Baked Cheesy Rotini

I hardly cooked a proper Chinese meal these days.  Hmmm...not sure why!  Perhaps when I have an off day, I wanted to bring my girls out.  It might be also it will be too hot to cook at home during the Summer when my house doesn't have an air-conditional.  I didn't want to warm up my house and sweat myself when wok frying on the stove.  If I do cook, simple one dish meal would surface. Maybe one dish rice dish finished in a rice cooker is another idea.  Or just a simple noodle soup with frozen dumplings, green veggie and an egg throw in.  Something simple like that or just a bowl of fresh salad with dressing.

This pasta dish was actually not quite simple to make as I have to precook the pasta first and then set it aside and then cook the ground chicken (with chicken breast that I have to cut and ground myself) with tomato sauce and then set it aside.  Before I assemble the poultry tomato sauce and pasta with cheese in layers before finishing it off with a cheese layer on top and then baked it in a preheated 350'F oven for 20 minutes and then broiled it for 3 minutes to brown the cheese to finish it off.  I probably won't be making this anytime soon as it was quite tedious.  Ha!

Butter Parmesan Linguine

This is one simple one dish meal to prepare for your family.  I like the simplicity of it and yet so delicious.  All you need is some leftover chicken breast meat, frozen veggie, linguine or any kind of dried pasta, butter and shredded Parmesan cheese.

I like the frozen broccoli and cauliflower mixed as it matched well with the pasta but you can certainly used any kind of veggie you have at home, frozen peas and carrots work well too.

Marmalade No-churn Ice-cream

After I learned about this easy self-made no-churn ice-cream, I just loved to play around with new flavors!  This is one flavor that I tried after the green tea flavor.  I had some marmalade that I made in the refrigerator, so I thought why not I tried putting preserves into the mix and hence here it is!  Next time I would love to try the mocha flavor that I loved.  Creativity is endless and so does the flavors, just play with it as you will create your own kind of flavor that none in this world!  Enjoy and have fun experimenting!

Coconut Mochi Cake

I have some sweeten coconut flakes in the refrigerator and making a coconut mochi cake just strike me as an excellent idea.  It couldn't be yummier and the crust was crispy in the day it was baked and turned soft the next day.  Nevertheless it was still delicious!  If you like all things coconut, you might want to give this recipe a try!  Least to say it was super duper easy to make as well.  Enjoy!

No Bake Chocolate Oat Bars

No Bake Chocolate Oat Bars to go!  I made this bar before back in 2013!!  I think it's about time that I made another version of this bar again.  Any healthy nuts, dried fruit, seeds you have, just add it into this bar and you are good to go!

Packed and ready to grab and go bar.  My girls loved it!

Citrus Poppy Seed Short-bread Cookies

I was just in the mood for some short-bread cookies.  I had freeze some orange zest for use in baking in the future and this recipe definitely called for it.  This cookie is fragrant with butter and citrus and very crunchy.  I hope you would like this short-bread cookies.  It is not hard to make but the dough is crumbly so it can be hard to shape into a log.  Good luck!

No-churn Green Tea/ Matcha Ice-cream

Yay!  I don't have to pay more for green tea ice-cream anymore!  Creamy and delicious green tea ice-cream can be easily made at home.  Since I learned the method for no-churn ice-cream, I have been making my own ice-cream with the flavor that I loved!  With the basic no-churn ice-cream recipe, you can create any flavor ice-cream that you could think of! If you can think it, you can make it!  I would definitely experiment more flavors in the future.

My Pullman tin finally came into good use!  The ice-cream fit nicely in this tin plus it came with a cover.  So convenient and so lovely!

Green Bean Starch Banchan

I had this in a Korean restaurant before and I remembered wondering what was it, what was this jelly texture thing actually is.  And now I know, it is actually a green bean jelly that was made of green bean starch and water and then cook until thicken.

I remembered my mom used to make homemade glue for me.  Whenever I wanted glue for my school project, I would run to my mom and she would use hot water and this white flour to make glue.  I told my girls perhaps I should keep one packet in my pantry so that whenever you girls need glue, I can make some for you.  Haha...  Why not, it's edible glue and it's all natural!

I served mine with some sweeten soy sauce plus chili oil.  Added some chopped green onion as well. I think I could add more water to make this jelly a bit softer as I found it a bit hard.  Would be nice if the texture is softer I think.

