Category Archives: Baking

Baked Garlic Butter Salmon Recipe: A Must-Try

Lately, we have been eating a lot of meat. So I decided to cook something different. It should be something that my choosy son, Zach, could and would eat.

Since it is a holiday here in Japan today (the Autumn Equinox Day), I had time to cook. I decided to have fish with lots of vegetables for lunch. I went through my recipe notebook and I saw my Baked Salmon Recipe.

I found this recipe while browsing the internet last April. We were quarantined at home due to the State of Emergency that was declared in Japan. I was then looking for a new recipe to try because I was so bored at home that all I did at that time was cook/bake, eat, watch TV, sleep, and repeat. Although the recipe was a total success when I gave it a try, I completely forgot about it and I even forgot to share it here in my blog…sorry!

Anyway, the original recipe had only broccoli as the side veggie. I love veggies so I put all the veggies which I think would go well with the salmon: broccoli, asparagus, and green beans. I would have put some potatoes but I was worried that they might not cook well because the salmon fillets need less time in the oven. Perhaps next time, I will find a way to add those potatoes in.

Well, enough with the chitchat! Here is one recipe that is healthy and oh so yummy! We finished everything in just one sitting! I’m sure your family will love it as much as we do. Happy cooking!

Baked Garlic Butter Salmon

  • 5-6 pcs salmon fillets
  • broccoli florets
  • asparagus
  • green beans

For the Garlic Butter Sauce

  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 tbsp light brown sugar
  • ½ tsp dried oregano
  • ½ tsp  dried thyme
  • ½ tsp dried rosemary
  • salt and ground pepper to taste
  • 1 pc lemon, halved
  • dried parsley for garnish
  1. Preheat oven to 200°C
  2. Cover the pan with oven paper. You can also grease the pan with cooking spray but I prefer using the oven paper because it’s less messy and it’s easier to clean.
  3. Arrange the vegetables and salmon fillets on prepared pan
  4. Rub minced garlic over each fillet then set aside
  5. In a mixing bowl whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, oregano, thyme, and rosemary
  6. Pour the butter mixture over the salmon and veggies
  7. Take half of a lemon and squeeze lemon juice over everything
  8. Season with salt and pepper
  9. Place the pan in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork 
  10. Serve with lemon slices

Lemon Bars

Lemon Bars

I love sweets…who doesn’t? However, since I am careful with my sugar consumption and because I am now on a diet, I limit myself to only one dessert a day. But in spite of that, I still haven’t reached my ideal weight yet. Sigh! Just a mere .5 kilo and yet, it is so difficult to attain— especially now with the stay-at-home request from the Tokyo Governor.

Ever since I started working from home, I get to eat lunch and dinner with my kids everyday. “Why not breakfast?”, you might ask. Well, nobody in this house wakes up early! Sigh again!

Anyway, since I get to eat with the kids now, I get to finally chit chat with them (yup…no phones, no iPad and no TV while eating). But the chit chat ends when they finish eating. So like any other typical mom, I want them to stay longer at the dining table so I can chat with them longer . What is the best thing to do then? Bake them desserts that they definitely love!

One sunny quarantine day, I casually told them that since I wasn’t as busy as before, I could bake them something. They got excited and they started flipping through my recipe notebook. They didn’t like apple pie at that time, and cupcakes with frosting are just too much work for me. They then settled with lemon bars.

The first time I baked these lemon bars, they were an epic failure. They were too dry and the crust was too hard. I definitely thought I sucked at these dessert bars so I stopped baking them altogether. That was two years ago.

But on that day when my kids wanted me to bake lemon bars for them, these sweeties turned out to be really good! So from then on, we eat lemon bars with freshly brewed coffee (except for Zach) right after lunch. And from then on, I have been baking lemon bars every week!

So for my blog today, I will share with you my recipe for lemon bars. I got this recipe from my cousin who loves baking as much as I do. You can check her account on Instagram: The Bad Brownies.

