taste.

A Very Healthy & Tasty Lunch

I love Pinterest and always go there to look for healthy recipes. It's my go-to website/app before I start listing down my grocery items for the week and of course it helps that recipes always look good there. Anyway, I found these two dishes there and since I love Asian food and healthy dishes, these immediately drew my attention - Japanese Quinoa Salad and Korean-Grilled Chicken Breast. Put them together and you have a tasty and healthy protein-packed Asian meal.

Tebasaki Chicken

I love Japanese cuisine. Their cuisine intensifies the flavor of each ingredient and makes use of their aroma to bring out a craving and completes the satisfaction for the dish. Ingredients are carefully chosen to either complement each other or bring out the other's intense flavor. And the Japanese' attention to detail ensures that we're in for a treat beyond their appealing presentation.

Summer Grilling

One of the things that Nick and I look forward to in the summers (and I think everyone else for that matter) is that we can finally go outside and grill. Summer can mean lots of parties and out of town trips that we let ourselves indulge in food, and then overeat. I mean this is the time that we attend hosted summer barbecue parties and what does this mean - lots and lots of red meat and burgers with a side of baked potatoes. I am feeling full just by typing that out.

Summer Night Market in Richmond

Richmond boasts of having two summer night markets every year - Richmond Night Market and International Summer Night Market. The former, I think, is the more famous one cause even though you have to pay a dollar fifty to two bucks (can't really remember) to get in, a lot still go there evidenced by the backed-up traffic it causes on the weekends. Or at least in the early summer months.

An Anime-Inspired Dish Coz Why Not?

If there is one thing that friends from high school would remember me for - it is that I absolutely love anime. It started with my best friend insisting that I watch one of the hit animes back in our grade school years (I'm not gonna say how long ago that was!). After that, I was hooked.

Fast forward to a lot of years later and I'm still as hooked as I was back then. But my focus shifted from looking at the bishounen characters (I don't think anyone would be surprised that I spent most of my teenage years drooling over fictional men - I did attend an exclusive all girls school!) to noticing how yummy the food and bento boxes are in these animes! I've started drooling from boys to food. Haha! You can see how much I've grown there, right? Or did I actually? Haha! 

The Santouka Ramen Experience

The one thing I love about living in the Greater Vancouver area is the easy access to great tasting and rich broth Japanese ramen. When my husband and I made our way to Vancouver that night, we were headed to another ramen place, one that serves chicken broth. Unfortunately for us, since this is favorite amongst the ramen places, they ran out of ramen. Haha! But apparently, that is how it is in Japan. My friend recently had a trip there, and one of the things he shared with us is that you eat and you go and they'll serve you only what's available that day. And when they're out, they close down for the day. And there may only be a couple things on the menu. I guess that makes sense as they mostly serve fresh seafood and what's in the season.