Monday, August 25, 2008

Dong Quai Chicken Herbal Soup (當歸汤)


This Angelica soup (當歸汤) or "female ginseng" is widely used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat gynecological ailments, mild anemia, fatigue and high blood pressure. This soup is also cooked for new mom in the last two weeks of confinement. It is also one of my favorite soups and I cook this soup 2-3 times per month. It is best for women to drink this after each menstrual cycle to revitalize. Bonus is this soup is very sweet and delicious.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Arte-y-Pico Award



I received this lovely award from Sweet Jasmine at Rainbows. Thank you Sweet Jasmine! :*

Before passing this on, here are a few set rules to follow.....

1) You have to pick FIVE blogs that you consider deserve this award for creativity, design, interesting material and also contribute to the blogger community regardless of language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given him/her the award itself.

4) Award winners and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of the "Arte-y-Pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of the award

5) In compliance with said RULES, the award winner must show the RULES.

Now, I would love to share this award with these five lovely blogs:

My Kitchen Snippets
Kedai Hamburg
Mochachocolata-Rita
More than Words
The Adventure of my cooking diary

Friday, August 22, 2008

Love Letters Using a Pizzelle Press



Love letters or Kuih Kapit, one of my favorite Chinese Lunar New Year snacks. I was using the Cuisinart Pizzelle Press that I just bought and it only made 4" pizzelle. The size was a bit too small to fold it into a triangle or fan shape. If I rolled them into egg roll shape then it would take up a lot of storage space. So, keeping it just the way it is was the way to go for me. As you can see, it was tinted green, that was because I added Pandan extract. I simply love the smell of Pandan (screwpine leaves) so I couldn't help myself from adding some.



Pretty thin right? Of course it was not as thin as the traditionally kuih kapit but this was easier to do. You can get the kuih kapit recipe from Amy Beh (Kuali) if you are interested. I shall try the Pizzelle recipe provided by Cuisinart in my next attempt to see the difference. Oh I learned this tips of using the Pizzelle Press to make Love Letter through J from Singapore. Kuih Kapit is one of my favorite CNY cookies so I was thrilled to learn of this tips. Now owning my own Pizzelle press, I can make this thicker, non-traditional kuih kapit version anytime I feel like eating them. Great! ^.^

Note:  it turned soft after it's cooled down.  I had to toast it in the toaster oven to make it crisp again.

Easy Stir-fried Shrimps



Sharing an easy home cook shrimps recipe here. It's so easy to make anyone can make it. You can add yellow onion, scallion, color bell pepper and red chili into this recipe as well. Just season to taste with more salt or soy sauce.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Chai Po Tan (菜脯蛋) / Salted Turnips Omelet



Chai Po Tan or 菜脯蛋 is one common home cook eggs dish at my house. My husband and Evy love anything with eggs, either boiled eggs, eggs in soup, scrambled eggs, omelet or stir-fry eggs. This salted turnips omelet is something I had when I was small so naturally I love to buy and cook this for my family. Here's my recipe to share, for newbies who doesn't know how to make this easy dish. :P Good with rice or porridge!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Shaved Ice Again (Ice Kacang)


It's summer and the best way to cool off is to have some shaved ice or ice kacang. Making shaved ice is so easy these days when you own the shaved ice machine. It comes in two forms, electric or hand power. I bought an electric one few years back and it's really useful.


I used canned sweeten red beans, canned peaches and canned green jelly so making this is really easy. All I have to do is make some Gula Melaka syrup to put on top of the shaved ice. Oops! I forgot to add the evaporated milk, no wonder it didn't taste as fragrant. :P