Dairy-Free Buns

I am going milk free, instead of buying organic whole milk, I am switching to unsweetened almond milk (but planning to make my own almond milk).  I am still buying organic yogurt (occasionally, but thinking of stopping it), butter and natural cheese though, just not the milk.  And then I realized that lots of my baking recipes used milk in the recipe.  So, again I had to experiment with my old recipe again.  This is a soft bun recipe that I loved and luckily it worked out well with almond milk.  Hence, my first dairy-free bun uses almond milk was created.  I am not sure but it might work with just plain water, who wants to experiment?

This dairy-free bun is soft and fluffy and goes so well with my matcha kaya!  Next experiment will be to play with the whole wheat version of this bun.  These days, I mostly make my own bread/bun or buy organic bread or all natural bread from Sprouts or Whole Food.  Please read the ingredient list, not all the breads are created equal!  

Tofu Shirataki

Finally I got my chance to try the House Food's Tofu Shirataki!  I gotten my chance because those coupons were just irresistible!  Whole Food accepts one manufacturer coupon and one in house coupon, so when combining the two, I only paid 30 cent for each packet, irresistible right?   A plus for me is it is also Non-GMO certified, gotta love that!

I thought that noodle made with tofu must be soft and fragile but this is not the case, with added yam flour, it is actually chewy and doesn't feel like eating tofu.  Seeing the cashier just dump the packet across the scanner, they probably know that it is not as fragile as its name implies.

I took a picture so that you would have an idea of what it looks like.  One packet is just enough to serve one, not a lot.  I served mine with stir-fried cabbage and Korean style spicy chicken.  Both recipes can be found in my blog.  Then, just mixed it all together and season with a little fish sauce and white pepper.

Homemade Granola

Granola is just toasted oats with a mixture of dried fruit, seeds and nuts.  Homemade granola is so easy to make, so why spend more on the store-bought one?  Since I don't eat oatmeal, but I do buy rolled oats for muffin, cookie, bar and bread, so why not make it into granola too right?  I love the granola on yogurt, so I actually made this for my yogurt.  Besides topping my yogurt with granola, I also added some hemp seeds and chia seeds.  And that would be our dessert!

Granola would make a great snack too.  One or two hands full if you found yourself not really hungry or you just want something to chew.  You actually make this in less than 30 minutes and most of the ingredients are probably already in your pantry.  Next time I would add some nuts too, to make it better.

Lunch Box for Two

Oh ya...it finally came a time that I needed to prepare two lunch boxes.  I was worrying because I hardly have any leftover these days as we all finished whatever I cooked for dinner, well mostly.  They were growing up and started to eat more I guess.  So, I was asking my elder girl, what should I prepare for you and your sister to bring to school if we don't have any leftover?  She said we are fine with sandwiches, you can just make us sandwiches.  I was like what kind of sandwiches, not peanut butter and jelly right?  She said, lettuce with tuna.  I was like okay. So, I went shopping for Rudi's organic bread, organic romaine lettuce, swiss cheese and a Whole Food's rotisserie chicken (as we don't eat deli meat).  If no rotisserie chicken, I can fried an egg with some pork floss, or use the tuna pouch.

Their dad bought a case of yogurt drink without reading the ingredient list, thus the reason the frozen yogurt drinks are in their lunch boxes.  We grew up drinking yogurt drink in Malaysia so it never occur to us that it is actually packed with high fructose corn syrup and all sort of other sugars (bad stuff!).  Anyway, this frozen drink acted like a ice box for the sandwiches.  And it melted into cold drink during their lunch time.  Definitely not buying it again after we finish whatever we have left.

The verdict:  Both of them loved it and kept asking me to make them sandwiches. 

Matcha Kaya

This idea came about when I was talking to my girls.  I asked them what would be a good filling for swiss roll that I was planning to make.  I told them I have blueberry jam or should I make some kaya?  What else that we can use as a filling and then Evy said green tea.  I was like hmmm green tea... what about green tea kaya and thus this idea was born.  Gotten excited and made this recipe right away (that's the plus point of having a bread maker!)  Tada!  Present to you matcha kaya!  This kaya is sweet, fragrant and hint of green tea flavor.  I thought it was sweet and going to cut down the sugar to 1 cup in my next batch.  Trying to reduce the sugar if I can.  But lots of people like their kaya sweet, so it's up to you!

After I was done making the kaya and browsing over my sponge swiss roll recipe, only then I realized that my electric beater was broken and couldn't possibly make any sponge cake!!  Oh well, no sponge cake at the meantime until I buy a new electric beater.  Thus far, the cake and muffin that I make only required a hand whisk.

Stir-fried Chinese Long Beans with Chicken

You can buy the Chinese long beans at the Asian supermarket.  I don't think you would miss it because it is long and green.  If the long beans look fresh and green, I would buy it.  In Malaysia, we love to fry it with sambal belacan (chili paste) and make it into a spicy dish.  However, since I have some leftover grilled chicken breast, I decided to make a non-spicy dish out of it.  You need to fry it in oil so that it will be crunchy and crisp and delicious.  These long beans are good in fried eggs too where we chopped the long bean into small cubes.  I think I have that recipe in my blog from years back.