Just For Fun 2

Saw this at Daily Affair and decided to play along. What Your Pizza Reveals

People may tell you that you have a small appetite... but you aren't under eating. You just aren't a pig. You are a very picky pizza eater. Not any pizza will do. You fit in best in the Northeast part of the US. Your taste in food tends to favor what's rich and comforting. You prefer food that will definitely satisfy you. You are generous, outgoing, and considerate with your choices. You are cultured and intellectual. You should consider traveling to Vienna. The stereotype that best fits you is upper class preppy. You don't anything too ordinary or vulgar.

What Does Your Pizza Say About You?

Whole Grain Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

I was first introduced to Aglio e Olio by Rainbows. Aglio means garlic and Olio means oil in Italian and she said this is one easy pasta to prepare. Indeed she was right, and any easy recipe I wanted to try. And I was introduced to whole grain pasta by watching Racheal Ray. Anything whole wheat and whole grain is to my liking because it speaks an healthier choice. So, I purposely searched out whole grain pasta to try, if it's good then next time I will just stick to whole grain pasta, unless the other one is on-sales for a price that I couldn't refuse. I bought some beautiful grape tomatoes the other day and I thought why not I just added some to it. Since I was not used to eating plain pasta, I took out some sea scallops and cut it into half.

Verdict: I really like the whole grain pasta. It was not hard like what I have read. It's as al dente as the white pasta. And it makes me feel healthier by eating it. As for the aglio e olio, I found it kind of plain, needed an extra dose of salt to bring out the flavor. Being a true Asian, I even added some sesame oil! :P Here's my version:

Just for Fun!

Saw this at Rainbows's blog and decided to play along! Hehehe.... Just trying to kill my curiosity. Here's the direct link if you want to play too. :D

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You've got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don't care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Short Clip of My Girls Eating

Sharing a clip of them eating at Texas Roadhouse recently. Edda was cleaning the plate of onion blossom (our appertizer) and Evy was enjoying her favorite ceaser salad. Hubby ordered his usual full rack of BBQ ribs and I decided to try something different and ordered the pork chops. The pork chops was a disappointment, hard and dry (overcooked for sure). I made better pork chop than them and I would never order it again.



This embeded version is not as clear. Not the camcorder fault.

Black Pepper Chicken

The Chinese restaurant buffet here that we frequent served a very delicious black pepper chicken. We just discovered it recently and both my hubby and I loved it very much. It was on the sweet side and the marinade and flavor just perfect. Since I was trying to think of something different to cook with the chicken breast that I took out, I remembered this dish. Also remembered that I had some black pepper premix in my fridge, which resulted in my version of black pepper chicken. Got to say theirs still tasted better, but this was not far behind. :P The sauce was very good with rice.

Stir-fry Kailan

Instead of the usual oyster sauce Kailan, I loved to cook my Kailan this way. We liked to order Kailan cooked in garlic when we eat out in an authentic Chinese restaurant. But at home, I like to add ginger slices into mine. This is one of my older home cook recipes. Have been cooking this for years and still doing so.

Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins

I wanted to create a healthier version of muffins. What makes a normal muffins healthier? I was playing with the combination in my head. One that has carrots, walnuts and raisins, without any butter, with a little heart healthy canola oil and makes with whole wheat flour! Sounds great right? I didn't want to experiment with 100% whole wheat flour because I was afraid that the muffins would be dense and I like my muffins soft. So, I used a combination of whole wheat flour and cake flour. I love it, the whole wheat carrot muffins turned out great, soft and delicious. What's best is it's less guilty!


Sharing with you my recipe:

Tagged: Six Words Memoir

I've been tagged by Ling's Passion to do this meme. So here my Six Word Memoir.........

Eat Well*Stay Healthy*Live Happy

1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog (and include a visual illustration if you’d like).
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I’m tagging the followings to participate in this meme:

Soy and Pepper
Daily Affairs
Daphne- More than Words
Florence's Do What I Like
Rainbows

How to Make Your Shrimps Curl

D from Daily Affairs asked me to create a post on how I made my beautiful shrimps. Actually it is very easy, it's just some curl shrimps. First I deveined the shrimps, peel off the shells and then I just slit it into half lengthwise. When you stir-fry the shrimps, it will curl up automatically. Easy right? D, now you have it! :) However, some will curl this way, but some might not oh.

