Steamed Nian Gao (年糕)

This is again something new for me this year.  I always did the baked Nian Gao like all the previous years.  The baked nian gao is delicious too but this year I stumbled upon a Vietnamese steamed nian gao recipe from a blogger friend.  I tried a few of his recipes before and liked it, so it encouraged me to give this recipe a try.  Truthfully, what got me interested was the steaming time in his was only 20 minutes for a rice bowl size.  Hey, you know me, always seek out the easiest recipe to try.

I used my porcelain ramekin to steam my nian gao as I believed this shape resembled the one that I was familiar with the most.  Looks good right?  I won't be eating this until after the Chinese New Year as I wanted to use this to bring good luck to my house.  I heard that since this is sticky, it means family reunion and togetherness.  Also of the Chinese word 年糕, the last word sounded like high (高), so it's like each year is higher or better than the previous. (年年高升)

Since I am not eating this yet so I have no comment regarding the taste.  Probably will do a post later when I slice it and pan-fry it.

This is how it looks like when I took it out of the ramekin to cool on wire rack.

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!!  May this new year brings you much joy, good health and abundance wealth.  祝您 兔年快乐, 健康良好,  万事如意，恭喜发财!!!

P/s:  I recommend my new and improved super easy steamed nian gao recipe that I created in 2012.  Check it out!  :)

Instant Noodle with Cheese

If you watched Korean drama or Korean variety shows, you would probably noticed that they added a slice of cheese in their instant noodle or Korean rice noodle.  At first when I saw it, I was like what was that that they put into the instant noodle, then I realized that it was a piece of cheese.  That was mind blowing for me, cheese in spicy kimchi soup??  I was really curious especially those who tasted it all said it was good.  So, my curiosity got better of me and I bought Korean kimchi instant noodle and my American cheese and decided to give it a try.

To increase nutrition, I added seaweed and an egg.  By the way, the Korean instant noodle was like Taiwanese instant noodle made without preservatives and with all natural ingredients.  So, after I finished cooking, I pour it into a bowl and then top with a piece of American cheese.  When the cheese started to melt like the above picture, I stir to mix it well into the soup.

My verdict:  it actually tasted delicious, the soup when mixed it well together was richer and thicker with the fragrant of cheese.  Thumb up from me!  Try it yourself to believe it!  :-)

Brown Sugar Glutinous Rice Cake (Kuih Pulut Gula Hitam)

I made this Malaysian cake or kuih to bring to a friend's house.  I won't be sharing the recipe because I didn't make a good job of it.  The glutinous rice turned out too soft and I think I picked the wrong method to do this.  Since I made this without measurement, just estimation, I also found it not sweet enough.  Since lots of people know how to make this, I won't be telling you how.  Just that I added brown sugar and sweeten coconut flakes into the coconut fragrant glutinous rice before putting it into a container to shape.

Surprisingly my hubby liked it and I thought he hardly eat any Malaysian cake.  I would definitely try this again and this time with another method of doing it.  This cake is best eaten on the same day.  It is not recommended to put it in the refrigerator as this will harden the glutinous rice.

I tried to arrange it like a snowflake, haha... does it look like a snowflake?  :-P

Chinese Cashew Cookies

This year I made Cashew Cookies instead of my usual Peanut Cookies.   I have a can of salted cashews and I thought I would use that to make my cookies.  First, I toasted my cashews until golden brown and then I processed it in my food processor until fine.  After that, I used it to make this cashew cookies.  I decorated the top with a half cashew just to identify it (if not it would look like peanut cookies).  This cookies is the soft and melt in the mouth type.  So, very fragile.  Once you pop into the mouth, it dissolves and melts.

The sweetness is just nice and very easy to make as well.  Through my blog, all beginner can at least make a few delicious CNY cookies on their own.  Such as peanut cookies, cashew cookies, sugi cookies, cornflakes cookies, etc...

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3 : My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) hosted by Jess of i3ss kitch3n.

Chinese Sesame Cookies

I remembered when I was a child, I heart a type of Chinese sesame seeds cookies.  It had been so long that I could hardly recall the texture of this cookies anymore.  I only remembered if I saw it being served, I would certainly had some.  I did a search on the web and found one recipe from About.com and the picture of the sesame seeds cookies resembled the one I remembered.  So, of course I got to give this recipe a try.  But not sure why my cookies turned out looking different (mine had flat top)?  The one thing I changed was used all butter instead of half butter and half shortening.

