Buffalo Chicken Pizza

What do when you've bought a 3.78 liter jug of Franks Red Hot? Buffalo all the things!!! Besides making classic buffalo wings and chicken fingers, the Seoulmate and I decided to make a buffalo chicken pizza. 

After a long day yesterday, which included a baseball game, and dinner and drinks with friends, it was nice to relax today and cook a delightful meal at home. Surprisingly, the Simmering Seoulmate and I work extremely well together in the kitchen. We divide up the tasks and try to clean as we cook, in order to avoid a daunting mess at the end and to have available space to work in our tiny Korean kitchen. 

This pizza was super simple to make and dinner came together quite quickly. We enjoyed our slices with a nice side of broccoli, but I think it might have gone better with a nice crisp salad to balance out the spiciness of the pizza.

Ingredients

2 large chicken breasts
3/4 cup Franks Red Hot sauce
2 tbsp butter
2 cups shredded pizza cheese
1/2 of a red onion finely chopped
Italian seasoning

1 ball of pizza dough

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 ̊ F (200 ̊ C). Cut chicken into 1 inch cubes and cook in a pan over medium high heat with a little olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper.  While the chicken is cooking, prep your pan and add the dough.  Next, create your buffalo sauce. Melt the butter and stir it into the hot sauce. Pour about a 1/4 of the buffalo sauce onto the pizza crust. Sprinkle the cheese over and add red onion. Add all but about 2 tbsp of the remaining buffalo sauce to the chicken, and fold so the chicken so it is nicely coated with sauce. Spoon the chicken over the pizza and drizzle what’s left of the buffalo sauce across the top of your pizza. Cook pizza for about 25 minutes and enjoy! This pizza is quite spicy so make sure you’ve got a nice glass of something to wash it down.

Makes 1 pizza.

Coffee Body Scrub

Today I’m posting something a bit different, but don't worry it's still technically food related. I am quite the girly girl, which means I thoroughly enjoy dressing up, playing with make-up and I especially like pampering myself.  So here’s a quick post on how to whip up a quick scrub using things you probably already have. I hope you try it out and pamper yourself this weekend! 

What you need:

used coffee grinds (3/4 cup or 1 cup)

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Take the coffee grinds from your machine and try to drain or squeeze most of the liquid from the basket or filter. This step is important so the scrub isn’t too runny. Next, put coffee grinds in a medium bowl. Add sugar and cinnamon and stir to combine. You can leave it in your bowl and use right away or put it in a cute jar and give as a gift. To use, rub all over body and let sit for a few minutes. It’s okay to use it on your face, but stay away from eye and lip areas. After a few minutes rinse off.

I use this scrub about twice a month. It leaves my skin feeling and smelling AMAZING!

Blueberry Lemon Muffins

Happy Sunday! I hope you've all have a nice relaxing weekend. Summer is finally here! In Korea, rainy season has just begun. It’s really not that bad, you just get used to carrying an umbrella with you everywhere for a few weeks. It doesn't usually rain all day either. Last night, the Simmering Seoulmate and I braved the rain and sticky heat and went out for dinner with a friend at our favourite Mexican place in all of Seoul, Gusto Taco. It’s a small restaurant right next to Sangsu station that serves up excellent tacos, nachos, burritos and one of my personal favourites, taquitos, which come served in a cute cauldron of cheesey goodness. Of course they serve delicious cocktails too. 

The night was filled with rain, friends, food, and a little debauchery in Hongdae of course. All in all a great way pick me up.

With summer finally here, blueberries are finally in season, and while still expensive, I thought I’d buy a package and whip up something delicious. While I debated for a long time about using them in the pancakes I made recently, I decided to go with muffins instead. I also had a bunch of lemons in the fridge so those are the flavours I went with. This recipe also uses yogurt, which I found quite interesting. It made the muffins perfectly moist and they tasted amazing. They also froze well, which made them last longer! I will definitely be making them again! Yum!

Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients
1 egg
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
zest of one lemon
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen, I used fresh)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 ̊ F (190 ̊ C). In a large bowl combine the butter and egg and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour in yogurt and heavy cream and mix together with mixer for about 30 seconds. In a medium bowl, sift together sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture a half at a time. The mixture will be quite thick, more like a cookie dough consistency. Fold in blueberries. Line muffin pan with paper liners and spoon mixture into each one. Pop into the oven for 25 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and come out clean.

