030 Skinny Fettuccine Alfredo

One of the biggest challenges I've faced being an "adult" is not having mom around to help with dinner. Fully aware of the fact that I'm both incredibly lucky and spoiled, getting home after work and cooking has been one of the biggest changes I've had to deal with. My pre-dinner routine usually consists of me Googling or Pinteresting combinations of "easy", "cheap", "quick", and "dinner". Also "pasta". I like pasta a lot.

This week, I finally found a recipe that seemed to fit my aforementioned criteria. Most importantly, I already had all the required ingredients (this is the most important aspect of all my cooking projects, honestly). It substituted most the fattening (albeit delicious) ingredients with healthier, low-fat ingredients and promised the same delicious taste, so I had to give it a go.

First, boil some generously salted water, and get your pasta going. According to ask.com, the reason you add salt to water when making pasta is to 1) add a bit of flavor/seasoning to the pasta, and 2) bring the boiling temperature up to allow the pasta to cook faster and better. If it's on the Internet, it must be true, so do it! :)

I didn't have fettuccine at home, so I substituted it with angel hair pasta.

Fettuccine imposter.

While the pasta is cooking, you can start creating the alfredo sauce. Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute for about a minute until fragrant. Believe you me, I am a big fan of using fresh ingredients as often as possible, but I'm also a big fan of keeping things simple...You can substitute fresh garlic for pre-minced garlic that you can buy at Walmart. 1 clove = 1/2 tsp.

No shame.

Gradually add the flour and stir to combine. Continue cooking for a minute. Then, slowly add chicken broth, continuously stirring/whisking until you reach a smooth consistency. Add milk, and bring the mixture to a simmer. Allow the sauce to thicken slightly...

...then add the best part! The cheese!

Yep. 

Allow the cheese to melt completely, and reduce heat to keep the sauce warm. When the pasta is al dente or however dente you want it to be, drain in a colander.

Add the pasta into your delicious sauce, and toss to combine.

Keepin' it real with chopsticks, cause this is an Asian household.

Now here is where I varied from the original recipe slightly. Apparently, my boyfriend is a 5th grader, so I had to add chicken tenders to the dish. Yes - you read that right. Chicken tenders. Whipped up some frozen breaded chicken tenders I already had in the freezer, and chopped them up to add to the pasta. The adult version of this is to add grilled chicken instead, if you want the added taste and texture.

Toss the chicken with your pasta, add salt, pepper, and parsley to taste, and you have a delicious dish that takes less than 30 minutes to prepare.

Here is the recipe for your convenience, slightly adapted from Gimme Some Oven's Skinny Fettuccine Alredo. This is perfect for 2 people, if one of them has a really large appetite. :)

Yield: 3 servings

Nutrition: 319 calories/serving

Ingredients:

    4 oz fettuccine (or any pasta shape)

    2/3 tbsp olive oil

    2 cloves garlic, minced

    1 1/2 tbsp flour

    1/2 cup chicken broth

    1/2 cup low-fat milk

    1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

    4 oz frozen breaded chicken tenders/grilled chicken

    salt to taste

    pepper to taste

    parsley (optional)    

Instructions:

1. Boil generously salted water and cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute for about a minute until fragrant.
3. Sprinkle with flour, and stir to combine. Saute for an additional minute to cook the flour, stirring occasionally.
4. Slowly add chicken broth, continuously stirring/whisking until you reach a smooth consistency. Add milk, and bring the mixture to a simmer. 
5. Allow the sauce to thicken slightly, then add in Parmesan cheese and stir until melted. Reduce heat to keep the sauce warm. 
6. Prepare frozen breaded chicken tenders/grilled chicken according to package directions. Chop to bite size pieces, if necessary, and set aside.
7. When the pasta is done, drain in a colander. Add pasta and chicken to sauce and toss to combine. 
8. Add salt, pepper, and parsley to combine and serve immediately.
9. Enjoy! :)

Nutritional Information from MyFitnessPal:

029 Caramel Brownie Cookies

Time for the first baking project of the year! Yay! I decided to try out a recipe I found on Pinterest for Caramel Brownie Cookies. I've been trying to stay healthy (I've kept up with my calorie counting for 14 days in a row so far!), but with a picture like the one below, it was hard to say no. The description called this little slice of heaven a "rich chocolate-y cookie loaded with chipped mini Rolos", and they had me at "rich"...and "chocolate-y"...and "cookie"...and "Rolos".

I mean, come on.

First, start by collecting all your ingredients.

I didn't have any Hershey's chocolate chips at home, so I substituted it with a bar of Hershey's milk chocolate (leave it to me to have that lying around in the pantry).

Mmm...chocolate.

Melt the chocolate chips and butter in a microwave-safe bowl.

Combine the eggs and sugar until they start to thicken. 

Add the melted chocolate and butter, and vanilla extract to the mixture. Fold in the remaining dry ingredients.

