Stir-fried Spaghetti with Mushroom, Eggs and Flower Chives

How this dish came about was I couldn't resist purchasing the organic brown mushroom that was on Manager Special at King Sooper.  I still have half a bunch of flower chives that was given by a friend and some organic brown eggs in the refrigerator, so this dish was set.  Eating too much carbohydrate has gotten me fat but sometimes I just craved for this easy one dish meal.  It was filling and it took less time to make.  However, I realized that I couldn't eat too much carb. few days in a roll, I really put on weight as a result.  So, right now I would stick to as little carb as possible and consume more vegetable and some protein.  And if I can control no snacking in the afternoon that would be great but I love my cookies!!  :(

Okay, enough ranting about my weight issue and scroll down for the recipe!

Green Bean Casserole from Scratch!

This Ultimate Green Bean Casserole from Daring Gourmet was seriously the best!  I was searching on Google for the best green bean casserole and this seriously caught my attention.  Fresh green bean instead of the canned green bean and the fresh mushroom, cheese and organic half & half definitely beat the canned of cream of mushroom soup anytime!

Instead of the roast turkey breast, my girls opted for roasted chicken instead.  I bought the Sprout Hawaiian bread and non-GMO apple cider and I just needed to make the gravy, my awesome mashed organic potato and this ultimate green bean casserole.

The easy spread!  I didn't make the cranberry salsa as I will be the only one eating it (Even though it is so yummy).  Hence,  I chose to save money and extra prep and cook.  :)  Edda helped me a lot in the kitchen, she peeled the potatoes for me and sliced the mushroom for me which made it so much faster to complete this meal.

I haven't cooked for ages so I was happy to hear from my girls that their mom still got it!  Ha!  They were afraid that I would lose my touch if I stop cooking for a long time.  I guess cooking is a skill and once you got it, you got it!  :)

Sorry I didn't manage to come out with any new recipe lately.  Hoping my 10 years innovation and collection of recipes here are helping you.  Have a Happy Holidays readers!

Ground Pork with Flower Chives

During the summer break, I was given some home grown flower chives and zucchini.  The owner was sharing this method of cooking the flower chives and it sounded delicious so I was trying out her recipe.  She used the black bean sauce to cook this and since I only have the bean sauce, I used that instead.  It turned out great and it was well received by both of my girls!  As for me, I have found another way of cooking the flower chives! :)

Stir-fried Sweet Potato Vermicelli

Sweet potato vermicelli is a gluten free noodle usually found as an appetizer or side dish in the Korean restaurant.  I was first introduced to this noodle in a Korean household where I was invited for dinner.  It so happened that the family's parents came to visit them from Korea and her mom cooked up a feast for us.  It was love at first sight when I first tried the sweet potato noodle or Japchae in Korean.  I loved the chewy texture that this noodle provided as compared to the usual Asian style noodle that I had before.  It was delectable and it was fairly easy to make.  You can purchase the sweet potato vermicelli at the Asian supermarket and just followed the direction at the back of the packet to cook up this noodle dish or Japchae!

Spicy Szechuan Fish

A co-worker gave me a packet of Szechuan fish premixed to try and told me that it was very good. As I loved spicy food and I also liked Szechuan fish, I gladly tried it at home.  Since I had some Szechuan peppers at home, I added that for the numbing effect.  I also added non-GMO tofu, organic romaine lettuce, organic portobello mushroom and some cilantro.  I used Swai for this, but you can also use Tilapia or Cod fish.  The rest I just followed the instructions at the back of the premixed packet.  Definitely very spicy and numbing, very good serving it with white Jasmine rice.  Enjoy!

Divine Portobello Mushroom

I fell in love with the Portobello Mushroom years ago when I first tasted it.  Actually I am quite intrigue with the variety of mushrooms out there and would love to try as many different variety as I could.  I cooked this mushroom very easily.  First I made a sauce for the mushroom, this sauce consists of soy sauce, sugar, mirin, white pepper and chopped garlic.

Then, I sliced the mushroom into a long strips and put it on a preheated non-stick pan without any oil. You know the mushroom is cooked when it started to soften and released the flavorful earthy mushroom sense.  Turn it over to cook the other side.  Then, spread the prepared sauce on top.  Dish out and serve on a plate.  Enjoy this flavorful treat!

