Dry Roasted Edamame

Look what I found while browsing through Cosco. A lightly salted dry roasted Edamame!! For those who don't know Edamame is the green soybeans in a pod commonly eaten in China and Japan. Actually my Chinese friend introduced me to this Edamame. She boils them in lightly salted water and then open the pod and eat it just like that. Edameme is healthy for us as it is high in protein, fiber, vitamin A, B and calcium. She is a vegetarian and thus she eats this for the protein. She also used it in stir-fry.


I only seen frozen Edamame here. But I was too lazy to boil them in water and then open each and everyone of them to eat so I never buy it before. Not until I saw this dry roasted Edamame. All cooked and peeled and even salted for me. Such convenience and I just had to buy it. This indeed turned out to be a good and healthy snack for me! Edda loves it too but not my picky Evy.

Edda Update

Edda is 22 months old and she is still hardly speak. All she is good at is mama (妈妈) and baba (爸爸). Since she is bilingual, I do expect her to be a little late. But she should start saying more words after she turns two. She loves to mimic her sister, almost in every move. Her sister laugh, she laugh, her sister dance, she dance, her sister climb stairs, she also climb stairs, basically everything her sister does, she wanted to do it too. So, we have been asking her sister to teach her words. So far the only incentive to make her speak in word is a bribe of sweet dessert/candy/ potato chips (basically any junk food that kids like). We will ask “你要不要吃?” Say “要”. And then she will say “要”. We will of course take the opportunity to ask her to say more words, like “我爱你”, “ABC”, “1-10” these sort of things. With the bribe in sight, she is willing to say anything. If not, she prefers not to say any word. Most of the time she will use sound and action to let me know what she wants. A little strange right?

Whole Wheat Spaghetti

Non-spicy one for the kids.


With chillies in oil added, extra spicy for the parents.

Ingredients:
1 (13.25 oz) box whole wheat spaghetti
1 cup imitation crab meats
1 skinless & boneless chicken breasts, cut
10 asparagus, cut into 1-inch
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 carrot, sliced
6 sun-ripened tomatoes, sliced
Olive oil
2 tsp. chicken stock granules
Salt & black peppers

Method:

1. Cook spaghetti as directed by package, drain and set aside.

2. In a saucepan, heat up olive oil. Add garlic and chicken breasts, fry until chicken is almost cooked. Add in asparagus and carrot and fry until the veggies are cooked. Lastly add in the sun-ripened tomatoes and imitation crab meats, stir-fry for a minute and add in the cooked spaghetti. Season to taste with salt, chicken stock granules and black pepper. Mix well to combine. Taste test and season to your liking. Serve warm!

3. Optional: Top with chillies in oil, chili oil or dried chili flakes for the extra kick.

I'm serving this up at Presto Pasta Night. This week the host will be Ruth at Once Upon A Feast.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes

Actually I was embarrassed to say I never eaten a scallion pancake before. Not until I made it myself recently using the recipe provided by My Kitchen Snippets. Not sure how the texture is supposed to be like because mine was not fluffy like roti canai, but crispy and savory. Guess will have to buy a packet at the store to truly know the answer.


Hmmm...mine turned out to be the mini size pancakes! :P So no slicing required!


I made 15 small scallion pancakes and it was not bad. We ended out having it for dinner. I also noticed that there is another type of scallion pancake (while browsing through U-tube) which was made with flour & eggs batter (softer version) which I would love to try in the future.

Chee Cheong Fun with Sweet Sauce (Steamed Rice Rolls)

When I saw Lily's chee cheong fun made using a skillet, I decided to try it because it looked so easy. Oh yeah, look can be deceiving because something that she made so easily turned out to be a disaster in my kitchen. I couldn't get mine to cook before I burnt the bottom. Frustrated I tried steaming them and the same thing happen, it felt raw on top. Ended out in the trash it went. I was convinced that I would have chee cheong fun for tea time that I already made the sauce. So, I was left with my delicious sweet sauce that I wouldn't want to waste. So, I went on the web again and found another recipe to try. Making chee cheong fun definitely needs skill since we wouldn't want it to be too thick nor too thin. My first few batches were too thick but I got the hang of it in the end. I definitely need to practice more. But I do love the sweet sauce I came out with, perhaps it has shrimp paste ( hae kor) in it, it's just like the one I remembered. :)



I made my chee cheong fun with this recipe provided by Sinner. Thanks Sinner for sharing!

