15-Minute Vegan Beef Tacos

As much as I love spending time creating in the kitchen, I simply don’t have time these days to explore as much as I’d like to. What happens to your diet when you don’t have time? Some might resort to fast food. Some might befriend their neighborhood vending machine. Some might eat copious amounts of…

Crispy Crunchy Wraps

You take a bite. The warm tortilla crunches soundly against your teeth, breaking into brittle shards as the delicious contents reveal themselves to your taste buds. This is the ideal wrap—crunchy and light, simple enough to make on a weekday but good enough to bring to a potluck. The best part is this: all you need…

Vegan BBQ Pulled Pork

    This. Is. Amazing. And also one of my favorite food hacks. Who knew that jackfruit – a spiky-looking fruit thing – could be used to make a nice, hearty barbecue? Obviously, this won’t be the exact same as pulled pork. But it does have way fewer calories if that’s what you’re into, and is also way better in…

Baked Honey & Soy Sauce Chicken Thighs

  Astoundingly tender. Sweet like warm honey, yet dangerous like an addiction. If you have chicken thighs in the freezer, thaw them now. Break out the honey left over from the No-Oven Honey Roasted Almonds. If you don’t have soy sauce, go buy some right now. If you’re going to try one main dish from anything on…

30-Minute Spiced Chicken Thighs

You probably know chicken. You probably know it’s pretty easy to make, it’s almost always savory, and it plays nice with a bunch of different other foods. While I’ve been mostly vegetarian/vegan lately, I do enjoy some nice, responsibly-raised chicken once in a while. I usually go for the chicken breasts (lean and mean) —…

Healthy Marinated & Steamed Tilapia

My mom is a seasoned veteran of the home cooking world, but even she raved over this recipe. “Cici,” she said excitedly on the phone. “You have to try this out.” “Oh, okay, yeah,” I replied, hoping she wasn’t using her mom senses to detect what I was eating at the moment. “What are you doing…

Baked & Breaded Fish Fillets

  Don’t get me wrong, I love my deep-fried fish fillets—preferably wedged between two sides of a warm and soft taco shell, embedded between a sprinkling of vibrant vegetables and topped with some form of zesty sauce.  But we can’t always have what we want. Sometimes we have to (try to be) somewhat (kind of) healthy….

Simple Onion and Bell Pepper Stir-Fry

This is the ultimate Asian comfort food: easy to make, simply delicious, and goes really well with plain white rice. It doesn’t get any easier than this. Stir-frying is already one of the simplest cooking techniques, and the onion-and-bell-pepper combo is one of my all-time favorites. The onion’s aroma mingles with the crispy freshness of the…

Spicy Chili Meatballs

Don’t you dare buy pre-made meatballs ever again. Don’t take that as a challenge. This is not truth or dare. It’s not opposite day either. No but really it isn’t. Are you confused? Good. Now let’s get to the real business. For the longest time, I was intimidated by meatballs. You’re handling raw meat, first…

Commentary Cici: Souped-up Soup

When I hear the word “chicken noodle soup,” I have one reaction: let me eat it. That was particularly true last week when I experienced my first college illness. I desperately wanted chicken noodle soup, but my options were limited to Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, both of which contained literally…

Juicy 15-Minute Pork Chops

This was the recipe that made me fall in love with thick cuts of meat. See, as an Asian, I’ve been taught to be deathly afraid of pink steak/pork/fish/clowns. Rule of thumb: if the meat isn’t cooked to death, neither is the bacteria. My carnivorous experience wasn’t juicy, tasty, or tender. It was basically the…

Red Wine Vinegar Mushroom & Onion

Sometimes stir-fry gets monotonous. Chop, oil, fry, stir, sprinkle with salt. Where’s the fun in that? Trick question. There is no fun. But one rainy day found me standing in front of the vinegar section in the supermarket, wondering if a new type of vinegar was the missing piece in my life. Balsamic vinegar was too…

Salt & Vinegar Potato Stir-Fry

This is like salt and vinegar potato chips, except Asian and way healthier. The best part, though, is that this won’t make you feel like you’re pregnant with a seven-month food baby, as potato entrées usually do. Unless you’re already seven months pregnant, in which case stir-fried potatoes won’t help either. Potatoes are commonly stir-fried in China, but…

Flaky Steamed Tilapia

It seems unfair to the laws of the universe that this is so healthy, yummy, and easy at the same time. But the universe made Hot Cheetos, and this is my revenge. This is a Chinese style of cooking tilapia, and my family would always cook the fish in this way before we discovered the…

Sweet & Sour Ribs

This ain’t your cheap take-out version of sweet ‘n sour. No “all-you-can-eat,” MSG BS. This is authentic Chinese sweet and sour, applied to spare ribs. These are the best. I know, because my Asian granny taught me how to make this, and my granny is more Asian than yours. Note: This recipe can be applied…