Water Chestnut Jelly Cake

If you have been reading my blog, you probably aware that I did this before but the plain version.   With the yellow rock sugar that I used, my water chestnut cake turned out white, not the result that I was looking for.  So, this time I played with the recipe and used Malaysia's Gula Melaka and added the chopped water chestnuts.  It turned out so much better, love the fragrant of Gula Melaka that I could taste with each bite as well as the added crunch from the water chestnuts.  It is really refreshing eaten it cold straight from the refrigerator.  I prefer this instead of pan-frying it with batter, less grease thus healthier.

This will be the way I am making this in the future until I am out of the Gula Melaka, then the other substitute that I could think of will be the Chinese brown sugar in bar shape.  That would give me the color that I want but with different fragrant.

Soft Whole Wheat Raisin Oats Cookies 2

I liked my Whole Wheat Oats Cranberries Cookies but it was made with butter.  It was delicious with butter, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to experiment it with oil.  To me, using oil is healthier than using butter.  I made this cookie big, as big as a palm of my hand.  I gave some away to a friend.  The rest we ate it all up.  It was good, seriously, and I don't miss the butter.  Even my hubby who normally don't eat my cookies, ate this, he said he needed the calories. (0.0)  My girls loved it especially Edda, after they tried it, they came and told me they are my number one fans again!  LOL!   How cute!  I guess I need to make them more oats cookies since this is about the only time that we eat oats in our house.

Cool on wire rack.

Okay, this cookie is soft and chewy.  I need to experiment with another recipe of mine because I like my cookies slightly crunchy.

Sweet and Sour Mahi-Mahi

This is a recipe I learned from watching Chinese cooking shows.  I have seen many different Chinese chefs using this same base sauce for their sweet and sour prawns, fish and poultry.  Since this sauce is so popular, I had tried it on prawns and fish.  It is indeed a good sauce but to guarantee that the sauce comes out perfect, it will have to depend on your years of cooking expertise.  These Chinese chefs don't give measurement in their cooking, only the ingredients, so use your expertise and estimate it yourself.  I added whatever veggie I have at home for the colors and additional veggie intake.  So, feel free to be creative and use what your have at home.

This is the mahi-mahi fillet I bought on-sales at the Sunflower market.  I criss-cross it for faster cooking time.  You can cover the wok when pan-frying to cook the middle as well.  Eat this with some Teriyaki sauce drizzle on top is fabulous as well.  Of course you can use other fish fillets or fish for this dish.

Simple "Chai Hsin" / Chinese Green (菜心)

This veggie dish is so simple that I feel embarrass in sharing it.  Truly, so simple that anyone can make it.  Not only it is simple, but it is delicious as well.  Slight crunch from the green and the oyster sauce give it a full flavor.  You can buy this Chinese veggie at the Asian supermarket.

Mostly, I would do a stir-fry on this green with some garlic, carrot and flavor with oyster sauce.  I guess after a while, I wanted a change or try cooking it in a different way.  I used this method in cooking my iceberg lettuce which I learned from my hubby long ago.  Always received rave reviews from others who have tasted it.  I am sure this method is good for other green vegetable as well.

A perfect side dish sending to Side Dish Showdown July at Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice. 

Great Tips for Ants Free House (less than $1)

I feel compel to share this great tips I read on one forwarded e-mail months ago, during winter.  I remembered last summer, my house was infested with ants.  Maybe infested was a strong word, but it was pretty scary as we could see rows of ants walking along my kitchen/dining table area searching for food.  It was bad as you know with little kids, the way they ate, food was on the floor all the times.  I could see which holes the ants were coming from, and I tried to close the gap with bathroom paper.  Oh well, it worked a little but I couldn't get rid of the ants completely until the cold weather came.  One of the reasons I loved winter was no ants, fly, or insect in the house.  I am one person who couldn't stand seeing ants in the house, I just had to get rid of it.

My break came when I was reading some great tips forwarded e-mail from a friend, whom I couldn't recall.  I forgot all the tips I read except this great tips of getting rid of ants (because I wanted to remember and use this tips come summer), so I memorized it.  True enough, came this summer and I spotted ants came out from the same gaps last summer.  I took out my bottle lemon juice and dropped some into the gaps.  Killed all the other ants in the house and waited and see.  WOW!  It really worked!  No more ants coming out from the same gaps.  Few days ago, I spotted more ants, I was like what the heck.  They were coming in from two different gaps, again dropped some lemon juice into and along the gaps and now it was clear.  Lemon juice really works wonder as ants hate sour and acidy environment.  Try it next time yourself as this is a cheap and environment friendly way to get rid of ants in your house.  It works for me and I hope it works for you too, welcoming feedback or any other inexpensive way of getting rid of ants in the house.

Oh yeah, it does not have to be fresh lemon juice, just the bottle one selling for few cents in the produce section works just as well.  :-)  Do you like my tips?
 

Fruit Pastry using Puff Prata/ Pratha

Summer came with abandon of fresh berries, peaches, nectarines, melons, mango and all were on sales.  My house was fulled of all sort of fruits.  My hubby bought some nectarines but it were sour and soft and I bought some plums and it were sour as well.  So, all these sour fruits had been left in the refrigerator uneaten as the sweeter fruit would be chosen.  I had been thinking of a way to eat these fruits since I don't like to waste food.  Was thinking to make them into the fruits pastry cake but I was a bit lazy to make the cake.  Then, an idea came when I remembered I still have two pieces of frozen roti puff pratha in the freezer.  Thus, this fruit pastry was created.  Out of convenient and not wanting to throw away sour fruits.

I will show the step-by-step picture in the next page with the simple recipe.