Broccoli Chicken

Eat more broccoli! Broccoli is very beneficial to us so there is no reason why you should not consume this veggie. Since Weekend Wokking secret ingredient this month is broccoli and I have some broccoli at home, so I make this super easy broccoli chicken to share with you. It is so easy that I think a lot of you already know how to make this. If you don't know, then this can be a very easy one dish Chinese stir-fry dish to eat with your rice. All you need to do is to buy one bottle of Lee Kum Kee oyster flavored sauce. Hmmm...I think WalMart might have it in the Asian aisle but of course it will be much cheaper to buy it at the Asian market.



Ingredients:

1 skinless and boneless chicken breast, sliced
1 small carrot, cut
About one big bowl of Broccoli, cut
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
About 2 Tbsp. LKK oyster sauce
1/4 cup water
Oil for cooking

Method:

In a heated wok, add cooking oil. When heated, add in garlic, stir-fry until slightly golden, add in chicken. Stir-fry until chicken is almost cooked, add in broccoli and carrot. Stir-fry for a little while (until broccoli is soften but still remain the crunchiness), add in water and oyster sauce. Stir-well and dish out to serve with rice.

I'm submitting this recipe to Weekend Wokking, a world-wide food blogging event created by Wandering Chopsticks to celebrate the multiple ways we can cook one ingredient. The host this month is Noobcook. If you would like to participate or to see the secret ingredient, check who's hosting next month.

Charter's Black Friday Deal

Charter's great offer is back! It is back with a new black friday offer. It is called The Ultimate Bundle. You will get 10 Mbps high speed Internet service, a TV package which included Digital Home, Charter HD, Sports View, Digital View, HBO/Cinemax, Starz/Encore, Showtime/The Movie Channel and the unlimited phone calls. Get all of these for just $165.97 per month for 12 months. A $250 gift card with purchase and a chance to win one of the X-Box 360 game console. They are giving out one of 45 X-Box 360 game console daily during the sweepstakes period. Enroll now for a chance to win and get the $250 gift card. Go check to see whether your area offers Charter's services because they do have the best price for 2009.



If the Ultimate Bundle is not what you are looking for, you can always check out their other services such as Cable TV+ Internet+ Phone for $99.97 per month for 12 months with a $150 gift card or Digital Home+Internet for $74.98 per month for 6 months with a $75 gift card or just Internet service for $24.99/ month for 6 months with a $25 gift card. Just pick any package that best meets your need and you will be entered to win one of the XBox 360 automatically.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to wish my readers a Happy and Full Thanksgiving! Also presenting you my Sweet Potatoes Pie. Hmmm....I think this year I bought a really orange color sweet potatoes as my pie looks really orange in color.



You can get my pie crust recipe here. And the sweet potatoes pie recipe here. My girls and I really love this pie and hope you will like it too.

Stir-fried Spinach with Garlic

I am going to share a very easy stir-fry spinach dish here. I love to buy the packet prewashed baby spinach when it goes on sales for $1 each. It comes cleaned and cut so all I have to do is to throw the whole pack in. However, even though it said prewashed, it is still best to give it a rinse under running water. As sometimes they might missed a spot of dirt hidden under the leaves. I had it happen to me before so I know, we definitely do not want to ruin a whole plate of vegetable because we keep eating dirt. So, I still recommend you to rinse it first before throwing all in a wok to stir-fry.

Ingredients:

1 packet of baby spinach, rinsed
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Salt, to taste
1 tsp. Chicken stock granules
Cooking oil

Method:

In a heated wok, add in cooking oil. When heated, add in garlic, fry until slightly golden, add in the spinach. Stir-fry quickly and season with salt and chicken granules. The spinach will release water, so you don't have to add any water. Serve hot.

Bakuteh

Some like the Singaporean version of white pepper bakuteh (pork ribs soup), some like the Malaysian version of dark herbal taste bakuteh. As for me, I prefer the Malaysian version and thus I decided to give Tean's Gourmet Bakuteh a try. I bought few packets from mytasteofasia.com as I hardly shop at Denver anymore. Oh yeah, MyTOA is going to close down its' business for the unknowing time being and the last day to take your order is Nov. 26th. So, go grab whatever you want before it's too late (if you haven't done so already!).



This is how the packet looks like. Overall, I still prefer Yew Chian Haw and A1 bak kut teh premix. If you are buying this, don't follow the salt amount indicated in the packet because it will turn out too salty.

