Nam Yee and Red Bean Dumplings/ Ham Chin Peng/ 油炸面包

Firstly, this is not my recipe, I couldn't possibly invent a Ham Chin Peng recipe.  I saw this recipe at my friend's house while reading her cookbooks' collection.  This recipe was from a cookbook called Pasar Malam Delights.  When I saw this recipe, I got to have it because it has my favorite Ham Chin Peng recipe which the book called Nam Yee and Red Bean Dumplings.  What got my attention was the easy one step method (no starter, no ingredient I couldn't recognize) and furthermore, I already have all the ingredients at home.  You know me, I don't attempt any difficult recipe, anything too complicated, too troublesome, I passed.  If you are like me, this is one recipe you should look at and try. 

The end result, crispy skin, soft fried bread, sweet red bean paste and Nam Yee smell in the bread.  Next time, I will try the savory version using this recipe, just replace the red bean paste with salt and five spice powder and wrap it differently (I liked the savory one more).  I have a little step-by-step pictures in my next page and tips/note.  Living abroad and everything have to make ourselves, this recipe is good enough for me.  The one we get at the Vietnamese bakery store in Denver is plain, unlike the ones in Malaysia.

Stir Fried Broccoli with Straw Mushrooms

Broccoli is good for us.  If I cannot get to shop in my Asian store for my Chinese greens, I would buy broccoli.  Broccoli and cauliflower are more expensive in Malaysia and it was normally served on special occasions and during Chinese New Year.  My mom loved to mix broccoli and cauliflower together for the veggie dish she served on CNY.  Whereas, over here broccoli is pretty reasonable and we have it all seasons.

Sharing with you a dish that anyone can cook at home.  I think some of you have been cooking this at home too since it is a common home cook dish.

Chocolate Glazed Baked Donuts

Recently I made and brought 25 of these chocolate glazed baked donuts to bring to share with Evy's classmates and teacher.  The teacher would do a little something special for the birthday boy or birthday girl and asked the students to sing the birthday song.  Evy wanted to share some treat with her classmates and wanted me to bake something.  I thought of this baked donuts because it was healthier for the kids, mainly made of yogurt.  I added the chocolate glazed and sprinkles because the kids loved them, looked like a donut yeah?

See my other baked donuts recipes:  Baked Raisin Donuts,  Green Tea Baked Donuts, Assorted Baked Donuts, Healthy Baked Donuts.

Spicy Eggplant Top with White Chicken Bits (炒辣茄子鸡)

I had a spicy eggplant version with ground pork and this is my another version with chicken bits.  This is of course healthier than ground pork as ground pork that we get in the store usually have lots of fat in it, unless you make your own ground pork with lean pork.  Since I always have skinless and boneless chicken breasts at home, why not I just cut it into tiny bits (instead of ground chicken) like a 鸡球 to substitute the ground pork.  I also used a different sauce for this, this is the sauce I used to stir-fry my kangkong belacan or any spicy Malaysian style vegetable.  My short-cut sauce that I can easily buy it in any Asian store here.

Nam Yee Chicken Pieces

Since I bought a bottle of Nam Yee (fermented red bean cubes) to make Chicken Biscuit (Kai Chai Peng), it had been left unattended.  I was not familiar with Nam Yee and that was my first bottle.  I searched the web for recipes that I could possibly use with Nam Yee and collected a few that I could try out.  One of it was fried chicken wings with nam yee. Click read more for my version of the recipe.  I hardly buy chicken wings anymore because I don't want to encourage my girls to eat chicken wings.  And the best alternative I found was chicken thigh which I would cut away the skin and fat before chopping into pieces.

We gave it a thumb up!  The cornstarch gave it a nice crunch and the nam yee gave it a unique taste.  You do get the crunch without the skin!  Next time I would try a bake version, as this will be healthier than deep-frying.

Delicious Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

I had to put delicious up there in the title because it was delicious.  I used my marbled banana chocolate cake recipe and made it into chocolate banana cupcakes.  I invited few friends for a play date and decided to make something for coffee/tea in the afternoon.  I made this along with some chocolate chips cookies and I just realized all my snack have chocolate chips in it!

The cupcake was soft, moist, chocolaty and tasted like banana.  Truly delectable!  I added chocolate chips because my girls loved them.  I had to stop them from eating more because this was meant to be shared. ;)  At the play date, I noticed that all the kids would pick out the chocolate chips to eat first, my girls included. :)  If you like my recipes, put this on your to-try list, you won't be disappointed.

I saw this butterfly silicon cupcake cups at Target and had to buy it, it was 6 for $1 at the Dollar section, how cheap.  It was so cute too and I regretted I didn't pick up the flower silicon cups for the same price, as when I went back, it was all gone. :(  I guess you paid for quality too, this had some broken pieces and the silicon was pretty thin, but it's usable.