Stir-fried Soy Tofu Sheet

I love anything tofu, so when I spotted this soy tofu sheet, of course I wanted to buy and try to cook it.  I had it before at a potluck party and it left me with a good impression.  I loved the texture of this tofu sheet and loved that it kept its shape really well even when you stir-fried it. It also took on the flavor of the seasonings well.  So, here is my version and I hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients:

1 packet of sou tofu sheet, cut into long strips and separated it.

1 medium size yellow onion, sliced

2 jalapeño, sliced into strips

2-3 stalks of green onion, cut into 2 inches length

Thumb size ginger, thinly sliced

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

Black and toasted white sesame seeds, to suit

Lao Gan Ma chili paste, or homemade chili paste. chili oil, about 2 Tbsp. or to suit

Hoisin sauce, about 2 Tbsp.

Premium dark soy sauce, 1 Tbsp.

1/2 tsp. mushroom powder, optional

Sesame oil, about 1 tsp.

1 tsp. cane sugar

Soy sauce, to taste

Method:

1.  In a hot wok, add oil.  Add aromatic, ginger, white part of the green onion, then garlic, yellow onion and jalapeño, stir-fry until fragrant.  

2.  Add the sliced soy tofu sheet, mixed well.  Add the rest of the seasonings, season to taste.  Lastly, add the green part of the green onion, mixed well.  Turn off the fire and add the sesame seeds.  Mixed and serve.  It can be served hot or cold from the refrigerator.  Enjoy!

Seasoned Crispy and Fragrant Beancurd Knots or Tofu Knots

Well, I love almost all variety of tofu products.  I love beancurd knots because it holds it shape well when braising. Before this, I mostly use it in braising my soy sauce chicken or pork.  It goes well with rice with some homemade chili oil.  And then I saw a video of a different way of cooking dried beancurd roll.  I didn't have dried beancurd roll but I did have this dried beancurd knots that I could use.  Hence, here this recipe is born.  I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my girls and I.  Happy cooking!

Air Fried Asparagus

Air-fry asparagus 400'F for 8 minutes.  Very easy and very delicious.  Spray with avocado oil and season with any spices to your liking or simply salt and pepper would do.  Enjoy!

Air Fried Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet potato always goes on sale during the holidays season, so I bought a few to make my sweet potato pie and air fry sweet potato fries.  I am very much prefer the sweet potato than the potato because it is healthier.  I like red potato for the baked crispy potatoes and Russet potato for smashed potatoes.  Anyway, with the air fryer, making sweet potato fries is so much easier and I have a meal ready in less than 40 minutes.

I am serving the sweet potato fries with my air fried Cornish hen and butter thyme broccoli.

Air-fried 5 Spice Tofu

This recipe popped into my mind while I was exercising on my stationary bike.  I know tofu takes the flavor of the marinade and I thought of an Asian style flavoring.  Like what if I marinate it with soy sauce and add 5 spice powder into it?  The other spices just came together while I was seasoning the tofu.

Did I mention how much I loved my air-fryer?  It just gave me so much more convenience when cooking the fried tofu.  I used to pan-fry the tofu in 2 batches and now I just threw it into the deep-fryer and it was done in 13 minutes.  How convenient is that?

Seasoned and marinated tofu cubes ready for air frying.

Air-fried Cauliflower

With the recent purchase of an Air-fryer, it is time for experimentation.  I loved the ideas of fast cooking time, easy to clean, minimum to no oil used and no smell in the kitchen.  Cauliflower was on sales at Sprouts so I bought some to cook.  It was a bit of an hassle to stir fry the cauliflower as more cutting and preparation was involved so I decided to air-fry it.  It turned out great and so easy to make and so quick to cook.  It prompted me to go to Sprouts again to buy more cauliflower!!

I paired it with chicken rendang and a delicious dinner was created.  Click next page for my recipe.

Hijiki Seaweed Cold Side

I have to eat seaweed regularly to keep my Hypothyroidism under control.  2-3 times a week is sufficient for me.  The most regular seaweed that I consume is wakame, cook in miso tofu soup.  I also add wakame when I prepare my kimchi ramen, any chance I have for seaweed, I would use it.  When I am too lazy to make the miso soup, I will switch to Hijiki seaweed since this can be prepared pretty easily.  Right now, I would do a blood test once a year when I visit my OB/GYN to see if there is any changes.  I noticed that if the reason of your hypothyroidism is the lack of iodine, you can easily modify your diet to keep it under control.  For me,  the regular consumption of seaweed really helped.  It might not be for everyone but it works for me.

