A Day at the Zoo

Look how I crammed two of them in one stroller. LOL!


This is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, the only mountain zoo in the United States at an elevation of 6,800 feet. It has herd of Giraffes and now total at 19, and the fun part for kids are they get to hand-feed the giraffes "giraffe crackers".


Look at this Orangutan and the amount of carrots he can stuff inside his mouth!



This is the baby orangutan that has been abandoned by his mother. Thus the caretaker has been taking care of him and we can view him from 12-4pm each day. This caretaker even sleep with the baby orangutan in that viewing window!!

Edda zoned out at the end of the day and fell asleep in the stroller.

Potstickers/ Guotie

I made Guotie last week, which is a pan-fried version of Jiaozi. In U.S., we called this potstickers. I have been deciding on whether to deep-fry it, boil it or pan-fry this little dumplings and ended out with pan-frying them. I think it's healthier than deep-fry and so much quicker too (since I can do a bunch of them in a non-stick pan). I love the crispy skin at the bottom and soft top skin with moist and juicy filling. Normally we serve Guotie with vinegar soy sauce and chili.

I made two dipping sauces for my potstickers. The top one is sweet vinegar soy sauce with chili oil and chopped scallion. The bottom one is salty vinegar soy sauce with sliced gingers. Of course I also have Sriracha hot chili sauce as an additional dipping sauce (not shown). Got to have my chili right? :)

Dried Lotus Seed Soup

My mom used to cook this soup for us because it's a cooling soup for warm weather. She actually spotted this while shopping at the Asian grocery store in Denver (she was here during my confinement) and recommended me to get it. Now I look for it whenever I go shopping in Denver.

You can also buy each individual ingredient and make this soup yourself, which I did also. This soup consisted of dried pearl barley, dried lotus seed, dried lily bulbs, dried dioscoreae (wai san), dried foxnut and dried polygonatum (yuk chuk).

I boiled it with chicken drumsticks. For sweeter taste, you can use pork ribs or pork bones. I only used half packet of the barley because too much of it makes the soup muddy.

For those who lives in Denver area, you can buy it at VietHoa Supermarket for 50 cents each, cheap right?

Common Chinese Herbs Translation:
Rhozoma Dioscoreae (wai san)
Astragalus Root (pak kay)
Angelicae Radix (tong kwai)
Codonopsis Pilosula (tong sum)
Polygonatum (yuk chuk)
Panacis Ginseng Radix (ginseng, ren shen)
Fructus Lycii (kei chi)

Chicken Curry Rice Dinner

Another one of my super lazy dinner. Can't you tell, I'm lazy all the times? :P This curry is made with Malaysia Traditional Specialties Chilliz - Meat Curry Paste. I added fish balls for Evy.

As for the rice, it's also my lazy version. I just threw cumin seeds, coriander seeds, dried curry leaves and turmeric powder with the rice and cooked in a rice cooker. After I tasted it, I knew this was not the way to do it, should have fried the spices in butter until fragrant then add in the rice and turmeric powder and not forgetting adding some salt, then transfer it to the rice cooker and let it cook. The rice will taste better this way as oppose to my lazy version. Lesson learned eh! Nevertheless, it tasted great with lots of curry gravy mixed in (everything in curry tastes good lah ;P).

P/s: June, I'm trying to meet your demand of posting more spicy food. LOL!

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Decided to make something fresh and refreshing for snack this afternoon. Going with the roll here as I have seen all sort of wraps/rolls popping out in the food blogs to beat the heat of Summer. Also, I had this at V's house recently, so decided to make my own as well.

My hubby loves Vietnamese spring roll. He has to order this every time we go to eat Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle) in a Viet. restaurant. We like the dipping sauce there too, as you can see I was trying to reinvent the sauce for my spring rolls here. Haven't made this for years and learned that to wrap the roll really tight with filling was not easy. Mine was still kinda loose unlike the one we used to in the restaurant, this was also my hubby complain. Luckily, he liked my dipping sauce. :) Guess next time I would have to practise wrapping the roll tightly without breaking the skin!




The fillings for my spring roll as seen above are:
Sliced romaine lettuce, cilantro, tanghoon (vermicelli) and cooked shrimps (or you can use thinly sliced 
cooked pork) .

Click below for my dipping sauce recipe:

Tagged: My Favorite Food ...