My Sweet Sauce Recipe:

(A)
2 heap Tbsp. of CKC rojak sauce
1/4 cup of water
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. sugar

Garnishes:
Toasted sesame seeds, fried shallots and Sriracha chili sauce.

Method:
Boil the above (A) ingredients in a small saucepan until sugar dissolved and thicken.

To serve:
Cut some chee cheong fun, add some sweet sauce on top, garnish with some Sriracha chili sauce, lots of sesame seeds and some fried shallots. Yummy!

Crisp Lemon Cookies 2

Still not quite satisfied with my last attempt, I played around with the previous recipe and came out with Crisp Lemon Cookies 2. I like this recipe better because this cookies turned out to be real crispy. It would be great with some added lemon zest to kick up the flavor even more. Since the previous cookies I made it really kids friendly (bear shape with color sugar and sprinkles), I decided to try another pattern on this. Great with a cup of coffee!



Ingredients:

(A)
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
(B)
1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter, softened
2 tsp. Pure lemon extract
1/2 tsp. Pure vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. milk

Method:

1. In a food processor, add in (A). Pulse to combine.

2. Then, add in (B) and process until a dough is formed. Take it out on a lightly flour surface and give it a few kneads. Roll to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a cookie cutter or pastry crimper. (Note: the dough will be soft, you need to transfer the cookie with a scraper or you can refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 30 mins. before rolling.)

3. Place on a parchment lined baking pan and bake in preheated 350'F oven for 15-17 minutes or until lightly brown on edges.


I am also submitting my recipe to the Original Recipe event hosted by Lore at Culinarty.

Mee Rebus

I had my mee rebus with pan-fried firm tofu, shrimps, boiled egg, chinese green (choy sum), chopped scallions and lots of fried shallots.


Glad to say I finally tried the well talk about Prima Taste Mee Rebus! Excellent recommendation as I certainly enjoyed it. The gravy for this was fairly thick (can dilute slightly more) and I liked that the flavor tasted great.


Update on the Prima Taste products at Viet Hoa Supermarket in Denver: I went there few weekends ago and they no longer sell the wide range of Prima Taste products. I only found few packets of Prima Taste Bak Kut Teh (must be the leftover) and that was it. Hmmm...could it be possible that it was priced at the higher end and thus the demand was not great and the store decided to stop ordering it? Definitely a possibility!! Anyway, let see whether they restock again. I go there probably once in two or three months so I might be a bit updated.

Whole Roast Chicken

Just want to show a picture of my roast chicken on the vertical chicken roaster. Another of my cost saving and easy to prepare dinner. I always buy the whole chicken when it is on sales and one of this chicken can last us for two meals. I will stir-fry the other half in soy sauce for dinner the next day. For the above chicken, again I marinated it with the A1 Emperor Chicken Spices and baked it in my convection oven.

Roast chicken is very easy to prepare. All you needed to do is to clean and trim off the fat of the chicken and then marinate the chicken with your desired sauce or spices. Preheat the oven at 350'F and bake it for 1.5 hours or 325'F convection oven for 1 hour 22 minutes. Before baking, I spray my chicken all over with canola oil spray to ensure crispy skin result.

Roast chicken is so versatile, you can eat it with rice, sandwich it with burger buns, or eat it with salad and mashed potatoes or etc. I love to buy rotisserie chicken at the grocery store too, that's when I'm too lazy to make dinner, or when I have guests and don't have time to cook lots of dishes.

Crisp Lemon Cookies 1

When we were at our friend's house, her little girl arranged a little tea party for my girls. Oh yeah, a real tea and lemon cookies that she made herself, even served in a real tea set. Luckily my girls didn't knock over the tea or break the tea cup! The most memorable thing about this tea party for Evy was of course the lemon cookies. She couldn't stop telling me how tasty the lemon cookies were. So since she loved it so much, I went online and made her some lemon cookies. I would say the first batch that I tried, I didn't like it because the cookie was soft. I preferred my cookie crispy. Nevertheless, both my girls finished all the lemon cookies in a day. Since I was dissatisfied with the online recipe, I tried to create my own crispy lemon cookies. So, I came out with this recipe that I thought was pretty good. And I hope you will like it too!



Ingredients:

(A)
1 1/2 cup. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup. powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. powdered milk

(B)
1/2 cup butter, softened (or 1 stick), cut into 4
2 tsp. Pure lemon extract
2 Tbsp. milk

(C)
Decorating color sugar or sprinkles (optional)

Method:

1. In a food processor, add (A), pulse to combine.

2. Add (B) and process until a dough formed around the blade. Take out the dough and give it a few knead to combine.

3. Roll into 1/4 inch and cut with a cookie cutter. Arrange on a lined baking sheet (with parchment paper) and decorate the cookies with (C) as desired.

4. Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 10-12 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cool completely on a wire rack. Keep in air-tight container.


This is my first batch of (failed) soft lemon cookies.

Don't forget to check out my perfected Crispy Lemon Cookies 2.

Use of Leftovers 2: Stir-fried Rice Cubes

Remember my leftovers from the satay dinner? I cut the compressed rice into cubes. Added 3 stalks of scallions (cut into 1.5 inch), an egg, 5 extra large shrimps, half a carrot (sliced), plus the leftover shallots and turned it into a bowl of yummy fried rice cubes with shrimps.


This bowl was for my hubby's snack after he came home from work.



This was my lunch box for the next day. This rice cubes fried rice turned out to be delicious. As for the seasonings, I used sweet dark soy sauce, black bean in chili oil, dark soy sauce, a little salt, white pepper and sugar. I got the inspiration from fried radish cake, since they look almost similar when cut into cubes.

So next time, when you have some leftover compressed rice from your satay party, you know what to do with it. To me, it tastes better this way then making more satay sauce to eat it with. Another option is to make some Rendang chicken or beef to have with the rice.

Mooncake Mold for Sales

Mooncake Festival is approaching and for those who want to try their hands in making their own mooncake but without the mold, here's your chance of getting one.

The size of the mold is 3.5" x 1.5", made of hard plastic material. This is suitable for making snowskin mooncake. The open cover ensures the easy release of the mooncake. Quantity is extremely limited, so first come first serve. Ship any where in the U.S.A.

If interested, please e-mail me (littlecornerofmine@gmail.com) for pricing and shipping information. Thank You!

Update @ 6pm: Thank You for your business, it's all sold.

Edda's Dinner Plate

Stir-fry Chinese green with carrot, Pork Rendang (pork dry curry), and Japanese rice ball with filling (onigiri).



Got this idea from Peony and coincidently I have the pork floss and furikake and the Japanese rice mold from D. So, wait no further, I made this for my daughters. Evy didn't want hers with furikake so I omitted that for her. They loved it so much that they wanted this for lunch tomorrow as well. Thanks Peony & D! :)

Method:

Press some warm rice into the mold, add a layer of pork floss, top with more warm rice, use the cover provided by the mold to close it, press slightly. Turn it over and push the rice out from the hole. Decorate the top of the rice ball with some Furikake. Alternately, you can shape the rice ball by hands and use less filling.

Use of Leftovers 1: Cucumber Rojak

This is the leftovers from the satay dinner the other day. Some homemade compressed rice, tiny bit of shallots and a small bowl of cut cucumbers. For the cucumber, it was fairly easy to turn it into another dish of it's own. Scroll down to see what I did with it.



I turned it into a cold and refreshing cucumber rojak with the ready made CKC satay sauce. I always have some toasted ground peanuts and sesame seeds in my freezer. So making this dish is as easy as 123. I do love to store some ready made rojak sauce in my pantry just in case I have a craving or some leftover cucumbers. Of course you can now order this sauce at the convenience of your home, in front of your computer at MyTasteOfAsia.com.

Stay tuned to see how I transform the compressed rice and shallots into! Part 2 coming up!

The Triangle Number Under Your Water Bottle

Are you guys aware that the triangle number under your water bottle actually means something? It tells us what type of material the plastic bottle was made of. And the recent studies suggested that the most popular hard, clear and durable plastic bottle that we used was made of Polycarbonate and one of the key components of this is the endocrine-disrupting bisphenol-A (BPA). BPA can leach into the liquid and making the water toxic and can cause breast cancer in women or prostate cancer in men and some other illnesses. This bottle has numbered (3), (6) or (7) in the triangle. So, I would advice all my friends and family members to stop using any water bottle that has a number (3,6,7) under the bottle. The most common plastic bottle that we have seen everywhere has a number (7) in the triangle. I just threw away mine, all six of them. I know this bottle looks nice but it can kill also!

I guess the best re-usable water bottle would be one made from stainless steel as they don't leach any chemicals. But it can be expensive. The other is aluminum as it is BPA free and very reasonably priced. Other alternative is to look for water bottles that contained number (2) (high-density polyethylene), (4) (low-density polyethylene) and (5) (polypropylene) if it is plastic made.