Baby Bok Choy Kimchi

When I went to a Korean BBQ buffet, there was one vegetable kimchi that I really liked and that was bok choy kimchi.  I was surprised at how good it tasted and I always want to make it in the back of my mind. This is a short cut version as no glutinous rice paste was used as well as no food processor.  So, no onion, no apple and no pear.  As you know, I am famous for the short-cut version.  However, adding fruit and onion would provide additional sweetness to the dish.  I heard that the glutinous rice paste is to give the kimchi extra shine.  Anyway, I am too lazy to make those today so I am settle with this.

Verdict:  I would try adding an apple or sweet pear next time.  I bet it would taste better with the additional sweetness from the fruit.  I would probably use 1 Tbsp. of fish sauce first and if it is not salty enough, at least you can add more and season to taste.  Otherwise, if it is too salty, then it would be harder to adjust, just have to eat it with lots of rice.

Easy Stir-fried Celery

This dish was created because I needed a vegetable side dish for my Korean dinner and my refrigerator only had an organic celery and a tiny bit of cabbage.  So, I picked up the celery, thinly sliced it and started working through the recipe while stir-frying it and doing the taste test.  I added black sesame seeds for the color contrast and the celery was crunchy.  I am quite happy with the result and would certainly make this when I am out of other green vegetable again!

Stir-Fried Arugula

Since I was introduced to arugula by mistake a while back, we learned that we actually like this veggie, even my girls liked it (even though it is slightly bitter and lemony). However, this veggie can be kind of fibrous, so I like to cut each leaf into half before stir-frying.  We really loved the Spicy and Sweet Tuna Arugula Pasta and I hope you will get a chance to try it too.  Because my girls like it so organic arugula has been in my vegetable rotation for my family.  I have since added organic arugula and organic baby kale into our vegetables of choice.  I tried to incorporate as much variety of vegetable and fruit into our diet each week as possible.  Sharing with you this easy stir-fried arugula recipe!

Korean Soy Sauce Pickled

After a while of hiatus from Korean Food, I finally back on with a new Korean soy sauce pickled dish to introduce to you all.  I was introduced to this at a Korean friend's house.  She took this out as a side dish/ banchan for a fish paste kelp soup that she made me.  I totally loved it especially I learned that it can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a year!  I bet it can be kept longer than that.  :-P  So, I came home and made my own.  I used the vegetable that I liked to eat, but you are free to add any vegetable that you like.  All these vegetable will fully absorb the flavor of soy sauce, sugar and vinegar, so it is like sweet, salty and tangy at the same thing when you bite into one.  Go well with rice!

Pan-fried Tofu with Broccoli

I was trying on a new sauce called "Wan Ja Shan- Stir Fry Sauce" and I wanted to share it with you all.  It made this stir-fry dish delicious and I only used this sauce alone without any other seasonings.  You can make it into a one dish meal by adding some meat or poultry and serve it with a hot bowl of rice.  Or serve it vegetarian by adding some mushroom with a bowl of hot rice.  You should be able to find this sauce in the Asian supermarket.  You don't have to add a lot, just 1 Tbsp. should be enough for a whole dish.

Bitter Gourd with Eggs

Bitter food is healthy food especially bitter gourd.  If your body feels heaty, bitter gourd will be recommended to you because it is a very cooling food.  But because it is bitter, I hardly ever buy it because my husband is a picky eater and I am not sure how well it will fair with my girls.

One day, while I was shopping at the Asian supermarket, the bitter gourd that I saw just looked so fresh and inviting that it was calling me to pick it up.  A Chinese chef that I knew told me to pick bitter gourd that has wide ridges, then it won't be that bitter.  I also sprinkled it with sea salt, hoping that some bitterness would come out as well.  Additionally, I took the safer route to fry it with eggs as my husband and girls all loved eggs, and would probably eat anything that contains eggs.

The result:  They all finished it.  My girls did complain that it is bitter, but I told them that's why it is good for you and eat them up and so they did.  Maybe I should also blanch it first to make it even less bitter?

Vegetarian Mapo Tofu

I loved mapo tofu!  The usual mapo tofu is cooked with ground pork and since I stop buying pork and too lazy to mince some chicken breast, I created a vegetarian version.  I substituted the ground pork with fresh shiitake mushroom, of course you can use the meaty portabello mushroom too (or crimini or button mushroom).  Since mushroom is good for us, I try to cook more mushroom dishes. 

Slow Cooker Spiced Cauliflower

My second dish using a slow cooker (not counting soup and dessert).  While typing this post, I realize that I can actually add garbanzo beans.  Oh well, will sure to remember it the next time I make this.  Just add 1 can of garbanzo beans (drain) into the mixture if you like (to make it a one dish meal).  Since the day I made this was Monday, so it was a meatless Monday dish for us.  I am trying to cook more meatless meal again (need to lose some extra weight!) since I have not been too discipline lately.  We really enjoy this easy vegetarian dish and hope you like it too!