Easy & Delicious Stir-fried Tofu

I like healthy food. Healthy food to me is that the dish has to be colorful, with lean skinless chicken breasts, fish or tofu. I also cook with lots of fresh garlic, ginger, scallion, shallot or onion. The above dish is healthy to me because it has celery, carrot, straw mushroom and tofu. It's a vegetarian dish actually. This dish is so easy to cook with only two seasonings and yet the taste is so divine. Tigerfish cooked a similar version recently too.

Tagged!

I was tagged by My Baking Diary. I got this book when pregnant with Edda, ages ago. :P

This is the deal:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

"In these cases, simply excuse yourself and go to another area to nurse, or express your breastmilk ahead of time and feed it to your baby in a bottle when you need to after the pressing and storing breastmilk. You may wonder how you will adjust to working while continuing to breastfeed. You may be separated from your baby for longer periods, requiring you to provide one or more bottles of breastmilk to your infant's caregiver to use in your absence."

Tag 5 persons :

Mochachocolata-Rita
Yochana's Cake Delight
The Art and Science of Food
Retno's Kedai Hamburg, Germany
Ling's Passion

What a Crazy Weather!

When people said Colorado has crazy weather, it is! We were enjoying a record high of 80"F the day before and the next day "Boom", we got snow shower! In Sane! Evy wanted to go out and play so I let her and Edda was inside with a sour face looking at her sister playing outside (by the sliding door). Then, she brought me her shoes and of course letting me know that she wanted to go out as well. Her sour face looked so pitiful so suited her up and put her outside with her sister.

I only let them played on the deck so that I could keep an eye on them.

Edda looking at me. I asked her, "Cold or not, want to come inside or not?" Raised her hand and said, "No", at least that's what I think she was saying. LOL!

Evy was happily playing with her snow shover.

Edda pointing at the snow falling and tasting some which fell on her face. She surely enjoyed it, so cold also didn't want to come in until her sister came in then she got no choice but to come inside.

What's the next day looks like! Inches of accumulation and every where was covered with snow. And it's SPRING here!!

Rockie Mountain. Couldn't capture the famous Pike Peak, it was hidden in the cloud behind the mountain.

Strawberry Muffins

How pretty is that color isn't it? I loved it! Strawberry is pretty cheap these days. I just bought 4lb. of strawberries for $4.99, pretty cheap right? Furthermore, it's really sweet and fragrant. I'm not someone who likes sour fruit like strawberry, kiwi, orange, etc. I prefer my fruit sweet. So, I'm really glad that this batch of strawberries are sweet. I decided to experiment again and made this strawberries muffins using this recipe from allrecipes.com but with slight modification.



I'm really low on baking powder, only about 1 tsp. left so I won't be able to follow the recipe. I used 2 cup of self-raising flour and omitted the baking powder. Added 1 tsp. of strawberry extract and 1 1/2 cup of chopped strawberries. Save some of the strawberries to put on top of the muffins before baking. The muffins turned out to be soft, moist, not very sweet and nice with slight strawberry fragrant. These muffins are sure an healthier alternative to cupcakes as no butter was used and only a little oil, one egg were used in making this. Good for my breakfast and tea time snack! Furthermore, my hubby loved it too!

Tag: Life is Full of Gratitude

Sweet Jasmine from Rainbow passed me this tag. Everyone has something to be grateful for including me.

I'm grateful for my hubby who loves me and able to provide for me.
I'm grateful for my two beautiful daughters who added color into our lives.
I'm grateful for my friends who are there for me when I need them.
I'm grateful for good health.
I'm grateful that my parents and parent in-laws are in good health.
I'm grateful that there is a beautiful day waiting for me whenever I wake up. Life is beautiful.

~Start Copy~

In order to be able to achieve and maintain happiness we need to, actively, be able to do two things: Complain and then let go (Dump the baggage, the roadblocks to happiness.) Express Gratitude (The open expression of gratitude promotes happiness.) After all everyone has something to be grateful for and/or something to complain about. If you would like to share, please follow the appropriate link and do so: “Are You Grateful?”, “Complain Complain Complain.”

