Interview with VoyageLA Mag

I am so excited to share with you my interview with VoyageLA Mag! They asked me to be a part of their Trailblazers series, Rewriting the Narrative. Here is a link to my full interview.

When VoyageLA first reached out to me, I wasn’t exactly sure what story I had to tell. My entire journey has been up and down, full of highs and lows, as well as self-doubt. My initial thought was that I didn’t have a perfect or fluid story to tell. And where does my story even begin? Sometimes we get caught up in this idea of perfection. But it’s the flaws and mistakes that actually help us grow and learn. I have many stories and they are all intertwined into my current journey of creating a cookbook of my mother’s Cambodian recipes—my parents survival from the Cambodian genocide, my birth at a refugee camp, our escape from my abusive father, growing up poor, feeling like an outsider growing up, etc. These stories have all led me to where I am today. I am not only writing a cookbook, I am writing my story.

During my interview with VoyageLA, I realized I have so much to share and a lot more to say than I had thought. I hope you enjoy my interview and can relate to my journey and feel inspired. There is beauty in all of our imperfections. I need to remind myself that. Everyone has a story. What’s yours?

Porcini Mushroom Bolognese

I love mushrooms. All mushrooms. Mushrooms just taste great in everything. And it’s the perfect substitute for meat. One of my favorite specialty mushrooms is porcini. I love its meaty texture and earthy flavor. I thought it would be fun (and delicious) to create a vegetarian and vegan version of my bolognese sauce with porcini mushrooms.

To create my dish, I used a variety of Alessi Food products, including their extra virgin olive oil, dried porcini mushrooms, linguine, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, sea salt, and black peppercorn. Alessi products are fresh, high-quality, and authentically Italian. They are family owned and operated for the last 72 years! You can find their products at most local grocers or you can buy them online with free shipping on all orders over $20. If you love Italian food and cooking, definitely check out Alessi Foods and use code BELLY for a 15% discount. They offer a variety of amazing products. One thing I particularly like about their organic pasta is that it is made with bronze dies, which means it is coarser than most pastas and allows sauce to stick to it more.

My sauce is not only vegetarian but it’s also vegan. I used coconut milk as a dairy substitute to make the sauce creamy. However, I like to top my pasta with a little parmesan but you don’t have to. Happy cooking and eating!

Porcini Mushroom Bolognese (serves 6)

Dry Ingredients:

1 package (1 lb) of Alessi organic linguine or spaghetti pasta

3 packages (1.5 oz) of Alessi porcini mushrooms

Liquid Ingredients:

1 can (28 oz) of Alessi crushed Italian tomatoes

1-1½ cup tomato sauce

½ cup of dry red or white wine

½ cup of coconut milk

½ cup of porcini mushroom water

½-¾ cup of pasta water

Fresh Vegetables:

½ lb mixed mushrooms (cremini and shiitake), coarsely chopped

1 whole eggplant, roasted, peeled and mashed (optional)

1 whole sweet yellow onion, diced

1 cup of carrots, diced

1 cup of celery, diced

½ cup of fresh parsley, chopped

Herbs, Spices, & Seasoning:

2 tbsp Alessi extra virgin olive oil

2-2½ tsp Alessi coarse ground sea salt

1 tsp Alessi ground black peppercorn

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp oregano

6 sprigs of fresh thyme

6 cloves of garlic, 3 thinly sliced and 3 crushed

½ tsp red chili flakes (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Wash eggplant and trim ends.  Cut thick round slices and lay flat on a baking sheet.  Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over the eggplant and season with salt and pepper.  Bake in the oven for 45 minutes, flipping the eggplant slices over half way through.  When the eggplant has finished baking, allow to cool for at least 15 minutes.  Peel the skin off the round slices and discard. Mash up the eggplant with a knife and set aside.

Soak dried porcini mushrooms in hot water for 30 minutes.  Rinse and drain.  Keep ½ cup of the porcini mushroom water to use in the sauce.

Clean, trim, peel, and dice carrots, celery and onions.  Wash and coarsely chop the mixed mushrooms.  Thinly slice 3 of the garlic cloves and crush the other cloves.

