Mom's Crepes

This is the crepes I remembered from home.  One that is plain and sweeten.  My mom used to make this plain crepes for us when we were young and I remembered we all loved it very much.  Did you have this plain crepes before?  When I came over here, I was actually surprised that American served their crepes differently, with so many condiments and fresh fruits.

Now, I made it occasionally for my girls (no school day).  As you know, fortified cereal with milk is the easiest breakfast to serve kids in America.  We don't have a pasar pagi (morning open market) to go to buy the kuih-muih, nasi lemak, porridge, or whatever goodies the market sells.  So, I just give them what is convenient and also healthy for them.  Even though most cereals that my kids liked are probably sweet but it is still better for them since all have been fortified with vitamins and minerals and they had it with milk.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 large egg

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 cup milk

Method:

1.  Mix all ingredients together and stir until smooth.

2.  Heat up a wok or non-stick pan.  Add a little oil to coat.  Add in a scoop of batter, swirl the batter to cover the pan.  Make the crepes as thin as possible.  Cook on both sides until done.

3.  Roll up and serve.  We have it plain in my mom's home as sugar is already added.  Of course you can add jam, Nutella, peanut butter, whipped cream, banana, berries or whatever you desired.

Stir Fried Chicken with Broccoli Stems

You can separate the broccoli from the broccoli steams and make different dishes out of it.  I used the broccoli for my microwave broccoli with butter and thyme and the stems I used in chicken stir-fry.  Nothing is wasted right, I even saved the green leaves on the stem to stir-fry.  I julienne it and if you are not an expert in taste, you might not even know what you are eating, unless the leaf gives you the hint.

I couldn't remember how I cooked this dish already, it had been left in the draft for too long and I couldn't refresh.  Looking at the picture, I don't think it is just oyster sauce, I seriously couldn't recall.  I know I lost a few good ones because of that.  Even I have to refer back to my old recipes to cook a certain dish again.  It was just too many over the years and I realized some of my old favorites I hardly cook it again.  Do you have the same problem?

Pork in Hoisin Sauce

I had this dish in one of the authentic Chinese restaurant in Memphis 10+ years ago.  They prepared it without the carrot, just the pork and fresh scallion and it was simply divine.  I tried to recreate it here and it was not bad too.  Except my girls won't eat the fresh scallion as predicted.  I knew they won't eat it so I added the carrots, well at least they will have a little vegetable in their diet.  Of course I cooked another veggie dish to go with this.  In my house, there will always be a veggie dish, in fact, I prefer more veggie in a meal.  My veggie dish will only be veggie but my meat/seafood dish will be paired with veggie as well. 

Try this easy dish for yourself.  Just a few ingredients with sauce you have at home.  Preparing dinner doesn't have to be difficult and a delicious and healthy meal will be your reward.  I am someone who will prefer Chinese food (no butter, heavy cream, and cheeses) over American food because it scream healthier to me. I guess it still fall on what you order on your plate.  Even in Chinese food, if you order crabs, lobsters, prawns, squids, coconut laden curry or dessert, fried food, beef and pork dishes all the times, you will end out with high cholesterol too.  I know in Chinese culture, when you eat out, you are obligated to order a variety of seafood and expensive items, as it to show your social status or whatever.  But I think we should eat for our health first and indulge only on Chinese New Year or special occasions.  Order healthier food actually cost less on your wallet too.
 

Ingredients:

2-3 boneless pork chops, cut off any visible fat, cut into thin strips and marinate with hoisin sauce, sesame oil, white pepper and cornstarch

3 scallions, shredded

1/2 carrot, julienne (optional)

2 Tbsp. Hoisin Sauce

Salt, just a touch

Sugar, just a touch

Method:

1.  Wash the scallions and shredded it like above picture.  Lay some on the plate and set aside some to place on top of the cooked hoisin pork.

2.  Heat up your wok, when heated, add in some oil.  Add in pork and stir-fry until no longer pink.  Add in carrot and stir-fry well.  Season with hoisin sauce, salt and a little sugar.

3.  Place on top of the bed of scallions.  Decorate with more scallion on top.  Mix well and eat the pork with pieces of fresh scallion.  Serve with rice.

Edda's Drawings and Show Piece

I asked her what is this picture about?  She told me, on the right side is we are going out and on the left side is we are coming home.  Mmmmm.....

She said this is a picture of her sister, but the fat version.  Okay, it does look like a person with long hair.

But what about this?  She said this is a drawing about we are going out but didn't know where to go.  Great imagination huh?

She built this and asked me to take picture.

Then, she got excited and said she can make two and asked me to take picture.

