[S$20 Budget Meal] Steamed Tilapia Fillets, Eggs with Napa Cabbage and Seaweed Tofu Gochujang Soup

Above was one of the everyday dinners I made at home.  I was trying to be healthier so I steamed my fish in my steamer basket.  Usually I would pour hot oil to finish my steamed fish (made the fish glossy and shiny),  but decided to skip this step with the "healthier" in mind.  I added eggs in my napa cabbage because I wanted to submit this dinner to $20 Budget Meal.  This veggie dish could be cooked without adding eggs.

Total cost for this dinner was about $6.87 and I was not budgeting this meal at all, it was just a meal I prepared often at home.  It would be even cheaper without adding soup.  I would beak down the cost and provide recipes in the next page.  Again, it prove to me that it is so affordable to cook healthy meal at home, however I do need my break on weekend, it's great to eat a meal cooked by someone else and not have to stay for the clean up.  :-P

I am submitting this to "S$20 Budget Meal"  or "US$15 budget meal" hosted by Cuisine Paradise.

No Bake Strawberry Yogurt Cheese Cake

I saw this easy no bake cheese cake recipe while browsing the Albertson's ad. online.  What attracted me to this recipe was that yogurt was used instead of sour cream.  Most of the no bake recipe that I came across used sour cream, which was not in my shopping list.  So, I was glad to find this recipe.

Just liked the name implies, no baking required, just mixed all the ingredients together, add in gelatin and let it set in the refrigerator.  It was not bad at all, I quite liked it, especially it was so easy to make.  Definitely can be a dessert that I would bring to a potluck.

Happy Easter!!

I'm also submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #6 Say Cheese (April 2011) hosted by Jean of Noms I Must.

Dried Laver Anchovies Soup (野生紫菜汤)

This was a soup I learned from my girlfriend while studying in university ages ago.  Both my hubby and I loved this soup a lot and now my two girls also loved it.  I even have this recipe published in a cookbook called The Best Soups in the World by Clifford A. Wright. 

This soup was not a stranger to a lot of people, it can easily be one of the rotation of the soups made at home.  But in case you don't know, I am sharing the recipe here.

Haiji White Bun Using Pullman Tin

When I went back to Malaysia in 2008, a Pullman pan was on my to-buy-list.  I was fascinated and wanted to get one to play with it.  I was in luck as I easily found this pan in the bakery supply shop, it came in three sizes, short, medium and long.  The one I bought was the shortest one, 4" x 4" x 8.5".  You can see the picture of my Pullman pan in the following page.  While searching for Pullman pan recipe, I came across that this pan was also called Pain de Mie.  Pain de Mie is a fine-textured, moist bread baked in a special lidded pan.  The lid gives this bread a flat top and perfectly square-edges slices.

While blog hopping one day, I came across a Haiji White Bun recipe.  This recipe really caught my attention because the blogger said it was super soft and delicious.  I browsed the ingredients and noticed that it didn't have bread improver or bread softener that I was trying to avoid using.  So, immediately I bookmarked it with the intention of trying it out.  And of course finally gotten to use the Pullman pan that I bought three years ago. :-)
 
Verdict:  Super soft and super yummy!  I am so glad I tried this recipe as I will be making it again and again.  I highly recommend anyone to give this recipe a try.

[S$20 Budget Meal] Ginger Chicken with Rice Wine, Spicy KangKong and Laver Anchovies Soup

Recently, I spotted a  Singapore "$20 Budget Meal" event that got me interested.  For US dollar, it would be $15 Budget Meal.  You have to cook two dishes and a soup or a one dish meal that priced less than S$20/ US$15.  Frankly, I never really counted how much each dinner that I prepared at home cost me.   But I believe it would be less than $15.  For April, one of the dishes must have an egg as an ingredient, so above was what we had on April 11, 2011 which I submitted to this event.

I am submitting this to "S$20 Budget Meal"  or "US$15 budget meal" hosted by Cuisine Paradise.

Deep Fried Italian Panko Shrimps

Have you ever wonder how the chef deep-fried the shrimps without it curled up?  One time when we were visiting our friend's restaurant, her chef made a similar dish for my girls.  His was without seasonings, just dip in flour, then beaten egg, then panko and deep fried.  What caught my eyes was that the shrimps were not curled up so of course I had to pick one to examining it.  When I tasted the shrimp, I sort of gotten the idea of how it was made.  I would share with you the secret in my next page.

