This green bean dish can be easily spotted at the Chinese buffet table. In fact, that was how I discovered this cooking method. Below is how I imagine this dish is prepared and I made it for our Thanksgiving dinner. It was very closed to the original except I needed more sauce.Ingredients:Green Beans
3-4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
Salt to taste
1 tsp. chicken stock granules
Cornstarch water
Method:
1. In a pot of boiling water, add a pinch of salt and a little oil. Blanch the green beans for a little while. Dish out and place in cold water.
2. In a wok, add in a little oil. Stir-fry the garlic until fragrant and golden brown. Add in some water. Season with chicken stock granules and salt. Thicken it with cornstarch water and add in the cooked green beans. Stir-fry until well coated with the sauce, dish out and serve.
TO ALL READERS, HAVE A GREAT AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010, MAY YOUR WISHES COME TRUE FOR YOU!!
Do you ever have some apples sitting in the refrigerator for weeks that no one wants to eat? I always have a few sitting there. One day, I was out of bread so I decided to make some apple muffins for breakfast; one, I could get rid of the apple; two, we could have muffins for breakfast. I wanted this muffin to be healthier too so I used some whole wheat flour, canola oil and lots of apple. I always love muffin with crumbs topping but that would means added fat as normally it is made with butter, flour and brown sugar. So, my healthier alternative would be cornflakes cereal for the extra crunch. It is really crunchy and delicious when eaten on the same day. But the cereal will turn soft the next day when kept in an air-tight container, but not to worry, just toast it for 4-5 minutes in the toaster oven to crisp it up and warm the muffin before consuming. Enjoy! It also makes an healthier snack compared to cupcakes packed with frosting.
Yield about 12 big muffins (shown above) or 18 small cupcake size muffins.
Ingredients:
(A)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (use all-purpose flour if you don't have this at home)
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon powder
(B)
1 egg
1 cup milk (2% or skim)
1/4 cup canola oil
(C)
1 1/2 cup chopped apple (from one large apple, cored, peeled and chopped)
Crunchy Topping: Cornflakes cereal (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 400'F. Line the muffin pan with paper muffin cups.
2. In a large bowl, add in (A). Whisk to combine.
3. Make a hole in the center, add in (B). Whisk to blend well. And whisk or stir everything into a batter (with a whisk or a spatula).
4. Add in (C). Stir with a spatula to combine.
5. Scoop into paper muffin cups less than 3/4 cup full (as it will rise up when baking). Sprinkle the top with cornflakes cereal for extra healthy crunchy topping.
6. Bake for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Place on wire rack to cool completely before storage.
Whoa, it is very COLD here, as I am typing this, it is 15'F (-9'C). The high today is only going to reach 21'F even though it is sunny outside. We had snow shower the previous day and it is going to be a white Christmas for us here. According to the weather forecast, it is going to snow on Christmas day (tomorrow). How to keep warm on such a cold day except staying at home, treat yourself with a cup of hot coffee or hot chocolate, exercising on Wii Fit Plus (this is a great one to keep warm, LOL!) and serving up a bowl of warm soup. Here sharing with you a bowl of my warm soup to warm yourself up and wishing all my readers a joyous and safe holiday seasons. Be happy, be healthy, be stress free, eat healthy and exercise more in the new year!
~Serve about 4 bowls.Ingredients: 1000ml water
2 chicken drumsticks
5 medium size dried Scallops, reconstituted in hot water, save the liquid.
6 fish paste tofu cubes, cut into slices
Some napa cabbage, thinly sliced
1 bundle of tang hoon (translucent glass vermicelli), soften in warm water
2 eggs, beaten
Salt and white pepper to taste
Method:
1. In a medium saucepan, add in water and let it boil. When boiling, add in the chicken drumsticks and dried scallops along with the water. Turn the heat to low and let it simmer for an hour.
2. Add in the napa cabbage, fish paste tofu, stir and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Add in tang hoon/vermicelli, season to taste with salt and white pepper. Turn the heat off and add in the beaten eggs, stir to create egg drop effect. Serve hot!
The easiest way to serve sweet potatoes for holiday dinner, no steaming, no mashing required, just bake it in the oven. Minimal washing too as you just need to throw away the aluminum foil. That's why this can be prepared last minute. I am waiting for it to go on sales again on Christmas week so that I can make this again.Ingredients:Sweet potato, cut into fries shape like above
Olive oil or extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
Paprika
JoJo potato seasoning
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 375'F. Line a baking pan with aluminum foil. Put the cut sweet potato fries on top.
2. Pour some olive oil on the sweet potato fries, season with salt, pepper, paprika and JoJo potato seasoning. Toast to coat well.
