Category Archives: Recipe

31Mar / 2025

Recipe: Filipino Garlic Fried Rice

Garlic Fried Rice and you got me, fully. But I came across this video on TikTok and watched as they fried up the garlic and then added a can of vienna sausages which they then smushed with a fork so it was little bits, add eggs and day old rice…top with some green onions and you’ve got yourself a beautiful Filipino Garlic Fried Rice! There’s not even a full recipe, I’ll post the ingredients I used below.

Did I tell you folks I started using pre-peeled garlic and a garlic press? Wow, never has my life been easier. The taste of the garlic is not compromised. I can’t finish a whole big bag of garlic so I just put it in the freezer and use it as I need it. Thaws out really quick! Sometimes I might use fresh garlic but generally, I just use the pre-peeled one! Just like this here! Brown in a hot pan on medium low heat to get a nice brown to the garlic (not burnt).

Add a can of drained vienna sausages and mash coarsely with a fork. (Don’t pay attention to my burnt garlic). Stir fry for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Add 2 eggs and stirfry together to create a quick scramble. No need to cook it too much…add the rice almost immediately!

Add some chopped green onions and season with salt and soy sauce to your liking. I thought the vienna sausage was plenty salty – it wasn’t. I also prefer a bit of spice so I used a lot of hot sauce as I ate it. Just a simple and flavorful fried rice!

Filipino Garlic Fried Rice

1 T neutral oil (avocado, corn, vegetable, etc.)
2 C day old rice (rice cooker cups, I used Jasmine)
1 can of vienna sausages, drained
5-6 cloved of garlic, minced
2 eggs, whisked/combined
1-2 stalks of green onions, sliced
Soy Sauce to taste
Salt to taste

Heat pan on medium to medium low heat, add neutral oil and garlic and slowly fry until garlic is fragrant and lightly toasted. Add vienna sausages to pan and immediately mash with a metal fork coarsely, fry for about a minute. Add eggs and create a quick scramble before adding all the rice. Mix it all together and stir fry about 2 minutes. Add green onions, soy sauce and salt to taste. Enjoy!

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28Mar / 2025

Mixed Plate Friday

Chicken Katsu Curry | $6.99

Don’t get to frequent 7-eleven too much now but was excited to see this on my last visit so I had to try it! Not going to be a good judge because I had to microwave it myself and timed it wrong so it was still kind of cold when I was eating it but was too lazy to continue heating it after I already opened it up. They have a transparent sheet that separates the chicken katsu from the curry that you pull out when you dig in. Interesting way to keep the chicken “crispy” but let’s be real, it’s not crispy when we are grabbing this from the fridge lol. This was okay but the chicken portion is small, would rather just go L&L to grab a freshly made one.

Homemade Udon Salad

Made a variation of the Japanese Udon Salad I usually make, linked above. Same concept, I just varied up the ingredients a bit! The biggest main stay for me is the goma dressing and fresh cilantro. Other than that, you can do whatever you like! I even made Japanese styled seasoned shiitake mushrooms for the first time. Yum!

Corned Beef

Happy Belated Saint Patrick’s Day! This kine food is more Chan’s style but we bought some corned beef so we made it the other week. Threw in some potatoes, cabbage and carrots. He sous-vide the beef and then we threw it in with the vegetables into his pressure cooker insta-pot. It was spewing things out like a volcano when I released the vent. I don’t use these contraptions like ever. Anyway, have a nice weekend!

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10Feb / 2025

Recipe: School Kine Pizza

Do you folks remember the school kine lunch pizza? I sure did. The rectangular slices of pizza that had a super soft and bready crust with the pizza sauce, cubed pepperoni and cheese on top? Simplicity at its best! Well I am WELL out of school age but still think about this from time to time. Apparentely I am not the only one since there are many recipes out there. I went crazy and bought all the ingredients to try to make this at home. The recipe calls for a “pourable” crust, I’m intrigued. So how did it go?

Dry Ingredients! It didn’t call for sifting but I did it anyway.

Grease your pan and add a thin layer of cornmeal.

Yup, it’s a pourable crust. Here it is! Let it rest in the pan for 20 minutes before baking.

I made this recipe twice, the first time – the crust was not enough so for the second time, I made 1.5 of the crust recipe and I think that did the trick in terms of thickness of the crust. The first time it was much too thin and burned at the edges.

Spices for your homemade pizza sauce!

