On my recent Chef’s Plate order I made a Seared Steak & Balsamic Shallot Jam with a spinach salad and parmesan potatoes. 
This was an easy meal to make and super flavourful. I love how easy it was to make the shallot jam. I don’t normally buy shallots, but I think I can replicate something similar with onions.
Want to try Chefs Plate? Use the code #3platesFromtianafeng for 3 free plates!
I buy a lot of my ingredients on sale. Sometimes I buy ingredients I don’t even know how to cook yet because they are on sale. Last week I bought a duck.
I never roasted a duck before but I found the easiest recipe ever on All Recipes. It involved rubbing salt, pepper and paprika and then pouring hot butter on it at different intervals. The duck turned out perfect and the skin was delicious.
Now that I can cook a simple version of duck, the next step is learning the Chinese Peking Duck!
What do you do when you look in the fridge and the ingredients you thought were there aren’t? You improvise!
The other day I started searing a hamburger only to realize I didn’t have any buns so I made it open face on lettuce, avocado, caramel onion and more! Yum
Lately, I’ve been letting myself indulge in my food cravings but with one precedent: I have to make it from scratch (or close to it) myself. It seems like a hassle but it is even more satisfying when you get to eat the final product that you made with your own hands.
For example, the other night I craved Japanese ramen (the kind you get at a noodle house, not a package of Nong Shim). I decided to make it myself! I went to an Asian grocery store and picked out noodles, broth, pork and veggies. I cooked and combined all the ingredients and made a delicious bowl of Tonkatsu Shio Ramen. It was a success and in making it at home, I saved money and was more conscious on what was goning in it.
I never thought about getting a new cutting board until I saw this adorable one at Kitchen Stuff Plus.
The board comes with four mats that can be used on top to keep the board itself clean and avoid cross-contamination. This one has a board for vegetables, poultry, fish and other meats.
I love the simple colourful design.
In the past week, I’ve been so busy that I rarely have had time to sit down for more than half an hour at home let alone make a solid meal. I’m currently putting together some quick bacon and eggs as dinner. While those things are delicious, I do miss and crave a more thoughtfully cooked meal.
I want fresh vegetables, tenderly cooked meat, homemade soups. I can’t wait for the free day to cook a real meal.
Lately, I’ve been so busy that all my meals were quickly thrown together with whatever the hell I had in the fridge. Sometimes they’d taste weird but I made do because I was busy and headed off somewhere else in an hour (or less). Cooking and eating became more of a stressful mandatory activity than an enjoyable one.
Finally today I had time to plan a meal and actually see it through. I pan seared pork chops, following half of the instructions of a Gordon Ramsay video and my boyfriend helped and made pan-fried eggplant with melted mozzarella in between them. It was a team effort, but it was fun and relaxing at the same time.
On days where I’m not so busy, I want to have more fun with cooking again, seek out new delicious recipes and learn different techniques. Cooking can be rather therapeutic if you let it be!
The winter holidays means a lot of potlucks and dinner parties. If you need ideas for interesting twists on traditional desserts how about cheesecake or apple crumble baked inside apples?
I tried the Cheesecake Stuffed Baked Apples recipe from Creme de la Crumb. They are best eaten the day of and have a nice creamy texture.
Apple crisp inside apples is simple if you know how to make apple crisp already. Sautee apples with brown butter and cinnamon, stuff the apples, sprinkle with oats and voila!
Apples have been on sale lately and I’m constantly thinking of other creative ways to use them. Let me know what types of things you do with yours!
Are you one of those people who cry when cutting an onion? I am when the purple ones are involved. I decided to google up ways to lessen the tears when chopping onions and this is some of what I found.
1. Cut onion over an open flame.
2. Chill your onion in a freezer.
3. Wear gas tight goggles or a mask
4. Stick your tongue out
5. Whistle
These all are seemingly ridiculous. I’d like to know if you’ve tried any of these and if they work!
I found these beautiful racks of ribs one day for sale so I decided to figure out how to make Honey Garlic Ribs. By figure out, I basically just made it up with items I had in the house. We also had a bulk load of honey, so I thought I might as well use it.
Tiana Feng 