Heat 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil over medium high heat in a large braising pan.  Sautee the onions until they turn a light golden brown.  Then add garlic, celery, and carrots to the pan.  Add 2 tbsp water.  Cook for a few minutes until they have softened. 

Add porcini and mixed mushrooms.  Sprinkle 2 tsp sea salt and 1 tsp ground black pepper.  Cook for a few minutes until the mushrooms have shrunken.  Pour in roasted eggplant.  Add 1 tsp sugar.  Mix thoroughly and allow to cook for a couple of minutes.

Add ½ cup of dry red or white wine.  Lower heat to medium.  Stir the vegetables, scraping any bits stuck to the pan.  Cook for a few minutes. 

Pour in crushed tomatoes and 1 cup tomato sauce (you can add more if you prefer your bolognese saucier).  Sprinkle in remaining ½ tsp sea salt, ½ tsp red chili flakes, and 1 tsp oregano.  Throw in 6 sprigs of fresh thyme.  Add ½ cup of the porcini mushroom water.  Mix the vegetarian bolognese.

Lower heat to medium low.  Partially cover the pan with a lid and allow to simmer for 30 minutes. 

In the meantime, bring a pot of salted water to boil and cook pasta until it’s al dente.  Save ½ cup of the pasta water.  Drain pasta and set aside.

After the bolognese has been simmering for 30 minutes, pour in ½ cup of coconut milk.  Add ½-¾ cup of the pasta water or more, depending on how much your sauce has thickened or your preference.  Mix thoroughly.  Allow to simmer for another 30 minutes partially covered.

Remove the thyme sprigs from the sauce.  Serve sauce over pasta.  Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over your dish.  Sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley.  Top with shaved parmesan.

Jackfruit "Carnitas" Tacos with Pineapple

I love learning new vegetarian recipes. Lately, I feel like I’ve been eating too much meat. I miss how my body felt when I used to be a vegetarian. But it’s so hard to go back to that lifestyle, especially right now as I’m working on the Cambodian cookbook.

After recently having jackfruit kabobs at Elf, a vegetarian Mediterranean restaurant in Silverlake, I felt inspired to try making something savory with it myself. When I think of jackfruit, I think of the sweet fleshy, orange fruit that I’ve had during my travels through Southeast Asia. However, green jackfruit (young) from the can tastes nothing like it. It’s sort of bland but does have a nice meaty texture. This is actually a good thing for me because I’ve discovered that I’m allergic to the ripe, orange version of the fruit. If you haven’t tasted fresh, ripe jackfruit, you need to try it! It’s so good!

While there are so many options for jackfruit recipes that I want to try, I started with carnitas tacos. Because who doesn’t love tacos?! I adapted my pork carnitas recipe to this one. I think the pineapple slices really make the taco. But I’m biased because I love pineapple on everything!

I want to try making bbq jackfruit “pulled pork” or jackfruit “chicken” teriyaki next time. If you have any other suggestions, let me know! I’d love to hear your ideas!

Jackfruit “Carnitas” Tacos (makes about 8-10 small tacos)

Ingredients:

·      1 can of green jackfruit

·      1 package of small corn tortilla

·      ½ sweet yellow onion, diced

·      1 jalapeno pepper, thinly sliced (optional – too spicy for me!)

·      ½ cup of tangerine or orange juice

·      2 tsp oregano

·      1 tsp cumin

·      1 tsp paprika

·      1 tsp salt

·      ½ tsp pepper

·      1 tsp honey

·      1 tbsp lime juice

·      1 tbsp olive oil

Toppings:

·      ¼ sweet yellow onion, finely diced

·      ¼ cup of cilantro, finely diced

·      1 cup of pineapple, sliced

·      ½ cup of radishes, thinly sliced

·      salsa (I made my own, see previous blog post)

·      1 lime, cut into wedges

Directions:

In a large bowl, break apart the jackfruit and remove any seeds.  Add tangerine juice (or orange juice), oregano, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, honey, and lime juice.  Mix thoroughly and set aside.

