Soft Whole Wheat Raisin Oats Cookies 2

I liked my Whole Wheat Oats Cranberries Cookies but it was made with butter.  It was delicious with butter, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to experiment it with oil.  To me, using oil is healthier than using butter.  I made this cookie big, as big as a palm of my hand.  I gave some away to a friend.  The rest we ate it all up.  It was good, seriously, and I don't miss the butter.  Even my hubby who normally don't eat my cookies, ate this, he said he needed the calories. (0.0)  My girls loved it especially Edda, after they tried it, they came and told me they are my number one fans again!  LOL!   How cute!  I guess I need to make them more oats cookies since this is about the only time that we eat oats in our house.

Cool on wire rack.

Okay, this cookie is soft and chewy.  I need to experiment with another recipe of mine because I like my cookies slightly crunchy.

Ingredients:

(A)
1 cup canola oil (or vegetable oil)
1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
(B)
2 egg
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. kosher salt
(C)
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
(D)
2 cups roll oats 
3/4 cup raisins

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. Use two spoons and scoop some dough and place it on the parchment paper lined baking sheet. 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. 

~Yield 28 big cookies 

Sweet and Sour Mahi-Mahi

This is a recipe I learned from watching Chinese cooking shows.  I have seen many different Chinese chefs using this same base sauce for their sweet and sour prawns, fish and poultry.  Since this sauce is so popular, I had tried it on prawns and fish.  It is indeed a good sauce but to guarantee that the sauce comes out perfect, it will have to depend on your years of cooking expertise.  These Chinese chefs don't give measurement in their cooking, only the ingredients, so use your expertise and estimate it yourself.  I added whatever veggie I have at home for the colors and additional veggie intake.  So, feel free to be creative and use what your have at home.

This is the mahi-mahi fillet I bought on-sales at the Sunflower market.  I criss-cross it for faster cooking time.  You can cover the wok when pan-frying to cook the middle as well.  Eat this with some Teriyaki sauce drizzle on top is fabulous as well.  Of course you can use other fish fillets or fish for this dish.

Ingredient:

Mahi-Mahi fillet, slice the fish criss-cross; season with Chinese cooking wine, salt and white pepper

Cornstarch to coat the fish before pan-frying

Carrot

Red bell pepper

Frozen green peas

Ketchup

Sauce (A):

Chopped scallion, only the white part

Minced ginger

Minced garlic

Chinese dark vinegar

Salt

Sugar

Soy sauce

Sesame oil

Hot Water, to dissolve the sugar

Cornstarch

Method:

1.  Mix sauce (A) together in a bowl, still until sugar dissolved, set aside.

2.  Heat up a wok, add in oil, use medium heat.  While waiting for the oil to turn hot, coat the mahi-mahi fillet with cornstarch.  When hot, add in the mahi-mahi fillet and pan-fry until both sides are golden brown and cooked inside.  Dish out and set aside.

3.  With the remaining oil, add in cut carrot, red bell pepper and stir-fry for a while.  Add in frozen green peas and stir to mix.  Add in ketchup and mix well.  Add in sauce (A) and let the sauce thicken.

4.  Pour the sauce on top of the fish fillet to serve.

Simple "Chai Hsin" / Chinese Green (菜心)

This veggie dish is so simple that I feel embarrass in sharing it.  Truly, so simple that anyone can make it.  Not only it is simple, but it is delicious as well.  Slight crunch from the green and the oyster sauce give it a full flavor.  You can buy this Chinese veggie at the Asian supermarket.

Mostly, I would do a stir-fry on this green with some garlic, carrot and flavor with oyster sauce.  I guess after a while, I wanted a change or try cooking it in a different way.  I used this method in cooking my iceberg lettuce which I learned from my hubby long ago.  Always received rave reviews from others who have tasted it.  I am sure this method is good for other green vegetable as well.

A perfect side dish sending to Side Dish Showdown July at Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice. 

Ingredients:

A bunch of Chinese Green- Chai Hsin   (菜心), plucked and cleaned

Oyster sauce to taste

3-4 gloves of garlic, minced

4 Tbsp. of canola oil

Method:

1.  Bring a pot of water to a boil.  Add a little salt.  When boiling, quickly blanch the veggie and drain it and put on a plate.  Finish the rest of the veggie.

2.  Arrange the blanched veggie on a plate, pour some oyster sauce on top.  Not too much or else it will be too salty.  Just enough to coat the veggie.

3.  Heat a small saucepan or wok with canola oil.  When heated , add in the minced garlic, stir-fry until garlic turned light golden brown (be careful not to burn the garlic), take it off the stove and quickly pour the garlic and garlic oil on top of the oyster sauce on the veggie.

4.  Stir to mix well before eating.

Great Tips for Ants Free House (less than $1)

I feel compel to share this great tips I read on one forwarded e-mail months ago, during winter.  I remembered last summer, my house was infested with ants.  Maybe infested was a strong word, but it was pretty scary as we could see rows of ants walking along my kitchen/dining table area searching for food.  It was bad as you know with little kids, the way they ate, food was on the floor all the times.  I could see which holes the ants were coming from, and I tried to close the gap with bathroom paper.  Oh well, it worked a little but I couldn't get rid of the ants completely until the cold weather came.  One of the reasons I loved winter was no ants, fly, or insect in the house.  I am one person who couldn't stand seeing ants in the house, I just had to get rid of it.