Add your name to the current List of Contributors:

Contributors to "Are You Grateful?" & "Complain Complain Complain" are: 1-Attitude, the Ultimate Power 2-Max 3-DianaCA's Metamorphoses 4-Mental Poo 5-My Thoughts 6-Baba Doodlius 7-Wake Up America 8-Life is a Roller Coaster 9-Life and Me 10-pinay mommy's love blog 11-My Happiness Haven 12-And Life Goes On for a Filipino Mom 13-Blessed Sanctuary 14-Expressions And Thoughts 15-Memories by Jenn 16-Reminiscence of My Adventures 17-In the Life of Mne 18-Juliana's Lair 19-Pinay Wahm 20-Lucid Creativity 21-Winged Words 22-Irresistible Fascinations 23-A Little Time 24-See Me For What You Will 25-Greatest Reviews 26-ETC ATBP 27-Gandacious 28-We Are Family 29-Journey to this thing called LIFE 30-www.rajeshrana.net 31-www.rajeshrana.com 32-BaReFooTeD Me 33-Uncomplicated 34-Points of View 35-Pride & Prejudice 36-Colorful World 37-Nora's Notes 38-A Daily Walk With Bill & Gina 39-Strange but True 40-Everything Under The Sun ( Beth Rebokon ) 41-Kaleidoscope 42-Fil-Oz Blog 43-By Osc@r Luiz 44-Comedy Plus 45-Blogging by Sandee 46-Soul Meets World 47-Mae's Memoirs 48-Beyond the Rave Reality 49-Amori, poesie, arte, chat by Hanna 50-Attached at the Hip 51-Carver's Sight or is that Site? 52-Empress Reviews 53-Simple Pleasures In My Heart 54-Lourdes' mia 55-A Grateful Heart 56-Majorsleepyhead 57-Scrappy n Happy in Ohio 58-CHOC MINT GIRL 59-Extraordinary Things 60-ZOOROPAZOO 61-BeNolSatuEm 62-As The World Turns 63-Your Caring Angels 64-Life Is Wonderful To Know Everyday 65-Sugar Magnolias 66-Little Peanut 67-Creative In Me 68-Me and Mine 69-Pea in a Pod 70-the diary of the Pink & Brown Wedding 71-good thoughts, good trades, good life 72-My Blog - all things me 73-Rainbows 74-Little Corner of Mine 75-Me, Myself and I 76-My Planet Purple 77-Amel's Realm 78-A Handful of Surprises 79-A Detour 80-Something Purple 81-Vanity Kit 82-Are You Grateful? 83-A Simple Life 84-BlogTips.Com 85-Balitang Kalye 86-Mariuca 87- Emila Yusof 88-A Total Blog 89-My Life in this Wonderful World 90-MommyAllehs 91-Things That Suck 92-A Mother's Stuff 93-Princess Vien 94-My Inner Thoughts Revealed 95-Roxiticus Desperate Housewives 96-Apples Of The Eyes 97-Nita's Random Thoughts 98-Nita's Corner 99-Thomas Digital Services 100-A Mother's Thoughts101-Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta 102-My Perfect Escape 103-Vanidosa. Marie 104-Confessions of a Supermodel Wannabe 105-Lynda's Loft
~End Copy~

I'm passing this tag to:
Daphne- More than Words
Baking Fiends Unite!
Edith's Precious Moments
Ling's Passion
Beachlover's Kitchen
SueSue - Cooking Momster
My Kitchen Snippets

Pork Chop Dinner

I made some pork chops because I was too lazy to pre-slice the pork for stir-fry. So, I decided to make a western pork chops dinner with the asparagus that I had in the fridge. This was such an easy dinner to prepare because all I did is to marinate the pork chops overnight with my special sauce. The next day I just seared the pork chops in some olive oil on both side and then let it finished cooking in the oven. Sprinkled a little olive oil, some salt and peppers on my asparagus and in the preheated 450'F oven for 15 minutes. I also opened a can of Pillsbury garlic crescent rolls (not in picture) and baked it for 10 minutes and I had myself a complete dinner.

At the end of the dinner, hubby complained not full!! LOL! Actually when he first saw this, he asked, "Where is the rice?" I said, " What rice? No rice, got crescent rolls already, this is a western meal." :P

What surprised me is Evy actually loves pork chop. She asked me yesterday, can you cook this bread that eat with meat and veggie one? I was like what the heck was she talking about? At first I thought she meant roti canai with Jap. curry but she knows the words roti canai and curry so it must be other thing and then I remembered this. True enough, she said she wants to eat pork chop.

Evy Craft and More

She did this all by herself. She found this craft project (I have no idea where) online, printed out the paper, cut it herself, color it, glued the parts together and put stickers at the back so that it will stick to her face. After she finished, she came to me with this elephant mask (according to her) stick to her face. I got a shock actually because she did all these by herself!! I asked her to stick it on her bedroom door to remember her first craft and praised her for a job well done. I do have a creative daughter because she know to use the tape to enable the mask to stick on her face. So little know how to think and solve problem already.