I wanted contrasting colors so I tried a few with black sesame seeds.  This cookies is delicious, fragrant with the smell of sesame seeds and very crispy.  But not quite like the one I remembered.  Nevertheless, we were all in loved with this cookies, my girls couldn't stop snacking on it.  I don't think this batch can last through Chinese New Year.  The longer it kept, the smell of sesame seeds grew stronger.

If you are looking for a new CNY cookies to bake this year, this can be it.  :-)

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3 : My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) hosted by Jess of i3ss kitch3n.

Dong Quai Soup (當歸汤)

 

Dong-Quai or female ginseng or Angelica sinensis or 当归 is a Chinese herb widely used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat gynecological ailments, fatigue, mild anemia and high blood pressure. It has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity.  It is believed to be a uterine tonic and hormonal regulator.  My mom used to boil this soup for me when I was living at home.  Usually this soup was served after each menstrual cycle.  This herb is a little bitter but once you are used to the bitterness, it is actually a tasty soup.  This soup is not advice for pregnant women and if you are on any medication, consult with your doctor first before consuming.

This herb is used in soup and in making Emperor Chicken.  It is also found in dishes that were prepared in the restaurant in powder form.  You can buy this herb in most Asian supermarkets or Chinese Herbal Shops.  It usually sold as dried herb either in thin slices (like above) or in pieces.

The link of this recipe can be found here.  I have a picture of the raw ingredients too.  I am submitting this post to Weekend Herb Blogging and this week host for this event is Min from Honest Vanilla.  Check it out on Sunday for the full roundup.  Thanks!

BoBoChaCha 2

I made BoBoChaCha before but this time with the added tapioca strips.  I steamed the cubed yam for 25 minutes and set aside.  Then, I cooked the cubed sweet potatoes in a large pot with water.  Boil in low heat for 20 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are soft.  Then, I add in the Chinese bar shape brown sugar or you can use Gula Melaka or gula Jawa.  Dissolve those sugar to taste.  Lastly, stir in the cooked sago pearls/tapioca pearls, cooked tapioca strips, cooked yam and stir to mix well.  Add in some coconut cream to increase the overall fragrant of this dish.

In the next page, I will show you what the dried tapioca trips package looks like.  You should be able to buy this in any Asian or Vietnamese market store.  Instruction to cook this will be provided as well.

Boiled Fruit Cake

I adore fruit cake and it is one of the cakes that I wanted either to bake my own or buy from the store during the Christmas holidays.  As you know, I skipped any recipe that seem too troublesome to make for example too many different steps that ended out with lots of dishes to wash.

I saw this Boiled Fruit Cake recipe at JoyofBaking and decided to read through the recipe and it was surprisingly fairly easy with minimal dishes to wash.  I only need to clean the saucepan and since I already have all the ingredients at home, I was eager to try it out.  It was named Boiled Fruit Cake because half of the ingredients were boiled on the stove and mixing in with the rest of the ingredients.  I modified the recipe by adding Brandy.  The only downside of this was it tasted better after three days and longer.  I read that if wrap nicely, it can be kept for up to six months.

My verdict is I find this fruit cake a bit dry, I would prefer it to be more moist.  So, the next time I make this, I would substitute the water with milk.  Hopefully then it will make this fruit cake better.  

Oyster Mushroom Chicken

 

I couldn't resist myself when I see fresh oyster mushroom in the Asian market.  I loved to serve variety of mushrooms for my family.  Oyster mushroom is said to be able to lower the cholesterol levels as it naturally contains lovastatin.  All I know is mushroom is good for us so I am trying to cook it often.  However, my Evy is not a mushroom lover which makes it hard for me.  Because I am trying to give her food that is good for her but she just won't touch it.  The only mushroom that she would eat is Enoki mushroom which I will also get whenever I am in the Asian market.

This is one easy stir-frying dish with oyster sauce.  If you have a bottle of oyster sauce, you can make lots of Chinese dishes with it.  There is even a vegetarian version of oyster sauce which is made from this oyster mushroom. 

Green Tea Pudding without Eggs

I called this green tea pudding without eggs because this pudding was not made with eggs and baked in a water bath.  I used gelatin to harden it.  I got the inspiration from Nasi Lemak Lover's Soymilk Pudding and a commercial I watched on youtube.  That commercial featured vanilla pudding, coffee pudding and green tea pudding and it just caught my eyes.  Since I have one last packet of powder gelatin to use and all other ingredients at home, I set to work.  I revised the recipe using my Reduced Fat Panna Cotta that I made earlier.  The difference was no heavy cream was used in this pudding.

