Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas

Feel like cooking a delicious meal but don't have much time? Here's a real easy menu that will let you spend more time with your loved ones. All you need is to be a little organized, prepare a few ingredients in advance and store them in the refrigerator until dinner time. 

Vietnamese Shrimp Paste Sauce Recipe (Mam Tom)

As I promised earlier this week, here's the recipe for the condiment that traditionally accompanies the Northern Vietnamese dill fish dish. The dipping sauce is called mắm tôm, which literally translates to "fermented shrimp sauce". It's made from fermented shrimp paste sauce (mắm ruốc, whose aroma smells very pungent), garlic, sambal oelek chile paste, sugar and freshly squeezed lime juice. The preparation is very similar to mắm nêm, the dipping sauce used for bỏ nhúng dấm (Vietnamese beef fondue), except it doesn't contain pineapple. Both spicy sauces are very strong in taste, so if fermented paste is too overwhelming for your palate, you could ultimately use nước mắm chấm (fish sauce) for a milder flavor.

Enjoy this authentic recipe!

No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake Recipe (Egg Free Dessert)

If you're searching for a no bake cheesecake recipe, look no more. It looks fancy but it's ultra easy to assemble. As a bonus, it's an egg-free dessert. So what's not to love? Give this mascarpone cheese dessert a try.

I flavored the cheesecake filling with strawberries and added bananas for a thicker texture. Instead of placing the cheesecake in a spring-form pan, I decided this time to shape the dessert in a long triangular mold I usually use for making terrines (French jellied meatloaf). I first covered the molds with store-bought Italian-style lady finger puffs and completed it with the strawberry-and-banana-flavored cheesecake filling. The presentation turned out pretty spectacular. You know the saying: you eat with your eyes first! 

Watermelon Iced Tea Drink Recipe

It's watermelon season again, which means that it's supposed to be really wam here in Northern California, but alas, we're experiencing another cold spell. For those of you enjoying balmier temperatures, I present my incredibly refreshing watermelon iced tea drink.

I flavored the drink with fresh mint and agave nectar; you could omit the syrup depending on the sweetness of the watermelon. In addition to being delicious, this refreshing drink has multiple health benefits thanks to the green tea. It really is the perfect summer drink!

Cha Ca Thang Long Recipe: Vietnamese Dill Fish with Turmeric

Chả cá thăng long is a pan-fried dill fish dish. Try saying that three times in a row! The yellow hue comes from aromatic turmeric powder. Unlike Indian and Middle-Eastern cooking, dill -called thì là in Vietnamese- is not a very common ingredient in Southern Vietnamese cooking save for a few seafood dishes. Dill has a unique fresh flavor; it's sautéed in the same pan where the fish was pan-fried, then mixed back with the turmeric fish. The moisture from the herbs keeps the fish from drying out.

My family is originally from Cầnthõ and Sàigòn (Southern Vietnam) but my mother took me to Hànội (Norththern Vietnam) when I was seventeen. This dill fish recipe originates from that region. That's why it's also known as chả cá Hànội. You also might find it as chả cá lã vọng on some Vietnamese restaurant menus. If you're looking for a healthy dish, a meal composed of fish and cold rice vermicelli noodles (called bún in Vietnamese), might be the perfect fix.