I love smoothies. Not only are they so colorful and pretty but they also taught me the joy of eating and making breakfast. I was not a breakfast person for a very long time. When I was a teenager in Korea, I wanted to sleep more rather than to have breakfast, and the fact that I had to spend the entire day from 7:30am until 10pm at school and a cram school Continue reading My favorite smoothie bowls
Anyone love to eat pasta for breakfast? I certainly do; probably one of my favorite things to eat in the morning. Well, I could eat noodles and pasta any time of the day to be honest, but there’s just something special about eating pasta with an egg as a breakfast. My whole wheat pasta with kale and an olive oil basted fried egg is delicious and healthy. And it only takes 15 minutes to prepare; who wants to spend more time cooking in the morning anyways, right? This is also a great way to use up leftover kale or any green vegetables in your fridge.
Happy New Year! 2021 has been an incredibly hectic year for me. A main reason I have not been active here since April. In May, my husband and I left our beloved Hong Kong, our second home that we had lived for over a decade. I’d always moved a lot, and never lived anywhere longer than 4 years until I moved to our 58th floor flat in the west side of Hong Kong Island. Our flat with a stunning view of Hong Kong’s skyline and harbour was my 23rd home, and I had lived there for over 11 and a half years. Leaving Hong Kong was as hard as I expected but leaving my close friends was much harder than I imagined.
If you read my previous post, you would know how much I loved Turkish breakfast. Every single breakfast I had in Turkey was incredible, but there is one dish that I had to make my own version of. I am not a huge fan of having sweet things in the morning, so my choice usually involves eggs. My favorite is always a fried egg (with crispy edge if I make it myself at home), but in Turkey I had been cheating on my sunny side up with a traditional egg dish called “Menemen”. This dish has everything I love; tomatoes, eggs, peppers, and warm spices. It is delicious, satisfying and comforting, kinda perfect breakfast I must say :-).
Pancake is my husband’s favorite food of all time. And he is a traditionalist when it comes to it, meaning he’s not into any of fancy new versions (such as souffle pancake, which I personally love). To him, pancake is one of those perfect comfort foods that no one needs to mess with. So I get quite nervous about doing something different or experimenting with pancake recipes. One of the successful ones from the past is my “vegan coconut and cinnamon pancake” . Although he couldn’t help adding a little butter on top of the pancake, he liked the flavor. Continue reading Gluten-free, dairy-free banana pancake and raspberry banana sorbet
One of the challenges I’ve often faced cooking for myself or just two people is having too much leftover vegetables. (That is also one of the most common excuses I hear from my friends who never cook). I started cooking in London where I lived as a student many years ago, simply because it was too expensive to eat out every day. But each time I cooked I had so much leftover vegetables, which all ended up in a bin. I really hated wasting perfectly good food and it didn’t exactly help me save that much money either. So I started to throw all my leftover ingredients in a big pot and make hearty Korean soup or stew like my grandmother used to do. It would keep well in the fridge for at least a few days, and it was a perfect mood booster in one of those rainy chilly gloomy days in London. Continue reading Pickled red onion and dill
The night before my husband’s birthday, he asked me if I could make him pancake breakfast the next day. Pancakes are his all-time favorite food, but I had never made sweet breakfast kind before, (because he’s quite specific about how pancakes should be and always makes them the way he wants) so I panicked. If it was any other day I could probably be more relaxed about it, but it was for my husband’s birthday. The possibility that I might mess up his favorite comfort food on his birthday was terrifying. But somehow I managed to pull off simple yet very yummy pancakes without any dramas the next morning. And ever since that day I couldn’t stop thinking about different things I can do for pancakes and started experimenting. A recipe I’m sharing today is the most successful one so far. Continue reading Vegan coconut and cinnamon pancakes with ‘aquafaba’
There aren’t that many things that I like more than Kimchi and eggs in this world. Especially when I am hungover and craving for something rich, spicy and refreshing at the same time. If I come home tipsy and I know that I will be hungover the next day, I head to the kitchen and make myself a Kimchi omelet no matter how late it is. This omelet makes me wake up with a puffy face but it also keeps me from having a splitting headache and nausea. I don’t know whether Kimchi actually cures the hangover or our brains and stomachs are just programmed to think that way but Kimchi is one of the most common hangover cure food in Korea. (As you could probably guess, we eat Kimchi for almost anything). Continue reading Hangover breakfast – Kimchi and barley flour pancakes
Inspirations for a dish you make can come from anywhere. I often think about what I am going to cook next when I am eating (obviously..;-)), watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks or magazines. But I think the most genuine way to get inspirations is from beautiful ingredients you have in hand. I am so green with envy when I see other food bloggers who live in gorgeous countryside growing their own ingredients for their recipes. So when I got these stunning purple sweet potatoes from a friend, my mind immediately went on thinking what I could do with them. Continue reading Ricotta and nutmeg purple sweet potato mash on toast