Caramel Hoen Kwe Water Chestnut Kuih

This Hoen Kwe kuih is refreshing and so easy to make.  This kuih is supposed to be white in color but due to my inexperience or first time cooking using this hoen kwe flour, I sorted caramelized the sugar and resulted in this caramel color kuih.  Tastewise, it was actually a plus because this kuih was fragrant with caramel and soft with the crunch from the water chestnut.  The original recipe from the back of the Hoen Kwe flour tub was too sweet, so I cut the sugar down to 1 cup.  A bit similar to water chestnut kuih but the texture is different.

Pour into a glass container, let cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before slicing.

Steamed Radish Cake

Homemade steamed radish cake can be so flavorful, soft and delicious!  I always keep a daikon in my refrigerator or Korean round radish.  I used it to make soup, banchan (Korean side dishes), etc.  One day since I have all the ingredients at home, I said to myself, why not make some radish kuih?  I love radish cake, either pan-fried or eating it soft and fresh with Sriracha, so satisfying! This method is considering a short-cut method since I don't have to cook everything in a pan until thicken and then steamed it. Just mixed and steamed!

The end result is so good.  Just substitute taro for taro cake and pumpkin for pumpkin cake.  Or leave it out for a white plain rice cake! (Then you can cook some savory chai por/preserved turnips to eat it with) This recipe should be interchangeable.  Good Luck experimenting!

Cranberry Oatmeal Bars

I saw this recipe while flipping through my old Penzeys Spices magazine.  As you know, I am attracted to easy and healthy recipe, even though I couldn't really say this recipe is healthy but hey it has oats and dried cranberries in it!  Hahaha....  Anyway, what got me in the end is this one bowl and a hand whisk preparation method.  I don't like to see a sink full of things to wash in the end, so I always favor this type of recipe.

I liked this recipe, the cranberry oatmeal bars turned out very fragrant and delicious.  Next time I can make this for teacher treat or party.  My girls took this as their school snacks and ate it as after school snack.  Easy to make, less thing to wash and delicious to eat, what more can you ask for? *wink*

Avocado Chocholate Chips No Churn Ice-Cream

I first saw this recipe in a video shared by a friend via Facebook.  The easy recipe caught my eyes, I was like I could make ice-cream at home without an ice-cream maker?  Furthermore, it was so easy to make and the vibrant green color no-churn avocado ice-cream really tempted me to give it a try.

Hence, viola!  Frankly that vibrant green color was impossible to achieve, I am wondering whether they added green coloring for the video!  The picture provided by the Food Network recipe was the same as mine, more whitish in color instead of the vibrant green.  Only 1/2 an avocado used and we had to mix it in with 2 cups of whipped cream, that green color would be long diluted.

I added mini chocolate chips morsels as my girls and I loved chocolate, nothing would go wrong with this combination unless you dislike chocolate chips.  And my verdict for this ice-cream, it was good and creamy!

Yummy home-made no churn ice-cream!  As easy as 1-2-3!  Try it!  The only downside is lots of cleaning afterward, that was the least fun part of it. 

Korean Fish Cake and Italian Sausages

I had some Italian sausage in the refrigerator and thought that Korean fish cake and Italian sausage would make a good pair, so this dish was created.  You can add some sliced jalapeno too if you prefer it spicy.   My girls only picked up the sausages and fish cakes to eat and ignored the onion and carrot, haha...  I guess you can omit the onion and carrot if you have picky eaters at home too.  This is definitely a great side dish to eat with rice!

Long Grain & Wild Rice Chicken Soup

I got the idea of making this chicken rice soup from a sample lady working at Costco.  She used only 4 ingredients, chicken base, organic no-salt seasoning, Seeds of Change's quinoa and brown rice and canned chicken breast.  Just add everything with water and viola! 

I remembered I have packets of Uncle Bean instant rice in my pantry and some leftover chicken meat so I bought the Kirkland Organic No-Salt Seasoning and organic chicken base to make this.  Of course for me got to add some vegetable to make it more balance and colorful!  To think about it, instead of chicken noodle soup, you can always make this chicken rice soup whenever someone is not feeling well at home and just wanted some chicken soup eh?

Cheesy Sausage Rotini with Broccoli and Cauliflower

My little Edda told me she wanted to eat cheese pasta and my Evy told me she has a craving for sausages.  Hence, this dish was created to satisfy both of my girls.  As for me, I wanted some veggies in every meal so of course I had to add some broccoli and cauliflower into the pasta to make this one dish meal more balance.  Very easy to make and delicious to eat, try to make it yourself!

These days I found frozen vegetables more suitable to my lifestyle.  With work and taking care of my girls, sometimes I just don't have time to cook an elaborate meal anymore.  I am not a wasteful person and I hate to throw away rotten vegetable but I found myself doing that quite often because I just didn't have the time to cook it.  So, frozen veggies work best for me and it is so convenient too and I don't have to worry about wastage.