I got lucky and got tagged by East Meets West Kitchen for this tag. As a Malaysian it was really hard for me to come out with my favorite food. Come on...there are so many delicious food in M'sia thus how to pick just one? I managed to pick two as my favorite though because these are the two dishes I got to have whenever I go back to M'sia.

1) Nasi Lemak - They called it a Malaysia National Dish and I couldn't agree more. I don't think there is any one Malaysian who don't know what is nasi lemak. We basically see it selling every where in M'sia, be it in a fancy restaurant or mamak stall (hawker stall), either comes wrapped in a fragrant banana leaf with a minimal ingredients or serves in a plate with extra ingredients such as curry chicken, beef rendang, sambal cuttlefish, fried egg, etc, I love it all. :) For those who don't know, it is rice cooked in coconut milk and screwpine leave.

2) My second love is Penang Assam Laksa. I just love the sourness and spiciness from this gravy along with freshly sliced pineapple, red onion, cucumber, lettuce and fresh mint. Of course lots of fish as I made my own, I can afford to add lots of fish with the fat fat noodle top with shrimp paste, who could resist? At least I couldn't! Oh man, now I need a bowl of Penang assam laksa!

OK, now I have to pass the tag to __. Who's the lucky one?


The Cooking Ninja

Fresh from the Oven

Teczcape

I Sha

Stream in the Hip Desert


BTW ladies, no obligation okay? ;)


**Start Copy**

Proposition: What is your favorite food in your state or country?

Requirements: Find some info about the food and show delicious pictures of it?

Quantity: FIVE PEOPLE.

Tag Mode: You leave their blog and post link and add to the list below.


Mybabybay loves Asam Laksa from Penang, Malaysia

JustMyThoughts loves Penang Char Koay Teow

My Lil Venture loves Laksa Sarawak

Monterssorimum loves Teluk Intan Chee Cheong Fun

Chinnee loves Melaka Wan Tan Mee

PeimunLeah loves Hakka Lei Cha

Hui Sia loves Crispy duck skin from China

Karen loves Pan Mee

Simple American loves Cheese Enchiladas

Nicole Tan loves Char Tau Kueh

velverse loves Otak-Otak

Giddy Tiger loves Dim Sum

may loves Roti Bakar

Selba loves Gado-gado

Chen loves Satay*

eastcoastlife loves Shanghai Buns

Kev loves 蕃薯旦

Bokjae loves Ipoh Sar Hor Fun

Cooking Momster loves Penang Heah Koh & Chee Cheong Fun

Blur Mommy loves Clam Chowder

Granmother Stories loves everything

East Meets West Kitchen loves Good Dim Sum

Little Corner of Mine loves Nasi Lemak & Penang Assam Laksa

Winter Melon Soup

I went shopping at the Asian Market the other day and spotted the winter melon which was actually looking fresh, so I bought it to make soup. The cooking time for this soup is about 30 minutes, a quick and easy soup to prepare.



Ingredients:

1 bowl of 1 1/2-inch cubed winter melon pieces
4 Chinese dried mushroom, soften and sliced
4 slices of fresh ginger
1/2 pound of ground pork (marinate with light soy sauce, Shao Hsing cooking wine, sesame oil, garlic powder, white pepper, salt and sugar, mixed well and let it marinate in the fridge for at least an hour)
3-4 Tbsp canola oil
4-5 cups of water

Seasonings, to taste:
Light soy sauce
Salt
Sugar, about 1 tsp.
White pepper

Method:

1. In a saucepan, add in cooking oil. When hot, add in sliced ginger, stir for a while then add in sliced mushrooms. Stir for a minute, add winter melons and water. Let the water comes to a boil.

2. When boiled, scoop the ground pork with a small cookie scoop and drop into the soup. Add in seasonings, turn the heat to low and simmer until the pork balls cooked, about 20 minutes.

Note: Hubby didn't touch the winter melon at all. Love everything else especially the meat balls but no thanks to winter melon! Picky right?

Fruits Pastry Cake

Tada! Look familiar isn't it? This cake has been popping out at various food blogs and originally from a food forum IK. This is Vi's popular Fruits Pastry (she got the recipe from Mihaela). My hands gotten itchy when I kept reading about how delicious this cake is and vow to make it when I have some fresh fruits. Actually it's good with canned peach, pear and pineapple too. Anyway, I used fresh cherries, peach and canned pineapple for mine.



A closer look at the cake. The verdict is delish. Soft and moist with a mixed of sourness and sweetness from the fruits. Definitely good to bring to a potluck or serve in your party.