Golden Oak Shiitake Spaghetti

I bought a box of Golden Oak Shiitake Mushroom the other day and was wondering how to prepare it.  I wanted to taste the mushroom and wanted to make a clean and natural one dish meal to compliment the mushroom and I thought of this pasta dish.

I used the thin spaghetti for this, garlic, one box of the golden oak shiitake mushroom and green onion, very simple with minimalist ingredients.  I cooked it with extra virgin olive oil and seasoned it with sea salt and black pepper.  Very simple and yet very tasty, I was surprised at my own skill as well.  Hahaha.....

Baked Chicken Fingers

This is one of the easy meals that you can serve at home.  My girls totally loved this.  I can serve this with a side of salad and potato-totes.  Or it can very well be an appetizer or a finger food for a party. You can get creative with any seasonings of your choice, it doesn't really matter.

I served mine with portobello mushroom, fresh cucumber and tatertotes!

Toasted Coconut Chia Seeds Cake

Coconut toasted coconut cake, so yummilicious.

I had a vision and I made this cake and it was so divine!  When I told my Edda about my vision of this cake, she gave me the look that it was not going to be good, she said I don't like coconut cake.  Oh well, as it turned out she really loved it and had few pieces after it was cooled.  I asked her, this is really good right and she said yes and please don't share it with anyone.  Hahaha....she wanted the whole cake for us!  As usually I would share half of the cake away.  

Super fragrant and super moist coconut chia seeds cake!  The chia seeds gave it a little crunch when biting into the moist cake.

This creation is so unexpectedly delicious that I decided to keep the recipe within my family.  Who knows, I might decide to sell some of my bakes in the future!  As for now, this is priceless!

Matcha Yogurt Cake

I remembered I made yogurt cake before and it was pretty good.  A co-worker gave me a big tub of Brown Cow vanilla yogurt so it gave me an opportunity to make this cake again.  I told her I am going to make a yogurt cake and give it to her.  She didn't know we can use yogurt to make a cake hence just had to let her try it herself I guess.  I decided on the Matcha flavor just because I liked it. This is another one bowl and a whisk recipe that I liked very much.  Easy and not a lot of things to wash later.  This cake is best the next day, a soft and moist cake with vanilla and matcha flavors.

Mushroom Tuna Thin Spaghetti

I created this recipe just because I had to really use up the organic button mushroom that I bought few days ago.  I also saw 4 canned of tuna in waters that I would have to use before it expired in 2018.  I know tuna was good in spaghetti with a little lemon juice added, so this was the best way to use up my tuna and mushroom.  I stocked up some Non-GMO thin spaghetti, spaghetti and linguine when it were on sales the last time.  I bought 2 bottled of Non-GMO spaghetti sauces too for the really lazy moment or quick fix.  I figured my elder daughter should be able to boil a package of spaghetti and heat up a bottle of spaghetti sauce for herself and little sister if needed to.  Perhaps I need to make some meat balls and freeze it for their convenience.

Oh yeah, if you have noticed my recipes recently, I liked to use both the Himalayan pink salt and sea salt together.  I thought in this way I would get the best of the 2 different minerals that were found in these 2 different salts.

Steamed Layered Sago Kuih

I was in loved with this Malaysian dessert when I first had it in Malaysia many moons ago.  I had no idea this dessert was actually so easy to make as I thought it would be difficult to produce this dessert at home.  I suddenly had a craving for this sago kuih again and went on Google to look for how it was made.  To my utter surprised, it was fairly easy to make and since I have all the ingredients in my pantry, I set up to give this a try!  I would try other flavor next time or other recipe for a different texture? This one is chewy.

