Meal of the Day: BBQ Chicken-Touille

Remember the Pixar movie "Ratatouille"?  Just replace "rata-" with "bbq chicken" and this dish is as easy as that!

Revamping Your Leftovers

Everyone has their likes and dislikes about leftovers.  Either it's enough to feed 1 mouth or not enough to feed 3 hungry mouths.  But this is where you dive into your creative side of cooking.  Even if you don't have that, everyone is creative with their appetite.  When your tummy starts grumbling and wants you to put something in your belly, you start to imagine what will satisfy your taste buds.  You want to fill that void of hunger and make some use of your leftovers before they get thrown into the garbage.  There's no need to waste food if there are people who can't afford to eat a meal everyday (just saying).

So, what I had in my fridge was roughly 2 cups of white rice and 1 strip of pork belly.  Luckily, I did a quick run to the supermarket to pick up some essential produce that I always have in stock.  I ended up making torta (tour-tah) or an omelette with ground beef and fried rice with vegetables.

Torta (on left) and fried rice with veggies (on right)

Don't Skip on the Veggies!

After a 2 week vacation, last night was the return of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

His guest was First Lady Michelle Obama who was promoting her new book "American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America".  I applaud Madame President for her wanting to beat childhood obesity with her campaign Let's Move!.  Also, I appreciate her desire in educating children (and other people) about eating healthy food.

Last night's episode definitely foreshadowed today's cooking show that inspired me to get off my couch and cook a healthy dish.  I was watching "30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray" (love her!) and she put together a dish that was inspired by a trip with her husband to Italy.  This dish has all vegetables that you can find in your garden or local supermarket and was meatless.  Now, in my household, meat is everything!  When you have a growing 3 year old, you need to feed them anything and everything.  I wanted to give this dish a shot because it has my daughter's favorite ingredient (pasta) and my favorite as well (peppers and zucchini).  I love cooking with vegetables and try my best to incorporate as much colored vegetables in my dishes without my daughter tossing it to the side.

So, here's the outcome of my dish.  I followed the recipe step-by-step but substituted fettuccine with linguine (it was the only long pasta that my local Asian supermarket had).  Side note: I live in an Asian influenced town so there are a ton of Asian-owned businesses.  Anyway, what makes this dish special to me is that I walked to my Asian supermarket to purchase all my produce.  It was a great excuse to leave my house, walk 15 minutes to buy food, and come home to cook a delicious meal.

If you're feeling "green", then click the link above to re-create Rachael Ray's dish.  I promise you won't be disappointed.