Lychee Konnyaku Jelly

The weather is turning warm and what a better way to cool off the body than some cold jelly? You can either make this with the normal jelly/agar-agar powder or konnyaku powder. I like to add the fruit for the extra refreshing taste.


Our family favorite ~ lychee konnyaku jelly.

Evy Update

She is getting big huh?

Now she is at this age that asks a lot of questions and loves to ask why. Sometimes she purposely asked me/daddy a question when she already knew the answer, just wanted to hear us say it. She is also like a "little old lady" who loves to repeat herself over and over again. To me, she is worst than the old lady since she would ask the same question 4 to 5 times in a row even though we have already answered her. I asked her, "Why are you so long winded?" or have to tell her, "Enough already!".

Oh, finally she is potty trained at 3 years & 2 months old. I didn't seriously start until she is after 3 because I'm a lazy mama. But just as the expert said, "When they are ready, they are." With her, it was fairly easy, a few accidents in the beginning and then smooth sailing after. Luckily the training pants that I bought for her can pass down to her sister. :)

A Bowl of Goodness

It is not easy to make a delicious bowl of porridge . The above bowl of fish porridge that you see is resulted from my many years of experience in perfecting it. I remembered I once cooked a bowl of porridge for a friend who was sick during my college days and guess what, it was so bad that he threw it away (my hubby later told me because that was his roommate). Seriously I was not a cook at that time, and that bowl of porridge was made with care (or in Mandarin, "Ai Sin"). How would I know it was that inedible and a sick person can be picky too! *roll eyes*

Dinner June 27, 2007

Simple dinner tonight. Was meant to stir-fry Chinese green, "chai sin" with oyster sauce but decided against it at the last minute. When hubby walked in and saw the dinner, his comment was, "Why so pityful?"

The yam rice has chicken, dried shrimps and yam pieces. I cooked the soup with my homemade chicken stock, enoki mushroom, fresh winter melon strips and sliced tofu. Pityful meh?

My 1st Pair of Crocs!

Crocs was marketed by three men from Boulder, Colorado. So you can imagine crocs selling every where here. Not only that, people of all ages are wearing it every where. My first thought of this shining, bright color funny looking shoe was, "oh, are they ugly!" Then, we started to hear people bragging about how light and comfortable this shoe is and once they have this on, they don't want any other shoes. The list goes on.

Well, while shopping at REI few days ago, I saw this crocs again. Then I spotted this Mary Janes crocs and thought to myself, "This is actually not bad looking, very lady like, perhaps I should try it on." Once I tried it on, I was sold and I got to have it. I guess it's the same with every crocs owners. I picked this color because I don't want people to know I'm wearing crocs. Just want a shoe that is comfortable enough that I can bring my girls scrolling in the neighborhood and won't hurt my feet. My old slipper did that, ouch!

Go to crocs.com to see more designs and flip-flops.

BBQ Ribs

My experiment with oven BBQ ribs:

Cut the slab into half and rub it with spice rub. Put it in the disposable aluminum tin and let it marinate for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator, covered.

Then, bake in 300'F oven covered with foil for 3 hours. After that, take it out and spread it with your favorite BBQ sauce and bake uncovered for an additional 1 hour. When done, broil in 500'F oven for 5 minutes. Spread the top of the ribs with additional BBQ sauce or dripping from the pan before serving.

Verdict: Surprisingly tender and moist, but not fall off the bone soft.

Butter Cream Crab Legs

We used to eat Butter Cream Lobster at a Chinese restaurant here and it was delicious. However, because of lack of customers the owner moved to California and away with the only authentic Chinese restaurant here. Now, we have to drive to Denver in order to eat dim sum or any authentic Chinese dishes. It's an hour drive away and thus can't have authentic Chinese dishes as frequent as we like. :(

Okay, back to my butter cream crab legs. Since butter cream went so well with lobster, I was thinking why not try it with crab legs? Away from the norm such as Chili Crabs, Black Pepper Crabs or even Ginger Scallion Crabs, why not try something different for a change? And tada....this dish was created.
The verdict: Yummy! It's definitely more fattening than the other version, but hey it's okay once in a while. :)

Orange Cream Cheese Pound Cake

As you can tell, I am loving cream cheese pound cake! I adapted this recipe from lemon pound cake. I don't have any orange at home and thus the use of extract. But it would certainly fragrant packed with added orange zest. Not that this is not fragrant, but I like the burst of flavor when I bite into the zest. ;)



Another look of the cake.