Then, it's ROLO TIME!!! Chop up the Rolos, and fold into your batter.

May or may not have snuck a few bites of this goodness.

The batter will be pretty wet, and the recipe called for it be chilled in the fridge for about an hour. I did so but found that the batter was still too liquid-y. So I went ahead and evenly divided the cookie batter in a standard cupcake pan. Remember to spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray, so you can pop the cookies out when they're done.

And voila! You have Caramel Brownie Cookies! 

Here is the recipe for your convenience, slightly adapted from the Roxana's Caramel Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cookies:

Yield: 18 cookies

Nutrition: 143 calories/cookie

Ingredients

        8 oz chocolate chips or baking chocolate

        3 tbsp butter

        1/2 cup brown sugar

        2 eggs

        1 tsp vanilla extract

        1/3 cup all purpose flour

        1/4 tsp baking powder

        pinch of salt

        1 cup chopped Rolos

Instructions:

1. Heat the oven to 350F.
2. In a microwave-safe bowl, add the chocolate chips and butter, and heat until melted, stirring until combined and smooth. You can also melt the chocolate and butter in a heat-proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water (also known as double boiling).
3. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they start to thicken.
4. With the paddle attachment, at a low-to-medium speed, mix the melted chocolate into the sweetened eggs. It's important to keep mixing while you add the chocolate to prevent the eggs from cooking. Add vanilla extract and mix.
5. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir until combined.
6. With a spatula, fold in the chopped up Rolos.
7. Chill the dough for 1 hour or until hard enough to handle.
8. With a small scoop, place cookie dough on lined baking sheets, OR into a cupcake pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.
9. Bake in pre-heated oven for about 11 minutes.
10. Let cool for about 10 minutes before transferring cookies to cookie racks to cool completely.
11. Enjoy! :)

Nutritional Information from MyFitnessPal:

028 2014 Resolutions

So one of my New Year's Resolutions in 2014 is to start blogging again. I had a LiveJournal account that I kept pretty religiously when I was a teenager (full of cringe-worthy material), and have had a few feeble attempts to re-start blogging since then. The older posts in Glitter Bomb! are a consolidation of some of those past attempts, and hopefully this post will be the start of many new ones for the new year.

Glitter Bomb! will be a collection of my baking projects, art projects, and travel, as well as random events that happen in my life. I hope to eventually have some of my friends contribute posts as well, so readers can see what goes on in the life of a few 20-somethings that almost have it figured out.

For now, here are some of my 2014 resolutions! :)

1. Create at least one new thing a month.
2. Cook more and try at least 50 new recipes this year. 
3. Blog at least 4 times a month.
4. Travel internationally at least once.
5. Run a half-marathon this year!
6. Save more money - at least $2,500 into the savings account. 

Here's to a new blog and to new beginnings. 

p.s. This totally counts as one of my four posts/month, right? :)

027 Turning Japanese + Enkai

Spent most of Wednesday at home, until Clint came home after work around 4. We headed to Elm to meet up with one of the school's nurses/teachers, Suwa sensei, to pick up a yukata for Clint! Yay. Once we found her, we headed straight to the kimono/yukata shop, and got to the work. The shop attendants were super excited at the prospect of dressing up a white person, so it was a lot of fun. The attendants picked out a few patterns for us to choose from, and we had fun playing dress up. Putting on a yukata is a lot of work, hokay?

Learning how to tie an obi. You can bet your
bottom dollar we've already forgotten.

Ta-daaaa!

The teachers at Clint's school all donated some money to help get Clint a farewell gift, which was really awesome. So, not only did Clint get a badass yukata, he also received a jinbei with matching shoes, and a nice fan. 

Boom. My boyfriend is spoiled!

Went for dinner at Kappa Zushi after we finished shopping - our diet is so varied, no? Headed home later and watched endless episodes Star Trek. STORY OF MY LIFE. Thursday was Clint's last day at work, so as usual, I spent most of the day at home watching TV and Redditing. That being said, Clint and I discovered some buttons on his TV remote that have unlocked at least 40 new channels...even channels in ENGLISH, so I've been watching a lot of that. I think they're cable TV channels...? The only catch is that they have this obnoxious signage that takes up about 30% of the screen telling us that we need to subscribe to get rid of it. Herpderp.

Magical buttons! 

Clint got home after school, and we headed back to the middle school to meet up with one of his colleagues as she would be taking us to Clint's enkai/farewell party. The original plan was for us to drive to the bar
in Hirosaki, but that would mean Clint wouldn't be able to drink a lot, which was NOT ACCEPTABLE. So we got chauffeurs instead. Boss. Got to the bar after a somewhat awkward 40 minute drive, and it was really nice. We got there right at 6, so people were just getting in.

The personalized menu!

Salad - this was SO GOOD holy goddd.