3. Bake for 15 minutes, flip it and bake for additional 10 minutes. Turn the oven to broil and broil for 2-3 minutes before serving (keep an eye on it).
Evy has a Holidays recital coming up, she is practicing her piano. Her hair is getting long too, more feminine and look nicer to me. She is currently top at her class, rated at 1.9 whereas the kindergarten started at 0 level. We are thinking whether to jump her to Grade 2 next year or not. A lot to think about, for those who has his/her child skip a grade, what's your thought on this, to skip or not to skip a grade? Currently she is going to the Kindergarten Enrichment session once a week for some extra academic opportunities. Since we speak 90% of Mandarin at home, I really wanted her to learn English or to improve her vocabulary. She reads perfectly but she is unable to understand the meaning behind it (given the fact we speak Mandarin at home), so how to increase her understanding of what she read? The more I think about it, the more I want her to remain in her grade, at least she can learn more English and still remain the top in her class. Also she gets to go to the enrichment session and if she is still the top in her class at Grade 3, she will get to go to the Talented and Gifted class. It is the understanding of the meaning and comprehension of the things she read that is worrying me. If we put her in Grade 2, she might be having a little hard time and feel challenging at school. Yet I know for a fact that if we put her in Grade 1, it will be no challenge for her as she knows most of the stuff already (she already rated 1.9 at this mid-term assessment).
Want to challenge her academically or not? Or let her cruise through?
My little one hair is getting long but she loves her long hair. I managed to potty train her before she turned three. I thought she would be the difficult one as she never potty in her potty before but guess all the mental preparedness worked. She is starting to speak in English too. Sometimes her sister will speak to her in English and both of them will be role playing in English. I had a hypothesis and I tested it out on both of my girls and it proved true. We speak 90-95% of Mandarin with them, their first language was Mandarin but at three years old, they started to speak a second language English naturally. We teach them Mandarin, the television teach them English. LOL! If you are interested in learning my hypothesis, read through my older posts on my girls.
Don't you just want to pinch that cheeks of hers? I do!Here wishing you all a very Happy Holidays!!
I found the Vietnamese rice noodle at my Asian supermarket. This is just like the Malaysia Loh See Fun as it was made with rice flour, wheat starch and water. The texture is soft unlike the previous one that I had. Instead of preparing it in soup, I did a quick stir-fry in white sauce. I was too lazy to prepare the soup for it and wanted a change from my usual black sauce.
Ingredients:Vietnamese rice noodle (2 packets)
1/2 lb. Ground pork, marinate with soy sauce, white pepper, rice wine and sesame oil (to get rid of the pork smell)
4-5 Chinese dried mushroom, soften and chopped
2 Scallion, cut into 1.5 inch
3 gloves of Garlic, minced
1 bowl of Bean sprouts, washed
1 Carrot, cutSeasoning: oyster sauce, salt, sugar, white pepper, rice wine.Method:1. In a wok, add in some oil, add in garlic. Fry until fragrant, add in ground pork and stir-fry until no longer pink. Add in Chinese mushrooms and carrot, stir-fry well.
2. Add in Vietnamese rice noodle and seasoning, add a little water if needed. Stir-fry well and lastly add bean sprouts and scallion. Stir-fry well and season to taste. Serve hot!
I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.
This week host is Reeni,
do go and check out Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice delicious round up on Dec, 18th! This will be the last Presto Pasta Nights event for this year, the next roundup will resume on Jan 8th, 2010.
Chinese loved to eat long noodle on their birthday because it signify long life, it is like a tradition especially for older people. We will have long noodle, red eggs and peach steamed buns for older people. Today, I made my noodle soup with ShanDong ramen (山东拉面). It is similar to the noodle that Taiwanese served on their beef noodle soup. This noodle is packaged dried in a rectangle box that you can get in the Asian store. Good in soup and stir-fry.
Ingredients:ShanDong ramen, homemade chicken stock, tofu fish cake, fried fish balls, napa cabbage and mini sausages.
Method:
1. Prepare the homemade chicken stock with 1 chicken, 1 big yellow onion, small piece of smashed ginger, 2-3 stalks of scallions, 3 carrots (cut). Simmer for 2 hours. Season to taste with salt, sugar and chicken stock granules.
2. Cook noodle per package instruction. Set aside.
3. Sieve the chicken stock. Turn the heat to high, when boiling, add in napa cabbage, tofu fish cake, fried fish balls and mini sausages. Let it cook for a minute or two.
4. In a bowl, place in the noodle. Scoop the soup on top with ingredients to serve hot. Eat with chili padi (bird eye chili) for extra kick.
I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.
This week host is Kevin,
do go and check out Closet Cooking delicious round up on Dec, 11th! Thanks!
