Griddler, baby!

I LOVE my Cusinart Griddler. I love buying kitchen stuff, but I'm not very good at putting things to use. As a result, my kitchen is filled with stuff, and more than half of them never taken out of the boxes. This summer, I finally busted the griddler out of its shell. Since I don't have a BBQ (not yet anyways, don't worry, that's coming), the Griddler is great for things like sliders. Our favorite though is chicken quesadilla. It's so simple and cooked to order. Even J, who normally doesn't like meat in its original form, loves it and requests it every week or two.

Chicken Quesadilla

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup of shredded cheese (feel free to use whatever mix you like, Mexican, or a simple Jack & Mozzarella)
3 large flour tortilla
salt
oil

Use the Grill plates, brush just a little bit of oil on the plates. (I like to use grill plates for both the chicken and the quesadillas, so they all have the nice grill marks. The griddle plates should work fine too.) Preheat the Grillder on the Panini setting to Medium.

Slice the chicken breasts in halves crosswise. This step is optional, but the thicker the chicken is, the longer it takes to cook.

Sprinkle salt on both sides of the chicken breasts.

Put one layer of the chicken breasts on the grill, depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts, it could take as little as 2 minutes to cook. Repeat with the rest pieces.

Dice the chicken.

Wipe down the plates when they cool down a bit, preheat on the Panini setting to Medium low.

Brush the outside of the tortillas with oil, fill the inside with diced chicken, and cheese.

Grill the quesadilla!

Voila! You are done. You could grill and dice the chicken breasts ahead of time. So dinner would be ready in matter of minutes.

Healthy Yam "Casserole"

In my house, yams or sweet potatoes aren't just for Thanksgiving, but a stable all year long. I simply steam boil them (boil with less than an inch of water). And my kids love it. Couple of days ago, when I was paying for the grocery, the cashier asked me how I made them. I listened to myself as I answered his question, and thought "Man, that was boring!". So in the spirit of holidays, I decided to jazz up my yams American way. The result was great, not only the kids loved it, even hubby, who doesn't like yam, had seconds. It tasted very much like a normal yam casserole that everybody has at Thanksgiving, but much healthier.

Yam with Brown Sugar and Marshmallows

4 large yams (4.5 lbs)
3/4 cup of brown sugar
2.5 oz of marshmallows

Wash the yams, put in a large pot. Add less than one inch of water. Bring to boil. Turn the heat to low, and simmer for 30 to 60 minutes depending on the size of the yams. (There should be no resistance when poking the yams all the way to the center with a fork or chopstick.)

Peel and mash up the yams. Mix in the sugar. Sprinkle the marshmallows on top. Broil till the marshmallows are toasty. (For my oven, this takes about 3 minutes if it was cold, and 1 if it was already hot. The marshmallows can burn pretty quickly, so keep a close eye on it. You can leave the oven door ajar if necessary.)

This recipe can be easily halved. The sugar and marshmallow quantity is extremely flexible. I have done this with about 2 pounds of sweet potatoes, 1/4 cup of sugar and 2.5 oz of marshmallows. The result was equally good.

Lunch Date, Sticky Fingers

Ever since we had J, it had been very difficult for hubby and I to have some quality time, let alone a romantic evening out. I'm sure most parents out there would concur. When we lived in the Bay Area, California, we were only six and half miles from my parents. Every weekend, we'd go over for one day, and they'd come by for the other. I didn't realize what a luxury it was until we moved back to Seattle. Man, I should have taken more advantage of the situation! I could have gone to so many nice restaurants and events if I wanted to. What a bummer! Oh well, enough about the past, we have to make do with our current circumstance. Now that both of the kids are out all day, we can at least have a lunch date once in awhile, except I just realized as I'm typing that we never did that until today that is.

Today, I picked up hubby around noon and drove over to Redmond Town Center to dine at Meritage in Marriott (heehee, I love saying "to dine", it feels so sophisticated). The setting was classy. Hubby got the Marriott Burger with Cheddar Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato on a Sesame Seed Bun along with some Fries ($12), I got the Dungeness Crab cake sandwich with lettuce, tomato, lemon aioli on a toasted sesame seed bun with fresh fruit ($13). If this is your first date, or you are just a very neat eater, don't order either of these. The burger was juicy, the sandwich was saucy. I had so much trickling down my fingers, if you saw me like that, and we weren't super tight, I'd have to kill you. ;) The portion was huge. Both hubby and I were brought up to never waste any food, and finish everything on the plate. The second part might be a little difficult sometimes, but we definitely got the first part down pat. If we couldn't finish, we'd doggy bag it, I wouldn't waste even one grain (OK, that might be a bit of exaggeration, but you got the drift). There were so many fries, they almost ended up in a doggy bag. Hubby thought the burger was really good. The fresh fruit was indeed fresh and generous. I assume the selection is seasonal. For today, there were huge chunks of cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, and pineapple. My sandwich had tons of crab meat in it. My only complaint would be that the chef had a heavy hand on salt today, both the sandwich and the fries were a bit over seasoned. However, consider the nice setting, friendly waitress, and everything else, we'd definitely be back.