If you loved green tea, you would love this.  Just make sure you use a good quality green tea powder or matcha so that the color will come out green and the taste of green tea will be strong.  It does makes a difference so don't buy a cheap green tea powder for baking or making dessert (I had learned my lesson).  I recommend Redman's green tea powder for baking if you live in Malaysia.

This pudding is delicious and all of us loved it.

Pumpkin Sweet Potatoes Sago Dessert

What to do with extra pumpkin on hand?  Make this!  This idea was suggested by one of my readers and I couldn't agree with her more, so easy to make and so tasty especially with lots of tapioca pearls or sago pearls.

You have to use fresh pumpkin for this.  Just cut it into small pieces along with the sweet potatoes.  You can either steam to soften and cook it or just boil them together in a pot for 20-30 minutes.  Add Chinese brown sugar pieces to taste, add in cooked tapioca pearls and lastly coconut cream.  Stir to mix well.

Good either serve warm or cold.  My hubby loved it cold with crushed ice.  Keep any leftover in the refrigerator and enjoy it cold straight out of the fridge.  This method of cooking is just like BoBoChaCha actually.  So, of course you can add in yam or tapioca strips or plantain or red bean or whatever you think is suitable.

Baked Chicken Fries

 

Evy's school cafeteria was offering chicken fries as a menu one day.  So I let her had her lunch at school.  She came back and told me it was baked and the chicken was cut to resemble fries.  She requested me to make it for her at home because she liked it.  I liked the idea that it was baked and not fried.  So, I told her I was going to make it for her but mommy version.  She said she liked mine better than the school.  Haha... I was not sure she said that to make me happy or what, but she certainly confirmed that mommy version was better.  Perhaps she liked the crunch that the panko gave.  If you don't have panko at home, you can use crushed cornflakes for the coating as I did here.

Do enjoy this healthy chicken fries!!

Asian Sweet Soybean Milk

Like many Asian who are used to the Asian sweet soybean milk, I cannot stomach the American soybean milk.  What worst is most soybeans produced in the U.S. is GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) product.  Anyway, it doesn't matter to me as I don't like the American soybean milk anyway.  I buy my dried soybeans at the Asian grocery store here as it was imported from other Asian countries. I remembered I helped my mom made soybean milk before but I forgot how easy it is to make our own.  Until I saw Noobcook's soybean post.  I was like wow it is very easy to make our own sweet soybean milk at home.

I measured the amount I used to give my readers a guide.  1 cup of dried soybeans made 1 pitcher of soybean milk for me.  I keep it in the refrigerator because I like it cold.  It should be able to keep for a few days in the refrigerator.  If you like to make your own American style soybean milk, just omit the rock sugar.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

 

I wanted to try a pumpkin cheesecake ever since I tried it few years ago.  It was a store bought frozen kind and it was so good, the memory just stick with me.  I actually prefer the duo version where there was part white and part pumpkin cheesecake.  However, it sort of ended out this way.

You can use graham crackers instead of ginger snap cookies if you like.  Omit the nuts if you prefer. 

Look at my crack cheesecake!!!  This was my first cheesecake and it cracked badly.  Note to self, never offer to bring a whole cheesecake for a party or potluck because you never know how it would turn out.  If you have great tips on baking a non-crack cheesecake, feel free to share with this cheesecake amateur here.  :-)

Butter Cookies & Season Greetings!

 
I wanted to bake some cookies for Christmas, something fun to look at for kids and delicious to eat of course.  I wanted a basic butter cookies and I found the recipe at Joy of Baking website.  Then, I just used my figure cookie cutter and started creating.  I enlisted both my girls to help me to decorate as this was the fun part of making Christmas cookies.  Needless to say, both of them were so happy that they got to help.  Edda did the buttons, Evy did the red sprinkles and I drew the eyes and mouth. :-)

This butter cookies were buttery and crispy when you baked until the edges were brown.  If you take it out too early, the cookies would be soft.   They couldn't wait for the cookies to be cool completely before trying.  Got to say, we all loved it and had fun making it!  We loved the fragrant of the butter!

Hereby wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year 2011!!!

