Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Buttery Mashed Potatoes


Everyone has their own way of making the mashed potatoes.  Posting this recipe seem a bit out of place because I assume everyone knows how to make it.  Haha... Anyway, making the mashed potatoes using an electric beaters was taught to me long time ago by an American friend.  That was when I realized making mashed potatoes from scratch was so easy.

Coming from Malaysia, my exposure on mashed potatoes was mostly from KFC and it seem so processed and difficult to make at that time.  And since my mom only cooked Chinese food, making American food seem so far fetch and difficult.  After living here for a while, I slowly realized American food is actually not difficult to make at all.  This recipe is more on the sinful side so enjoy!

Saturday, December 08, 2012

Mushrooms with Hijiki Seaweed



My first exposure to Hijiki sea vegetable was on ANA Japanese airplane.  It came in a small dish along with other small dishes in a set meal.  It think it was just a seasoned hikiji salad.  The shape and size was unlike any sea vegetables that I tasted and I actually liked it.  My girls said it looked like little black worms.  Hehe...  Then, I read some where that the ancient Chinese practitioners actually used Hikiji as one of the prescriptions for low iodine.  Interesting right?

Hijiki is a brown sea algae that cultivated in Japan, China and Korea.  Then, it was boiled and dried to be sold as dried hijiki, the color turned black when dried.  It is a rich source of iodine, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and soluble fiber.  Because it has 10 times the calcium of milk, Japanese eat it for the calcium intake and overall balanced diet.  All sea vegetables are low in calories and contains many minerals that our bodies need.  I read that seaweed can detoxify and convert the toxic metals in our bodies to harmless salts which then pass through the body's intestinal tract.

One drawback that I read about Hijiki seaweed is it contained inorganic arsenic and might cause cancer if consume in a large amount.  But there is no ban and no known illnesses associated with consuming hijiki seaweed to date and the Japanese have been eating this as part of a balanced diet for centuries.  You can read more about it here.  United Kingdom, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Canada have issued a warning on hijiki seaweed.  I think the health benefits out weight the negative as it's impossible to consume this in large amount anyway and I only cook it once in every two weeks and used it as an extra for mushrooms or noodle dish.  I put some in Japchae and it was delicious.

By the way, I think it looks like Chinese "Fai Chai", the one that looks like black hair that Chinese consume during Chinese New Year because of it's auspicious meaning.

Fresh oyster mushrooms and fresh Shiitake mushrooms

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Thanksgiving Meal for 2-4 persons


Everything made from scratch except the pumpkin pie which I bought at Sprouts.  This was about 5 lb. worth of turkey breast and it is good for 2-4 persons (4-6 persons in our case).  Cranberries sauce for my girls and cranberries salsa for me.  Creamy mashed potatoes top with melted Kerrygold butter and chopped scallions.  My banana oats buns and easy crunchy green beans.  Turkey gravy, short-cut method (turkey dripping, chicken stock and thicken with potato starch).




Thursday, November 29, 2012

Taro Mochi Cake


Showing you pictures of my Taro Mochi Cake.  I am still in the process of experiment as I am not quite happy with the result so I won't be sharing the recipe for now.  It will be a while until I get my hand on some taro again and begin another trial on this mochi cake.  But will post the recipe once I succeeded in accomplishing the texture that I want.  Stay tuned!


It was okay but a bit too soft, so more experiment needed.  I want to do it differently the next time.


Sunday, November 25, 2012

Korean Spicy Stir-Fried Squid (Ojingeo Bokkeum)


Ojingeo Bokkeum, Korean spicy stir-fried squid is one of my favorite dish to order in a Korean restaurant.  I also like the octopus version.  However, sometimes the dish we ordered turned out super sweet or just too sweet for my taste, so I intend to make it myself.  The one I had was served on a bed of raw cabbage, I thought that was an excellent idea in the sense that juices would come out from this dish and flavored the raw cabbage.  Downside was of course they used lots of cabbage hence the dish looked like a great serving size but in fact half of it was the cabbage.  I also liked that they added Korean rice cake in it and gave this dish an extra chewiness.  I would have added rice cake if I have some on hand but since I didn't, I used the Korean fish cake instead.


I didn't make my sauce too sweet nor too spicy as my girls shared this dish with us.  Surprisingly Edda, my little girl loved this dish a ton!  She said it was delicious and asked me to make it again.  She is also a fan of my kimchi pancakes, even requested to save some for her lunch box the next day.  :-)

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I want to wish all my readers a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving!  Go ahead and indulge all the great food and dessert on this special day.  Just worry about losing the weight after the New Year.  :-)  For those who will be shopping for Black Friday deals, have a fun time shopping and hope you will be getting what you wish for.