If not, just drink from the glass or coffee cup. Use glasses while at home and only use the plastic water bottles with number (2), (4) and (5) in the triangle while going out. Number (1) water plastic bottle is safe to use but it was not meant to be re-used.

For updated information, click here. Looks like water bottle number (1) is safe for one time and repeated use, as long as you wash it with soap and dry it nicely each time after use.

Pandan Kuih Bahulu (or Kuih Bahlu)

I bought a light non-stick kuih bahlu pan at my recent trip back in Malaysia. This was not the traditional heavy kuih bahlu pan because I certainly wouldn't want to carry those. Since I got the pan, I wanted to test out the pan and I found the kuih bahlu recipe at Rainbows. I added pandan paste into mine because I was curious of how it would taste like. In my first batch, I sprayed the pan with some butter spray and all the pattern disappeared. So, I learned a lesson there. I didn't spray on my second batch and above was what I got. The pattern was not as clear cut because the indentation in the pan was not deep compared the the traditional mold.

Since I have not eaten any store-bought kuih bahlu or any kuih bahlu made with the mold for ages, I couldn't tell how this was. Thus I purposely made this to bring to my friend's house and let them be the judges. According to the hubby, it's better than store-bought and it was pretty good, he said the store-bought one was really dry. According to the wife, it's still a bit dry compared to the one her MIL made. I thought it was kind of chewy. How is it supposed to taste like huh?

Update: I did some research on the web and the texture of kuih bahulu is supposed to be dry, crispy outside and slightly spongy inside and best eaten with coffee/tea because of it's dry texture. Ha! Now I know for sure I got it right.



Ingredients: [Recipe from Rainbow]

3 large eggs

175 g castor sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla essence

175g plain flour

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

First I sifted the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and leave it aside. I then beat the eggs in an electric beater til frothy. sugar is then added slowly while beating the eggs til mixture is pale and thick. I then add in the vanilla essence and gently fold in the flour in 3 to 4 batches. Do not over mix. I then use a spoon to fill up the batter in a lightly greased kuih bahulu moulds. Fill up to the surface level.

Bake it in preheated oven at 200 degrees C for 12 - 15 minute or til golden brown. Removed the bahulu from moulds and cool on a rack before storing in container.

YUM - YUM Blog Award

I would love to thanks My Kitchen Snippets for giving me this YUM - YUM blog award. It was so sweet of her and I really appreciated it. I would love to pass it to the YUM-YUM blogs below:

Soy and Pepper
Kedai Hamburg
The Adventure of my cooking diary
Rainbows

Satay Dinner Again!

While replying to Cooking Ninja regarding my satay sauce and compressed rice, Evy walked by and saw the satay chicken. She loved satay chicken and of course requested that I make it for her. I was salivating looking at the pictures and reminiscing how good the satay sauce taste, so I told her I will make satay for dinner the next day.


Yummy and moist satay chicken! Help yourself ya!


My homemade compressed rice, seedless cucumber and shallot.


Peanut satay sauce. Dipping sauce for the satay chicken and accompaniment.



And guess what I ended out using? The Rasaku satay marinade & sauce mix!! I was pleasantly surprised with this brand because I was quite skeptical when I saw the satay sauce that came in the packet. It was in powder form and all I needed to add was water and oil. I was contemplating of making my own sauce or using this powder and decided to give it a try. The sauce looked okay when thicken, so I did a taste test and it was not too bad. But I wanted more flavor out of it and creamier in texture, so I added some creamy peanut butter and toasted ground peanuts into the sauce. Now it looked really good and tasted superb. I won't be hesitating in buying this brand again, just for convenience and it's authenticity in taste. If you want to try it too, you can buy it online at MyTasteOfAsia.com. I just checked the website and now this paste is on sales for $1.95! Grab it before it's gone!

Foodie Blogroll and Friendship Award

After seeing so many of my blogger friends joined the Foodie Blogroll, I finally joined the blogroll myself. It is a list where all the food bloggers are and it has expanded a lot since the last time I'd seen it. Feel free to join if you haven't done so and wanted people to know about your blog. You may join by simply clicking the "Submit your blog" link in the Foodie blogroll itself on my right hand panel.




