Hey everyone, it’s Kevin here! Today I’m bringing you a famous recipe from the Chinese drama, Meteor Garden. In the show, the main character makes these 8 treasure spicy noodles (八宝辣酱面) as part of a cooking competition and almost wins. Ever since I watched Meteor Garden, I wanted to try recreating this show-defining dish. In the show, the main character is inspired to make this dish by her “boyfriend” (just a love interest at the time of the competition) nicknamed “pineapple-head” (his hair looks like a pineapple). As such, her dish deviates from the traditional 8 treasure spicy noodles by inc ..read more

Hey everyone, it’s Sierra here! Today I’m sharing with you a recipe for orange gingerbread cookies that is perfect for the holidays! Who doesn’t love gingerbread cookies around Christmas? The smell of the warm spices baking in the oven wafting throughout the house is simply irresistible. For these orange gingerbread cookies, I added a slight twist to the classic gingerbread cookie by adding orange zest in the cookie and orange juice in the icing. The addition of orange adds just a hint of tanginess to the cookies to complement the sweet and spicy flavors, and it breathes new life into this tim ..read more

Hey everyone, it’s Kevin here! Today I’m sharing with you a homemade fancier version of one of my favorite childhood school lunches—Italian meatballs with a delicious homemade marinara sauce! In elementary and middle school, I was always excited when our cafeteria had spaghetti and meatballs for lunch. I don’t know what kinds of stuff they put into those cafeteria lunches, but regardless, I shoveled those meatballs and noodles soaked with sauce into my mouth. These Italian meatballs in homemade tomato sauce are an homage to those fond childhood memories but are made with ingredients I know are ..read more

Hey everyone, it’s Kevin! Today I am sharing with you a potato dish that has me questioning my relationship with French fries—these roasted garlic fingerling potatoes! I absolutely love French fries, but they can be quite difficult to make at home without a deep fryer. Thankfully, I recently discovered fingerling potatoes through watching Masterchef and knew that I had to try to make an at-home French fry alternative with them. While potatoes taste great by themselves, my goal was to infuse these roasted fingerling potatoes with garlic flavor (I love garlic). To do so, this recipe adds garlic ..read more

Hey everyone, it’s Kevin here! Today I have a quick and easy recipe for chicken chow mein with a soy sauce-based sauce! Chow mein is one of my favorite Chinese takeout dishes. It’s quite a guilty pleasure of mine and a big dismay to my parents because there are so many other delicious Chinese dishes out there. While I’ve learned to appreciate all sorts of Chinese dishes as I’ve grown up, I still love my simple fried noodles tossed with vegetables and protein with soy sauce. What Kind of Noodles to Use? For authentic chow mein, you should use thin egg noodles. They can be either dry or fresh ..read more

Hey everyone, it’s Sierra here! Today I have a recipe for cast iron cinnamon rolls frosted with a mouthwatering maple and bourbon frosting. There are few things in the world that taste as delicious as a warm cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven. Kevin and I had some Cinnabons a few months ago on a road trip, and I haven’t been able to get them out of my head. To me, a perfect cinnamon roll has a crispy crust around the outside, a light, fluffy interior, a rich, decadent frosting, and of course, it must be filled with amazing cinnamon flavor. Why Cast Iron Cinnamon Rolls? Kevin loves cast iro ..read more

Hey everyone, it’s Kevin here! Today I have a simple recipe for a perfect cold-weather dessert—a warm and comforting bourbon bread pudding topped with bourbon candied pecans! Here at The Mini Chef, Sierra is definitely the better baker between the two of us, but I wanted to try my hand at making my own bread pudding recipe. Bread pudding is one of my favorite desserts, and the best part is, it is so easy and requires very little baking skills! It’s also a great way to use leftover bread, since the staler the bread, the better (we even toast the bread in the oven to dry it out more). To make th ..read more

Hey everyone! It’s Sierra here, and today I am so excited to share with you guys a recipe for these fudgy brown butter brownies that I’ve spent almost a month working on! It was worth the effort because I am so happy with how dense and chocolatey these brownies turned out. I’d been wanting to make a brownie recipe for a while after waking up one day and craving a fudgy brownie. There were just two main characteristics I wanted my brownies to have: shiny cracked top and a fudgy texture (as opposed to cakey). I didn’t initially set out to make brown butter brownies, but after trying it on a whim ..read more

Hey everyone! It’s Kevin here today with a delicious yet simple recipe for Chinese stir-fried green beans! At the end of a long day, all I want to do is eat green beans. Sierra Park Sierra LOVES green beans. So much so that since I started making this recipe, we’ve eaten green beans every day for a week straight. To be honest though, I hated green beans as a kid. Unlike bok choy, green beans were one of those vegetables I’d never touch unless my mom forced me. However, working on this recipe completely changed my perception of green beans. These Chinese stir-fried green beans are so simple, b ..read more

Hey everyone, it’s Kevin here! Today I have for you a recipe for one of my new favorite Korean dishes, sundubu jjigae (soft tofu stew)! Before working on this recipe, I’d only had one other jjigae (Korean stew) before, and that was kimchi jjigae that Sierra had made for me. It was so simple and delicious that when Sierra suggested I make a recipe for a similar dish, sundubu jjigae, I was more than happy to oblige. This recipe only takes about 30 minutes to make but tastes incredible because of the layering of the flavors. At its core, sundubu jjigae literally means soft tofu stew, but I added ..read more