Stir-Fried Chicken with Leeks (鸡胸肉炒韭菜)

I have started buying more leeks at my supermarket trip recently.  I found the flavor here is less pungent than the one in Malaysia.  Perhaps that was the reason why my hubby (he disliked eating leek in Malaysia) and girls have no problem in eating leeks that I cooked.  Leek is a part of onion family called Allium just like garlic, scallion and onion.  Leeks provide a good source of fiber, folid acid, manganese, potassium, calcium, vitamin B6 and C and iron.  It was said to improve the immune system, lower bad cholesterol levels, increase good cholesterol levels and fight certain cancer.  I eat leek purely not because of its health benefits but I happen to like leek a lot especially when it is stir-fried with a little oyster sauce.

I served the above as a one dish meal with a bowl of watercress soup.  This dish had frozen tofu, chicken breast, leek, red bell pepper, carrot and garlic.
 

Korean Chicken Vegetable Stew (Jjim Dak)

When I saw this dish in a Korean cookbook, I had to try it.  Why?  Because it has my favorite dang myun or sweet potato vermicelli in it.  Before that the only uses of dang myun for me is to make japchae (vegetable beef vermicelli) and I was so glad to find another uses for it.  Normally this dish is made with potato and since I don't really buy potato, I used Korean radish instead.  It paired so well together as the radish soaked up the flavor of the spicy gravy and won't crumble if cooked for too long.

This dish is very appetizing to me as it is spicy, sweet and savory at the same time, goes really well with a bowl of hot rice.

One thing I need to note though.  You have to eat this dish fast or once it is cooked.  If left on the stove, the dang myun will soak up all the gravy and become thicker and softer.  It is actually not too bad though as it makes the dang myun really flavorful.  But for presentation purposes or if you have guest then it will be a bad idea.

Edda's Drawings at 4.5 Year Old

Her illustration of princesses.

Edda is my girly girl who likes princesses and play with barbie doll.  So, of course she loves to draw princesses too.  I am impressed of her drawings these days, really what an improvement.  See her drawings at 3+ year old here and here.

Princesses with chat box.  But she still couldn't spell and read, so she just simply wrote down the alphabet that came to her mind.

Mee Sua Soup with Dumplings (菠菜饺子汤面)

I needed a quick lunch fix for Edda and me.  Earlier, I made a batch of chicken chive dumplings and freeze it for emergency such as a quick lunch idea and also an alternative for Evy when I didn't cook enough for her school's lunch box.  I checked my pantry and I had one bundle of somen left, just enough for both Edda and myself.  An lunch idea was formed as I remembered the way my mom cooked the somen for me during my confinement.  If you liked to check out my mom version just click under confinement.  It's similar to this except I added the spinach, dumplings, homemade glutinous rice wine and a little this and that.

Toasted Barley Tea (大麦茶)

My girl friend from China first introduced me to this barley tea.  She said she had it in Korean restaurant and really liked it and thus she bought it to make it at home.  Strangely though, I was never served barley tea when dining in Korean restaurants, or I have to ask for it?  They said it usually served with Korean BBQ.

Anyway, I saw this barley tea recipe in multiple Korean cookbooks and it's really easy to make.  You just have to search for this toasted barley in the Korean supermarket or Asian market.  This barley tea is very nutritious too and said to aid weight lost.  Chinese has been catching up and this barley tea is popular in other Asian countries too.  I found the benefits in a Chinese article which I copied and pasted here, 据本草纲目记载，大麦味甘、性平；有平胃止渴，消渴除热，益气调中，宽胸下气，消积进食，补虚劣、壮血脉，益颜色、宝五脏、化谷食之功.  Sorry I don't know how to translate it.

This is how it looks like and it's really fragrant.  The house was infused with toasted fragrant when I was boiling this.  The tea itself was fragrant and I like it without sugar.  The instruction at the packet of the barley that I bought said you can also served it cold with condensed milk or sugar for breakfast.  I will show you the picture of the packet in the next page.

Steamed Custard Sponge Cake

I wanted to create a recipe for steamed custard sponge cake.  This was my second trials.  I used a different recipe for the first attempt and for some reason the bottom half of the steamed cake was slightly hard, even though it rises beautifully.  So, I played around with this second recipe and added oil into my steamed sponge cake.  It didn't raise as high because my bamboo steamer was too big, I used a 12-inch bamboo steamer.  This recipe is okay but I wanted to try it with separating egg yolk and egg white (like a chiffon cake method) and compare the result.  And of course use a smaller pan!  This cake was soft but after the second day, it was still soft but had a slightly dry texture.

The steamed custard sponge cake from the bamboo steamer had nice top, even though I didn't cover it with a cheese cloth.  The first one I steamed using my electric steamer had bubbles top because the water condensation from the steamer kept dropping onto the cake.