Her drawing and writing.


She presented her daddy with this on Jan, 2008 which her daddy kept on his desk.


She gave me this on Feb 14, 2008 which I put on my desk. I realized that my daughter writes very well at her age. So clear that you really know what she wrote.


Evy showing off some of her works. I will update with some recent drawings of her because it's getting very good, so good that it surprised both her daddy and me, just like she surprised me with the elephant mask.

One way I know that Evy is more advance is on a recent trip to a Toy R Us where they have a booth and gave out papers and crayons for little ones to draw, Evy drew a beautiful flower and color it so prettily while the other kids only knew how to draw lines! Some kids were bigger than her and they drew lines. Her daddy had to ask me,"Did Evy draw this?" I said, "Of course, who else." She surprised her daddy then and there. He couldn't stop praising her and her piece of art.

Orange Cream Scones

I wanted to try a different cream scones recipe instead of my usual Almond cream scones. With lots of oranges in the refrigerator at this moment, orange cream scones sounded like an excellent idea. I have a soft spot for orange cakes, muffins, cookies or any dessert that has a little orange in it. I don't know, the extra citrusy taste just kick it up a notch I guess. In 20 minutes, I have a hot from the oven cream scones waiting for me to savor with my morning cup of coffee.

Seafood Pesto Spaghetti

I was left with some cilantro pesto and I was trying to think of a different way to use it instead of making my usual pesto pasta. After much thought, I still couldn't come out with a better way to use it except to pan-fry some chicken breast cutlets and spread the pesto on top before serving. If I prepare it this way, then I would have to prepare at least two sides to go with my pesto chicken cutlets and make it an American dinner. Mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus sounded like a great side dishes. BUT, more work for me! So, ended out making this seafood spaghetti instead. All in one as my hubby preferred this better than the other version. Yeah, it's boring but he loved it! By the way, mine sharing what other way you used your pesto?



I added the juice from pan-frying the scallops and shrimps when mixing the spaghetti. You can also sprinkled a little crushed red pepper flakes before serving. Mmm...mmm... look at the bouncy shrimps and juicy sea scallops, who wouldn't want a bite?

My picky eater Evy who refused to try the chicken version was tempted to take a bite and hooked. She said, "Mmmm...hen hao zhi" and asked me to serve her a plate and cleaned the plate! :o)

Method:
Heat a saute pan with some olive oil. Fry the shrimps and sea scallops until cooked. Dish out and set aside. Heat the pan with more olive oil, stir-fry the broccoli and carrot until soften, add in the cooked spaghetti/pasta, shrimps and sea scallops, cilantro pesto and mix and blend well together, turn off the heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper if needed.



This is my first time submitting my pasta entry to Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Once Upon a Feast. Do visit there to feast your eyes on the variety and interesting pastas that bloggers whipped up.

Steamed Banana Cupcakes

I have two bananas in the freezer waiting for me to use it and then I came across this recipe while browsing through tastespotting.com. Hers looked really good, so soft and fluffy that I just need to give this a try. What can I say, this steamed banana cupcake is truly delicious! It's just like what she said, sooooooo good!



I added 1/4 tsp. banana essence into mine as American banana is not as fragrant as the one sold in Malaysia. We finished the rest of the banana cupcakes the next day and they were still soft and fluffy. Really good and you all should try it.

Cilantro Pesto Spaghetti

Clear my fridge time! I need to clear my cilantro which I bought two weeks ago. The best way I know how is to make pesto out of it. I have been making cilantro pesto instead of basil pesto for years. Reason is very simple, I always buy cilantro and hardly ever buy basil. My cilantro pesto consisted of cilantro, garlic, walnut, olive oil and season to taste with salt, black pepper and sugar. We love it!

I stir-fried some sliced fresh button mushroom in olive oil until soften. Added carrots and the leftover chicken breast meats from KFC and stir in the spaghetti and toasted well with my pesto and dinner was ready.

Miso Sesame Seeds Baked Fish

I love quick and easy to prepare dish. Anything to cut down my preparation and cooking time is my best friend. And once I learned that I could use my oven to bake or steam fish, it was like striking gold to me. Because finally I found the healthier, quick and easy alternative.

