Personal recipes!
Pineapple Sweet N' Sour Soup
Pineapples are my favorite additions when it comes to sweet and savory dishes. I love them in al pastor, pizzas, & shrimp fried rice. I especially love eating them in soups-- it's a dish I grew up eating as a child. Both my grandmother and my mom would prepare them differently. Even I like to put my own spin to it. It's pretty budget friendly if you're the kind of person who's consistent with using some of the same ingredients. Between just Bern and I, this dish would last us for three days.
Ingredients:
A half of a pineapple
3-4 roma tomatoes
Lotus Roots*
A bulb of Shallot
Lotus roots are optional, since I know they're not always easy to find depending where you are. I usually get them canned, they're usually sold in a glass jar. I'm not a fan of celery, but you're more than welcome to substitute lotus roots for celery bits!
1 package of chicken Thighs**
If you're not a fan of poultry meat, you can substitute it for catfish, shrimps, and/or tofu. Normally, I would add shrimps to this mixture. Because shrimps, chicken, & pineapple are classically great together! However, Bern isn't a fan of shrimps.
Chicken/mushroom Buoillion**
Fish sauce
Tamarind Powder
Palm Sugar**
Salt
A stick of lemongrass
A kaffir lime leaf*
Some ginger bits
6-8 cups of hot water
any neautral/ vegetable oil/ fat of your liking
If you do not have palm sugar, regular sugar is fine! Even brown sugar works too. If you got some chicken stock lying around, you can skip the chicken buoillon. If kefir lime leaves aren't avaiable in your area, you can omit it. I'm just a bit extra a times. If you ever can get a hold of it, I encourage you to experiment with it!
Watercress*
Culantro*
Cilantro
Fried Garlic
Fried Shallots
If you cannot find a culantro (aka Mexican coriander), Thai basil would work too! Watercress plants are totally optional.
A side of steamed rice, preferably Jasmine! You're more than welcome to use brown, Basmati, or a Calrose rice.
1. First, let's make sure we get all of proteins, pineapple, and tomatoes chopped up into pieces. And if you decide to to use shrimps, make you deveined them. Chop/mince up your herbs and spices; ginger, garlic, shallot, culantro, & cilantro. Slightly char a kaffir lime leaf to enhance the scent. Mash up a stick of lemongrass with the back of the knife to soften the stem and to distribute the flavor. Tie the lemongrass into a knot. We also want to make sure we keep half of the shallot pieces for frying and the other half in it's original form.
2. Now we're going to fry our minced garlic and chopped shallots in a large pot. I like to use slightly under two table spoons of oil to fuse the flavor with garlic & shallots. After frying them, take them out with a strainer spoon & put them aside.
3. With chopped chicken thighs, brown them a bit by stir frying them with the garlic& shallot-infused oil. Do not thoroughly cook them, we'll finish them off with boiling hot water later. Once, they're browned a bit, put them aside in a seperate clean bowl. If you plan on just using tofu and shrimps, I would not do the browning process with them since it's quite easy to over cook them. You may have to adjust your base flavor with a mushroom/chicken bouillon.
4. So we got chicken fat, garlic & shallot immersed in our oil. Now we want to distribute our knotted lemongrass, ginger bits, and our charred kaffir lime leaf in the infused oil. Stir fry them for a several seconds, enough to smell the aroma. Now, dump the chicken thigh pieces back into the pot. Pour 6-8 cups of hot water and let it simmer for just a bit.
5. While, you're cooking, you're likely to get a bit of gunk foaming up on the surface. Make sure you scoop them out as you wait for the chicken thighs to cook. Add in a tablespoon of fish sauce and chicken bouillon to enhance the soup flavor. Sprinkle some salt. Add a half of tablespoon of sugar. Start with a teaspoon of tamarind powder. If you plan on using/ adding shrimps, this would be a great time to throw them in.
6. Add your pineapple bits, tomatoe pieces, shallot pieces (the ones that we didn't fry up) & lotus roots/ celeries (optional) to the boiling pot. After a minute, test the soup flavor by sampling the broth! It should taste salty, sweet, & a bit citrusy. Feel free to measure with your heart if you feel it needs more of something.
7. The pineapple soup doesn't take very long to get cooked up. Once they're done, dress them up with the fried garlic and shallots we had aside. Lastly, dress them up with our leafy chopped/ ripped herbs: culantro, cilantro and watercress. For some brain-fart reason, I didn't dress them up properly in the picture but I recommend you put your fried bits & herbs once the soup is in a seperate bowl instead of dressing them in a pot. It just looks prettier. 
Eat them with a rice as your side!
Let's make stove top potpourri: broke edition
I'm sure you've seen bloggers using cinnamon sticks and beautifully sliced oranges to make a stove top potpourri, because of pinterest aesthetics. Honestly, if you just save your fruit scraps and peels, the scent of a potpourri will be just as effective! You can even freeze cranberries for up to a year! They might not be all that tasty after months being in the freezer, but I'm sure they'd come in handy as a potpourri.
Overall ingredients
Spices:
Cinnamon
Cloves
Ginger
Nutmeg
Star Anise (optional)
Fruits:
Apple Peels
Orange Peels
Cranberries
Lime/ Lemon juice
When it comes to spices, I like to stick to powdered forms. It's more economical and you'll still get a lovely scent! I prefer to reserve my cinnamon sticks for actual food, haha. I like putting in sprinkles of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves for the scent. Sometimes I'll pop a star anise to the mix. I always have ginger stored in my freezer, feel free to grab a piece (just make sure to thaw them out before you cut into them). Measure with your heart, measure with your nose.
Whenever I prepare an apple pie or an apple sauce, I would salvage my apple peels into a freezer bag. I do this with orange peels as well. Sometimes, I would even have a slice of lime leftover from taco night. Just be sure to keep anything lime/ lemony around to bump up the citrus scent. For instance, a bottle of those concentrated lime juice will do the job just as well .
Feel free to save a couple of orange and lemon peels for adding zest to your potpourri. Throw all your spices and fruit parts to a boiling water, let it simmer, and let your nose guide you to the scent. I like my potpourri smelling a bit more on the orangey side, so I had to amp up my orange peels (I used two orange peels). Play around with the scent, adjust the smell to your liking.
Let's make hot cocoa
Ingredients:
1 cup of milk of any kind
1 tb cocoa powder
1 tb granulated sugar
.5 tb brown sugar
sprinkles of salt
a dash of vanilla
toppings:
whipped cream
graham cracker
chocolate sprinkles
Since I am not longer a coffee drinker, I would sometimes make myself a hot cocoa just to spark my mood up. Just a warning: I'm not a professional cook...I just make stuff good enough to please Bern & friends.
Start by warming up a cup of milk in a pan with low-medium heat. I personally like using oatmilk because there's usually a bit of added sweetness. If you're going to do oat like me, I suggest getting the extra creamy ones! The heating should take less than a minute.
Toss in some cocoa powder, all your sugar, salt, and vanilla. Stir until all the ingredients are incorporated. I would turn the stove to the lowest setting if you started with a medium setting.
Once all your ingredients are incorporated, get a cup and pour hot cocoa into it! Top it off with a whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles, and some graham cracker crumbs. If you're ever in T4rg3t, and you like their Market Pantry line, I recommend the caramel flavored whipped cream. It's my new personal favorite atm.