Pumpkin Tang Yuan or Pumpkin Glutinous Rice Balls

Happy Solstice or Dong Zhi “冬至节”everyone!  Today is the first day of winter and in tradition, Chinese eat Tang Yuan and reunion meal on this day.  This year I made a pumpkin tang yuan or pumpkin glutinous rice balls.  I used the leftover dough from making the Chinese Pumpkin Sesame Cakes to make this.  I will show some before and after pictures in the next page.

At first I thought of serving it in a thick sweet syrup but later changed my mind and served this in my Red Bean and Black Glutinous Rice Sweet Soup.  Just have to make it sweeter as the tang yuan is plain. 

Steamed Pumpkin Cake (Pumpkin Kuih)

My one pumpkin can help me create so many new dishes.  If you have been following my blog, I have been popping out all sort of pumpkin recipes recently, have you even noticing it?  And it's not over yet, I still have more pumpkin recipes to share.  Just stay tuned!

I love my stir-fry pumpkin with eggs, so yummy delicious and this steamed pumpkin cake, soft and moist and so well seasoned.  It's so great eating it this way, but I also like it pan-fried because I like the crispy crust on the outside before I bite into the softness inside.

I was so happy I created this recipe.  I never thought of making this kuih in the first place but once I found out that the defrosted pumpkin was soft in nature, I had to change my plan.  Since the soften pumpkin contained lots of liquid so I needed a recipe that suitable for this.  Once I planned on making this, I realized that I only had 100g of rice flour, no more and no less, so I had to create a recipe based on 100g of rice flour.  Luckily it turned out so well and delicious.

This recipe is not hard to make at all.  If you try it, feedback to me ya! ;-)

3-2-1 Chicken Chop

Oh man, the way I crisscrossed it, it looked more like liver wasn't it?  Luckily the main star in this dish was not the chicken chop but the sauce that I invented.  I saw a Kikkoman commercial on my Chinese cable and it was introducing it's 3-2-1 chicken chop sauce using it's Kikkoman special sauce (I didn't really know what kind of sauce, might be some sort of special soy sauce), sweet rice wine and sugar.  Oh well, I didn't have the Kikkoman sauce neither did I have the sweet rice wine but I do have other sauces at home that I could experiment with.

I thought of Worcestershire sauce and Shao Xing rice wine instead.  Worcestershire sauce had a bit of sour taste to it like vinegar so I thought it would pair well with some rice wine and sugar.  I also added a touch of sesame oil in the end.  This sauce got our stamp of approval, we all loved it.  If you tried it, credit me for my creation and feedback to me ya.  It would go well with pork and steak too.

Stir Fried Crunchy Cabbage

I loved crunchy and sweet cabbage.  I finally found the way after all these years.  I saw it at the Chinese cooking show where the host said never to cut the cabbage but tear it with your fingers.  It will give you a different texture.  But I guess I always took the easier way out, that is to slice it with a knife and thinking that shredded cabbage will cook faster and soften easily.  Not sure why but my shredded cabbage never really gives me the sweetness of the cabbage and the crunch that I looked for.

But now with my new way of handling my cabbage, that is to tear it with my fingers, I found the crunch and the sweetness of the cabbage when stir-frying.  This dish is delicious, you can taste the sweetness of cabbage and the crunchiness.  If you read my recipes, you must have noticed that I have been using quite a lot of fish sauce recently.  I think I found the secret of fish sauce in stir-frying, it really give certain dishes a kick in taste.

Pureed Brown Rice Pumpkin Soup

I am not sure of whether to call this brown rice pumpkin soup or brown rice pumpkin porridge.  I made this for my little girl when she was having diarrhea and vomit since everything went into her mouth, it came right out.  I thought if I pureed the porridge, it would go down easier on her.  But guess what?  She refused to eat it, not even a taste test.  The only thing she would eat was Popsicle and of course she could have as many as she wanted since that was the only thing she would eat and won't throw up.

So, I was the one that finished this soup.  I loved it actually, it was sweet and tasted like brown rice.  Now I know what was the difference between white rice porridge and brown rice porridge.  Brown rice taste really stood out. This is suitable for baby, toddler or older people as it's very nutritious and easy to swallow.

Baked Cheese Shrimps Rice

Baked cheesy rice or cheesy baked rice has been quite popular among the bloggers few months back.  I liked the idea and wanted to try it whenever I have leftover cheese or rice.  My opportunity came when I have some leftover Mozzarella cheese from making the Alfredo Chicken.  I needed to finish the leftover cheese within 5 days and just so happen that I had some leftover brown rice.  So, this dish was created.  I did mine in a healthier way as it was less creamy.  No heavy cream, cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, etc.