Nyonya Changs for Dumpling Festival

My first Nyonya Chang, recipe courtesy of LeeLee.


So greedy with my filling that I think I overstuffed every one of them. :P

This is my changs for the Dumpling Festival this year. :) Instead of my usual Hokkein bak chang, I decided to try LeeLee's Nyonya chang. I love Nyonya chang but I always thought it called for coconut milk. But when LeeLee posted her recipe, I saw that there was no coconut milk involved and I have all the ingredients at home. So, why not give this a try. I ended out with too much filling, greedy as always and afraid that it won't be enough. Thus, I still have some leftover filling in my freezer ready for the next batch (I'm out of the bamboo leaves at the moment).

Even though this was my first attempt, I am very happy with the result. The sweetness and saltiness are just nice and I am glad that I get to eat rice dumpling this year! Thanks LeeLee for sharing! :D

One thing about this chang though is a lot of cutting work since every ingredient needs to be cut into small pieces. I think I stood in my kitchen for more than an hour just cutting the ingredients.

Tang Hoon Soup

I was making a pot of chicken stock with my leftover roasted chicken bone cavity and what better way to use this stock than to serve it with tang hoon and fish balls (besides making soup)? Just soaked some tang hoon in warm water to soften it, thaw out some DoDo fish balls and washed some green. Then, cooked the fish balls in the stock and quickly blanched the veggie as well. Dished out and set aside. Prepare a bowl with some soften tang hoon, top with some green (I used baby bok choy) and fish balls and pour the hot chicken stock on top and garnished with crispy fried shallots and chili padi. This was a very easy dinner to prepare and delicious to the last drop.

Chinese Tea Eggs

I always wanted to try the tea eggs ever since I had it at Lily's house last year. It definitely took me awhile but better late than never. Since I am a sucker for easy or recipe that uses less ingredients , I decided to try making it with a recipe I found online that uses tea bag and five spice powder. Well, I guess if you want a good fragrant tea eggs, don't look for short-cut and use Lily's recipe instead. These tea eggs of mine have no fragrant at all and way too salty! Anyway, I took this as an experience and a practice run.

I really like the marbling effect on my eggs. "Swee bor?" (Pretty or not?) Sorry for the yellow lighting since I have to take this at night.

New Product Testing

I decided to give this ChanHong Penang Assam Laksa Instant Sauce a test run when I couldn't find Hup Loong brand assam laksa in the Denver Asian store that used to sell it. So, desperate need calls for desperate measure and I was glad that I saw this at mytasteofasia.com.



I was quite skeptical at first because looked at the picture at the packet, it looked more like a curry laksa instead of assam laksa. And there was no review written on it. But my love for Penang assam laksa prompted me to buy one packet and try it. Desperate need mah!



I am so glad that I gave this a try. This is simply delicious and way better than the Hup Loong brand spices. For the Hup Loong brand, we need to add a lot of extra ingredients to make it good. Whereas, with this brand, the flavor and taste are there, all we need just some lime juice and lots of shrimp paste. So good! I strongly recommended this! :)



What I add, yields 3 bowls:

900ml water
1 packet of the paste
1 999 brand 15oz (425 gm) tomato sardine with half canned of tomato sauce
lime juice to taste
shrimp paste to taste (Hae Kor)

You don't have to add chili padi for this because it's spicy enough. As for the garnishes, it's the norm, shredded cucumber, red onion and pineapple. If you grow your own mint leaves in the house, use that as well. As for me, see no mint leaves because I was unwilling to pay $2.95 for a small packet of mint!!

If you can find this in the store where you live, grab it! If not, you can also order from Ray like me. Hehe...

Edda Update

I asked her to smiles for the camera and this is the best she came out with.


Snacking on her fingers food. No pincer grab yet!

Look at her two teeth at the bottom! Finally smiling for mama.

She is still not crawling yet, but it will be soon. She can sit up by herself from a laying position. I just found her sitting at the end of her crib playing with her toys this morning. And I thought she fell back to sleep because she was so quiet, later I learned that she was actually eating on toilet paper that I put in a basket! Adoi....she loves chewing and eating paper. Yeah, I forgot to look at the end of the crib and totally missed her sitting there happily chewing on the toilet paper. *Duh Mommy!*

She can also scoop from one place to the other. Mostly going backward because she still hasn't move forward yet. She will be on all four, even hands moving forward, but her legs just stay there, and then she just scoop back to a sitting position again. And somehow by doing that, she can shift herself from one place to another.

