Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Whole Wheat Spaghetti


Non-spicy one for the kids.


With chillies in oil added, extra spicy for the parents.

Ingredients:

1 (13.25 oz) box whole wheat spaghetti
1 cup imitation crab meats

1 skinless & boneless chicken breasts, cut

10 asparagus, cut into 1-inch

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 carrot, sliced

6 sun-ripened tomatoes, sliced

Olive oil

2 tsp. chicken stock granules

Salt & black peppers


Method:

1. Cook spaghetti as directed by package, drain and set aside.

2. In a saucepan, heat up olive oil. Add garlic and chicken breasts, fry until chicken is almost cooked. Add in asparagus and carrot and fry until the veggies are cooked. Lastly add in the sun-ripened tomatoes and imitation crab meats, stir-fry for a minute and add in the cooked spaghetti. Season to taste with salt, chicken stock granules and black pepper. Mix well to combine. Taste test and season to your liking. Serve warm!

3. Optional: Top with chillies in oil, chili oil or dried chili flakes for the extra kick.

I'm serving this up at Presto Pasta Night. This week the host will be
Ruth at Once Upon A Feast.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Chinese Scallion Pancakes


Actually I was embarrassed to say I never eaten a scallion pancake before. Not until I made it myself recently using the recipe provided by My Kitchen Snippets. Not sure how the texture is supposed to be like because mine was not fluffy like roti canai, but crispy and savory. Guess will have to buy a packet at the store to truly know the answer.


Hmmm...mine turned out to be the mini size pancakes! :P So no slicing required!


I made 15 small scallion pancakes and it was not bad. We ended out having it for dinner. I also noticed that there is another type of scallion pancake (while browsing through U-tube) which was made with flour & eggs batter (softer version) which I would love to try in the future.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Chee Cheong Fun with Sweet Sauce (Steamed Rice Rolls)



When I saw Lily's chee cheong fun made using a skillet, I decided to try it because it looked so easy. Oh yeah, look can be deceiving because something that she made so easily turned out to be a disaster in my kitchen. I couldn't get mine to cook before I burnt the bottom. Frustrated I tried steaming them and the same thing happen, it felt raw on top. Ended out in the trash it went. I was convinced that I would have chee cheong fun for tea time that I already made the sauce. So, I was left with my delicious sweet sauce that I wouldn't want to waste. So, I went on the web again and found another recipe to try. Making chee cheong fun definitely needs skill since we wouldn't want it to be too thick nor too thin. My first few batches were too thick but I got the hang of it in the end. I definitely need to practice more. But I do love the sweet sauce I came out with, perhaps it has shrimp paste ( hae kor) in it, it's just like the one I remembered. :)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Crisp Lemon Cookies 2



Still not quite satisfied with my last attempt, I played around with the previous recipe and came out with Crisp Lemon Cookies 2. I like this recipe better because this cookies turned out to be real crispy. It would be great with some added lemon zest to kick up the flavor even more. Since the previous cookies I made it really kids friendly (bear shape with color sugar and sprinkles), I decided to try another pattern on this. Great with a cup of coffee!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Mee Rebus


I had my mee rebus with pan-fried firm tofu, shrimps, boiled egg, chinese green (choy sum), chopped scallions and lots of fried shallots.


Glad to say I finally tried the well talk about Prima Taste Mee Rebus! Excellent recommendation as I certainly enjoyed it. The gravy for this was fairly thick (can dilute slightly more) and I liked that the flavor tasted great.


Update on the Prima Taste products at Viet Hoa Supermarket in Denver: I went there few weekends ago and they no longer sell the wide range of Prima Taste products. I only found few packets of Prima Taste Bak Kut Teh (must be the leftover) and that was it. Hmmm...could it be possible that it was priced at the higher end and thus the demand was not great and the store decided to stop ordering it? Definitely a possibility!! Anyway, let see whether they restock again. I go there probably once in two or three months so I might be a bit updated.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Whole Roast Chicken


Just want to show a picture of my roast chicken on the vertical chicken roaster. Another of my cost saving and easy to prepare dinner. I always buy the whole chicken when it is on sales and one of this chicken can last us for two meals. I will stir-fry the other half in soy sauce for dinner the next day. For the above chicken, again I marinated it with the A1 Emperor Chicken Spices and baked it in my convection oven.

Roast chicken is very easy to prepare. All you needed to do is to clean and trim off the fat of the chicken and then marinate the chicken with your desired sauce or spices. Preheat the oven at 350'F and bake it for 1.5 hours or 325'F convection oven for 1 hour 22 minutes. Before baking, I spray my chicken all over with canola oil spray to ensure crispy skin result.

Roast chicken is so versatile, you can eat it with rice, sandwich it with burger buns, or eat it with salad and mashed potatoes or etc. I love to buy rotisserie chicken at the grocery store too, that's when I'm too lazy to make dinner, or when I have guests and don't have time to cook lots of dishes.