Good Friday, everyone! Today is the last day of my one-week blog challenge (yehey, I did it!). This pasta recipe is one of my favorites because you can pick and choose your meat, vegetable and cheese. Since my challenge is about using 5 ingredients or less that are already in my cupboard, I used extra virgin olive oil and butter as a sauce base and salt and pepper to taste. Save time on cleaning by using only one pot, a chopping board and a knife. Hope you enjoy this healthy recipe as much as I do.

Substitutions stated on the recipe below. To make this kid friendly, you can use a tomato-based sauce instead with meatballs and tons of cheese. I do this when I'm babysitting my growing nephew. He can wolf down 2 to 3 bowls of pasta now!

Healthy spaghetti recipe with spinach and parmesan cheese topped with salmon

Made with 3 ingredients (zero thickeners)!

For my one-week challenge today, I bring you another easy recipe for roasting vegetables using less than 5 ingredients. I purposely didn't identify which recipe it is on the title because you can substitute the vegetables, eggplant and broccoli, that I used. Similarly for a more unique kick, you can add your own spices, such as curry or chili.

If you missed it, I started this blog challenge because I hate following recipes that I find online with too many ingredients that I don't have in my cupboard. I hope that this inspires you to experiment and be resourceful of what you already have. Substitutions are stated on the recipe. I served this with my left-over quinoa for a healthy, low-carb meal.

Roasted eggplant and broccoli

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I'm on my second day of my weeklong challenge to post a recipe with 5 or less ingredients. This easy baked, stuffed fig recipe is inspired by an appetizer I devoured when I was brunching at Fig, Santa Monica. This is a simple dish that is great to serve as an appetizer to a group of hungry diners and impress them with its sweet and savory flavor.  I also make this for myself as a pick-me-up snack.

The cheese can be substituted with any type of soft cheese. Same thing goes for the nuts depending on how salty and sweet you like them to be. The fun part of this recipe is figuring out how to break open the fig without crushing it. I experimented a couple of ways how to do it, including using a knife, but what I found to be most successful is to push my second finger to create a small hole to hold the cheese. To make it cheesier, make the hole bigger and stuff it with more cheese.

Yummy stuffed figs

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Don't you hate it when you read a recipe that you want to make only to find out that it has gazillions of ingredients that you need to buy? Fret not. For this lenten season, I am making a sacrifice not to buy food from a restaurant for a week so that means I'll be experimenting with no-meat recipes at home using 5 ingredients or less every single day. My other promise to myself is to commit to sharing these recipes with you everyday this week.

I woke to a gloomy Monday and decided to to make French Toast with 4 key ingredients. I used sliced cinnamon bread for more flavor, but you can make this with any type of slice bread. Just make sure it doesn't become too soggy once it's drenched in beaten eggs. You can also substitute the syrup with honey.

Cinnamon bread french toast

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Scrambled eggs with pea and green olive toast for my vegan friend. Very unique twist to a bruschetta.

Poached eggs, polenta, duck, carrots and maitake for the win!

Cheese plate with fennel preserve to start our meal.

2. Park Tavern, North Beach: Forget about the more than an hour line across the street at the iconic Mama's. Head to the former Moose's space now called as Park Tavern.

I was actually surprised with the diverse selection for brunch. Although I was a little bit disappointed that their deviled eggs for brunch is actually different from their famous deviled eggs served for dinner, the out-of-the-ordinary grapefruit brulee exemplifies why Park Tavern is a must for brunch. The fiery avocado toast also came in close to second.

Sliced grapefruit bruleed to perfection. A good palette cleanser.

Interiors of Park Tavern

There was a long line at Mama's outside. Mehh..

The avocado with sea salt, chile and lemon toast would have been another clear winner but the lackluster wheat bread was a turn-off. Was the bread store bought?

Open faced deviled eggs. A bit disappointing that it had more chicken breast than actual eggs to the mixture.

A picture within the picture.

Can't get enough of this bruleed grapefruit. Must try this at home.

This is how food bloggers work early in the morning with sssourabh.

3. Nopa, Alamo Square: A bit off the beaten track, Nopa still remains as one of the formidable brunch spots in San Francisco due to its high quality ingredients. Also not to be miss is their hot chocolate made in-house. Find out more about it here.

Fresh, gooey french toast

4. Mission Beach Cafe

In the case of food photography, an object is usually captured best by a macro lens, a 35mm or 50mm. With this type of lens, you can focus on certain areas that show texture- whether it's creamy, nutty, hard, soft, etc. If you are submitting this to a professional magazine, ensure that you are not submitting food porn though, providing ample white space for text and capturing the entire object at an overhead or eye-level angle.

Lighting is also vital. For most cash-strapped bloggers, a DIY option is available in the form of a recycled carton as a lightbox (see instructions here) or an aluminum foil as a reflector. Mirrors work great as well. The best source of light is usually a few feet from your window or if it is already dark outside, use a lightbox and clamp lights, which can be bought in any home supply store.

What do you think about the examples of the macaron and cupcake below? Is it glossy, creamy, rough, etc.? Do you see where the primary light is coming from to accentuate the texture? 

The worst thing you can do is to Google answers. Search results will show that some bloggers have grown thousands of followers in just less than a few months. Worse, you see an ebook entitled 'How a blogger earned $40k in her first year of blogging'. You start to panic why you haven't gotten those kind of numbers even after many years of consistently posting content.

Something has got to give. And that includes these four major overhauls:

1. Write longer blog posts, such as How To articles and listicles, that tend to have more SEO keywords and thus more points from Google. 

2. Dominate a social channel that was ignored before. For many bloggers, that means using Pinterest effectively. The longer the image, the more it attracts users to click your photo. 

3. Clean up the Instagram timeline. Many food bloggers I admire are those with amazing, bright food photos. You know they are not totting around their iPhones to get the best gastronomic shots. When it comes to food photography, iPhone photos do not really do justice, especially in low-lit restaurants. 

4. Join Facebook blogging groups and read other bloggers' tips religiously. This has been my inspiration for writing this post, but beware of comparing yourself to popular bloggers.

In order to help you achieve all these changes and more, take advantage of all these FREE apps:
- Latergramme: Use your DSLR photos that have been stuck on your desktop. Once you schedule these images on Latergramme's website, it shows up on the mobile app, which you can easily share on Instagram.
- Grama: now that you have better Instagram photos to share, it's time to amp up and discover new hashtags. Grama is a hashtag creator that you can copy/paste based on your keyword.
- Typorama: create Pinterest-friendly long, vertical images with text to get higher conversion. It also has free stock photos you can use from Pixabay. 

Get out of the blogging rut and try the overhauls above! If you have any other suggestions, feel free to leave it on the comment box.

Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar and Izakaya in the Mission district adds a unique twist with their menu that encompasses all-time Japanese favorites, including sushi, ramen and izakaya dishes. As a non-meat eater myself, I avoid going to ramen places that only serve pork-based broth. My vegetarian friends also don't like going to any Japanese restaurants, fearing that there would not be anything for them to eat except for California rolls. Shizen solves all those problems. 

I loved everything that my eating buddy and I ordered. Shizen's fresh organic yuba salad satisfied my fascination with yuba, the shoyu ramen warmed my hungry soul with the right amount of saltiness, while the dramatic entrance of the Candlestick specialty roll's dancing fire tickled my senses even further. I shall be back for more.