On Sunday morning, I got up a little later than usual and I had a bunch of things to do.

So many that I even had to write them down to keep my sanity.

On the list:
– Five Spice Baked Chicken – marinate DONE!
– Cream Broccoli soup
– Butternut squash puree
– Dumplings
– Marinate tofu – press first
– Vacuum/cleaning
– Ab-tastic Exercise Challenge

Obviously, I didn’t finish everything on one day.

Here what I managed to do:
– Five Spice Baked Chicken – baked
– Cream Broccoli soup
– Dumplings
– Ab-tastic Exercise Challenge
– Pressed the tofu

K was kind enough to do the vacuum and cleaning 🙂

Five Spice Baked Chicken (Primal)
Ingredients:
– 2 cornish hen
– 1 white onion -sliced
– 1 Tbsp honey
– 3-4 Tbsp tamari soy sauce
– 2 tsp salt
– 3-4 tsp five spice powder
– 3-5 garlic cloves
– 1 inch of ginger

Directions:
1. Mash garlic and ginger with mortar pestle or food processor
2. Mix with the tamari soy sauce and five spice powder

3. Line the sliced white onions on the baking dish
4. Place 2 cornish hen and rub the seasonings generously

5. Marinate for about 4 hours or overnight.
6. Bake for about 1 hour or until done in 425°F – turn it over once (I reduced the heat to 375°F towards the end b/c the onions start to get burn)

Not quite pretty but taste very very yummy! 😀 It has similar taste to those char siu sauce. Who needs a sodium, msg, processed sugar and chemical added store bought char siu sauce when you can make it your own? The onions gave the sweetness and nothing beats the smell of caramelized onions! Hmmm….

Next…
After I saw Zuzana from Bodyrock.tv posted her Broccoli Cream Turkey Breast recipe I couldn’t wait to try it. As usual, I always HAVE to tweak the ingredients. For some reason I just CAN’T stick to the recipe to the “T”.

The recipe should be very simple but since I don’t like do good with milk, I used my homemade almond milk. I spent at least 1 hour to make the almond milk prior making the dish. But fresh almond milk always taste the best 😀

Cream Broccoli Soup with Chicken (modified from Bodyrock.tv) – Primal
Ingredients:
About 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts -cubed
3-4 broccoli crowns
About 2 cups of almond milk
Freshly squeezed lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
Salt, pepper
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 white onion – minced
2 shallots – minced
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp avocado oil

Optional:
– chopped walnuts
– shredded carrots

Directions:
1. Heat up the pan with 1 Tbsp avocado oil in medium high heat
2. Saute onions, garlic and shallots until translucent – add in the butter
3. Pour in the almond milk- bring slowly to boil – don’t over boil – just simmer is enough
4. Once it simmers, add the chopped broccoli

5. Season with coriander, salt, and cumin to taste
6. When the broccoli is soft, turn off the heat and let it cool down
7. While waiting, heat up a pan with 1 Tbsp avocado oil in medium high heat
8. Lightly pan fry the cubed chicken meat until brown
9. After the soup has cooled down, puree it in your food processor

Serve!

Instead adding the chicken into the soup, I decided to keep it aside and add them in when consuming it.

Option: Add grated carrots and chopped walnuts or any other nuts for extra crunch!

The cream broccoli soup might not look appetizing (it reminds me of baby food LOL) but it taste AH-mazing!

Still with me? One more: Dumplings!

Pork Dumplings/ Meatballs (not quite primal due to the gluten in dumpling wraps)
Ingredients:
– 2 lbs ground pork meat (I picked a meat cut and asked the butcher to ground it. I don’t like buying pre-grounded pork)
– 1-2 jicama – minced
– 1 egg
– 3 green onions – chopped
– 1-2 cups of shredded cloud ear fungus
– 3-5 cloves of garlic
– 1 inch of ginger
– 1 white onion -minced
– 1/2 tsp white pepper
– 3-5 Tbsp tamari soy sauce
– 1/2 package of dumpling/wonton wraps (to keep it primal, skip the wraps and just make meatballs)

Directions:
1. Mash garlic and ginger (I used mortar pestle)
2. Soak the dried cloud ear fungus until soft
3. Mix all ingredients (mushrooms, mashed ginger-garlic, chopped jicama, chopped green onions, egg) – season accordingly.



To taste, boil a little bit meat piece in microwave.
4. Wrap in the dumpling skin

5. Boil a pot of water
Good ones – boil for about 5 minutes – until it’s floating

Badly wrapped – steam for about 7 minutes or more

Dash with sesame oil – serve!

I froze the rest of the meat mixture for another time. Next time I might just steam the meat 🙂

Remember the homemade chicken broth I made?
It came handy to make this super simple vegetable soup!

tomatoes, carrots, some Asian veggies – yummers!

After all those chaos, I still completed my workout of the day! 😀

Do you always stick to the t when following a recipe?
I can never make same dishes exactly the same. There’s always something a bit different from the last time I made it. Baking on the other hand is the ONLY thing that I usually do it consistently.

How do you and your significant other or roommate divide the house chores?
I usually do most of the cooking and some cleaning, K does most of the cleaning and dishes. 🙂

• Tweet