Shrimp Scampi

This is an okay dish that takes close to no time to make. I've had better shrimp scampi but they take much longer to make than this. Since I don't have that much time during the day, this one will do when I crave for some shrimp Scampi.

2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined - tails left on
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
1 small onion, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup shrimp stock, recipe follows
2 tablespoons cold butter
2 tablespoons chopped parsley leaves
Lemon slices, for garnish
Rice, as accompanimentSeason the shrimp thoroughly with salt and pepper. Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add enough oil to lightly coat the pan. Add the shrimp and quickly saute until just starting to turn pink, but not cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the onions and saute just until they begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 30 seconds. Add the lemon juice, white wine, and stock, and reduce by 2/3, about 5 minutes. Add the shrimp back to the pan and swirl in the butter. Finish with the parsley and check for seasoning. Garnish with lemon slices and serve over rice.

Chicken noodle soup

Some days I just don't feel like cooking much, and chicken noodle soup is easy but comforting. This one takes less than half an hour to make.

1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 small carrot, thinly sliced
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
6 cups homemade or low-sodium canned chicken broth
1/2 cup water
4 teaspoons salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 pound egg noodles (preferably wide ones)
1-1/4 cups shredded cooked chicken (meat from about one breast)
1 tablespoon flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 tablespoon fresh dill frondsPut the onion, carrots, celery, thyme, parsley, chicken broth and water in a medium pot. Season with the salt and pepper to taste, and bring to a simmer over medium high heat. Simmer until the vegetables are almost tender, about 5 minutes.

Add the noodles and cook until tender, 5 to 8 minutes (depending upon the size of the noodles). Add the chicken, warm through, and then adjust the seasoning if necessary with salt and pepper. Serve garnished with parsley and dill leaves.

Yummy tuna croquette

Easy Easy recipe. Took almost no time but tastes o so yummy.

You can use some thousand island as dipping sauce, and maybe squeeze some lemon juice on it afterwards.

TUNA CROQUETTES

1 (6 1/2 oz.) can tuna 1 1/2 tbsp. butter 1/2 onion, chopped 3 tbsp. flour 1/2 c. milk Egg Bread crumbs Parsley Melt butter. Add onion and soften it. Remove from fire and add 3 tablespoons flour and stir in 1/2 cup milk. Keep stirring and then put back on fire until real thick. Put tuna in bowl and flake it. Add mixture and parsley. Sprinkle in bread crumbs until a ball is formed. Chill 2 hours in refrigerator. Form croquettes, any shape. Dip in egg and bread crumbs. Chill again until ready to cook. Fry in shortening or oil.

Spinach mushroom Lasagna

I had frozen spinach, dried mushroom and turkey one day and didn't know what to make. I search on foodnetwork and found a lasagna recipe with those ingredients. It turned out to be such a yummy dish. I made it for my son's birthday party and got plenty of compliments on the bechamel sauce. The ingredients may look long but it really doesn't take that long to make it.


8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 pound button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
3 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
7 cups milk
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 pound spinach, stemmed, washed, blanched and roughly chopped
3 cups grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for coating casserole dish
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast
1 tablespoon Essence, recipe follows
1 pound oven-ready lasagna sheets
1 tablespoon butter, cut into 8 pieces

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring often until the mushrooms are browned and most of the liquid has evaporated, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the onions and garlic to the pan and saute until soft and translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, to make a light roux, about 2 minutes. Whisking constantly, slowly add the milk and continue to cook, stirring occasionally until thickened, 5 minutes. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of the salt, pepper, nutmeg, spinach and 1 1/2 cups of the Parmesan and cook, stirring, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the bechamel sauce until ready to assemble the lasagna.

Set a large, 12-inch saute pan over medium heat and add the olive oil. Season the chicken with the Essence and remaining 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt and place in the hot pan. Sear the chicken, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and cooked through, about 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate to cool and set aside. When cool, cut into bite size pieces.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Coat a 9 by 13 by 3-inch casserole with olive oil, and spread about 1/2 cup of the bechamel sauce on the bottom of the dish. Lay 3 sheets of pasta across the bottom of the dish and spread 3/4 cup of the bechamel sauce over the pasta. Sprinkle 1/4 of the chicken over the bechamel sauce, then sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the remaining Parmesan. Lay another 3 sheets of pasta over the chicken. Repeat 2 additional times with the remaining bechamel sauce, chicken, Parmesan, and pasta, ending with a layer of pasta covered with bechamel sauce. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of Parmesan over the bechamel sauce and scatter the butter pieces over the top. Place the casserole on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake, uncovered, until bubbly and well browned, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Note: You may need slightly less than the entire package of lasagna noodles, depending on the pan used for the casserole. Also, you may be able to fit more than 3 pieces of pasta in each layer, depending. The pasta can be broken into smaller pieces to fill in the gaps.