I also want to thanks Beachlover for passing me this beautiful friendship award. Thanks ya! Friendship can be found and bond through blogging and is even sweeter with friend like you. I would love to pass this along to:

East Meets West Kitchen
Daily Affairs
Precious Moments
Saucing Around, Jo's Deli
Kedai Hamburg
Rainbows

Assorted Baked Donuts

I wanted to bring my bakes to share with our good friends in Broomfield. And since I really like this healthier version of baked donuts, I decided to make some to share with them. The variety of toppings I can put on these are endless. I managed to make some savory baked donuts this time by included pork floss and cheese. Added a little crunch with some cereal crunch with almond. I like it both savory and sweet. Of course this donut is still best consumed on the day it was baked.

Anyone wants to order a dozen assortment of baked donuts from me or not? ;)

Twice Cooked Pork

I bought some family size pork recently. It turned out some pieces had more fat than the other. I noticed some with three layers of fat too. Normally I would cut away all the fat, but how to cut when it had three layers of fat in between? So, instead of spent too much time slicing away the fat, I just cut them into pieces. Since these were some fatty pork, I thought of preparing them like in twice cooked pork.


First, I boiled them in boiling water until cooked. Then, drained and set aside. As for the ingredients, I used red bell pepper, scallion, dried red chili, garlic, LKK premium dark soy sauce, soy sauce, sugar, white pepper and sesame oil.


Can I say YUMMY!

Do you know what this is good with, a bottle of ice cold beer!

Salad with Sun Ripened Tomatoes and Dried Apricot

I need to lose some weight that I gained in Malaysia. So what is the best healthy choice for me to do so? I thought salad for lunch might be just it (of course plus exercise too). So easy to prepare and sure look like a healthy meal. I received two bottles of free Kraft salad dressing from Kraft Food. So it sure comes in handy for my salad. I used the Light Raspberry Vinaigrette with reduced fat dressing with the prewashed iceberg garden salad that I bought in the grocery store. My added touch would be the sliced sun ripened tomatoes and dried apricot in my salad.

By the way, anyone knows the difference between sundried tomatoes and sun ripened tomatoes? When I did the purchase I thought I was buying the sundried tomatoes until I saw the name on the packet later. Are they the same thing?

p/s
Dear Readers,
Happy 4th of July and Happy BBQing where ever you are and enjoy the Fireworks!

Singapore Style Mee Siam

I just realized in the recent years that Singapore mee siam (rice vermicelli) is completely different from Malaysian mee siam. I grew up eating Malaysian mee siam which is dried and spicy. So imagine my surprise when I learned that Singapore style mee siam has gravy in it and it's a combination of sweet, sour, spicy and made with fermented yellow beans. I was really curious of how it tasted like that my good friend V, from East Meets West Kitchen who is from Singapore purposely cooked this mee siam for me. That was quite a lot of work that went into preparing this mee siam from scratch and she really spent the whole morning cooking. I was really appreciated of her effort and 爱心.



I always heard about how tasty this Prima Taste mee siam is that I just need to grab one to try. Since my readers know that I'm not really as hardworking as preparing paste from scratch, this kind of ready made paste has suited me the best. I can have a bowl of delicious mee siam in 30 minutes or less. One thing is, this brand is not cheap. It's about US $6 per box and serves two American servings and three Malaysian servings. Compare to other brands that range between $2+ to $3+ and serve more servings, you do the math.



This is definitely a yummy bowl of Singapore mee siam that you can make your own in less than 30 minutes. Just a bit on the pricey end. Prima, Prima, if any of you are reading this, can you lower the price you set for US consumers so that we can enjoy this paste more often (can't blame me for trying right? ;P)?

Ingredients:

1 box of Prima Taste Mee Siam Paste
2 boiled eggs
1/2 cup of taufu pok (deep-fried soy bean cake), cut in half
6-8 Shrimps
1/4 cup chopped scallion
Half packet of dried rice vermicelli (mee hoon), soaked in hot water until soften

Method:

1. Follow the packet instruction for the mee hoon, set aside.

2. Follow the packet instruction for the soup, while boiling add in the taufu pok and shrimps.

3. Cut the boiled eggs.

4. Divide the mee hoon into two bowls. Add in the soup with the taufu pok and shrimps. Arrange the sliced boiled egg on top and sprinkle with scallion. Top with sambal and lime juice provided in the packet to serve.

I am serving this noodle to this week Pesto Pasta Night and sharing it with Ruth and her readers.

Thank You FoodBuzz!

Look what I received in the mail. A care package from FoodBuzz to welcome the Summer! I totally loved it!


Look, it has my blog name on one of the pins! Cool right?

Thank you FoodBuzz, I will proudly wear around town and create some buzzzzzz for you and me! :)