Meritage Restaurant and Wine Bar
7401 164th Avenue NE (Marriott), Redmond, WA 98052
(425)498-4002

Something Japanese

The sun was out, it was a beautiful day. As this was very rare in Seattle in November, I couldn't sit still in the house. So I took the bus downtown and walked around. Around 3 o'clock, a happy hour sign caught my eye. Since I don't go into Seattle very often, I thought it was a great opportunity to try some place new. Even though it was a spur of the moment, I'd still like to do a little research, so I picked up couple of brochures in Pacific Place. There, among the list of many eating options, was a place called Japanese Gourmet. What piqued my curiosity was that they had sushi specials during happy hour. The place was easy to find along Stewart Street by Post Alley. I'm quite picky and skeptical when it comes to Asian restaurants. But how much could $2.75 for 2 pieces of nigiri hurt? So I went in and sat at the sushi bar. I started with an order each of Sockeye Salmon and Unagi. Since there was hardly anybody in the restaurant, the sushi chef worked on my order right away. The pieces were large, the salmon was fresh. As I talked with the sushi chef, I found myself wanting more. So I gave in to the urge, and got another order of Sockeye. I'd say that was a pretty satisfactory snack.

I'm not one that would normally chit-chat with restaurant staff. But it seems like I should do it more often, since the sushi chef gave me a tip on how to make certain something. A little suspense is always fun, don't you agree? ;) So until I have successfully made this certain something, I guess you'll have to wait with a little patience to find out what this is. =)

Japanese Gourmet Restaurant
82 Stewart St Seattle, WA 98101
(206)728-6204

Happy Birthday, J!

Sometimes I feel that I'm a terrible mother. A week ago, we asked J what kind of restaurant he'd like to go to for his birthday. We gave him the choices of pizza, American, Chinese, Italian, etc. Imagine our surprise, when he picked sushi. Yes, my California rolls are always a hit with the kids. But we've only gone out for sushi couple of times. Anyways, that's that. So I did a little research on yelp, and decided to try out Tokyo Japanese Restaurant in Loehmann's Plaza in Factoria. I then put it out of my mind. It didn't occur to me until couple of hours before dinner that I didn't make a cake. Can you conceive the sheer horror and panic? Not being a talented pastry chef like Aran from Cannelle et Vanille. I resorted to the unthinkable - a strawberry flavored cake mix. I then made a cream cheese frosting with some strawberry extract and 2 drops of red food coloring. Sometimes it's a blessing that my kids don't have sophisticated taste in food, in this case desserts, yet. My kids even got a kick out of wearing aprons and holding the hand mixer "helping" me with the cake mix and the frosting. =) So cute.

We got to Tokyo Japanese Restaurant shortly after 6. When it comes to Asian food, I never know whether I could trust yelp reviews or not. So I had no expectations. It was a pleasant surprise to find that almost everyone who worked there was Japanese, and most of the patrons were Asian. The place seemed fairly popular and got a flux of people around 6:30.

Hubby didn't want sushi and went with a combo of tempura and tonkatsu. I got chirashi, so that everyone could have some fish to their liking. J got little Tokyo which included gyoza, vegetable and prawn tempura, and California rolls. The kids loved miso soup with all the tofu and wakame seaweed. Hubby and I also had green salad, not much to write about. The tempura was very fluffy, the tonkatsu very tender. Hubby liked everything he got. But I think $18 is a bit steep. My chirashi was very good, very fresh. Don't quote me, but I think it came with 2 pieces of tamago (egg), some ikura (salmon roe), and 14 pieces of fish which included unagi(eel), ebi(shrimp), saba(mackerel), maguro(tuna), sake(salmon), bincho(albacore tuna), tai(red snapper), hamachi(yellow tail) and probably some that I forgot. $23 isn't cheap for chirashi, but both the quality and quantity were very good. I think it was a better value than hubby's meal. Everyone left completely stuffed, and J was quite happy with his choice. I think he felt very grown up being the one "making" the decisions. ;)

Tokyo Japanese Restaurant
3500 Factoria Blvd SE, Bellevue, WA 98006
(425)641-5691