My break came when I was reading some great tips forwarded e-mail from a friend, whom I couldn't recall.  I forgot all the tips I read except this great tips of getting rid of ants (because I wanted to remember and use this tips come summer), so I memorized it.  True enough, came this summer and I spotted ants came out from the same gaps last summer.  I took out my bottle lemon juice and dropped some into the gaps.  Killed all the other ants in the house and waited and see.  WOW!  It really worked!  No more ants coming out from the same gaps.  Few days ago, I spotted more ants, I was like what the heck.  They were coming in from two different gaps, again dropped some lemon juice into and along the gaps and now it was clear.  Lemon juice really works wonder as ants hate sour and acidy environment.  Try it next time yourself as this is a cheap and environment friendly way to get rid of ants in your house.  It works for me and I hope it works for you too, welcoming feedback or any other inexpensive way of getting rid of ants in the house.

Oh yeah, it does not have to be fresh lemon juice, just the bottle one selling for few cents in the produce section works just as well.  :-)  Do you like my tips?
 

Fruit Pastry using Puff Prata/ Pratha

Summer came with abandon of fresh berries, peaches, nectarines, melons, mango and all were on sales.  My house was fulled of all sort of fruits.  My hubby bought some nectarines but it were sour and soft and I bought some plums and it were sour as well.  So, all these sour fruits had been left in the refrigerator uneaten as the sweeter fruit would be chosen.  I had been thinking of a way to eat these fruits since I don't like to waste food.  Was thinking to make them into the fruits pastry cake but I was a bit lazy to make the cake.  Then, an idea came when I remembered I still have two pieces of frozen roti puff pratha in the freezer.  Thus, this fruit pastry was created.  Out of convenient and not wanting to throw away sour fruits.

I will show the step-by-step picture in the next page with the simple recipe.

First, cut and core the nectarines and plums, put them in a bowl.  Add in some blueberries and sweeten them with sugar and cinnamon (optional).  How much sugar to add depends on how much fruit you have and how many fruit pastry you are going to make. Stir to mix well.  Set aside.  [I used 4 nectarines, 2 plums and 1/2 cup of blueberries, used about 4-5 Tbsp. of sugar.] Take out your frozen prata/pratha and let it rest at room temperature until soften.

Second, place the soften prata on a Slipat or parchment paper.  Stretch it out a little bit, add in the filling like above picture.

After that, pull the prata over some of the fruit, like a blanket.  Brush the puff pastry with egg wash (from one beaten egg).

Lastly, bake it preheated 400'F oven for 25-28 minutes or until golden brown.  You can serve this with sprinkle powder sugar on top.  Good when it's still warm or at room-temperature.  Of course, you can use frozen puff pastry or filo papers for the wrapping as well.  You can also serve it with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream. 

Verdict:  Everyone loved it!  Great way to dispose of the sour fruit and make such a great dessert presentation too.

Satay Dinner

I found a lazy way to eat and grill my satay!  No troublesome and messy way of pricking the marinated meat through a satay stick anymore.  I cut the chicken breast thinly and grill it on my in-door grill.  Our out-door grill, used only couple of times, sadly had been abused by the Colorado weather through strong wind, heat and snow and now was a piece of junk.  I bought this in-door grill 10+ years ago via a home shopping network on T.V.  Yeah, I used to love those channels and loved to see what they were selling.  It was a great buy even though  I only used it occasionally.

The finished product!  Of course you can use boneless thigh meat if you prefer more fat.

Eaten with Malaysian satay sauce.  I used a premix for this, if you want to see which premix I used, click here. If you are using this premix, add 2 heap tablespoons of creamy peanut butter and some toasted ground peanuts when stirring.  Lastly, add more toasted ground peanuts to garnish and for extra kick. If not, you can make a delicious peanut satay sauce here using my short-cut and delicious recipe.

Deep Fried Oyster Mushrooms

I saw this recipe emerged during the Chinese New Year period.  Deep-fried oyster mushrooms, how interesting and said to be delicious.  I seldom do deep-frying so it has taken me a while to revisit this idea of deep-frying oyster mushrooms.  Speaking of which, I wonder why people only do this during Chinese New Year?  Since I have tried this, I got to say it is very delicious when just out of the deep-fryer, it is hot and crispy on the outside and slightly soft inside.  I was trying a new batter here and it turned soft when cold, so you got to eat this hot!  Or use your trusted batter recipe for this.

This is the fresh oyster mushrooms.  You can buy it at the Asian grocery store.  It is said to be able to lower the cholesterol levels because it is naturally contain lovastatin.  Asian eat this mushrooms a lot, we used it in soup and stir-fry.  I prefer the fresh one when comes to oyster mushrooms, the canned oyster mushroom has a smell that I dislike.

