Oven Steamed Tom Yam Salmon

I loved to use my oven to steam fish.  It was fast and cleaning up was easy.  That's why I named my fish oven steamed tom yam salmon.  I always oven steamed my fish with Teriyaki sauce, miso paste, Chinese soy sauce,  yellow bean paste and I wanted a change.  I was getting bored with the same old way of steaming fish after a while.  And I thought I could try it with Tom Yam paste, but not just the paste alone as I wanted some kick.  So, I added an extra sauce in there to make it better.  Read more to find out.

I likes this as it was a little spicy, a little sour and went really well with rice.  Took less than 15 minutes and you would have a delicious dinner waiting for you. 

Healthy Wheat Oatmeal Waffles

As you know, I just bought a waffle maker.  With the new toy, of course I got to create healthy recipe to serve my girls.  I have a bag of instant oatmeal that no one wants to eat.  So, making waffle is the way to go as I don't like to waste food.  Again, I am making this sweeter as I am going to serve it plain and as a to-go breakfast.  After I added the flour and instant oatmeal, the batter was a bit watery so in some whole wheat flour.  I also wanted to incorporate some fruit into my girls breakfast, so I thought of dried cranberries.  I can say one piece of this waffle is pretty healthy because it has oatmeal, whole wheat flour, milk, dried cranberries, honey and eggs into the mix.  What's best is it is homemade!  When I was done with the waffles of course it was the taste test time.  Quickly gathered my girls and asked them to try.  My girls loved it!  Great news for me as this is way healthier than the basic waffle.

This wheat oatmeal waffles actually crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside when still warm.  Just remember to cook it until brown.  This recipe is for those who prefer healthier recipe and with adaptable taste.

Chicken with Colors Bell Peppers

I always have leftover chicken breast either from the rotisserie chicken or the fried chicken that my hubby bought.  You can either make it into chicken salad for the chicken sandwich or just stir-fry it like me.  Since we eat rice almost daily, stir-frying the leftover is my way to reuse the food.

I loved to buy color bell peppers when it goes on sales.  We must eat with colors as different color of fruits and vegetables will give us a different nutrient that our body needs.  But it is hard to convince my girls to eat bell peppers and onion.  From my posting, I noticed that I have used less onion in my cooking these days because I took their dislike into consideration when preparing meal, even without realizing it.  I used to cook most dishes with onion.  Guess I need to bring back onion in my stir-frying.

Pork with Marinated Bok Choy

I was given some marinated bok choy from our friend who owns a Chinese restaurant.  This marinated bok choy was prepared by the head chef in his restaurant.  I saw this dish prepared by the head chef and it looked really appetizing and I was trying to replicate it.  Typing this post now I just realized I forgot to add red pepper flakes and I shouldn't add water (as the bok choy will release water when cooking).  The head chef version was dry and his pork was sliced really thin and small.  Not sure what was his seasonings though, probably just salt and MSG?

Anyway, this is my version without the MSG.

This was the marinated bok choy that I received.  I used this to cook porridge and it was really good. What do you call this?

Basic Waffles

I finally bought a waffle iron!  Well, if I don't look at brand and read at the reviews, I can get a waffle iron for fairly cheap here.  You can call it my impulse buying.  My girls like to have waffle for breakfast but the frozen ones in the supermarket have partially hydrogenated oil in them even thought they were listed as zero trans fat.  So, I stopped buying frozen waffles a while back.  Thus, the best way for me is to make my own waffle using the ingredients I know and serve it to my girls.  I found the bellow recipe at allrecipes.com and modified it a little to include more sugar and added honey so that my girls can eat the waffle as is.  No extra spread of butter or syrup needed.  I am going to play with this recipe more to create a healthier version like using whole wheat flour or oatmeal flour, etc.

As you can see, I already played with this basic recipe to add some chocolate chips.   Last batch, I added some cocoa powder as well.  This waffle is slight crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.  It crisp up more when toast in the toaster.  Homemade is definitely the best way to go!

Nagaimo Mung Bean Dessert

Nagaimo is also called 山药 or 淮山 in Chinese.  It is a type of yam that can be consume raw.  It has long been traditionally used as Chinese medicine and herbology.  They cut it and dried it in pieces for cooking Chinese herbal soup.  It's the white color herb that we called it 淮山.  I just learned that it has other name which is 山药 from my Chinese friends.  I learned this dessert from them as they gave me a container to try.  It was my first time tasting fresh Nagaimo, frankly I didn't like it as they cut it into big chunks.  It was similar to potato in taste but full of potassium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin B1, and more.  It is also low in calories and a high protein tuber.  I saw a Chinese cooking show, where they put cubed and blanched Nagaimo and Pumpkin into heated milk and serve it as breakfast.  Usually you can cook it like what you would normally cook a potato dish.

You can read more about Nagaimo here. And more about the nutritional facts here.

In this dessert, I diced the Nagaimo into small cubes so that it was easier for me.  Since I cooked it in a slow cooker, some of the Nagaimo was blended into the soup when stirring.  It still have pieces of Nagaimo but quite pleasant since it was not in big chunks.  Definitely a dessert I will be cooking if I buy Nagaimo again.