Oh my gosh, this pizza sauce recipe was so easy to make. Who knew?? It was mainly a can of tomato paste but you have to buy a bunch of seasonings including marjoram which I never used before. But boy was it easy to make…

I went a little hog wild with the toppings, I wanted pepperoni and italian sausage for the second round but they don’t sell the italian sauage little balls in stores! You know? Like the ones you get when you order pizza?? So I had to buy a tray of the italian sausage myself and then ball them and fry them up before using them. Ugh. But here is the meats and sauce on top of the pre-baked crust…

So. Much. Cheese. You use a lot of cheese for this recipe. You actually add a bit of cheese to the pizza sauce too and then the rest goes on top. How much did I use? Well the big two pack shredded mozzarella cheese from Sam’s, I used a full bag.

Voila! All baked and ready to eat. What was the verdict? Mixed. I didn’t care for it myself because the crust isn’t what I liked or remembered, wasn’t soft. This crust is kind of hard and super bready/doughy. The brothers, devoured it. My coworker, she liked it! Chan? I think he just thought it was just ok. So yeah, not much of a winner. Perhaps I could just buy the Pilsbury pizza crust in the can and just make the pizza sauce myself next time. I’m glad I tried it to finally simmer down my interest but I don’t think this recipe matches what I had in school.

School Lunch Pizza

Pourable Pizza Crust
Ingredients

  • ½ teaspoon (7 g) Active Dry Yeast
  • 1 ⅔ C (375 ml) Warm Water (110 °F)
  • 2 ½ C (320 g) All-purpose flour
  • ¾ C (55 g) Instant, non-fat dry milk
  • 2 T (25 g) Sugar
  • ¼ t Salt
  • 1 ½ t Vegetable Oil (or more, enough to grease pan)
  • 1 ½ T (15 g) Cornmeal

Revised Crust Recipe (1.5 size measurements)

  • 10.5 g Active Dry Yeast
  • 2.4 C (562.5 ml) Warm Water (110 °F)
  • 480 g All-purpose flour
  • 82.5 g Instant, non-fat dry milk
  • 35 g Sugar
  • ½ t Salt
  • 2 ¼ t Vegetable Oil (or more, enough to grease pan)
  • 22.5 g Cornmeal

Directions

For best results, have all ingredients and utensils at room temperature.

  1. Dissolve dry yeast in warm water. Let stand 4-5 minutes.
  2. Place flour, milk, sugar, and salt in mixer bowl. Using a whip, blend on low speed for 4 minutes.
  3. Add dissolved yeast and oil. Blend on medium speed for 10 minutes. Batter will be lumpy.
  4. Coat sheet pan with oil and sprinkle cornmeal on pan evenly.
  5. Pour batter into pan. Let stand for 20 minutes.
  6. Prebake until crust is set: Conventional oven: 475 °F for 10 minutes. Convection oven: 425 °F for 7 minutes.
  7. Top each prebaked crust with desired topping or use Pizza With Ground Beef Topping recipe (see D-31), or Pizza With Cheese Topping recipe (see D-30).
  8. Bake until heated through and cheese is melted: Conventional oven: 475 °F for 10-15 minutes. Convection oven: 425 °F for 5 minutes.
  9. Portion by cutting each sheet pan 4×5 (20 pieces per pan).

Recipe Credit: Tasting History with Max Miller

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05Feb / 2025

Recipe: Korean Spicy Baby Octopus with Pork Belly

I’ve been ordering Korean Spicy Baby Octopus with Pork Belly at Frog House many times and I absolutely love it. While I can’t recreate the dish with the proper wok hei at home, I think I did pretty good! I made a batch and ate it with Chan. He liked it too! It’s a bit of a hassle recipe so I think I rather go eat it at Frog House lol.

Holy Grail Sauce

Sliced Zucchini and Carrots

Sliced Onions

Baby octopus massaged with flour – this helps to take away the smell

I found this in the frozen seafood section of Hmart – another name for it is webfoot octopus.

Look at how cute it is after parboiling. Almost too cute to eat, not really though, I’ll eat it.

Frying up the pork belly, adding sugar was an interesting step but a good one! Caramelized pork!

Frying up the pork with the onions

Frying up the octopus and onions with the zucchini and carrots – adding the octpus, sauce and green onions…

Voila! Done! Serve it with somen noodles or white rice!

Korean Spicy Baby Octopus with Pork Belly

Ingredients

  • 300 g Pork Belly, thin – 2 inch slices
  • 300 g Webfoot Octopus
  • 100 g Green Onions (sliced angled – 1 inch sticks)
  • 120 g Onion (half onion), sliced thin
  • 50 g Carrot, sliced thin
  • 2 medium zucchinis, sliced thin
  • 20 g chili pepper (optional)
  • 1 T sugar
  • ⅔ C water
  • Sesame Oil to taste (1 T, more or less to your taste)
  • 2-3 T Flour (to clean octopus)