Ingredients:

Fresh oyster mushrooms

Batter:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup rice flour

Salt to taste

White pepper to taste

1 tsp. chicken stock granules

1 Tbsp. Chinese cooking wine

Enough water to make a thick batter

Method:

1.  Quickly rinse the oyster mushrooms under water to clean.  Pad it dry with paper towel. Or you can brush or clean it with towel if you believe mushrooms are not supposed to be wash under water.

2.  Mix the batter in a bowl.  Heat up your wok or deep-fryer with cooking oil, when hot, turn to medium heat.

3.  Take one mushroom, dip in batter and slowly put into the wok to deep-fry, put 4-5 and deep-fry until golden brown.  Dish out and drain on paper towel before serving.  Best to eat it hot and crispy.  Turn soft when cold.

4.  You can serve this baby with Thai's sweet chili sauce or Maggi's sweet chili sauce.

Yellowstone National Park Trip 3

 

Black Pool, West Thumb Geyser Basin

Black Pool

?

West Thumb Geyser Basin, Big Cone

Mud Volcano, there was a ranger tour guide here and it was really informative.  We got there just in time for the 1.5-2 hours tour, it was long but really worth it.

We missed some attractions, either because it was raining or we were short of time.  I think 6 days to a week is the best time to spend if you plan to visit Yellowstone.  Too much driving to do as the park is really huge.  And that was not including hiking or walking on the many trails.

 

Lower Falls

 

Lower Falls, girls with their cousin

 

 Upper Falls

 

Upper Falls

At Hatchet Resort (where we stayed), 30 minutes from South entrance.  When we tried to reserve the rooms, the hotels inside Yellowstone were all fully booked.  Heard that it need a year in advance booking if you plan to stay inside.  Next time, we will stay at Jackson Hole since we still drove all over there for Chinese food!  If you loved wilderness, stay here, it's a resort, so it basically have everything, nothing else in close proximity.  Like the sale clerk said, it's as wilderness as you get.  But if you love Chinese food or any other food other than the restaurant offers, and love to scroll along downtown, shopping and looking for some night life, stay in Jackson Hole. 

Red Bean Mochi Cupcakes

I first heard about mochi cake through A Food Lover's Journey.  I looked through the recipe and it is a lot like the baked nian gao that I did for Chinese New Year except probably half the recipe called for.  It is an interesting idea to bake it in cupcakes and I wanted to give it a try.  Since I love red bean flavor and have some red bean paste on hand, I made mine into a red bean mochi (glutinous rice) cupcakes.

It tasted like "kuih" (a Malaysian cake), soft, sticky and slightly chewy with red bean flavor.  You can certainly substitute the milk with coconut milk to make it richer. This recipe of mine stays soft even after three days in a container.  Best eaten within three days, might go bad after that. One thing to note though, the paper will be hard to unwrap on the first day it was baked, but easier on the second day onwards.

You can buy the red bean paste in a can at the Asian grocery stores in the U.S. for those who are interested.  Feedback to me when you try this red bean mochi cake.  I had made it twice and loved it!

~Yield about 12-18 cupcakes (about half of the normal paper cup size), depending on the cupcake paper size and how much batter you add.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1 1/4 cup milk

1 tsp. baking powder

200g red bean paste (sweeten) from a can

200g glutinous rice flour (about 2 cups)

Method:

1.  In a big mixing bowl, add in eggs and sugar.  Use a hand whisk or electric whisk and whisk until light and well mixed, sugar dissolved.  

2.  Add in oil and milk, hand whisk until combine.

3.  Stir in baking powder and red bean paste, whisk until smooth.

4.  Lastly, add in glutinous rice flour, whisk until well incorporated.  The batter will be watery so don't have to be alarm.  Use a soup ladle and fill the paper cup almost to the rim.  The cake will sink down a little after you take it out of the oven.

5.  Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 20-25 minutes or until tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack and store in air-tight container.

Yellowstone National Park Trip 2

Grand Prismatic Spring Area, Midway Geyser basin

 

Mammoth Hot Springs

 

Mammoth Hot Spring

Mammoth Hot Spring

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Spring

Girls came down to look at animals

 Can you spot them?  We also saw a coyote and black bear but didn't manage to take picture.

 

Bull Elk  

 

White-rumped deers (female elk?)

Herd of bison. 

We didn't see wolf pack, moose or grizzly bear, they were not easily seen.

Yellowstone National Park Trip 1

We drove there with our relative from Singapore, spent 5 days and 4 nights there (June 9-13, 2010).  It was about 9 hours drive and we got there in the afternoon.  We didn't go into the park on the first day but we drove to Jackson Hole for dinner.  This was the second day of our trip, via South Entrance.

 

Love this picture and the reflection from the lake

 

Road construction delay @ south entrance

Old Faithful, both exploded at the same time.  It rained after that, it rained every days while we were there and mighty cold (maybe due to the fact that I didn't prepare winter coat, but it's summer and I didn't expect it to be this cold).

 

One of the hot springs

 

Midway Geyser Basin

 Midway Geyser Basin

Hope I name the place correctly!  If not, correct me if I am wrong. :)

Stay tuned for part 2 and 3!