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat with olive oil.  Saute the onions.  Once it starts to turn a golden brown color, add jalapeno slices if you like spice.  Otherwise, pour in the jackfruit mixture and braise for about 8-10 minutes.  You may need to lower the heat to medium. Stir occasionally. If the mixture gets too dry, you can add a little more tangerine/orange juice.

Serve over corn tortilla with fresh salsa.  Top with fresh onions, cilantro, radishes, pineapple slices, and lime wedges.

New Year, New Challenges, More Recipes

In my last post, I wrote about how in February, I challenged myself to work every single day of the month, including weekends, sticking to a strict schedule. I stuck to the promise I made to myself and survived February! How do I feel? I feel pretty damn proud of myself! I tackled some pretty tough recipes and it was a lot of work! I have no idea how my mom was able to make some of these complex dishes as a single, working mother of 3 young girls. I also don’t know how she remembers the ingredients in all of these dishes. It’s so easy to confuse similar recipes. Good thing I’m documenting everything and creating a cookbook! I hope my sisters and my cousins appreciate all of this!

Even though February has ended, I’m still committed to working everyday. I mean, I need to. I want to. And I don’t really have a stable income. I need to keep it moving. After a month of working long hours every single day and all weekend, my body was starting to feel low on fuel. I felt so drained and tired. This month, I have tried to loosen the grip a little bit and have taken more breaks to rest. It’s hard to feel inspired and productive if you’re exhausted and overworked. I have to allow myself time to re-energize.

There are a few different things I’m trying to jump start at the moment. After 12+ years in the corporate world of the fashion industry, I want something different. I want flexibility. I have different passions and want to be able to do it all. In my experience with a corporate job that is unrelated to my other passions, it is difficult to find time to do anything else. I want to see if there’s a way I can pursue consulting on a part-time basis, which means I need to look for a client and reach out to recruiters, hiring managers, and others in my network. I also want to finish this cookbook and try to get it published. This means I need a publisher and I need to send out query letters to literary agents. Plus, I don’t know anything about publishing. I definitely have a lot of research I need to do. If all that fails, then I will need to look into self publishing. I also enjoy food styling, food photography, and sharing my journey of creating this cookbook on my Instagram. I completed my first collaboration for a brand recently (photos shown above). Food styling is so much fun! I have been getting invited to media night events as a blogger also. I’d love to connect with other brands for partnerships. This means contacting brands, creating a media kit, and sending out pitch emails.

To sum it all up, I’m searching for a new client for consulting, a literary agent, and a brand partnership while I’m cooking and writing for my cookbook. On top of all that, I’m also looking for a life partner. It’s a lot, huh?! But I think I can do it all! Hoping to at least finish all of the cooking by the end of this month. I’ve been attending various types of networking events to brainstorm with others and that has been helpful. Lets go March!

If you have any advice, suggestions, or encouraging words on the above, please send them my way!

P.S. I’ve gotten sick of eating so much of my own food. I need new non-Asian recipes. Help! Something fun and easy.

Time to Get Cookin' Again

After spending the month of January mainly combing through my photos and recipes (and also distracting myself with organizing my apartment the Marie-Kondo way), I made a list of outstanding recipes that I need to finally attempt to make or redo. This month of February has been nonstop cooking and recipe tweaking.

I’ve decided that I needed to kick my own ass into high gear. Maybe I’m being hard on myself but I really feel like I slacked off in January. In the past, I’ve worked hard (late hours, skipped meals, no breaks) for other companies when I was accountable to someone else. Why can’t I work just as hard, if not harder, for myself and hold myself accountable? It’s easy to make up excuses for yourself. This month, I decided I have no excuses. I’ve taken time off of working, walking away from a full-time salary in the fashion industry to pursue this passion project of creating a cookbook based on my mom’s Cambodian recipes. I can’t just allow myself to dilly dally while being unemployed. This is not a vacation.

So I have set up some rules for myself this month. No TV during the day. If I need to stop working to eat, then I need to be on my phone, working on expanding my Love in My Belly Instagram following and/or creating new content to share. If I need to take a break, then I have the option of doing squats, crunches, or I can go for a walk. If I need to mix things up, I can write a blog post (like right now) or work on writing some stories for the cookbook. I need to work nights and weekends even if I have social plans (which I really have not had a lot of lately). No feeling sorry for myself for not being social. Work instead, and be proud of what I have accomplished that day for my passion project.