Filet Mignon

My sister sent me this link and told me how it's super easy and super tasty. I haven't tried it yet but I got my steak all ready to be cooked this week with this recipe.

1 1/2 cups balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter
6 (5 to 6-ounce) filet mignon steaks (each about 1-inch thick)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 ounces soft fresh goat cheese

Boil the balsamic vinegar and sugar in a heavy small saucepan over medium-high heat until reduced to 1/3 cup, stirring occasionally, about 18 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the broiler. Melt the butter in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the steaks with salt and pepper. Cook the steaks to desired doneness, about 3 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer the steaks to a baking sheet. Crumble the cheese over the steaks and broil just until the cheese melts, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with pepper.

Transfer the steaks to plates. Drizzle the balsamic sauce around the steaks and serve.

Sweet n Sour pork chops

I found this on foodnetwork. I got a whole bunch of costco size pork chop and didn't know what to do with them. This recipe worked out great. It's so easy and so yummy. I would tenderize the meat first though.

Sweet-n-Sour Pork Chops Recipe courtesy Robin Miller

1 tablespoon sesame oil Salt and ground black pepper 4 (4-ounce) boneless pork loin chops 1 cup apricot preserves 2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger 1/4 cup chopped scallionsHeat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season pork chops all over with salt and black pepper and add to hot pan. Cook chops 2 minutes per side, until golden brown. Add apricot preserves, soy sauce and ginger and bring to a simmer. Partially cover and simmer 5 minutes, until pork is cooked through. Remove from heat and stir in scallions.

Technical Analysis

Technical Analysis is when someone uses a set of tools to build charts that look like large institutional investors. Why? They think that it helps figuring out the psychology behind other investors.

So technical = psychology based. Kinda weird hh?

It uses stuff like trading volumn, japanese charts, some logs, so I guess it's the math behind all of this charting that makes it "technical". Critic says this is not all that predictive of stock prices.

Here are some important glossary for stocks:

Book value - asset of the company. How much it can be sold for. Sometimes referred to book value of 1 share.

Return of appreciation - how much the stock increased in value.

Dividend Yield -

If qt div = 25%, stock price is 10 bucks.

Dividend Yield =

Ann. Div. P rice

=

$0.25* 4 $ 10

= 0.10 = 10%

Earning per share - total earning/total shares.

Market Capitalization - total shares outstanding * price per share

P/E: the ratio of Price/EPS (for the year). It tells you how $$ the share is. Usually under 20 is pretty good.

Real Estate Investment Trust - You get to own a share of the real estate. Usually companies that investment in real estate have a pretty good dividend yield.

Relative Strength - performance of stock over performance of the market. Investor's business daily uses a pt system of 1-99. 95 means it performs better than 95% of the stocks out there.

Dinner tonight - Lasagna Bolognese

I got this baby recipes book with lots of really simple recipes that are healthy and full of nutrients for babies and adults. One of the recipes that I really like is the Bolognese sauce. Instead of using canned tomato like most of the recipes; this uses fresh tomatoes. You can do anything you want with the Bolognese sauce. I made Lasagna with it today because we have too many half used boxes left. I also improvised the recipe to have more veggies and used the crockpot to save me cooking time.

1 small onion - rough chopped
3/4 cup of carrot - rough chopped
4 Tb of celery
1 Tb of Italian seasoning (I actually more like 2. but you can always add, not take out)
1 tsp of salt
7 grinds of freshly ground pepper
1 lb ground meat (I used turkey, use whatever you have)
1/4 cup of chicken stock
1 can tomato paste
1 cup of mushroom (again use whatever you have. I used my rehydrated shiitake mushroom)

Toss EVERYTHING into the crockpot. Turn it on high. Wait 4-5 hours. Or slow for 8 hours.
Use a handblender to blend everything until smooth. That's what you only need to rough chop.

Ta da. Bolognese sauce is done!

If you want to make Lasagna with it.
Mix some ricotta cheese with the sauce, layer them with no boil Lasanga sheets in the order of sauce, sheet, sauce, parmasen cheese, sheet, sauce, parmasen cheese, for as many layers as you want.
Finally put more sauce and parmasen cheese on top after the last layer.
Bake for half an hour with the a foil, and then 15 min without.

EASY!

Back to stock - Quantitative analysis

Quantitative analysis describes the way one analyze the stocks based on numbers with no regards to the business.

Company Size - some invest based on the size of the company. Usually the smaller the company, the higher the return.

Screen based investing - Computer makes it easy to put in some formula and finds the stocks that fit the requirements. This will be screen based investing. Looks like there are a few companies selling these types of software out there for personal investing too.

Momentum - They're way popular. They beat expectation. Numbers are better than most expected. Think big growth.

CANSLIM - accelerating Current and Annual earnings; New, as in new products, new markets, or new management; Small capitalization and big volume demand. ; whether the company is a Leader or Laggard; Institutional sponsorship; the direction of the Market. Investor's Business Daily uses this theory.