7 Facts About Me

I have been tagged by Happy Cup for 7 facts about me. Gosh, I haven't done any tag about myself for quite some time so here it goes.

1. My life is pretty routine and non-challenging at the moment. Except to invent recipes or come up with something interesting for my blog (ok, that can be challenging as now I am in the blank!).

2. I love to be a stay at home mom.

3. I never held a full time job in my life before.

4. I started this blog to share my food pictures and never thought that my blog would earn me money one day.

5. I have a sister who is a year older than me and people always asked whether we were twin.

6. I am glad that I learned to ski before my first child was born. Those skiing years were sure fun and now it gets expensive. :(

7. I love watching Korean and Taiwanese dramas. :P

Here are the rules for tagging:

1. Link to my blog (tagger) on your blog.
2. Give seven facts about yourself.
3. Tag another seven bloggers by leaving a comment on their blogs and letting them know they were tagged and listing them (and their blogs) on your blog.

I am just going to tag two bloggers and who's the lucky ones?

Smell & Taste are my memory
Beachlover's Kitchen

Seafood Nyonya Assam Curry

Assam curry or sour based curry is normally cooked with seafood. Most commonly is assam fish or assam prawns. Since I didn't have any fish fillet at home, I opted for shrimps, bay scallops and fish balls. I also threw in some green beans and fried tofu.



I used the Singlong Instant Curry Nyonya Assam Mix (Spicy) that was given by a friend. I added a little whole milk for extra creaminess. Overall it was pretty good but it was too spicy for the kids.

Holiday Frames

It is the gift giving season again. If you know someone or yourself who might need a new frame or glasses, go check out the newly arrival Holiday frames from Zenni Optical. The vase selection of holiday frame starting at just $9.95. I personally like the one below with magnetic snap on for my convenience. Just snap and go, I do not have to pay for the extra prescription sunglasses as I have this two in one deal. I am actually happy that this website offers the magnetic snap on frame as I could not find this kind of frame in my area here. I always bought mine in Malaysia. I even have a friend who asked me where did I get this kind of frame before, now I am glad that I can refer her to this website to get the magnetic snap on sunshade frame. She was really interested at that time.



If you still think this is a bit too much, you should know that you can always get the complete prescription eyeglasses from as low as $8 at Zenni. Just visit their website for complete information. They even got featured in Fox news not long ago for their low price eyeglasses. I even wrote about this last time and now they are back with more new holiday frames selection for its' customers.

Halloween, 2008

I think I haven't updating you all with the pictures of my girls for some time, so here it is. Their recent Halloween pictures. Evy totally loved this day because she will get to eat the candies afterward (1 or 2 per day if she finishes her lunch/dinner). It was the first time for Edda and I think she liked it too.


My little cat lady.


My little bee China doll.


Both of them can't wait to go trick-or-treating.

Website Hosting

If you are considering in starting a website of your own, either for personal use, sharing views on a common interest or e-commerce as a beginner, where do you start? First you would need a domain name and then searching for a reliable web hosting service. Each day, many people are starting their own website and getting their own space in the cyberspace and to choose one hosting provider that best meets your need can be pretty daunting considering the vase availability of the website hosting companies nowadays.

So, how do you begin? First, you go to this web hosting reviews and rating site and start doing the research to find one that most suitable for your needs. Read through this Web Hosting Guide to help you along. Get an understanding of how much bandwidth you would need, disk space, pricing, backups, security, support, guaranteed uptime (if you are running an e-commerce), etc. The benefit of this web hosting reviews site is they already have a list of the top 10 best web hosts (2008) listed for your convenience. These web hosting providers have been ranked by price to value ratio. Host reliability, uptime, key features, bonus features, customer support, past and current user feedback, user-friendliness and hosting awards have been taken into account as well. It can certainly cut down a lot of your research time instead of looking for one in the search engine in which the reliability is questionable.

Char Kway Teow Malaysian Style

Since I haven't cooked fried kway teow (fried flat noodle) for awhile, while shopping at the Asian grocery store recently, I picked up the necessary ingredients and cooked it at night. The Asian restaurants here serve this noodle in a different way, they called it beef or chicken hor fun (炒牛河 or 鸡炒河). It is cooked differently from our Malaysian kway teow.



