More CNY Bakes 2008 (1)

Pandan Kuih Bangkit ~ Decided to add some pandan paste for a change. Don't think it's green enough...haha... Anyway, not very happy with this batch and I think I know why. I used the frozen coconut milk (curdled coconut cream!) instead of opening a new can of coconut milk, didn't think it would make a different but it did (ended out needed more coconut milk). It's not as crispy & light, more towards crunchy and melt in the mouth. Oh well, lesson learned!



Melt-in-the-Mouth Pineapple Tarts ~ Everyone favorite! I stick with the same old pattern because it yield more tarts for me. I didn't use a lot of pineapple filling too, so the sweetness is just "gam gam hor" (just nice).

For my pineapple tart recipe, click here.
For my kuih bangkit recipe, click here.
For my step-by-step-pictures guide, click here.

Green Bean Almond Cookies

My first CNY bakes after much procrastination. I bought a packet of green bean flour thinking of using it to make some cookies for CNY. Did a search on the Internet and found this recipe here. Easy enough for my liking and thus got the recipe printed out to try later. After seeing few of my frequent blogs came out with their CNY bakes, I finally got motivated to start baking. LeeLee (Hugbear) said once my engine starts, I will keep going...hahaha...



This cookie is crunchy and melt in the mouth. It has the green bean fragrant as the almond is used for decoration only. Next time I would probably omit the almond, shape the cookie differently and make it a green bean cookie instead. Evy and Edda both adore this cookies as they couldn't resist themselves to ask for it everyday. Evy prefers it without the almond on top as she would pick it aside.

I sure think I made pretty and yummy CNY cookies, anyone wants to buy from me (provided you are willing to pay $12-$16 per bottle plus shipping)? LOL!

This is the Green Bean Flour that I used. Since many have asked, I posted a picture here for reference.

INA Oriental Seafood Pan Mee

Usually Sat & Sun are my days off from cooking. We combine dining out and Chinese take out for these two days and I just glad that I don't have to think of what to cook. But sometimes in order to save money, I would cook for Sunday dinner. The above is an example of those days. I wanted to try this new product that is offered at Mytasteofasia.com. INA Oriental Seafood Pan Mee that is flavored with abalone and scallop definitely sounded attractive. So, I grabbed the noodle and told my hubby let's try this noodle tonight. I took out some prawns, assorted fish balls, tofu and baby spinach and I was all set.

This INA pan mee is the thin version as you can see from the picture above and I totally loved it!! I actually much prefer this thinner version than the original wide version. It really smooth to the throat and the soup was tasty too. It came with dried seaweed, dried corns, etc and thus when you eat the noodle, you can taste the flavor of seaweed too.

A cheap dinner for us. If we dine out, it would be $40-$50. Order Chinese take out would be $20. So, this $5 dinner is considered cheap. Satisfying nevertheless.





This is the picture of the noodle which I grabbed from Mytasteofasia website. For those who already ordered from that website, please give this noodle a try next time. For those who are living in the U.S. and misses M'sian food, this website really is a one stop shopping heaven for you, provided you couldn't find these products at your local Asian markets. Please go support my friend R online store, okay? :) As you can see, I love to help my friend promote his online store. :P

Vermont Curry (House's Curry Sauce Mix)

The other day I asked my hubby to buy me 2 boxes of Korean instant noodle bowls (12 bowls per box), one shrimp flavor and one Kimchi flavor and you know what he came home with? He came home with 2 boxes of shrimp flavor and 3 boxes of Kimchi flavor and two packets of House sauce mix. That's a lot of noodle bowls I tell you! As for the curry mix, I think he couldn't resist the pretty girl that gave him the sample of the curry and thus bought the sauce mix. He said it's really good so he buy (but who knows! LOL!). He paid $2 each and it's on promotion I think.

This Vermont Curry (it's Japanese curry basically) tasted pretty good and healthier because no coconut milk needed and everything cooked in 30 minutes. For $2 it's actually pretty cheap considering it has two packets inside and one packet alone can serve a big pot of curry.

My lunch today.

Closer look of the curry.

I added mixed vegetable instead of potatoes since we are not really a fan of potato. I really like this House brand and next time would probably seek out other flavor curry to try. Cheap, healthy and so convenient, that's my way of cooking.

Golden Prosperity Soup

This soup has:

Dried bean curd sheet
Dried bamboo Fungus
Dried lily buds
Tofu
Tang hoon (Bean Thread Vermicelli)
Egg drops

I cooked them in Swanson chicken broth for ease. You can use homemade chicken stock of course.



One bowl of this can serve as lunch already, as it is quite substantial. I love this soup so want to share it with my readers, now you have one new soup to cook for your family. I think this soup is great to serve during Chinese New Year. You can substitute dried bamboo fungus with dried fish maw or simply put both. Hmmm...would be good with crab meats, imitation crab sticks too huh?

Steamed Siew Mai (Pork Dumplings)

Decided to use the leftover filling from the Wontan Rolls with Nori Sheets to make Siew Mai. Serve with my homemade Chili in Oil. Everyone loved it! Guess next time I would have to make more.



Siew Mai is an item commonly served in Dim Sum restaurant. Some more expensive one added one whole shrimp in the siew mai. Homemade siew mai is healthier because the restaurant added lard in the siew mai to make it tastier. Not sure whether they still use lard in preparing their siew mai these days? Because of this we always order the Har Gow (Shrimp dumpling) instead of siew mai.