Stuffing in 30 Minutes

By Sandy Hu
A new video for Video Friday

I can’t wait for Thanksgiving! We always observe the holiday at home and it’s always a cooking fest spanning several days. But I don’t mind the work. I love to prepare the meal and I love the leftovers.

Every family has dishes that are sacrosanct. In our house, it’s the stuffing. The cornbread one I make, from The New York Times International Cookbook, takes hours to prepare – chopping vegetables, mincing herbs, cubing and toasting white bread, making cornbread, and using a food grinder to grind the giblets.

Growing up in Hawaii, my mom’s was a Portuguese stuffing studded with pimentos, sliced olives and chopped linguisa.

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An Easy Thanksgiving Appetizer

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Certainly my family -- my husband Steve, my boys, Dave and Chris, my daughter-in-law, Lynn, and our new grandchild, baby Tara.

I’m also thankful that I love my work. I have two jobs: blogging for Special Fork and serving as the PR representative for Kerrygold Irish butter and cheeses, made with milk from grass-fed cows raised on Ireland’s small family farms.

Sometimes, my two jobs converge, as when I get to plan and execute events for Kerrygold and in the process, learn new recipes and food ideas that I can share with you.

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Lemon Sponge Pudding

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Years ago, when I was the food editor of the Honolulu Advertiser, I saved a recipe for Lemon Sponge Pudding from a news wire story. I hadn’t run the story but must have liked the recipe, because I just found it recently in an old recipe binder. So after decades, I thought I’d try it out.

Lemons have been on my mind recently because Dave bought a new house that came with a bonus lemon tree. Delighted to receive the bounty from my son, I grated the peels and juiced the lemons to store in my freezer.

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Almost Foolproof Fish

By Sandy Hu
A new video for Video Friday

If you're a little leery about cooking fish, worried that it might turn out dry, here's a good recipe to try. It just requires marinating salmon steaks in citrus juices to give the fish added flavor, and then simply baking them in the oven.

The only caution is to keep from overcooking the fish. The rule of thumb is to cook fish about 7 to 8 minutes per inch thickness. At that point, remove the fish and use the tip of a knife inserted in the center of the fish and peek around the cut. The flesh should be opaque and no longer translucent, but still moist.

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Oyako Donburi – Good, Cheap, Fast!

By Sandy Hu
A new video for Video Friday

Have you ever ordered donburi at a Japanese restaurant? It’s a single-serve, one-dish meal—a big bowl of rice with savory toppings. The donburi items are usually the cheapest on the menu since inexpensive rice is the base.

Oyako donburi, rice topped with chicken and egg in a sauce, is especially easy to make. It’s economical because half a chicken breast and two eggs will stretch to serve two people.

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