This is my hubby and daddy favorite dish. I don't normally eat this dish while I was in Malaysia. But once I came here, all these hawker style noodles, like char kway teow, hae mee, curry mee, mee rebus, mee goreng, or lam mee became something special. I guess the saying is true, you don't know how to appreciate when there is in abundance, but you will see the value when it is scarce.

Gifts for Women

If you are looking for gifts for women, I have a few suggestions here. Women love perfume as a good perfume or fragrances will make them feel good about themselves and thus raise the overall self-confidence. Perfume does not have to be a luxury item if you can find a good price comparison site that offer women fragrances at lower cost. You can also buy the perfume gift set as a Christmas gift as gift set offers more value and she will get to sample the other product under that line of fragrance. I personally love the lotion that comes with the Eau de Parfum.

Besides fragrances or beauty product, women also love to stay fit especially after the holiday season. So, what is a better way to impress her but with the Wii Fit game from Nintendo. A Wii Fit game with Wii Balance Board just might be the thing she is looking for to loose the few pounds she gain from holidays meals. Looking good and feeling good after the holidays might just be the women wishes for the new year.

Steamed Glutinous Rice with Mushroom & Chicken

My steamed glutinous rice with Chinese dried mushroom and chicken. I will cook this dish once in a blue moon when I miss eating some glutinous rice (sticky rice). This is like a substitute for "bak chang" (wrapped rice dumpling). They also called glutinous rice sweet rice here. You can look for sweet rice from Thailand in the Asian grocery store to make this dish.



I like mine steam instead of cook it in the rice cooker.

Ingredients:

2 cups glutinous rice, soak in water for at least an hour
1 chicken breast, sliced (marinated with soy sauce, 5 spice powder & cornstarch)
Few dried Chinese mushrooms, soak in hot water to soften, drain and slice
Some dried shrimps, soak in hot water to soften, drain
2-3 shallots, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped

Seasonings:
Soy sauce
Dark soy sauce
Five spice powder
Salt & sugar

Method:

1. In a big wok, heat up a little oil. Stir-fry shallots, garlic and dried shrimps until fragrant. Add in chicken and fry until cooked, add in mushroom, stir for a while. Add in the drained glutinous rice and fry until mixed well. Add in seasonings to taste. Add water if needed.

2. When done, put the stir-fried rice into the steamer and steam until cooked.

3. Serve with chopped scallion and fried shallots with a side of chili sauce or sambal.

K-Mart Layaway Program

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? If you are in a financial burden this year and yet do not want to disappoint your children or closed ones, I have a great news for you. K-Mart Layaway program is back! Everyone deserves to celebrate Christmas and now you do not have to worry that you might over charge your credit card(s) or worry about paying it off after Christmas with interest. You can enjoy the holiday shopping now at K-mart. Just visit Kmart Layaway and enter your zip code to check whether the K-mart near you offer the layaway program and if yes, just start shopping for the items you want. Bring them to the layaway counter and make a down payment and make your payment every two weeks at your local K-mart store. You can take home the items once the payment has been completed over the course of 8-week period, as easy as that.

I have not started my holiday shopping yet as we do not really celebrate Christmas. But we do take this opportunity to buy the things we want at lower cost. I am looking at the flat panel TV as my current one at home is going to break down very soon. With the black Friday prices offering now and the layaway program, getting a flat panel or flat screen TV is certainly doable even at our current tight financial situation.

Spicy Mee Siam

One of my Friday night noodle dishes: Spicy Mee Siam.



This fried mee siam recipe I invented years ago, as I was not (and still) someone who flip through cookbook for recipe. Sorry won't be sharing this recipe so don't bother to ask me for the recipe. Just enjoy the food porn. :P

Kreativ Blogger Award

Thank you Smell & Taste Are My Memory for passing me this Kreativ Blogger Award. You know I love to display all the awards I received from my blogging friends, right? ;) Now, I would love to pass this award to my fellow blogging friends for their creative juices in coming out with a recipe or in their writing style.