I hope that through these lemon bars, you will also be able to encourage your kids to stay longer at the dinner table just to have those treasured chit chats with you…like what I did (and do).

Have fun baking!

Lemon Bars Recipe

For the Crust

  • 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 2 sticks Butter, softened at room temperature
  • ¾ cup Powdered Sugar

For the Filling:

  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 tbsp All-Purpose Flour
  • ¾ tsp Baking Powder
  • 2 tbsp Lemon Juice
  • 1 tsp Grated Lemon Peel
  • Powdered Sugar to sprinkle on top of the bars

For the Crust:

  1. Combine flour, butter, and powdered sugar. Mix until it resembles coarse crumbs. I use hand mixer for this process.
  2. Pat into an 8 x 8 baking pan. Bake at 180°C for 21 minutes.

For the Filling:

  1. Beat eggs.
  2. Add sugar, flour, baking powder, lemon juice and lemon peel.
  3. Beat until frothy.
  4. Pour over the crust.
  5. Bake for 21 minutes or until light golden brown. Do not over cook.
  6. Cool on a wire rack.
  7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Red Velvet Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Before, I really thought that I couldn’t bake. The only reason why I thought I couldn’t was my laziness to measure ingredients. I have seen my late Grandma, Mama Peng, bake her very delicious Pineapple Upside Down Cake and I would see all those loads of baking utensils in the kitchen. Just the thought of all that mess discouraged me to learn baking.

I can cook, that’s a fact. And when I cook, I never measure anything I put in the pot or the pan. I just estimate—a little salt here, a pinch of pepper there—and voila, I will end up with a tasty meal on the table! But with baking, I don’t think it will work the same way. Thus, it took me years to try it.

Several years ago, I tried baking simple baked treats like instant brownies and instant muffins. They were “instant” because they were basically in a pack. You put whatever is inside the pack in a mixing bowl, add a little of something like milk maybe, then after mixing, they are ready to put in baking pans to bake. So, no measuring was necessary.

However, two years ago, I was so stressed with life that I had to do something to make myself really busy. I needed anything to do that would keep me from thinking about that certain stress in my life at that time (which I might share with you in another post). Then I thought about baking. I looked for recipes on the internet and asked from friends who I knew were into baking. After deciding which recipe I would bake, I bought the measuring spoons, measuring cups and ingredients from Amazon Japan. Then I started baking!

I got too focused on my baking at that moment.  Too focused actually that, for the first time in weeks,  I haven’t thought about any of my problems. And the best part was: my first baking project, the pandesal (salt bread),  was a big success.

From then on, baking has become my stress reliever.  Lately however, aside from relieving stress, I now also bake for fun or whenever I feel like baking. But most of the time, I bake when the kids request for their favorite cupcakes, cookies, or bread.

The recipe I will share for this post is their favorite cupcake…Red Velvet Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting. I got the recipe somewhere on the net, but I forgot to make a note of it in my recipe book. The cupcake is very simple to make and it is really good. The frosting is a bit complicated, but it tastes so wonderful that you will forget all the hard work you exerted when putting it on top of the cupcakes.

Anyway, here is the recipe…happy baking!

RED VELVET CUPCAKE WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

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DIRECTIONS:

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees C (180 degrees F) and line muffin pans with paper cupcake wrappers.
  2. In a large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder. Stir in the sugar.
  3. In another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, butter, oil, eggs, food coloring and vinegar until combined.
  4. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.
  5. Add the buttermilk mixture and stir until just combined.
  6. Divide the mixture among the prepared pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes (350F) or 19 minutes (180C) or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Do not over bake!
  7. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely while you prepare the cream cheese frosting.

Now, for the cream cheese frosting….

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DIRECTIONS:

  1. Beat the butter until light and fluffy.
  2. Cut the cream cheese into cubes and add to the butter, beating until smooth.
  3. Stir in the vanilla
  4. Add the sugar one cup at a time, and beating after each addition
  5. Add until you get the consistency you like. It should be firm enough to hold its shape.

And these are my finished products…

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