Lincoln Square and Pearl

I don't know what happened to me today, but I just really wanted to go to a happy hour and relax after running errands. (What was I thinking! I know! It's a Friday!) Bradley and Mikel's Pearl Bar and Dining opened recently in Bellevue. So I thought I'd give it a try. Pearl is located Lincoln Square replacing Trader Vic's. I remember thinking Trader Vic's had a bad store front since you couldn't see them from any streets, and you have to walk along or in front of some cars to get to the restaurant. To improve this parking situation, Pearl is offering free valet parking. I decided to self park at Lincoln Square for the first time. (Why not free valet, you ask. Well, I'm just not comfortable with valet. It feels more pretentious to me for some reason. I'm sure it's just me. Plus, if I were trying to be frugal, free valet isn't really free since you (or at least me) feel obligated to tip, whereas self parking IS free after validation.) Self parking at Lincoln Square is NOT fun. I don't know who designs these parking structures. (The parking spots are not tight for once, thank goodness!) If you are going there to shop or dine, not only you are limited to which floors you can park, there are rules about which spaces you can occupy as well. For someone who's going there for the first time, this is quite confusing and annoying. And don't get me started on stopping on an uphill when getting out of the garage.

Anyways, I arrived at Pearl shortly after five when the happy hour was in full swing. (Their happy hour goes from 3 to 6 everyday.) The bar area was so crowded at I couldn't even find a place to stand by the bar. I felt rather silly at this point about going to a happy hour solo on a busy Friday, and contemplated about going over to Palomino or STIR. But at least this once, I persevered - I stopped a waiter to ask for a menu, and a nice elderly couple by the bar let me have some space next to them. Everything on the bar menu is half price. So I got a Shiso Wild Drop that contains Finlandia wildberry vodka, triple sec, house made lemon sour and muddled shiso leaf in a huckleberry tea sugar rimmed martini glass, and an order of ahi tuna. The Shiso Drop was very good, sweet but not syrupy, just the way I like it. The seared ahi tuna on the other hand, was unconventional. It was wrapped in nori (seaweed), dipped in a spice rub (according to the menu, though it looked and tasted like Tempura batter to me) and fried. It was accompanied with some soy vinaigrette. The soy vinaigrette was nice, the ahi, though stayed raw during the quick frying process, tasted floury to me for whatever reason that I couldn't figure out. (No, it wasn't the batter either as I tried a bite of tuna without any nori or batter/rub.) While the taste was a little disappointing, at least the price was good. (The total came to $10 + tax + tip.) I left in a hurry to go home to make dinner for the kids without much relaxing or people watching. =) But I'm pretty sure I'd be back again. Maybe next time, I'd try the pork slider or crab cakes.

Pearl Bar and Dining
700 Bellevue Way NE, Suite 50, Bellevue, WA 98004
(425)455-0181

Halloween

About a month ago, K told me that she was throwing a Halloween party. So for the first time in years, instead of waiting in the house for trick-or-treaters, we were going to spend Halloween with some other adults. (That's exciting, isn't it? Yes, I know, my life is boring.) This party was what I looked forward to all week.

Right after trick-or-treating at Bell Square, (if you live in the area and don't know, Bellevue Collections hosts a trick-or-treating and a number of other activities on Halloween that are quite exciting for little kids) we headed over to K's. Being a person whose world revolve around food, I always worry about if there were enough food at parties. You certainly don't want to have guests wondering what else they could nibble on after someone takes that last scoop of dip. So I brought along a baked brie and some Parmesan crackers. I used half of a wheel of brie from Costco. And since that was much bigger than what the recipe called for, I had to roll out the puff pastry quite a bit. The apple compote and the brie complemented each other perfectly. It was a big hit. I wanted to serve the crackers alongside the brie, so I omitted pepper and rosemary altogether. (Oh, who am I kidding? That's just an excuse. The real reason was that I didn't have any fresh rosemary.) I ended up with 36 crackers. I probably cut them a little thin, so the dough kept on cracking (haha, no pun intended) that I had to reshape them a bit. But I thought they were the perfect thickness, I wouldn't want them any thicker.

I also made a French Onion Tart based on fellow seattlite Orangette's Molly's recipe. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the party (which was only 6:15), most people already had a fair share of the food, and the tart got a little cold. So not many people tried it, even after I reheated it in the oven. Lesson learned, next time, I should take things that still taste good eaten at room temperature or on the cold side of the temperature.

But I really shouldn't have worried about there not being enough food. K is a big food person like me. She often prepares way more food than necessary. There were tons of choices from the sophisticated crab dip to the Asian-influenced kalbi marinated flank steak to the very American hot dogs and tater tots to the various types of chips, AND desserts, such as cookies, dessert breads and rice krispy treats. I wouldn't bore you as the list went on, but you got the drift.
Everybody chatted and drank and nibbled while all the kids ran around the house and went trick-or-treating not once, but twice! We all went home happy and full. The only lingering thought on my mind was that I didn't realize it was a costume party. So now I have to start thinking about what I'd be next year. =)