Taro Dessert Soup with Taro Chewy Balls

Slightly more work than the usual dessert but definitely worth all the effort.  I have a soft spot for taro, anything that made with taro root, I know I wouldn't be able to resist it.  I found Veronica chewy ball recipe on the web and decided to give it a try.  Mine didn't turn out as chewy, probably it was because I didn't use the hot water to knead the dough and used the tap water instead.  After I had mixed everything and then I remembered I forgot to boil water, oh well.  Also I would suggest to add sugar when mixing the dough so that the taro chewy balls would be sweet instead of bland.  Overall, it was still a nice dessert!

Korean Rice Cake Soup

My original plan was to make a seaweed tofu miso soup with added Korean fish cake.  And then I remembered I still have half a packet of the fresh rice cake in the refrigerator and then the AHA moment, why not I just mixed it in together with the soup?  Now I had a one dish meal ready to consume hot in this cold weather day and I didn't have to worry about cooking the rice.  This makes one excellent meatless meal as well.

The fresh rice cake is good in stir-fry, spicy with gochujang or non-spicy with soy sauce and so good in soup too, so remember to grab a packet of this whenever you are in a Korean supermarket, it can certainly comes in handy.

Caution:  Don't overcook the rice cake, otherwise it won't be chewy anymore, it will expand and become soft.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

We all loved chocolate.  When thinking of what cookies to make, chocolate chocolate chip cookies came into mind.  I bought some Enjoy Life chocolate morsels when it was on sale last Christmas so it definitely came in handy when making this cookies.  I also used it in my Banana Chocolate Cake recipe that I posted awhile back.  It was so good my girls couldn't stop snacking on it.

Green Bean, Barley and Sago Dessert Soup

I saw a green bean and barley Chinese sweet dessert soup on Facebook not too long ago and thought what a great idea as I have never try adding barley into my green bean soup.  Since I have some barley at home so I set up to give this combination a try.  I also added sago pearls just because my girls and I loved sago a lot.

What a surprise and we really loved it as barley added some chewy bite into the mix and it was so delicious.  Since both barley and green bean are cooling food, it is good if someone in your family is coughing or has heaty body.

Keep the leftover in the refrigerator and just eat it cold.  Enjoy!

Pear Puff Pastry

I have some pears in the refrigerator and some frozen roti canai or roti pratha in the freezer, so this dessert came into my mind again.  Using my old recipe here to recreate this.  Very simple and very easy, just peeled and sliced the pear thinly and arranged it on top of the roti canai and sprinkled the top with some cinnamon and brown sugar, fold up and baked in 400'F toaster oven for 25 minutes. You can certainly preheat your oven to 375'F and baked it for 25 minutes if you don't have a toaster oven.  Cut and enjoy with a dollop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or as is, whatever to your fancy! Enjoy!

Stir-fried Soy Shrimps

Shrimps have been so cheap lately, every supermarkets have it on sale, as cheap as $5 a pound for x-large or large shrimps, it got to make me wonder, why?!  I checked my bag of shrimps and it said farm raised from CA.  It made me feel safer because at least it is not farm raised from China or Vietnam.  But seriously, is anything safe to eat these days?  Fishes from Pacific Ocean is contaminated by the Japan radiation.  Farm raised fishes or shrimps that were produced by China, Vietnam, India, etc were said to be very dirty because it were fed with feces from pigs or chicken.  I don't know man... it seem like I either eat organic or become a vegetarian.  Eat more veggies should be the better choice for now as eating more variety of fruit and vegetable is good for us.  We can have occasional seafood, poultry or meat so that the diet is more balance but more towards vegetarian for future health.  Reading as some of the chickens and pigs from the US are going to ship to China to process and package before it ship back to the US to sell to the US consumers, I don't know man.  As the China guidelines and quality control might be in question.  If you are what you eat, and what you eat matter, what should you be eating?

Glutinous Rice with Shredded Coconut

I like to make this easy kuih if I happen to crave for some Malaysian kuih-muih (Asian steamed/baked cake).  You can either use a rice cooker or a steamer to make the bottom part of this kuih which is the glutinous rice.  For this recipe, I will use a rice cooker to cook the rice since its more widely available in people house.  Serve this as a dessert, snack or breakfast.  This kuih should be finished in 3 days without refrigeration.  The glutinous rice will harden when place in the refrigerator but you can always microwave it before consuming.