As a result of these new rules for myself, I’ve worked every day for the last 3 weeks. I have also been juggling some fashion consulting Excel projects on the side. I’m exhausted. I have been having back spasms too. I think it may be from running around, sitting at my dining table all day, and probably stress. I think I’ve gotten a little loopy as well. I’ve done some strange things like leave my keys in my door knob, left the oven on all night, and put a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil in the oven without the frozen pizza. Maybe taking a day off would be helpful. I went from one extreme to the next. I don’t want to lose my momentum. I’m committed to working every day for the month of February and I’m going to stick to it. However, maybe I can still honor my commitment while also being kinder to my body and allow myself some longer breaks. This afternoon I have an appointment for a body massage, which I’m pretty excited about. I normally don’t indulge in those types of treats very often but these back spasms have been quite uncomfortable.

It has definitely been a productive month so far—running around to 5 different grocery stores sometimes in 1 day, making a mess in my tiny kitchen, lots of dishes, calls with my mom (sometimes 3-5 times a day to walk through recipes), taking photos on my balcony (and sometimes fighting with a squirrel that sometimes creeps up on me during my photo shoots), editing photos, editing recipes, writing new recipes, searching for new props, working on consulting projects, growing my Instagram, learning how to create my first media kit, etc etc. And you know what? I worked hard and I actually feel like I worked hard and that I am deserving of saying that about myself. I didn’t feel that way about myself in January at all. I am proud of the new recipes I tried this month. Some of them were really difficult and I need to redo them still but the fact is, I did them. I didn’t resist. I didn’t make up excuses. I just made them. I ignored feelings of doubt and discouragement that would sometimes creep into my thoughts, and just did it, even if I was feeling lazy or tired. Some of the dishes didn’t come out exactly right, which can be frustrating. That’s okay though because each trial and error is one step closer to the final product. I will get there.

Happy Hour at My Place!

It’s 3:30pm in the afternoon and I’m making myself an old fashioned cocktail. Is it too early? Nahhhh… I’m sort of procrastinating and sort of doing work and sort of feeling stuck. I took a break and went for a 2 mile walk (to Nordstrom—don’t judge—it’s really not the destination that matters, it’s the step count—about 5,000 steps) thinking that some fresh air would help. And I think it did help a little bit. But I needed something else. Not condoning drinking for inspiration or motivation but every now and then, I think it’s okay.

I got a new computer and finally uploaded all of my pictures that I have taken in the last year and a half of my cooking. There are 1600 pictures!!! I made less than 50 recipes so that’s a huge picture to recipe ratio. I went through all of them and cut them down to about 170. Now I’m going through the 170 and cutting them down further and doing some minor edits. For some reason, this is where I feel a little stuck. Of course, I’m my worst critic. As I’m going through the photos, I’m seeing all the flaws and how I could have styled or staged a certain dish better and debating whether I should try again. UGH. I am having a very heated inner dialogue with myself right now and I’m feeling a little frustrated. I’m questioning myself again. I’m such an amateur. Can I do this? What am I doing? I’ve been in sweatpants for a week straight since I’ve returned from Boston from the holidays and have also not worn make up since then either (until last night when I got invited as a food blogger to a VIP Fried Chicken tasting at a new restaurant—I can muster up the energy to put on make up for fried chicken).

I know I can’t let these doubts stop me from moving forward. So I took a break to write this blurb. Sometimes you just need to let it out of your system, or out of your head, and put your thoughts into words on paper or on a blog. And sometimes you also need to make an old fashioned cocktail. But why stop there? I need gummy bears too.

What do you do for inspiration?

Tomato Confit

Tomato Confit has been my recent obsession. I’ve made it at least 4 times in the last month. It’s such an easy and versatile recipe. You can mix it with pasta, spread it on top of a crostini or in a sandwich, use as a dip, or drizzle over meat or fish. I made it for my family over the holidays with spaghetti and a side of garlic shrimp. This week, I mixed it with zucchini noodles for a lighter, carb-free meal and it was still so yummy! Try it!

