Baked Sweet Potato Fries

What I did when I have some sweet potatoes at home?  Dump it into curry, turn it into fries and make a Chinese sweet dessert soup with it.

Since I don't really do deep-frying these days, I chose to bake it.  Baking it also easier as I don't have to fry them in batches, less time consuming, less messy (no oil spattering every way) and also easy clean up.  It might not be as crispy as the deep-fried one, but suit our family just fine.
 

Homemade Almond Milk and Almond Meal

 

When I learned that almond milk is actually very easy to make, I wanted to make it at home.  Problem is I have to wait until the raw almond is on sales so that I can stock up.  If not, making the almond milk at home can be more expensive that buying the non-GMO Silk's almond milk.  The above is what I made with 1 cup of raw almonds, it only lasted for two days.  Only my two girls have a small glass of almond milk with Milo in the morning and my husband and I only use it in our morning coffee, so frankly we don't drink a lot of milk to begin with.  We drink water throughout the day, milk is just for breakfast.  I can certainly stretch my dollar by adding more water.  I saw that some add up to 8 or 10 cups of water per 1 cup of almonds.  That would be cheaper than buying but to me it would be very diluted.  I used 3 cups of water and I still find it quite bland when compared to store-bought (the next time I would try 4 cups and stretch it to 3 days).  Nevertheless, nothing beat homemade as the ingredients are only water and almonds.  Store-bought one added a lot more stuff in their ingredients list which I would gladly avoid if I can.  

If you like, you can actually season your almond milk with sea salt, raw honey, agave, pure vanilla extract, dates, etc.  But I just want to keep mine plain.  Homemade almond milk does separate, so shake well before use.  Or if you can afford it, I think 1 cup of raw almonds to 2 cup of water is the best ratio.

Tofu Shirataki Noodle Soup

When their daddy was on a business trip, I just wanted something easy to make and good for lunch and dinner.  A big pot of slow cooker chicken stock that I can cook overnight just pop up.  Just so happen that we had some leftover rotisserie chicken breast and some fresh romaine lettuce and mushroom in the refrigerator, the meal was planned.

For dinner, instead of tofu shirataki, we had some whole wheat thin spaghetti as noodle and also par-boiled spinach as the vegetable.

Happy Birthday Edda!

My sweet little girl is turning 7!  How time flies right?  Especially for those who have been following my blog since the very beginning.  You have seen my pregnancy announcement, her ultrasound, the birth story, baby pictures and now she is 7, no longer that tiny anymore.  :-)  She is growing up well, a great student, smart, well behave, listen well, helpful, kind, just a little stubborn at time.

This is the birthday cake I made for her birthday party.  Chocolate cake (the same recipe from her 1 year old birthday cake) with chocolate butter cream with cut out pieces of canned peaches.  Surrounded with Bauducco's chocolate wafers. 

Happy Birthday my sweet Edda and we all love you very much!!!

Edda when she turned 1 year old.

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans

Have you ever heard of eat your beans, especially black bean?  When organic beans are on sales, I would love to grab some, mostly garbanzo bean, but now I also get some black bean and red kidney bean.  Got to have some beans in the diet right?

According to the Chinese medicine, green bean, red bean and black bean can detoxify the body.  Green bean is cooling so it is not suitable for women during their menstruation, but red bean and black bean are both considered a neutral food.  I have a recipe for these beans detoxification soup which I will share later.  Stay tuned!

This quinoa salad is pretty easy.  Like my recipe here, except added some black bean and cucumber and top it with shrimps instead of mixing it together.

Raw Raspberry Chia Seeds Jam

I first learned about the raw jam at a Prevention magazine.  It was the Quick Strawberry Jam that uses the chia seeds that intriguing me.  So, of course I had to cut out the recipe and glue it on my cookbook because it will be on my to-make-list.  Then, I started seeing other raw jam recipe on my Facebook page, like raw blueberry jam.  I finally got to try it with raspberry because it was sour and I bought too much.  I wanted to buy 4 but my elder being greedy wanted 6, so I bought 6 packages and it turned out sour and no one wants to eat it!!  Ugh!!  So, I got to make raspberry vinegar and this raspberry chia seeds jam with it.

 
This recipe yields about 4 jam bottles.  So, I kept 3 bottles in the freezer, just take each out to thaw in the refrigerator overnight before using.  One I keep refrigerated and ready to use and I read that it should last 2-3 weeks.  This works as a fruit spread too and can be used in anything.  Hmmm....maybe I should use it to make some cupcakes!

This is definitely a quick way to make jam and healthier, with a dose of omega-3 from the chia seeds, but I still prefer the traditional method.