I found the rice a bit dry, so you can add some fat free or 1 % fat milk into the rice when you add the cheese and stir together.  Perhaps put a layer of rice, cheese, rice and top with more cheese before baking.  Just bake until the top is slightly brown, do not brown it too much as the cheese will turn hard.  Mine was too brown so I know.

Spicy Chicken with Zucchini

I went to my Asian supermarket 2nd anniversary event recently and they were having food demonstration and tasting on that day.  Even the Lee Kum Kee representatives were there to do a food demonstration and sampling of their product.  They were promoting their oyster sauce, hoisin sauce and premium soy sauce and cooked a chicken dish like above and a fried rice.  Their fried rice were tasteless to me but I fell in love with their chicken dish so of course I had to ask them for the recipe.  I tried to memorize it as best as I can and I think this is the best copy I can come out with.  

I added zucchini and carrot for extra veggie intake.  You can also add onion, bell pepper, pineapple or mango if you like.  This sauce is pretty delicious, you can try it out.

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!

Stir fried Spicy Cabbage

I always stir-fry my green cabbage in a non-spicy way.  Stir-frying it in a spicy way never cross my mind until I saw the Chinese cooking show where the chef cooked it with some dried chili.  It gave me the idea of trying something new.  This is a new dish for me and we liked it!  I will certainly make this version more from now on.

I realized that the green cabbage sold in the Asian market is easier to stir-fry than the green cabbage I bought at the American supermarket.  The one at the American supermarket is tougher and harder even after the longer time I spent stir-frying it.  Definitely prefer the texture of the green cabbage I bought at the Asian market, not to say cheaper too.

Stir Fried Ramen

Need a quick meal and yet wanted it to be balance?  I was left with two pieces of chicken strips and I had to make it into a meal that could feed three.  I bought those Maruchan ramen when it went on sales for 10 cents each for stir-frying.  I did not like the seasoning that came with it so I either made my own soup base or save this for stir-frying.  With the protein and carbohydrate readied, all I needed was some vegetable to make it complete.  Just checked the refrigerator for whatever veggie you have and you can cook up this delicious ramen dish in less than 10 minutes.

I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.  This week host is Ruth herself! Check out her delicious round up on Friday Nov, 5th! 

Green Tea Pumpkin Seeds

I always wanted to roast some pumpkin seeds.  My opportunity came when I had a bag of pumpkin seeds given by a library event (pumpkin carving) that we went to.  I loved green tea flavor and so automatically I wanted to try green tea flavored roasted pumpkin seeds.  This is definitely good and make a great snack.  Me and my girls all loved it.

Since this was slow roasted for an hour, we can certainly pop the whole thing in the mouth.  It's totally edible with extra fiber and crunch.  You can taste the green tea and salt.  Of course if you choose to just eat the seed, you can do that too. I did that while watching my korean drama.  LOL!

Soft Pumpkin Cookies

What can represent Fall season more than pumpkin?  I just want to make something with pumpkin this time of the year.  I saw this pumpkin cookies recipe on joyofbaking Website and decided to give it a try.  The reason was simple because I never make it before.  This cookie is just like what it stated, soft and cake like in texture.  I certainly would prefer a more chewy one or crispy one.  I used sugar instead of brown sugar as stated in the original recipe, I wonder perhaps it might caused my cookies to be none chewy.  I also omitted the cream cheese frosting.  Anyway, my girls loved it nonetheless so I was glad.  Evy will bring this as her school snack.

As for me, I would love to play and experiment with this recipe some more, as I wanted a crispy pumpkin cookies instead of soft and cake like.  It's like eating a tiny piece of cake on the next day.

Spicy Green Beans with Shrimps

I like this dish and made it quite often.  I don't know if the green bean is in season but the farmer market here has been selling it for 99 cent/ pound.  If I would make this for my family, I would omit the extra chili and since I was making this for adults, I added my chili paste in oil to give it an extra kick.  I only added one teaspoon because I was afraid that it might be too spicy as this new batch of my chili paste in oil was kinda spicy.  I certainly wouldn't want to make it inedible for most because of the heat.

I have a similar recipe here.  Except for this I added some chili paste in oil to make it spicier.  Check it out, super easy to make for the overseas Malaysian who misses this dish.  You can substitute the green bean with asparagus, long bean, okra and eggplant.