Oh, just some sashimi as an appetizer, no big deal.

Fish...stuff? Idk. It was good.

Egg + eel, seaweed, and green beans covered in WEIRD STUFF.
Do not want.

Us! :D

Got some beer. Nomz.

So part of Japanese culture requires people to NOT start eating until the person of the highest rank at the party starts, which meant that we couldn't start nomming until the principal got there...30 minutes later. It was horrible with all the food on the table and I was starving. He finally got there at around 6:30, and lucky for him, he's an adorable old man.

Yakitori. Score.

Trying to decipher this, we got: bamboo bird thing language.

Some famous Tsugaru dishes...yeah. Did not try them. 

Clint had to give a farewell speech near the end...

And then there was more food, ahmahgah.

Yakisoba!

Fried rice.

Too much sake!

Soba!

Mochi and cake! 

Clint ended up drinking my beer. I was trying to get him drunk.
No luck.

People hanging out.

Dessert was ice cream. Yaaayy.

 We finally left at around 9:00pm and got home and went to bed! 

026 Karaoke + Sushi + Star Trek

Monday was a holiday here in Japan, Marine Day, which meant that Clint got the day off work and we lazed around the house doing nothing of actual value. But that's what holidays are for, amirite? There is a sumo competition going on in Nagoya right now - it started on the 10th, and will last till the 24th - and the two of us now greatly enjoy watching the coverage, trying to figure out who's who and what the traditions/rituals are. There have been quite a number of wrestlers from Aomori, so we've been cheering them on (though they keep losing, wtf), and surprisingly, there have been a number of foreign sumo wrestlers that have been holding their own. If I'm not mistaken, currently the highest ranked yokozuna is Mongolian. Go figure.

After indulging in an afternoon of sumo, we remembered that we had a karaoke date in Tsugaru with some of Clint's students from Tsuruta's eikaiwa or English class. I was convinced that it would be super awkward, seeing as I only knew Clint and had no idea who else would be there, but it turned out pretty okay, no lie. I was hungry, but Clint promised food post-singing so I tagged along for the awkwardness-extraordinaire. Turned out I was half right - the start of the night didn't look too promising, but everyone warmed up to each other soon enough, and I think we all actually had a lot of fun. Attendees of the night were Clint and I, Emma, Michael Eastwood (a JET in Tsugaru), Shoko and Junichi Igarashi and Shoko's friends, Tomoho and Mayumi from eikaiwa. 

The lot of us sang English and Japanese tunes (LOL I DIDN'T SING ANY JAPANESE) and it was pretty fun. Karaoke culture in Japan is way different than karaoke culture in America/China. People here actually try to sing solo while everyone else just claps/plays tambourines to the beat (yes - they provide tambourines) so there were a lot more ballads as compared to the group-friendly songs you normally hear back home. Twas interesting. 

And of course, there was FOOD.

We finished up FOUR AND A HALF HOURS later, wtf, at around 11pm that night. Out of control. I know it doesn't seem like a lot of time, but if you divide that by eight people, that is a lot of singing. A lot a lot. 

Clint, me, Tomoho, Michael, Mayumi, Junichi, Shoko, Emma

Clint and I grabbed a late dinner at Mos Burger and headed home to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. HAHAHAHA. Yes. More on that later.

Clint had to go back to work yesterday, sad times. So as per usual, I watched TV, stayed on Reddit, and napped caught up on some reading. Yeah. That. I decided yesterday that I'm going to work on being healthier hurr durr - we'll see how long that lasts - so I ate healthy all day! The goal for now is to cut carbs and up protein intake, which means no more/only a little bread, which actually makes me sad inside. :( Fingers crossed on seeing this through for longer than like, two days! 

After Clint got back, we watched more sumo and cheered on one of our friends' cousin, Hochiyama, who is from Aomori. I can't believe I can say this but I KIND OF KNOW A GUY WHO DOES SUMO PROFESSIONALLY SORT OF A LITTLE I KNOW HIS COUSIN SO THAT COUNTS RIGHT? Yeah. He's a boss. 

We ended up cycling to Kappa Zushi (trying to be healthy!), which literally is my favorite place in all of Japan because of 100 yen conveyor belt sushi OH MY GAWD. Ate our fill there, and bought some groceries before heading home. Mind you - it's two miles one way, so I cycled four miles yesterday! A+ for effort lol. 

At least it's pretty here.

Cycled to a nearby Lawson which is a convenience store after we got home, which is like a 7-11 but less trashy and without Slurpees, to pay bills. Yes - such glorious things do happen in this country. Got home and watched more Star Trek...sad to say I was actually excited at the prospect. Not sure if the boyfriend is turning me into a sci-fi fan (the horror!) or if I just miss watching TV in English. 

Headed to bed after an episode, and I've basically watched Star Trek all day today. Awww yeeeaaaahhhhh.