Makes 10 muffins.

P.s. If you enjoy Mexican and are in Seoul, defiantly check out Gusto Taco. I know I will be back there again very soon!

Pancakes

I am the luckiest girl in the world. My boyfriend cooks me breakfast every day. Sometimes its French toast or fried potatoes and other days it’s a slice of toast with peanut butter or a bagel with cream cheese. It doesn't matter what it is, it’s that it is served to me as I primp myself for work every day. What a guy. So, once and awhile I like to treat him to one of his favorites. Pancakes. Store bought mixes are okay, but I really don’t care for the ones they sell in Korea. Homemade pancakes are easy and delicious, so that’s what I prefer to do. This past weekend, I whipped up a batch. They end up fluffy, but still light. For mine, I always include chocolate chips, while my boyfriend prefers his au natural.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbsp melted butter
A small handful of chocolate chips, blueberries, or sliced strawberries

Directions
In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and pour in milk, butter and egg. Mix together with a wooden spoon.
Heat a lightly oiled pan over medium high heat and use a soup ladle to pour batter into the pan. Add chocolate chips, fresh fruit, or leave them plain. When the batter begins to bubble flip the pancakes and cook for another 2 minutes. Serve with butter and classic Canadian maple syrup. Enjoy!

Makes 10 pancakes. 

Chicken Tacos for Two

This is a super easy lunch that tastes delicious. I made this twice last week, because both my boyfriend and I loved it so much. Beef is pretty expensive here in Korea, so I thought chicken would be a good twist on a regular taco. I enjoy the texture of shredded chicken, but you could make a variation of chicken tacos with chopped chicken if you prefer. See how I made this yummy lunch below.

All the toppings

The yogurt I used in place of sour cream. Couldn't tell the difference!

The seasoned, shredded chicken

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
1 tbsp taco seasoning
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp water
5 small flour tortillas
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup lettuce
1/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
8 cherry tomatoes
any other taco toppings you would like

Directions
Place chicken in a pot filled with water and boil for about 15 minutes. While chicken is boiling, prepare your taco toppings. I chopped up some lettuce and cherry tomatoes, and grated about a half of a cup of cheddar cheese. I didn't have sour cream, but I found a plain yogurt at my local mart, that had a low sugar content and tasted almost identical to sour cream. Win! After your chicken is cooked through (check the inside with a knife, if it is still pink, boil for another 5-10 minutes), use two forks to shred the chicken. Heat oil in a pan over medium high heat and add shredded chicken. Sprinkle the seasoning over the chicken and add about 3 tbsp of water. Stir. Heat the chicken until it has a good crisp to it. Assemble your tacos and enjoy!

Makes 5 delicious tacos.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I had a ton of bananas that were turning black…story of my life. So, I decided to bake delicious chocolate chip banana bread. I have tried several recipes, but finally I have tweaked this simple one from The Food Network and it is perfection! 

There are several times that I enjoy eating banana bread, here are a few. Firstly, I love to eat banana bread warmed up with a bit of butter for a quick breakfast in the morning, on days when I’m running late. AKA every day… I also like to wrap up a slice and eat it as a snack, when hunger strikes after my kindy classes finish at 3pm. Finally, banana bread makes a delightful evening snack with a cup of herbal tea. 

This recipe makes two small loaves. You can keep a loaf in the fridge for about a week or in the freezer for about a month.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
4 very ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup coconut oil (can use vegetable oil instead)
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease your pans with a bit of cooking spray or butter. I skipped this step, and had mixed results. One pan I used must have been a non-stick one and the loaf fell right out. However, the second loaf stuck to the bottom of my other pan.

In a medium bowl stir flour, baking soda and powder, salt. Next take a large bowl and stir eggs and sugar together with a wooden spoon. Mash bananas in a separate bowl with a fork and add them to the egg and sugar mixture. Add vanilla, coconut oil and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Divide batter into two 9x5 loaf pans. Bake for about 45-50 minutes or until the top has browned nicely. Use a toothpick to check if the middle is cooked through.

Enjoy!