Lemon Chicken (檸檬雞) Recipe

Adapted from Chinese Lemon Chicken by Bobby (BlogChef.net) :) Thanks for a great recipe! 

Sweetness with a hint of sour :) 

Thick, sweet lemon sauce poured over deep-fried chicken pieces, served over rice
> Origin: Chinese
> Cost: Inexpensive
> Ease: Moderate

 Lemon chicken is a classical favourite when it comes to Chinese cuisine. Even though it's called lemon chicken, the sourness of the lemon is never overpowering and it complements the sweet flavour well. I've tried many different versions of lemon chicken-- some of which are too sour, or just taste plain weird. To be very honest, I did a lot of adjustment with the sauce after making the lemon sauce. Like with any recipe, it's important to taste the sauce before adding it to the chicken, otherwise you might ruin the whole thing, right? 

Chocolate Banana Cake Recipe

Decadent chocolate cake with the deliciousness of bananas <3 

Rich and moist chocolate cake baked with fragrant mashed bananas and melted chocolate chips, topped with a creamy chocolate ganache

> Origin: Chocolate
> Cost: Cheap
> Ease: Easy

Who doesn't love chocolate cake? Honestly, this is a REALLY rich chocolate cake. This is kind of just a basic chocolate cake recipe you can find anywhere on the internet, with some bananas and chocolate chips added in. *I got the adding in small chocolate chips from a site, but I can't remember for the life of me. If I find, I shall link you guys!* I found that the banana taste was a bit too weak, so next time I make it, I think I'll be more generous with the bananas, since banana chocolate cake is awesome. I might also do a layer cake, in which there's a center chocolate banana mixture for texture-sake. I loved the chocolate ganache, and I tend to make it and just pour like crazy whenever I make chocolate cakes now. I did make a mistake of pouring it on too soon with the first cake I made, it's a lot better to let it cool so it thickens a bit more, so it doesn't all pour off onto the plate :P ! 

Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐) Recipe

Delicate Szechuan spice with the soft texture of tofu :) 

Spicy chili tofu mixed with marinated minced pork in Szechuan style served over rice

> Origin: Chinese
> Cost: Inexpensive
> Ease: Moderate

I always loved Mapo Tofu. It's a really easy dish to make if you're feeling Chinese food, but you don't want to put any effort in. The hardest part would be finding the ingredients in a non-Asian-invaded city (*cough*Hamilton*cough*). That being said, I imported all my materials (firm tofu, chili sauce, black bean sauce) from my hometown, Markham, when I go back for the weekends. This dish is really customizable. I know there are many people who prefer it to be less 'saucy' and more dry, so they add less water and oil when cooking. Some people like it more spicy, others like it more black bean-flavoured. That being said, this recipe is very 'traditional' restaurant style (minus the MSG). Best is served over fresh jasmine rice, but for the sake of I-am-a-poor-student-and-I-have-no-rice-ness, I used short grain rice, which honestly wasn't bad. I hear there's also a Japanese variation of Mapo Tofu. I'd like to try that someday...... in Japan.

Sneak Peek

Hey guys! 

Yes, I am posting this at 4:00 AM :) and I'm currently trying to resist the urge to post all the recipes all at once. I have around 20 more recipes to post before I'm technically "caught up". I'll try to post them all up as soon as I can, just so that the new projects won't get mixed in with the old ones. I wish I started one of these blogs earlier though. In any case, I'm posting the public link to one of my Facebook albums that contains all the things I've made so far (or most of them anyway). So enjoy! 

Just a little sneak preview of the things I've made... 

If you want me to post any of those recipes next, just leave me a comment or a message or something! 

l'amour toujours♥
michelle 

Japanese Curry with Chicken Katsu (チキンカツカレーライス) Recipe

And the sweet scent of curry sweeps the room, so very delicious...

Japanese Curry with Chicken Katsu
Fragrant Japanese-style curry with a crispy fried chicken breast
> Origin: Japanese
> Cost: Inexpensive
> Ease: Moderate

Japanese curry is bomb :D! It tends to be a bit thicker than curries from other cultures. It also tends to be more on the fragrant and sweet side, rather than awesomely spicy. In fact, a lot of the time, Japanese curry comes in premade cubes that you can buy at the local grocery store. Those tastes pretty good, but something about homemade is always better, right? In addition, you can adjust the taste to your liking. In other words, the salt or spice level is all up to your taste! Though those premade cubes really do save a lot of trouble, but if you don’t buy them on sale, it’s definitely more costly. Cost for time? Convenience for taste? Sometimes, it’s hard to decide…. If it’s cost versus time, as a student, I shouldn’t even be eating curry then! 

Chicken Alfredo Pasta Recipe

I make this quite often actually, sometimes I use more fatty ingredients if I'm feeling fat... Definitely taste the recipe before you add the pasta in, because once the pasta's in, there's no turning back! 

Chicken Alfredo Pasta (Low Fat)
Creamy margarine-milk white sauce with garlic grilled chicken on spaghetti
> Origin: Italian
> Cost: Moderate
> Ease: Easy 

So this is the first recipe that I took a picture of… It’s not that I never made anything before this, it’s just that I happened to start using my new camera around this time. In any case, this recipe was something adapted from a long while ago. I don’t even remember where I got it from or what the original recipe was. There’s a lot of substituting going on here due to my lack of ingredients, being a poor student… But it turned out pretty good. Just keep in mind that the recipe itself is very make-shift… as I don’t really follow the recipe to a T. So make adjustments where necessary! There’s your disclaimer right there :P ! 

Omurice (オムライス) Recipe

This is the first time I've tried making this, it really is different than how it looks! Still delicious though :) 
とてもおいしかったですよね！

OMURICE (オムライス) 
Fried rice wrapped in a fluffy omelette
> Origin: Japanese
> Cost: Inexpensive
> Ease: Extremely easy 

After having read so much manga with maid cafes, I’ve always wanted to try making Omurice. After looking up many recipes and watching many tutorials, I decided to try my hand at this. To be very honest, I always thought that it was made with white rice, but then I realized that it wouldn’t be very tasty at all. The fried rice is actually pretty versatile, you can put whatever kind of fried rice you want in it, It’s pretty much up to you. But since tomato and eggs go extremely well together, I decided to make a tomato-based fried rice to suit the egg and ketchup that goes on top.