Sauce Ingredients

  • 3 T Red Pepper Powder (Gochugaru)
  • 2 T Red Pepper Paste (Gochujjang)
  • 4 T Soy Sauce
  • ½ T Oyster Sauce
  • 1 ½ T Corn Syrup
  • 1 ½ T Sugar
  • 25 g Garlic (5-6 cloves)

Directions

  1. Place 2-3 T of flour on the octopus and massage for 1-2 minutes, rinse octopus thoroughly in water and drain.
  2. Combine sauce ingredients and set aside.
  3. Parboil octopus in boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain and cut octopus into more bite size pieces (in half works fine), set aside.
  4. Cook pork belly in large skillet for 1-2 minutes, add 1 T sugar and continue browning pork belly over medium high heat.
  5. Add onions and cook while stirring for about 1-2 minutes until the onions are nice and browned.
  6. Add ⅔ of the sauce and continue to stirfry for about a minute. Add ⅔ C of water and continue to stir fry for another minute.
  7. Add sliced carrots and zucchini (chili pepper too if you are using it), stirfry for 3-4 minutes until vegetables get a bit tender. 
  8. Add octopus, green onions and remaining ⅓ of the sauce and continue to stirfry for 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle on sesame oil right when the dish is complete and mix it in. 
  9. Serve with bowls of hot rice or over cooked and drained somen noodles!

Recipe Inspired by: hoon & elen’s today cuisine

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17Jan / 2025

Mixed Plate Friday

Chan and I went over to a friend’s house for mochi making before the New Year. This is the first time I’ve ever been to one and wow…they have a freaking system for it! More like 4 systems, look at those mochi makers! They make a whole bunch to share with friends and family. I was a part of the assembly line to shape the mochi. They even bought a new contraption this year that also cuts the mochi down to size! What an efficient process!

Mini Garden Express Roast Duck & Chicken on Rice | $15.50

I haven’t been to Mini Garden Express in such a long time. We used to go to Ranch 99 all the time because they just had so much options for meals. Do we really need another Home Depot so close to the one in Iwilei? I don’t think so. Or could Home Depot have considered my feelings and kept the food court at the bottom and just built on top of it (lol)? Anyway, came here the other weekend to grab dinner. My god, the prices. I mean if I think about it objectively now, I guess this is actually a good price. You’re getting roast duck and shoyu chicken and roast duck is not cheap nowadays. They don’t make the best roast duck but it’s good enough. I used to get it with fried rice but I didn’t want to pay the additional $3, I’m broke right now okay? LOL.

Prime Rib

Christmas calls for a prime rib. Prime rib is so crazy expensive, I think this hunk of meat which wasn’t even that big cost me upwards of $83. It gets gobbled down so fast that I wish I just baked a chuck roast hahaha nah nah. Gotta do it up at least once a year. The cooking method is perfect as always – and because I was tired and lazy, I didn’t even do the slits with garlic inside and it still turned out good. Now I can be even lazier.

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15Jan / 2025

Recipe: Japanese Miso Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry

I try my best to meal prep every weekend so that I have lunch for the week. It’s not always easy but hopefully it keeps me eating a little healthier and helps me save money. I follow Haruma Recipe on YouTube and have made a few of his recipes, he makes some really good dishes – just simple Japanese dishes. This one couldn’t be simpler, I had to try it! It doesn’t even ask for minced garlic, no real chopping needed. I don’t know about you folks, but I have always bought fresh garlic and peel and mince it myself. I would never use the “jarlic” but I am seriously considering buying the pre-peeled garlic and one of those garlic crushers – I think it would make me a much happier person lol. I’ll keep you folks posted.

Junkest part is cutting up raw chicken breast and seasoning it, I don’t love handling raw chicken. He is genius, he cuts up a milk carton, cleans it and lays it flat on his cutting board to cut up the chicken. You gotta watch his video, I’ll link it below.

A simple miso sauce, broccoli and chicken breast and you’ve got a dish! So easy. I taste tested it, not bad! Nothing crazy delicious or fancy, just a good simple dish you know?

Taste of Japan: Umami-Packed Miso Chicken and Broccoli Stir-fry Recipe


[Ingredients / 1-2 servings]

  • 250-300g Broccoli
  • 300g Chicken breast

[Seasoning / Miso sauce]
・25g Miso
・10g Soy sauce
・18g Cooking Sake
・12g Sugar

[Toppings etc.]
・Black pepper

Recipe Source: [Haruma Recipe]Japanese Food Recipes in English

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14Oct / 2024

Recipe: Spicy Nametake Tofu

Not much of a recipe today folks. Went to a potluck and someone brought a dish similar to this and I loved it so much. The recipe was of course…oh just throw these things together (lol). So I had to just guess at what to throw on. I just got a block of soft tofu, a bottle of the nametake (seasoned mushroom) which I mixed with some crunch garlic chili oil. Oh brah, I can just eat this whole block of tofu in one sitting.

