Chinese Pumpkin Sesame Cakes

I saw this Pumpkin Sesame Cakes in a Chinese cooking show recently.  It was a pumpkin recipes special and it featured this and a steamed variety.  For the steamed one, the cooking host shaped the dough into a little pumpkin and then steamed it until cooked.  She served it with some sort of sweet syrup.

I was attracted to this pan-fried version as it looked really tasty.  What's more I am also a big fan of sesame seeds so of course I had to give this recipe a try.  I was also curious of how it would taste like.

I gave it a bite to let you see the texture inside of this cake.  It tasted like nian gao, since it was made of glutinous rice flour I guess.  Slightly chewy and not bad at all.  Mine was not sweet enough, I would prefer it to be sweeter.

Braised Pork with Dried Whole Chestnut and Tofu

I recently made some chicken glutinous rice and needed to add some dried chestnuts.  Since I was going to soften the chestnuts anyway, I thought I just cooked the whole packet and freeze half for later use.  I just defroze the soften chestnuts in the refrigerator overnight for this dish.  I bought this natural dried whole chestnut and thus the color was brown.  Not good looking but tasted the same and healthier since it was not whiten.

This was like a braised soy sauce pork except I added a handful of dried chili peppers (not the bird eye dried chili) for some kick.  Since my girls were eating this, so not much to create a huge kick, just a little that I didn't much notice but my little Edda said the tofu tasted spicy.  Probably because I didn't soften it in warm water first, I just added some to stir-fry with the oil.  Perhaps that was why it was less spicy.  You can certainly add more if you like it spicier.  You can also omit the dried chestnuts or substitute it with Chinese mushroom.

Spiced Pumpkin Walnut Cake

I cannot get enough of this cake, it is soft and moist and left you wanting more.  This is almost like my Best Ever Pumpkin Cake except it's has a little more egg with added walnut and one additional spice.  This cake is smaller and I used a 8-inch square pan to bake it.  I created this when I used 1 cup of the pumpkin puree to make the cookies and left with one more cup of pumpkin puree.  I loved pumpkin cake above all others, more than pie, cookies, soup, etc.  So of course I got to make it into a cake.

If you have canned pumpkin puree at home, give this recipe a try.  I am waiting for the Libby's canned pumpkin puree to go on sale so that I can stock up and make more of this cake.  YUM! YUM!  Oh yeah, need to buy more of the chopped walnuts too.

Chinese Almond Cookies

I had some leftover almond that I needed to use up, about 1/3 cup of it.  Just nice that we finished the oatmeal cookies that I made for our snack so I wanted to use the almond to make cookies.  A fool proof recipe that I made before and also must be easy.  So I picked this almond sugi cookies recipe that I made dozen of times and added the chopped almond.

I really loved the extra crunch from the chopped almond and this cookie was very yummy.  So suitable for Chinese New Year too. 

Stir Fried Pumpkin with Eggs

Never did I know that stir-frying pumpkin can be so scrumptious.  I saved some of the pumpkin fresh from a pumpkin that we carved earlier.  I had pumpkin porridge before and I really liked it as it was sweet and filling.  But I know my girls don't really fancy porridge so I thought I would try something different.

I stir fried zucchini with this recipe and we all loved it, so why not try it with pumpkin.  It was my first time cooking a stir-frying pumpkin and it was so yummy.  The fish sauce gave this dish an extra boost.  If you have extra fresh pumpkin at home, give this dish a try!  I took this picture at night, so it did not look very appetizing, but don't be fooled by it's look, this is a dish I will make again and again.

Braised Chicken with Mui Choy

This was actually a remake of a leftover mui choy (preserved veggie).  My hubby ordered a "mui choy gau yook" from a friend and we finished all the "gau yook" (5 layers pork/ fatty pork) and left with lots of mui choy.  It was too salty and the spices were a bit too strong for my taste.  Our friends suggested me to make soup with the mui choy but I thought I would make a chicken dish with it instead.

All I did is chopped some drumsticks, added in a little oil in a pot and gave the mui choy some quick stirs.  Then, added in the chicken, stir a little.  Added in water to cover half of the chicken and a tablespoon of dark soy sauce and let it simmered in low heat for an hour.  Lastly added in a little sugar.  It turned out to be a delicious chicken dish.  What a great use of the leftover mui choy!