I steamed it in my old-time electric steamer and to my total dismay, my 10+ years steamer broke down in the middle of steaming!!!  What a timing for broken down.  So, I had to cover it with foil and finished steaming it in my wok on the stove top.  Today was not a good day for me, one obstacle after another kept on happening to me on the same day!  I wanted to go to the bank to have some document notarize and found out I forgot my cellphone which had my ID card at home ( thus I had to drive home to get it),  then I went to the bank they told me they charged $5 for cashier checks (so I had to go to Walmart), went to Walmart and realized they only took cash or debit card for money order (I didn't have either one so had to drive home), then got a call from school to tell me to come pick up my younger girl because she was not feeling well and had fever (So, had to drive to school), then my steamer broke down half way through steaming (and I had to find alternative way to finish steaming my kuih, I prepared this in the morning before I got a call from the school, supposed to bring it to my friend's house at night.) and because of my girl not feeling well, I had to cancel the plan to have dinner at my friend's house! :-(  Whoa, I didn't expect all these to happen when I had all plan up nicely the night before.  Seriously, life is so unpredictable!  

Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake Revisited

After I visited a Vietnamese Baguette restaurant and they gave me few pieces of honeycomb cake to try, I realized that I haven't been making this cake for a long time.  So, it prompted me to give it a try again.  I got the honeycomb effect and it seem successful, however, I found it on the dry side.  I have no idea why, do you think I baked it for too long?  or I need to add more coconut milk?  Why it is dried?

Short-cut Curry Puffs

This is my short-cut way of making curry puffs as I don't have lots of time to spend in the kitchen. Edda wanted me to make curry puffs for her, and I remembered I used to make curry puffs while I was in my early 20s and people loved it.  I didn't have the recipe anymore but I remembered I only used flour, salt and butter I think.  I loved my keeper flaky pie crust recipe and it had all the ingredients that I remembered, hence I set out to try this flaky pie crust recipe for my curry puffs.

The skin is flaky when deep-fried as well.

As how did I come out with the short-cut curry puffs?  When I cooked a big pot of curry chicken with organic red potatoes, I took some of it without the gravy and keep it in the freezer.  When I have the mood or time to make curry puffs, I defroze the curry chicken potatoes the night before and then cut it into smaller pieces.  Then, I used my food processor to make the flaky dough.  After that, just wrap it and then deep-fried it in my newly acquired deep-fryer.  Viola!  Just like the name implied, this curry puffy skin was flaky.  Just toast it in a toaster oven to have a warm curry puff the next day.

You can also individually freeze these uncooked curry puffs and then put it in a Ziploc freezer bag and deep-fry it as needed.  In this case, you can have curry puffs anytime you desired.  It is great to invest in a deep-fryer, it makes deep-frying so much easier for me.  I especially love to deep-fry firm tofu in my deep-fryer and had it with my noodle soup, so good!

Crispy Shrimp Chili Shrimps Fried Rice

This was one of my lazy lunch.  I had to eat and I have no food in the refrigerator.  Luckily I always make sure my refrigerator has eggs, frozen veggie and frozen shrimps.  Hence, this shrimps fried rice to the rescue.  Shrimp is easy to thaw and with some leftover rice, fried rice is an easy one dish meal.

I found the Malaysian's Spicy Tiny Shrimp Sambal by Mama's Delights at the Denver's Asian market so of course I had to buy it regardless of the price tag.  I couldn't be choosy when they were none to begin with right?  This sambal added a little spice and fragrant to the fried rice and we really enjoyed it.

I cooked this very easily, just add the spicy tiny shrimp sambal, soy sauce, salt, a little sugar and finish it off with white pepper.

Red Bean Roti Canai

While shopping at the Asian market one day, I saw this frozen red bean roti canai.  It reminded of the Chinese red bean pancake dessert that I had when I was in Malaysia, so I bought this on impulse.  I just pan-fried this oil free in a non-stick pan and it came out looking like roti canai instead of the Chinese dessert that I thought it was.  It just tasted like roti canai with red bean filling so I was kind of disappointed.  Edda said she didn't like it at all.  Oh well, guess we wouldn't be buying this in the future.

I think the one that I made here long time ago tasted better than this!

Roti Canai with red bean filling.

Chili Crab Claws!

While I was shopping at Sprouts one day with my elder daughter, I saw these gorgeous crab claws on sales for $5.99/lb.  The cheapest I have seen for sales was $3.99/lb.  But these claws looked big and tempting and it was Chinese New Year.  So, I asked my Evy, do you want to eat some crab claws and she said sure.  Hence, crab claws it is!