I love to experiment with different toppings for my bake fish. After I read from Daphne and EMWK blogs that they used Miso in their baked fish, I was really interested to try it out (still waiting for them to post their version though! ;o)). My first attempt was a failure because I underestimated how salty Miso paste was and we ended out scraping all the Miso paste away before we ate the fish. The above picture was my successful second attempt. :o) Here sharing with you my recipe so that you won't make the same mistake I made earlier, especially for those who never try it before.

Gula Melaka Panna Cotta

Panna Cotta is an Italian dessert literary means "cooked cream". The mixture of milk, cream, sugar and gelatin made this dessert. V at EMWK first introduced me to this dessert and I totally loved it. She made her blueberries version. YUM!

When I saw this recipe posted by Yani, I just had to try it. I love Gula Melaka (palm sugar from Malaysia) and I could really taste how incredible this dessert will be in my mind. So, with the leftover heavy cream that I had, I started to make this easy dessert.

This is really divine but I found it to be on the creamy side. So, I would add 1 cup of milk as opposed to 1/2 cup of milk as she suggested next time. I put mine in the refrigerator to set (about 3 hours) instead of in the freezer for one hour. Sinful and delicious! My hubby and both my girls loved it too!

Asparagus Cooked in Two Ways

I think it's Asparagus Season here as it's on sales right and left at the grocery stores. So, I grabbed some. I always bought vegetable and fruit that were on sales for that week. And each week I would have something different. I prepared some marinated chicken breast slices, some carrots and chopped garlic and I was ready to cook dinner.


Cooked in spicy black bean sauce. This is for the parents of course.


Cooked in oyster sauce and added an egg. This is for the kids. Didn't plan to add an egg but I added too much oil, so why not? And it turned out so delicious and went so well with everything. So, sharing the recipe here with you.

Ingredient:

Asparagus, half bundle, about 2 cups, cut like the above
Sliced 1/2 chicken breast (marinated with soy sauce, sweet soy sauce & cornstarch)
1 small carrot, sliced
1 large egg
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Canola oil
Oyster sauce, about 2 Tbsp.

Method:

1. Heat wok with oil. When hot, add in the garlic, fry til slightly golden, add chicken slices. Stir-fry til the chicken is cooked. Add asparagus and carrot. Fry til the asparagus is almost cooked.

2. Season with oyster sauce, mix well. Break in an egg, break the yolk and spread around the veggie. Fry til the egg is cooked. Serve hot.

Strawberry Chiffon Cake - Part 2

Simple decoration as Evy requested, strawberry and sprinkles. My strawberry chiffon cake recipe can be viewed here.


Yummilicious!! Oh yeah, I didn't do a party for her this year, just made her a cake and took her out for lunch at her favorite locale.

You all really need to try this cake, it turned out to be so delectable, my hubby just couldn't stop at a slice! This is also the only cake thus far that he ate till the last slice. Next time I would make three layers so that I could have more strawberries bites. Simply YUMMY!! The chiffon cake is soft and light and the whipped cream is a perfect match with strawberry, I just love this cake! Can you tell how I adore this cake? :P

My Whipped Cream Frosting Recipe:
1 1/2 cup whipped cream
1/4 cup icing sugar
~Beat until soft peak is formed.

For middle layering:
Take some of the whipped cream and mixed in with some chopped strawberries.

Note:
The amount of whipped cream just enough to cover the cake, not enough for fancy decoration on top of the cake. You need to use 2 cups of whipped cream for extra decoration.

Check out my other Strawberry Chiffon Cake recipe.

Strawberry Chiffon Cake

What a mommy does when her daughter requested a strawberry cake as her birthday cake? Luckily she didn't ask for a Dora cake. :P I know I want either a sponge or chiffon cake as a base instead of butter cake. So, I picked chiffon cake to experiment since I haven't made any chiffon cake for ages. I actually did a lot of "bo bo" when making this chiffon cake. When blending in the egg whites with the yolk batter, I realized that the color was not red. So I added some red coloring while blending in the egg whites mixture. Really scary! And when I done mixing and started pouring into a pan, I realized I got the wrong pan. I was pouring the batter into a bundt pan instead of a tube pan. So, I had to take out my tube pan and pour the one from the bundt pan into the tube pan and added in the rest of the batter. I was actually praying that my chiffon cake won't fail me at this point because I was certain I was kinda messed out.
Luckily after so many scary moments, my chiffon cake was a success! I cut the cake into half to add in the filling later. This cake actually turned out so yummy! :) Stay tuned for part 2 for the complete assembly. ;)