Look at how pretty! I usually buy the tofu from Sam’s or Costco so you know it doesn’t look like this. I bought this one from a grocery store, forgot the brand but if you want this one, just look at the bottom of the tofu package for this design and you will get this!

Yum yum yum.

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30Sep / 2024

Recipe: Kona Inn Banana Bread

Hi everyone! So sorry for the unannounced break. This is peak busy season for me at work so it’s just been super hard. I also haven’t been eating out with good food lately so even moreso I don’t have much to post. Might be more mixed plate posts than not. I hope you folks are all doing well! I’m actually heading to Korea at the end of October and while that sounds like I have a lot of time, I really don’t (lol). Time has been flying by and October is in DAYS.

Before I get into the recipe, I can announce that KCC 220 Grille is currently back in service! Go support the culinary students and get some onolicious wallet-friendly food! Here is the link: https://sites.google.com/hawaii.edu/culinaryartsprogram-kapcc/220-grille?authuser=0.

Anyway, quick recipe post. Someone posted this recipe on Facebook – it was definitely a picture of an old school recipe book. Everyone was raving about it so I just had to make it.

Doesn’t look super good ah? Like…looks dry almost. I was not convinced. Not until I tried it. Oh my gosh, this bread is so nice and banana-y and super moist, dense but not too dense you know? This is how I found the pan at work…

Insane that people don’t throw things into a rubbish can that is like 2 feet away. I don’t know what to tell you! But safe to say it was a winner. I actually shared 3 loaves with the office and all three were gone in an INSTANT. Here’s the recipe!

Kona Inn Banana Bread

Original Recipe

Ingredients:
1 C butter
2 C sugar
6 or 7 ripe bananas, mashed
4 eggs, well beaten
2 ½ C all-purpose flour, sifted
1 t salt
2 t baking soda

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar thoroughly; add bananas and eggs. Sift dry ingredients; blend into creamed mixture. DO NOT overmix. Pour into two greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 to 50 minutes.

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28Aug / 2024

Recipe: 7 Layer Dip

Yummmm, who doesn’t love a 7 layer dip? Too bad you can’t find 7 layer dip in stores too often. Or it’s only like 5 layers. It’s best homemade and boy…before I made it, I didn’t realize how pricey this can get.

1. Bean Layer (heated up a can of refried beans in the microwave)

    2. Guacamole (bought a big container from the store, too lazy to make my own!)

    3. Big tub of sour cream (I used 14 oz) mixed with one taco seasoning packet, genius!

    4. Salsa! (technically an extra layer so I made an 8 layer dip!)

    5. Green Onions

    6. Shredded Cheese, recipes call for Mexican Blend, I used a bag of Sharp Cheddar and think it worked great.

    7. Chopped Tomatoes (I only needed to chop one tomato up, also deseeded the tomato)

    8. Chopped Olives

    Some of these “layers” are a bit borderline to me. Sprinkling on the tomatoes and olives did not feel like layers but I’ll take it! Actually a very easy dish to make, I like to make it the night before so it can set in the fridge. Serve it up with some tortilla chips! I made two big batches, one for the bros and Chan and one for an office potluck. Was winnahs!

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    16Aug / 2024

    Mixed Plate Friday

    Sushi Robot Breakfast Bento | $4.77

    When Sushi Robot first closed down, I was sad! They were a great place to swing by to grab food after my early morning Don Q run for work. Well, they reopened in the mini food court on the side and I was elated! They are open early and serve up super cheap foods.

    Richie’s Drive Inn Mini Mushroom Chicken | $10.14

    Oh man, to watch Richie’s go down like this is sad. I know they changed ownership recently but I still wanted to give them a chance. My laziness loves that they have a drive thru option even though it’s a hot mess system lol. I decided to give their mushroom chicken a try this day. It’s basically their chicken katsu smothered with mushroom gravy. Was salty and not good. And their mac salad? OH THE BIGGEST HEARTBREAK. They used to have one of the best mac salads around, now they add big chunks of potato and olives? It’s so odd. Did not taste good. Their chili dog plate still seems to be good so I will probably just get my bro that from here on out since that’s his favorite.

    Somen Cone Sushi

    What is the official name for this dish? I made this for a get-together last week. Was a hit! Family loved it, office loved and the friends loved it! I’ve seen variation of this dish but I made it a little different. It has taegu, ocean salad, imitation crab, cucumbers, tropics dressing, etc. And you can’t forget the fresh sprig of cilatnro on top. What a pain to make, it’s easy to cook up but stuffing over 40 of these? It took like over an hour, my back hurt. Anyways, delicious!

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