I found the unseasoned one quite bland, so I seasoned mine and added dried herbs.  We all loved this, but who could resist this type of fried food anyway?  Flavorful and crispy, hard to stop at a few.

Oatmeal Raisin Yogurt Muffins

I often buy the big tub of yogurt for my girls when it goes on sales.  I came upon this recipe when I opened a strawberry nonfat yogurt for my girls.  This easy and healthy muffin recipe attracted me at first glance.   As my readers know, I am a sucker for healthy and easy recipe, so this whisk and bake recipe got my vote.  This strawberry yogurt came with pieces of strawberry bits so it was a plus and the muffins turned out well.  Not very sweet and good for breakfast.

Both my girls loved this muffin as well.  Evy would take this as a snack for school and the daddy can grab one before going to the office.

Easy Cheese Pasta

This is one super duper easy cheese pasta targeted for kids.  My girls loved macaroni with cheese, but I am staying away from the box kind (processed food).  So, I bought these tiny wheel, alphabet, flower pasta that I saw in a Hispanic market recently intended to cook something for my girls.  I thought of this idea based on the Korean spicy noodle with cheese post that I did recently.

I will provide pictures with illustration in my next post, so that you can use this easy method to cook for your kids too.

I am also submitting this recipe to Aspiring Bakers # 6:  Say Cheese! (for April) which will be hosted by Noms I Must.

Japchae (Vegetable Beef Vermicelli)

The original JapChae, a Korean style vegetable beef with sweet potato vermicelli/cellophane noodles uses beef, but I used chicken in mine.  While looking at my old JapChae recipe, it was so different.  I used to add dark soy sauce because as a Malaysian, I seem to be addicted to dark color food in the beginning of my cooking.  My noodle, fried rice and stir-fried dishes were mostly dark in color.  But over the years, it has change, my cooking seem to be more balance now, not all dishes were dark in color, more white color food came out from me actually.  With the birth of my girls, my cooking also became less spicy.  Guess I would suffer when I go back to Malaysia for a visit as I am not use to that level of heat anymore.

This JapChae was served with Myulchi Bokkeum (Stirfried Anchovies).   The recipe is mostly adapted from the back of the sweet potato vermicelli (dang myun) that I bought in the Asian market.

Myulchi Bokkeum (Stirfried Anchovies)

When I saw this recipe at Little Teochew's blog, I knew I had to try it.  I had this at a Korean's family house ages ago and really liked it.  However, I hardly get to eat this at the Korean restaurant here, granted I hardly go to the Korean restaurant, but the times that I did go, this side dish was not served.  This side dish was sold at the Korean market though but quite pricy.

It was sweet and spicy and if you eat it right away, the anchovies were crunchy.  However, if you kept it for later or kept it in the refrigerator, then the anchovies would turn soft.  I liked it better when the anchovies were still crunchy, then I got the crunchy, the spiciness from the gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste), and the sweetness from the honey and sugar.  Simply irresistible!!  Even both of my girls were enjoying this spicy snack!  With water alongside of course.

Ginger Chicken with Homemade Wine

This is a Ginger Chicken with homemade rice wine that mostly consumed by a lady in confinement.  Chinese lady would be in a month of confinement when she gave birth to a baby.  During this month of confinement, she would be giving heaty food to eat.  Lots of ginger, sesame oil, homemade rice wine, red date tea, etc to help heal her body and to make her body strong.  I didn't get to eat the homemade rice wine while in both of my confinements but I did make sure I followed most of the traditional rules and ate lots of ginger and sesame oil.  You can say I am superstitious but I believed in natural Chinese medicine or tradition that passed down through generations.

After a bowl of this, you eat the ginger, wine stock and everything with the rice and you would be sweating afterward.  Wood-ear fungus is high in iron, protein, calcium, vitamins and said to prevent blood clotting and lower cholesterol.  The homemade glutinous rice wine has lots of benefits too.