Update: She crawls today! (June 16th, 2007)

Fish Paste Roll

This is my version of fish paste roll in beancurd sheet. I marinated the fish paste (ready-made) with chopped scallion, carrot and sesame oil. Then, spread it on a square beancurd sheet, roll it up swiss roll style and deep-fry until golden brown and crispy.


Cut and serve with Thai sweet chilli sauce. Delicious!

Whole Wheat Hokkaido Milk Loaf

Just out from the Breadmaker. I set it to medium dark crust color. Should have set it to light.


Soft and fluffy!


Spread with my brown sugar kaya.

Yum!

I wanted to try this Hokkaido milk loaf because everyone who tried it gave it a thumb up. Little did I know I didn't have bread flour in my pantry when I set everything out on the counter. Thus, the whole wheat flour was used and this whole wheat Hokkaido milk loaf was created.

I baked mine in a breadmaker using Sweet function just like Peony. I also brought it out during proving to punch it, knead a little and shape it before putting it back to the breadmaker and let it did the rest. I really satisfied with this whole wheat version and will definitely make it again. What's great about this recipe is it doesn't require bread improver and butter and can bake with a breadmaker.

Almond Cream Scones

Cream scones has been a buzz in the forums and blogs for quite some time and today I finally did my own version of it. This version is without butter, all it needed is heavy cream. The result, it's pretty good if you asked me. Even Evy grabbed two pieces and said it's delicious. Edda enjoyed one piece without the raisins. It's so easy to make too, just dump everything together and bake and you get cream scones in 12 minutes.

Yong Tau Foo Soup

Yong Tau Foo in Ikan Bilis Soup. For the filling, it's the frozen tub fish meat emulsion, thaw it overnight in the refrigerator and marinate it with chopped scallion, carrot and sesame oil. Mix well and stuff your veggie and taufu pok.

My short-cut ikan bilis broth recipe:

1/4 cup of ikan bilis (dried anchovies)

4 cups of water

1 or 2 tsp. of chicken stock granules

Dash of fish sauce, to taste

Crispy fried shallots

Method:

1. Add a little oil in a saucepan. Pan-fry the ikan bilis until brown and crispy. Add in water. Let it boil.

2. When boiled, add in the yong tau foo, seasonings and crispy shallots. Turn the heat to low and let it simmer until the yong tau foo are cooked.

3. Serve in a bowl and sprinkle more fried shallots on top. Serve warm.

Also the repeat, Yong Tau Foo with Sweet Bean Paste Sauce. The bean paste sauce recipe is courtesy of Rasa Malaysia. I simply love it!

Banana Cake

Since I have some leftover ripen banana in the freezer, I decided to try Yochana's Banana Cake recipe. This recipe has been tried by many and had received great reviews. However, can someone please tells me why my arranged sliced banana ended out like that? It shifted places while baking in the oven and ended out looking so ugly. I saw others who have nice banana slices laying on top unlike mine. Any tips/trick in achieving that?


No idea how it shifted from the top of the cake to right in the middle? Looks good though, LOL!



This is the part without the banana slices. Taste wise, I like this cake because it is really soft and moist. Definitely a keeper like the others said. Thanks Lucy! :)

Oh, I used Hugbear's link because it's very hard to locate Lucy's recipe in her blog. See how Hugbear banana slices are in placed after being baked? I wonder what's wrong with mine? *sigh*

Brown Sugar Kaya

I decided to experiment with my food again. Instead of the Pandan Kaya that I normally made, I tried my hand on the brown sugar kaya. The color of this kaya is quite yucky isn't it? LOL!

I used the same recipe just omitted the pandan extract and substituted the sugar with brown sugar and put everything in my breadmaker. It turned out in clumps and liquid separated, unlike the nice texture I got from my pandan kaya. Don't ask me why because I have no clue, thus I have to blend everything in a blender and turned out like the above.

Tastewise, it was like kaya with the fragrant of brown sugar (I did cut down on the sugar), not too bad at all. But I just dislike the color of this kaya, not appertizing looking at all. Guess next time I better stick with my pandan kaya. :P Or if I brave enough, I might experiment it with white sugar without the pandan extract and see what color it would produce. Hehe...