Tomato Confit

Ingredients:

·      1 lb mixed cherry tomatoes

·      ½ cup of extra virgin olive oil

·      5-6 cloves of garlic, 2 smashed and 3 thinly sliced

·      6 sprigs of fresh thyme

·      ½ tsp salt

·      ½ tsp pepper

·      ½ tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a baking dish, spread out your tomatoes and smother with olive oil.  Throw in garlic and thyme.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chili flakes.  Bake for 60 minutes.  In about 45 minutes, check to see if the tomatoes have blistered and popped open. If not, puncture them slightly with a fork so that the juices ooze into the olive oil. And that’s it!

If you want to try this recipe with zoodles, spiralize 3 zucchinis. 3 zucchinis should be enough for the entire above-mentioned amount of tomato confit and should serve about 3 people. However, you don’t have to use all of the tomato confit for zoodles. You may want to make 1 serving of zoodles (1 zucchini) and then save the rest of the confit for other uses. Simply store the rest of the tomato confit in a glass jar and refrigerate. To make the zoodles, lightly sautee the zucchini noodles in a pan over medium heat with extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle with black pepper and salt. Drizzle a tablespoon of lemon juice. Stir thoroughly. This will only take a minute or two. Be careful not to overcook the zucchini noodles because it can get mushy. Mix the tomato confit into the zoodles.

I prefer to top these zoodles with roasted corn. Since I don’t have a grill, I char 1 corn on the cob in a frying pan with olive oil and then bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Allow corn to cool and then shave off the kernels and mix into your tomato confit zoodles.

Happy 2019!

Wow! I can’t believe I have had this blog for a FULL year! I didn’t think I could do it. It originally took a little bit of nudging from a friend to get it started and now here I am—just over a year later. Well, congrats to me for that!

How did you spend your holiday? I spent Christmas and New Year’s in Boston visiting my family. Originally, I wasn’t sure if I was going to visit my family for the holidays. But after my Tulum trip over Thanksgiving (when I quit my job, chopped off 6 inches of my hair, bought a ukelele), I booked a one way ticket to Boston and I am so glad that I did. It was really nice to get out of LA and see my family, even if it meant braving the cold winter. I got lots of play time with my little niece and nephew. I got to play the ukelele for them even though I don’t know how to play (anyone want to teach me?). My mom made some of my favorite Cambodian dishes, including noodle soup, hot pot, pineapple sweet and sour soup, and vermicelli noodles. I also cooked for my entire family Christmas Eve. I made tomato confit with spaghetti, garlic shrimp, scallops, and grilled eggplant. I think it was a success—at least, they didn’t tell me otherwise.

Even though I was in Boston for a relatively short time (though it kind of felt like a long time), I unexpectedly made a connection with someone new. Unfortunately, he lives in Boston. Why does this always happen to me? Sigh. I must love the East Coast boys. But I also love LA. That’s the problem. Why don’t I connect with anyone here? LA is big enough. Help!

While I had fun back in Boston, I am SO happy to be back home, in my own apartment, in my own bed. My body is not made for East Coast winters. My skin was so dry and irritated. My eczema acted up. I felt ugly. And I didn’t know how to dress cute in the cold. I didn’t bring any sexy clothes for dates. Plus, my mom’s place is not that comfortable. She doesn’t like me messing up her kitchen. She keeps the house cold. She wants me to wear a scarf in the house. But Mom, scarves are made for outside! Also, I felt guilty if I slept in too late or wanted to lounge on the couch all day. The first thing I did when I got home was take a hot shower, turned on my fireplace (because in LA, it’s just a flip of a switch), put on sweatpants, and ordered my usual dish at my favorite Thai restaurant. Then I slept all afternoon that first day and slept 10 hours that first night. It felt SO good. Now, I’m rested, adjusted, ready to face the world. It’s back to reality. What is on my to-do list for the new year? Finish my cookbook, find a new job in fashion, learn the ukelele, continue working out. So let’s go Davy!