Then, she kept building more so I asked her to be in the picture too.  I thought this was pretty good considering she made it closed together without it falling down.  Edda is three years and seven months old.  I would love to see her drawing before she goes to kindergarten.  Her abstract drawing now is too hard to understand.  Look at Evy's drawing before she turned three here.  I have one who draw properly from the very beginning (I'm serious ever since she started drawing, it was always proper drawing), one who draws abstract drawings only she can understand.  Why the huge contrast? 

My Mother's Day Cards from Evy

Front of card 1 (kindergarten, 6 years old, May 9, 2010)

(I saw mothers showing their mother's day card/ gift/ gesture made by their kids and I want to share mine too.  So that it will be documented here for my memory.)

 Inside of card 1

Her poem to me.  I asked her what did you mean by when you are gone?  She said it meant when she is at school and not with me.

Card # 2  (A house)

(Inside the house) A 3D craft that she printed from Nickjr.com and made it herself.  She printed 4 pieces of papers and secretly made it in her room.  She said when she saw this, she just got to have it.  How sweet of her and it took me by surprise because I didn't expect a craft.

Little Edda was not to be left out too.  She knew what her big sister was doing, hiding in her room making things.  She wanted to give me card but she didn't know how to write and draw yet.  So, she had her sister to write it for her, like I love you mommy and put her name on and gave it to me.  She tried her best to draw me some pictures but her drawing was really bad so I won't be showing it here.

Fish in Creamy Sauce

We know how important seafood is in our diet.  Among all the seafood, fish is considered the best choice for me as it is affordable, lower in cholesterol compared with the rest of the seafood except scallop & sea cucumber and nutritious.  I love to cook fish twice a week, alternating Salmon and Tilapia.

I used Tilapia in this and to get rid of the fishy smell, I marinated the fish with salt, ShaoXing wine and white pepper.  Of course in my cooking, I got to throw in colorful mixed vegetable for extra fiber.  I added one secret ingredient in this dish, evaporated milk for extra creaminess and fragrant.  Just don't over stir the fish to prevent it from broken out.

Another one of my easy dishes with minimal ingredients.  If you don't have evaporated milk, feel free to substitute it with cream or milk.

Ingredients:

3 fish fillets (I used Tilapia), cut into pieces, marinate with salt, ShaoXing wine and white pepper

1 cup of frozen mixed vegetable, washed and drain, set aside

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Sauce:

Salt to taste, 1/2 tsp. sugar,  1 tsp. chicken stock granules, 1/2 cup water, 2 Tbsp. evaporated milk

Thickener:  1 Tbsp. cornstarch + 1 Tbsp. water

Method:

1.  Heat up your wok, when heated add in a little cooking oil.  Add in garlic, stir-fry well, add in mixed vegetable and fry well.

2.  Add in water to cover and fish fillets.  Let it boil and cook the fish fillets.  Add in sauce and season to taste.  Add thickener, careful stir until thicken and serve on a plate.

Spontaneous Las Vegas Trip over the Weekends

As spontaneous as it can be.  My hubby came home on Thursday and announced that let's go to Vegas tonight.  I was like how could that be possible since they (hubby and Evy) had to go watch Iron Man 2 at 7:30pm and what about his sleep since he had to drive 12-13 hours to Vegas.  Nevertheless, since the last time we had been to Vegas was 9 years ago, what the heck.  We reserved the hotel room at Circus Circus that night and took off in the morning at 4am.  My girls at one of the gas stops for branch.  Still chilly on the way there.  The last stop at Colorado before we moved on to Utah.

And where did we go when we arrived at Vegas?  China Town baby!  Got to have early dinner and shopped at Ranch 99 for drinks and snacks.  To my surprise, Vegas China Town is getting huge, it used to be a small area and now it occupied the whole street (Spring Mountain).  Any kind of Asian cuisine you can find it there, and it's authentic not Americanize.  One thing I did notice, lots of Koreans settled in Vegas, many Korean BBQ restaurants and supermarkets can be found there as well, not just Chinese and Vietnamese anymore.  One disadvantage about these restaurants, many accept cash only, so if you planned to dine in China Town, remember to bring lots of cash.  For your information, the Penang Malaysian restaurant there only accept cash.

The next day, we walked around a little bit under the scorching sun.  It was hot around 89'F and at time windy but very dry.  As you know, with little girls we couldn't walk very far and they were not interested at the buildings except M&M store.  Vegas has changed a lot too, old casinos were knocked down for the new, it was different from 9 years ago.  The traffic jam was bad, really bad, there was always a traffic jam on the Vegas strip.  We didn't have to wait long but there's always a jam.  Many people were there walking and shopping as well, pretty crowded.

This was one place they wanted to go.  We went in and they each got a bag of M&M to munch on.  Not forgetting to take a picture with yellow and red too.

Outside one of the restaurants in MGM Grand.

The following day, we got them a day pass at the Circus Circus theme park.  Look at little Edda, still smiling here before it took off.  But she wanted to cry half way into the spins.  This was her first ride.