Lotus Root Cold Dish

Root vegetables are really good for us, so make sure your diet consists of some root vegetables.  I bought a small lotus root recently but instead of making soup with it, I wanted to try something else.  I saw a Chinese cooking show before and they used lotus root to make a cold dish.  I never tried that before and really interested in giving it a go.  There are few recipes in my blog containing lotus root, such as in soup, stir-frying, simmering and even deep-frying, but not a cold dish.  The minced ginger, green onion and toasted sesame seeds gave this dish a great flavor and it was really fragrant with crunchy lotus root.  I loved this way of enjoying the lotus root too.  Give it a try if you haven't tried it this way!

Green Cabbage Kimchi

This green cabbage kimchi came about because I haven't been to the Asian market for a while and I was so out of napa cabbage or any Asian greens for that matter.  I am not even a Korean but I just had to have a big jar of kimchi in my refrigerator these days.  I used to dislike kimchi because of its pungent smell and taste, but while reading about the benefits of probiotic and kimchi, slowly I became to like kimchi especially the homemade ones as I can adjust the taste according to my liking (mostly towards a sweeter taste).

After it is fermented, it doesn't taste much different from the napa cabbage kimchi, except perhaps crisper.  Loved it in the instant ramen and the soup was just sourish delicious!  Read that there is a lot of probiotic in the juice of the kimchi so don't throw it away. Besides the beneficial bacteria for your gut, kimchi is also a great source of beta-carotene, calcium, iron and Vitamins A, C, B1 and B2.

Vegetarian Delights

Mixed vegetables symbolizes family harmony for the Chinese New Year celebration.  So, this dish is often served during the CNY.  I have no idea since when that I have also started cooking the vegetarian delights during the CNY.  I used to add bean paste into this dish but this year I omitted it.  I think I prefer it without the bean paste and strangely I didn't hear any complaint from my daughters.  Even, the picky eater Evy didn't complaint of the mushroom and weird looking stuff in this dish and finished everything I gave her on her plate of rice.  Yeah that was strange as she would always be the first to complain.  Not many American born Chinese little girls can stomach this dish okay, so I am really proud of her and Edda.

Asian Peanut Sesame Salad Dressing

Evy's school has a "Healthy Salad" cooking contest and I needed to help her to create a healthy salad with a healthy salad dressing.  Hence, this recipe was created.  Her salad mix presented to school would be more colorful with fruit, seeds, nut, cherry tomatoes, carrots, mixed baby salad greens and hard boiled eggs.  We needed to do a taste test before submitting the recipe so I mixed up a quick and simple salad to try out the peanut sesame dressing.  We all loved it and I hope the judges would as well.

This peanut sesame dressing only has 1 tsp. of oil and it is sesame oil which is good for our health.  I think the rest of the ingredients are healthy too, if you try it, feedback and link back to me ya!

My simple quick salad mix above is cut organic romaine lettuce heart, cilantro (great to detox our body from mercury, aluminum and lead) and unsalted toasted sunflower seeds (you can add pine nuts too if you have).  It was so good when paired with my peanut sesame dressing that Edda and I couldn't stop eating.  Edda loved this salad very much and she would finish the bowl clean.  I would probably add a packet of pouch albacore tuna and walnuts next time.

Mushrooms with Hijiki Seaweed

My first exposure to Hijiki sea vegetable was on ANA Japanese airplane.  It came in a small dish along with other small dishes in a set meal.  It think it was just a seasoned hikiji salad.  The shape and size was unlike any sea vegetables that I tasted and I actually liked it.  My girls said it looked like little black worms.  Hehe...  Then, I read some where that the ancient Chinese practitioners actually used Hikiji as one of the prescriptions for low iodine.  Interesting right?

Hijiki is a brown sea algae that cultivated in Japan, China and Korea.  Then, it was boiled and dried to be sold as dried hijiki, the color turned black when dried.  It is a rich source of iodine, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and soluble fiber.  Because it has 10 times the calcium of milk, Japanese eat it for the calcium intake and overall balanced diet.  All sea vegetables are low in calories and contains many minerals that our bodies need.  I read that seaweed can detoxify and convert the toxic metals in our bodies to harmless salts which then pass through the body's intestinal tract.

One drawback that I read about Hijiki seaweed is it contained inorganic arsenic and might cause cancer if consume in a large amount.  But there is no ban and no known illnesses associated with consuming hijiki seaweed to date and the Japanese have been eating this as part of a balanced diet for centuries.  You can read more about it here.  United Kingdom, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Canada have issued a warning on hijiki seaweed.  I think the health benefits out weight the negative as it's impossible to consume this in large amount anyway and I only cook it once in every two weeks and used it as an extra for mushrooms or noodle dish.  I put some in Japchae and it was delicious.

By the way, I think it looks like Chinese "Fai Chai", the one that looks like black hair that Chinese consume during Chinese New Year because of it's auspicious meaning.

 

Fresh oyster mushrooms and fresh Shiitake mushrooms