This is the Asian sauce I created for the mini sausages. I used this sauce before for my Yong Tau Foo and it's a good mix too. This sauce is on the sweet side because I wanted it this way. Salty sausages with sticky sweet sauce as coating, sounds good right? This dish was well received by kids and adults.
Ingredients:
Mini sausages, sauce mixture= (3 Tbsp. hoisin sauce + 1 Tbsp. honey, mix well)Method:In a wok, add in a little oil. Stir-fry the mini sausages until hot. Add in the sauce mixture. Coat well and serve.
Sweet potato is super cheap this time of the year. I saw it as low as 25 cent/lb at WalMart. I regretted I didn't buy some at this price to keep. Edda was not feeling well and I decided to cook her some porridge. Instead of the usual fish porridge, I tried the chicken and sweet potatoes porridge. I made the porridge quite watery and cut the sweet potato into tiny cubes for easy swallowing. But guess what? She didn't like it at all. I think she is not a fan of sweet potato cooked in this way. Anyway, you can substitute the sweet potato with pumpkin.
Ingredients:Sweet potato, sliced skinless chicken breast, rice, water and salt to season.Method:In a pot, add in a handful of rice. Rinse with water. Add enough water to cook porridge and place it on the stove. Turn the heat to high and wait for it to boil. When boiling, turn the heat to low and give it a stir. Add in chicken breast and sweet potato cubes, give it a stir. Cover it and let it simmer until cooked, keep stirring once in a while. Lastly, season to taste with a little salt.
I loved cookies! A cookies lover since young and coming from Asia, we were used to the hard and crunchy cookies. I only got introduced to soft or soft and chewy cookies when I came to America. It got some getting used to but frankly I am still not use to the soft cookies. My hubby brought back some cookies from his office and it was so soft that it disintegrated into pieces, not only that it was very sweet too. It was nothing like eating cookies at all, more like eating soft dough. Needless to say, I am still not a fan of soft cookies but I like the chewy and soft cookies (yet not too soft) like the one I made here.
I am also for healthier cookies so I experimented with whole wheat flour, rolled oats and dried cranberries for this cookies. I made this cookies before using all-purpose flour and the texture was different, with AP flour the cookies spread out and chewier. With whole wheat flour, it didn't spread out as much during baking. Regardless, it is still a tasty cookies to us. You can change the dried fruit to what you have a home. A healthier cookies to make to give to your friends during this Holidays season eh?
~Yield about 33 cookies. Feel free to double the recipe!
Ingredients:
(A)
1/2 cup (1 stick/113 g) butter, soften
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
(B)
1 egg
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
(C)
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
(D)
1 cup roll oats
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Method:
1. In a big mixing bowl, add in (A), beat with electric beater until creamy. Add in (B) and beat again until combined. Then, add in (C) and beat again until well incorporated. Lastly add in (D) and stir with a spatula until well mixed.
2. Prepare your baking sheets with parchment paper. Turn the oven to 350'F or convection oven to 325'F. Use the smallest cookie scoop and scoop cookie dough on parchment paper. Place the cookie dough 1-1.5 inch apart as it will spread out when baking.
3. Bake for 10 minutes. Cookies will be brown on edges and soft in the center. Remove and let the cookies rest in the baking sheets for 2 minutes before carefully transferring them to cool completely on wire racks. Store cookies in an airtight container.
While shopping at my Asian grocery store recently, I spotted this Vietnamese noodle that looked very similar to our Malaysian "Loh See Fun, 老鼠粉" or silver needle noodle. This Vietnamese noodle is made with wheat starch, potato starch and water. Whereas silver needle noodle is made with rice flour, wheat starch and water, thus softer in texture. This Vietnamese noodle has more bite to it. I was glad to find it as I made my own "loh see fun" before and it was hard work. I used some frozen leftover chicken breast for this. You can use any meat or seafood you like.
Ingredients:Vietnamese noodle,
Poultry, meat or seafood of your choice (I used leftover chicken breast), Carrot,
Eggs, Bean Sprouts,
Scallion,
Garlic.
Seasoning: Oyster sauce,
Dark Soy sauce,
Sugar,
White Pepper,
Sesame oil.
Methods:1. Heat up a wok, when heated, add in some cooking oil. Stir-fry garlic, carrot and meat/seafood of your choice until no longer pink. Scoop to the side of the wok, add in a little oil when needed. Crack in eggs, stir fry until cooked, mix everything together.
2. Add in noodle and seasonings. Stir fry well. Add in scallion and bean sprouts. Stir-fry for a little while and mix everything together. Taste test, season if needed. Serve hot.
I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.
This week host is Deb,
do go and check out Kahakai Kitchen delicious round up on Nov, 27th!