This was Edda last ride, she was too scary cat.  She actually cried on this one and they had to stop it early for her to get down.  LOL, I raised two timid princesses.  Evy wouldn't get on any adult rides either, not even the more adventurous 3D theater.  Evy had fun on the kiddie rides along the day, Edda won't get on any ride after this train.  We spent a day in the car on Monday to drive back to Colorado.  Overall, it was a fun little getaway from this cold weather here.

Spicy and Sour Instant Noodle Soup

I borrowed Iron Chef Chen Kenichi's Knockout Chinese cookbook from the library and couldn't keep my hands off it.  I love the simple recipes with step-by-step pictures and mouth-watering end result to drool on.  This book also introduced me to two new pastes, one is Doubanjiang (Sichuan soy bean paste) and the other is Tianmianjiang (sweet noodle sauce).  He used these two pastes often in the cookbook especially Doubanjiang.  I just bought a bottle of Doubanjiang and couldn't wait to try his recipes.  I am eager to find out how Doubanjiang tastes like, with the new paste, I guess I will have new recipes to share in the future.

For this spicy and sour instant noodle soup, I used his premix sauce (A) but omitted egg and added mini sausages and bean sprouts.  I just wanted to taste the instant noodle the way he had when he was a kid.  It is an easy way to kick the instant noodle up a notch.

Mixed ingredients (A) in a bowl before pouring in the cooked noodle with soup.

Adapted from Iron Chef Chen Kenichi's Knockout Chinese Cookbook with slight modification:

Ingredients:

1 package of your favorite instant ramen (I used chicken flavored)

2 scallions, minced

1 cup of washed bean sprouts

3 mini sausages

(A)

2 tsp. rice vinegar

1 tsp. soy sauce

1 Tbsp. chili oil

1/2 tsp. sesame oil

Dash of pepper

Method:

1.  Mince scallions and place in a bowl.  Add (A) and instant ramen flavoring.

2.  Boil ramen noodles in approximately 2 cups of water and add mini sausages to heat it up.  When noodle is almost done, add in the bean sprout to quickly blanch it.

3.  Pour into the prepared bowl and stir-well before eating.

Stir Fried Bean Sprouts with Chives

This is my other way of cooking chives.  Stir-fried it with bean sprouts and dried anchovies (as I don't buy salted fish).  Instead of scallion, I substituted it with chives.  I guess most of the dishes that uses scallion before can be substituted with chives.  In this case, I used more chives than scallion called for in this dish.

So, when you buy a bunch of chives from the supermarket, you can split in into 2-3 dishes along the week.  One is this, the other is the fried chives eggs, and the leftover you can fried noodle or fried rice with it.  Just substitute it in a dish that you would normally uses scallion.  We should eat for our health most of the times and occasionally indulge in something that we know is not so good.

Ingredients:

A bowl of washed bean sprouts

A few bunches of chives, washed and cut into 1.5 inch

1/2 carrot, julienne

1/4 cup of dried anchovies, rinsed in water and drained

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Few slices of ginger

Salt to taste

1 tsp. chicken stock granules

Method:

1.  Heat up a wok, when heated, add in cooking oil.  Add in dried anchovies, ginger and garlic, fry until fragrant and slightly golden.

2.  Add in carrot, fry until soften, add in bean sprouts and chives, stir-fry quickly to mix.  Add in seasonings, stir-fry well and dish out to serve.

Chives Fried Eggs

As I mentioned earlier, I am going to buy more chives from now on as eating chives is good for our body as it said to be mild-antibiotic, anti-inflammation, antioxidant and prevent certain types of cancer.  Just do a search to read more about the benefits of chives.  Sharing with you is another way of enjoying chives the delicious way.  I think this is one pretty common dish for people who eats chives regularly.

This is definitely an easy dish to prepare, even for people who don't normally have chives in their diet, but wanted to eat for prevention, like me who just started.  My girls loved fried eggs and they had a hard time picking out the chives and thus had to eat it.  My elder girl is the worst, she doesn't like green onion, yellow onion (basically onion of any kind), mushrooms (except Enoki), tomato, pieces of ginger and she would just picked it out from the food.  What got me upset was the little one wants to imitate her sister, now she also followed her sister and picked out those food to set aside on her plate (she used to eat everything!). *sigh*

What other delicious way do you cook your chives?  I added it in stir fried noodle, bean sprouts (coming soon), and this fried eggs, what else?

Ingredients:

A bunch of chives, chopped it

3 eggs

Soy sauce (about 1/2 Tbsp.)

Dashes of white peppers

A little garlic powder

Some dried onion flakes

Method:

1.  In a bowl, mix all ingredients together and beat until combined.

2.  Heat the wok, add in some oil.  When hot, add in the beaten eggs mixture.  Fried until eggs were cooked.