Homebrew Glutinous Rice Wine

What prompted me to make my own glutinous rice wine in the first place was I tasted a sweet homemade glutinous rice wine before.  It was so sweet and made the stir-fried ginger chicken so sweet and flavorful.  The sweetness that came from the rice wine couldn't be compared with the sugar you added to make it sweet.  The natural sweetness that came from it was unbeatable.  The above picture was taken in day three of fermentation.  I used my slow cooker to ferment it because I don't have a big glass jar.  You can also use the ceramic pot (Corning ware).

I tasted the rice wine and it was sweet but not much alcohol content.  The sweetest I tasted was day six.  But after day seven and when I tasted the rice wine again it was less sweet and started to taste more alcohol.  Subsequently the alcohol taste became stronger, the sweetness was gone and it turned sour.  At first I wanted to ferment it for up to 45 days but I quickly harvested it at day 22 because I was afraid that as the alcohol content went up, it would be more sour.  I might have introduce some bacteria to turn the wine sour when I played with the wine too much, I almost checked it every other day by spooning it around and tasting the wine.  Because a successful one will still produce a sweet rice wine even at day 45.  It was my first try so pardon my curiosity.  At day 22, the wine tasted dry and sourish.  A failed first attempt at wine making for me but luckily it didn't turn moldy and still very fragrant.

This was the rice residue at day 22.  I used a sieve to squeeze out the wine by pressing it with a spoon.  You can use your hand and a cheese cloth if you prefer.  If your rice wine is sweet, you can keep this in the refrigerator and use it to make a Chinese rice wine dessert by adding water, egg drop and tang yuan.  Or use it in cooking or marinate meat/poultry.  Since mine was sour, I didn't bother to reuse this.

The rice wine that I got from 4 cups of glutinous rice and 2 wine biscuits.  I got a 750ml bottle of rice wine and the one you saw below.  It was white and muddy at first, but would turn clear once you let it sit in the refrigerator (see picture below).  Keep it in the refrigerator to stop the fermentation process.

Besides the 750ml bottle, the above was the extra that I got.  I cooked the above with my ginger chicken and would share the recipe in my next post.  Since it's sourish, I need to counter it with sugar in my cooking.

Cilantro Walnut Pesto & Alexia Fries

I made this Cilantro Walnut Pesto for years.  You can see it from my old post here.  I realized that I haven't exactly really shared my pesto recipe, so I would share it now.  When walnut was on sales, I bought one big bag and kept it in the freezer.  So, I would have walnut on hands if I wanted it in making cookies, cake, or pesto.  Very convenient!  I added tuna in water into my pesto for added nutrient.  I also added a side of sweet potato fries to make it complete.

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a free coupon to sample the Alexia product.  I wanted to try the Caroline BBQ Sweet Potato Fried initially but it was not carried in the supermarket I went to.  So, I ended up picking this Sweet Potato fries.  Alexia premium foods are all natural, delicious and free of trans fat.  You can pick from appetizer, side dishes or bread.  It is a great way to bring outstanding gourmet flavor straight from the freezer to the table in just minutes.  I tasted the sweet potato fries, I got to say it tasted just liked my homemade sweet potato fries.  I sprinkled with some Paprika before baking, but I should have used cayenne pepper because I was hoping for a little spiciness.  It was slightly crispy and the sweet potato was sweet.  If you were too busy to prepare from scratch, this all natural Alexia frozen products could be a good alternative.

Stir Fried Burdock Root with Pork

This was my first time buying a Burdock Root or Gobo (in Japanese) and stir-frying this dish.  Lots of times, I would buy food that was said to have medicinal benefits and this was one of them.  You can read more about Burdock at Wiki.   I heard people used this to make soup but I have yet to try it.  I should have do a search but I wanted to make this dish first.  My friend gave me this recipe and I also had a privilege to try it at her house.  I quite liked it and thus prompted me to buy the Burdock root in the first place.

This root was quite harsh and fibrous and I didn't do the step as mentioned in wiki, "Burdock root is very crisp and has a sweet, mild, and pungent flavor with a little muddy harshness that can be reduced by soaking julienned or shredded roots in water for five to ten minutes."; perhaps that's why.

When my husband first saw this, he asked, "Are those gingers?"  HAHAHA.... Looked similar to ginger right?  I bet it will be delicious with ginger but probably use less than half of the amount.  This stir-fried burdock root was a bit hard to chew but I loved it though.  My girls couldn't eat this and my hubby didn't like it, so I "sapu" (finished) all.