I had Chili Crabs in mind when I bought this and since I wanted a really easy recipe so I looked online and adapted the recipe from Food.com.  Of course I made some changes to suit what I had at home and viola, a chili crab claws was created.  We had it with bread as the gravy was so great to mix with bread (I was too lazy to drive 25 minutes away to an Asian market to buy mantau/steamed buns and deep-fried it, thus the alternative.).  Surprisingly my little Edda who was not so keen about the idea of Chili Crab, enjoyed it a lot.  I was quite surprised actually but looking at them enjoying their crab claws really made me happy.  They even requested me to buy more crab next time!  Hahaha...

Swirl Green Tea Vanilla Pound Cake

I have a block of cream cheese sitting in the refrigerator so I had to find a recipe for it.  I remembered I once made a orange cream cheese pound cake that was really good.  I should have follow that recipe with I adapted instead of trying this new recipe at allrecipes.com.  It is still good but it was not as good as it could be as I have tasted better.  I was kind of disappointed.  Next time I will use the recipe in my blog for cream cheese pound cake instead of trying another recipe.

I added green tea powder for the middle layer.  Next time I probably make it all green tea flavor as this high quality matcha powder is really fragrant.  I took half to my work place and they all loved it. It felt great to share your food to someones who appreciated it.  :)

Chinese New Year Feast 2017

I am blessed to be invited to the Chinese New Year Feast of 2017.  Blessed with so much delicious and luxurious food to celebrate with co-workers and friends.  When you were faced with so much great food, what would you do but to dig in!  :)  Thank you boss for this divine and scrumptious meal.

This crab was super delicious!  Finger licking good!

Steamed fish for nian nian you yu.

Lobsters! 

Deep-fried Quails, my love!

Steamed Chicken, tradition.

Stir-fried Leek with squids, so that every day you get to count money.  Haha...

Girls' Lunch Boxes

I am back to making my girls' lunch boxes.  Organic bread, organic spring salad, organic Ranch dressing, all natural uncured turkey, all natural pepper jack cheese and non-GMO popcorns.  I can't stress that enough, homemade is the best food that you can give your body.  I tried to cook more often as eating out can be costly and packed with GMO ingredients.  It is hard to avoid GMO ingredients but I am trying to feed less of it to my kids.  For the process food, I mostly buy the non-GMO and organic ones these days, but my girls still have access to the GMO chips at school.  My girls are well informed believe me because I talk to them all the times but they don't have a choice when they are in school and were given the GMO snack.  Unless they have the will power to say NO to snack that was given which is hard.  Even I had a hard time to say NO to free food.  We all have a choice and sometimes I do like to cheat.  Cheat in moderation??  :P

Golden Shrimps to Welcome the Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai to those who celebrated!!  May this new year brings all of us much joy, peace of mind, great health, good luck and fortune!  I had experience a lot over the past three years.  Hell in 2014 and 2015 and basically had my world turned upside down.  Things that I have never thought could happen to me, happened to me and I had to wake up and be strong for myself and both of my girls.  Emotional roller coasters that I had to overcome and the responsibilities that I had to bear to ease the transition for my girls.  Glad to say that everything worked up well in God's hands.  Everything flown into place with the help of the invisible hands and the universe and I am very blessed.  We settled ourselves and move on in 2016.  That was the reason for the lack of postings all these years, I didn't have the luxury of staying at home and inventing and experimenting with new recipes anymore.  My time was limited to sending my girls to school and back, taking care of them and work, work, and more work.  My day off I just want to rest and/or bring my girls out to eat and do stuff.  I finally got more half day off for myself and spending more time with my girls and get to cook more home-cooked meal which was great!  I needed a break and learned to truly appreciate those working and full-time moms. It was not easy.

Okay, back to this recipe.  I made this super-easy deep-fried Golden Shrimps recently for a CNY party.  One bag of 2 lb extra large shrimps, shelled but with the tail on.  Made some cuts on the side of the shrimps to make it straight.  Then season the shrimps with sea salt, black pepper, organic no-salt seasonings from Kirkland, sesame oil and a little sweet potato starch.  Mix well.  And then wrap each in the wanton wrapper, seal with flour/water glue, set aside and finish the rest.  Lastly, deep-fry until golden brown and cooked through.  Serve with Thai sweet chili sauce.  Enjoy!