I have some leftover candy canes that I bought from after-Christmas sales. And then a friend of mine told me that she baked some candy cane cookies during Christmas to give to her friends and it was delicious. So, "Ding Dong", that's it, I can make some cookies with the candy canes that I have. I know chocolate and mint pair well together and I wanted to incorporate the candy cane with the cookies so my experiment began. As you can see, the candy cane melted while baking in the oven, nevertheless it still created a beautiful effect on the cookies.
This recipe produced soft cookies. Since a dark cocoa powder was used, it's slightly bitter with the fragrant of mint, quite refreshing actually. And the melted crushed candy canes gave a little crunch to the soft cookies. This recipe yield about 33 cookies for me. Please stay tuned for my other variation of this cookie, the hard and crunchy type, which I called my dark beauty!
This is my stir-fry two different types of noodles. It happen because I have a little of this noodle and a little of that noodle left, not enough to make a full meal and hence have to marry these two together.
Ingredients:Flat egg noodle (1/3 of packet)
Wontan type egg noodle (1/3 of packet)
Napa cabbage (about 4-5, sliced)
Carrot (1 small, sliced)
Red bell pepper (half, sliced)
Fried fish balls (8, sliced)
Garlic (2 cloves, chopped)
Green onion (2 bunches, chopped)
Crispy fried shallots (1/4 cup)
Sauce:
Oyster sauce (about 3 Tbsp.)
Dark soy sauce (about 1 Tbsp.)
Sesame oil (about 1 tsp.)
Freshly crushed white peppers
Method:
1. Boil a pot of water. When boiling, add in the dried egg noodles and briefly cook it. Drain and set aside.
2. In a wok, heat oil, add garlic, fried fish balls, napa cabbage, carrot and red bell pepper. Stir-fry well and season with a little oyster sauce. Pour into the bowl of waiting noodles.
3. Add sauce in the noodles and stir well to mix. Do a taste test, adjust the taste accordingly. Lastly garnish the top with green onion and crispy fried shallots.I would love to share this dish with Presto Pasta Night . Presto Pasta Night was created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast. This week host is Noob Cook. Please hop over on Friday to see the round up.
I decided to try stir-fry Asian mustard green/gai choy for dinner. Tips from my readers suggested I stir-fry it with anchovies and season with salt. And since I have some leftover chicken breast I decided to add it in. I really loved it! I couldn't taste the slight bitterness at all. It is slightly crunchy and really good in stir-fry. I am going to use it for more stir-fry from now on. Thank you readers and S for sharing. Now I have an additional vegetable to buy when grocery shopping in the Asian market. ;-) Oh, it is also very good in Hotpot/Steamboat (another recent discovery).
Added sprinkles for the kids.
Can you feel the power of butter cake? We can have chocolate cake, green tea cake, pandan cake, lemon cake, orange cake, etc but deep inside us, we do crave for the simple butter cake. There is an attraction there and I find myself couldn't resist the simple looking plain old butter cake. Often time, I found it calling my name at the bakery section at the supermarket, oh the temptation to resist picking it up. So, instead of buying I would make it at home. Since Valentine's Day is around the corner and I have some heart shape foil holders, so why not? So, I made this heart shape butter cake to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day!
Oh I over filled the cups and thus the spilling over when baking. :P
Brief introduction (from the back of this packet):
Tea Mushroom is one of the series products of the People Fortune Company. It is picked in the Daba Mountain which lies in Sichuan Province. The Tea Mushroom is a parasite of the oriental white oaks. In the wild nature, thanks to the special climate there, it is bathed in the sunshine and the moonlight, moistened by rain and dew. It is a kind of mushroom which has a long stem and tender pulp with a crisp and refreshing flavor.
Soaked and cleaned before using. Can be used in deep-fry or stir-fry.
A Chinese friend got us this Tea Mushroom from China (the direct translation would be Tea Tree Mushroom). He said this mushroom is very popular where he is from and it is delicious. Frankly this is the first time I have seen this kind of mushroom, something new for us to try. The stem of this mushroom is very long and I have no clue whether it can be eaten. I wonder why they package the stems if it can't be eaten? But the stem is pretty hard, so I cut off half and use the top half to test it out.
I just stir-fried it with some ginger, chicken and oyster sauce. This Tea Mushroom has a strong woody smell and pretty fragrant, in a mushroom way. But some of the stems were too hard to chew. Guess it's only the mushroom and the immediate stem below it can be eaten, the rest were too tough. Very interesting mushroom and glad to have a chance to try it.
If you have eaten this tea mushroom, can you let me know whether I did it right regarding the stem, okay? TIA!
6 oz. fresh blueberry was on sales for $1 again. I bought 5 because my girls loved it. Decided to take 3oz and put it in my favorite cream cheese pound cake and the resulted cake was heavenly. I truly love this cake, you gotta try it if you haven't already. It should do well with other berries as well such as raspberry, blackberry and strawberries.