My Kitchen Snippets

Kedai Hamburg
Saucing Around, Jo's Deli

Noob Cook

Mochachocolata-Rita

More than Words
Beachlover's Kitchen

Rainbows

Deer Valley Ski Rentals

It is the skiing season again! For skiers or snowboarders, this is the season they have been waiting for, they are the people who could not wait to hit the slopes, be the first to ski the fresh powder and probably stay near the closing time. Skiing or snowboarding is fun but waiting in line for the ski rental equipment is not. During the peak season, the wait line can be a headache, instead of spending your time wasting in line, you could have spending it on the slopes. If you are to visit Park City and Deer Valley Ski Resorts, Utah, your problem can be solved with Ski Butlers's deer valley ski rentals. They have the best ski gear for all levels and conditions for men, women and junior alike and they even have ski accessories. What stand out from this ski rental shop is they provided the delivery right to your living room. All you need to do is to make the reservation online or through their toll free number and they will deliver the ski equipment and accessories to your room with extra boots for a perfect fit. You will also receive the technical support during the ski rental and they will come to collect the ski rental equipment on your final day. Now that is what I called a stress free ski vacation with perfect service. They offer the best ski rental equipment at the same or lower prices than many of the local Park City ski rental shops and Deer Valley ski rental shops. So, why wait in the rental line, let's hit the slopes!

Soft & Chewy Oats Raisins Cookies

I always prefer crispy cookies, if you have read my blog or a long time reader, you would know most of my cookies are hard and crispy in nature. However, once in a while I do enjoy some soft and chewy cookies, especially those oatmeal raisin cookies. Since I was in some experimental mood today and have some roll oats and raisins at home, so why not? So, I experimented with this recipe that I figure should work and hope for the best. Well, it turned out great, soft and chewy and even passed my hubby taste test. Now I have another new recipe in file whenever I feel like some soft and chewy cookies. My girls couldn't stop asking for and raving about this cookies too.



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 all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 tsp. baking soda
(D)
1 cup roll oats
1/2 cup raisins (or chocolate chips)



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. Yield about 33-35 cookies.

Chicken with Chili Paste with Holy Basil Leaves

I was recommended by aunty Lily with this Chili Paste with Holy Basil Leaves. Since I could not find it at my area, she got me a bottle to try. This paste is not spicy at all so if you wanted more kick just add some chili or sambal or chili paste when stir-frying. I should have added a little fish sauce as well (I just followed the direction from the bottle and found it a little bland). I cooked it with chicken breast, celery, carrot and onion.


This is how the paste looks like if you are interested.

Check out my review on Lee brand's Chili Paste with Sweet Basil Leaves.

Chicken Alfredo Spaghetti

We have a favorite Italian restaurant (Zio's) that we go to for our Chicken Alfredo. I tell you their chicken Alfredo, either the spicy one or the regular really hit the spot. The creaminess and flavor is just right, perfect!

So, for my Friday night dinner, I decided to cook this dish but with whole wheat spaghetti and store bought Alfredo sauce. Of course the store bought Alfredo sauce is nothing compared to the restaurant standard. I will still go back to that restaurant for the real deal.



Ingredients:

1 skinless chicken breast, sliced
1 can of 8 oz. mushrooms
Olive oil for cooking
Poultry seasoning (few dashes)
Italian seasoning (few dashes)
Dried basil (2 dashes)
Salt to taste
1 (13.25 oz.) pack of whole wheat spaghetti
1 bottle of Alfredo sauce
1/2 cup of Mozzarella cheese
Extra cheese to sprinkle on top if desire

Method:

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

2. In a big frying pan, add olive pan, pan fry the chicken until cooked, add in mushrooms and the rest of the seasoning.

3. Add in the spaghetti, pour in the Alfredo sauce, stir to mix well. Add in the cheese and stir until cheese is melted.

4. Serve as is or top with more Mozzarella cheese (or Parmesan cheese) before serving.

I would love to share this dish with Presto Pasta Night. Presto Pasta Night was created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast. This week host is Ruth herself at Once Upon a Feast. Please hop over on Friday to see the round up.

Korean Spicy Tofu Stew

Remember the other day I bought lots of bay scallops and finding way to use them? Since I also bought some imitation crab meats and tofu, I just combined them into my spicy Korean soup. The key ingredient here is Gochujang, Korean red pepper paste. You can easily buy this at any of the Korean grocery store. This paste alone is pretty spicy but I always want an extra kick and added a few dashes of cayenne pepper powder. Guess who besides the parents loved this soup?



My little Edda enjoyed this spicy soup very much. Even me the mother thought this soup was spicy and yet this little fellow finished a bowl and requested for more! I had some leftover for the next day so ladled the rice with this soup and some tofu and crab meat for her and she finished everything in her bowl. WOW right? As for the big sister, she won't even dare to touch the soup!

For recipe, click here. Oh, I also added an egg into the soup this time.