Matcha Yogurt Cake

I remembered I made yogurt cake before and it was pretty good.  A co-worker gave me a big tub of Brown Cow vanilla yogurt so it gave me an opportunity to make this cake again.  I told her I am going to make a yogurt cake and give it to her.  She didn't know we can use yogurt to make a cake hence just had to let her try it herself I guess.  I decided on the Matcha flavor just because I liked it. This is another one bowl and a whisk recipe that I liked very much.  Easy and not a lot of things to wash later.  This cake is best the next day, a soft and moist cake with vanilla and matcha flavors.

Mushroom Tuna Thin Spaghetti

I created this recipe just because I had to really use up the organic button mushroom that I bought few days ago.  I also saw 4 canned of tuna in waters that I would have to use before it expired in 2018.  I know tuna was good in spaghetti with a little lemon juice added, so this was the best way to use up my tuna and mushroom.  I stocked up some Non-GMO thin spaghetti, spaghetti and linguine when it were on sales the last time.  I bought 2 bottled of Non-GMO spaghetti sauces too for the really lazy moment or quick fix.  I figured my elder daughter should be able to boil a package of spaghetti and heat up a bottle of spaghetti sauce for herself and little sister if needed to.  Perhaps I need to make some meat balls and freeze it for their convenience.

Oh yeah, if you have noticed my recipes recently, I liked to use both the Himalayan pink salt and sea salt together.  I thought in this way I would get the best of the 2 different minerals that were found in these 2 different salts.

Steamed Layered Sago Kuih

I was in loved with this Malaysian dessert when I first had it in Malaysia many moons ago.  I had no idea this dessert was actually so easy to make as I thought it would be difficult to produce this dessert at home.  I suddenly had a craving for this sago kuih again and went on Google to look for how it was made.  To my utter surprised, it was fairly easy to make and since I have all the ingredients in my pantry, I set up to give this a try!  I would try other flavor next time or other recipe for a different texture? This one is chewy.

I steamed it in my old-time electric steamer and to my total dismay, my 10+ years steamer broke down in the middle of steaming!!!  What a timing for broken down.  So, I had to cover it with foil and finished steaming it in my wok on the stove top.  Today was not a good day for me, one obstacle after another kept on happening to me on the same day!  I wanted to go to the bank to have some document notarize and found out I forgot my cellphone which had my ID card at home ( thus I had to drive home to get it),  then I went to the bank they told me they charged $5 for cashier checks (so I had to go to Walmart), went to Walmart and realized they only took cash or debit card for money order (I didn't have either one so had to drive home), then got a call from school to tell me to come pick up my younger girl because she was not feeling well and had fever (So, had to drive to school), then my steamer broke down half way through steaming (and I had to find alternative way to finish steaming my kuih, I prepared this in the morning before I got a call from the school, supposed to bring it to my friend's house at night.) and because of my girl not feeling well, I had to cancel the plan to have dinner at my friend's house! :-(  Whoa, I didn't expect all these to happen when I had all plan up nicely the night before.  Seriously, life is so unpredictable!  

Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake Revisited

After I visited a Vietnamese Baguette restaurant and they gave me few pieces of honeycomb cake to try, I realized that I haven't been making this cake for a long time.  So, it prompted me to give it a try again.  I got the honeycomb effect and it seem successful, however, I found it on the dry side.  I have no idea why, do you think I baked it for too long?  or I need to add more coconut milk?  Why it is dried?

Short-cut Curry Puffs

This is my short-cut way of making curry puffs as I don't have lots of time to spend in the kitchen. Edda wanted me to make curry puffs for her, and I remembered I used to make curry puffs while I was in my early 20s and people loved it.  I didn't have the recipe anymore but I remembered I only used flour, salt and butter I think.  I loved my keeper flaky pie crust recipe and it had all the ingredients that I remembered, hence I set out to try this flaky pie crust recipe for my curry puffs.

The skin is flaky when deep-fried as well.

As how did I come out with the short-cut curry puffs?  When I cooked a big pot of curry chicken with organic red potatoes, I took some of it without the gravy and keep it in the freezer.  When I have the mood or time to make curry puffs, I defroze the curry chicken potatoes the night before and then cut it into smaller pieces.  Then, I used my food processor to make the flaky dough.  After that, just wrap it and then deep-fried it in my newly acquired deep-fryer.  Viola!  Just like the name implied, this curry puffy skin was flaky.  Just toast it in a toaster oven to have a warm curry puff the next day.

You can also individually freeze these uncooked curry puffs and then put it in a Ziploc freezer bag and deep-fry it as needed.  In this case, you can have curry puffs anytime you desired.  It is great to invest in a deep-fryer, it makes deep-frying so much easier for me.  I especially love to deep-fry firm tofu in my deep-fryer and had it with my noodle soup, so good!

Crispy Shrimp Chili Shrimps Fried Rice

This was one of my lazy lunch.  I had to eat and I have no food in the refrigerator.  Luckily I always make sure my refrigerator has eggs, frozen veggie and frozen shrimps.  Hence, this shrimps fried rice to the rescue.  Shrimp is easy to thaw and with some leftover rice, fried rice is an easy one dish meal.

I found the Malaysian's Spicy Tiny Shrimp Sambal by Mama's Delights at the Denver's Asian market so of course I had to buy it regardless of the price tag.  I couldn't be choosy when they were none to begin with right?  This sambal added a little spice and fragrant to the fried rice and we really enjoyed it.

I cooked this very easily, just add the spicy tiny shrimp sambal, soy sauce, salt, a little sugar and finish it off with white pepper.

Red Bean Roti Canai

While shopping at the Asian market one day, I saw this frozen red bean roti canai.  It reminded of the Chinese red bean pancake dessert that I had when I was in Malaysia, so I bought this on impulse.  I just pan-fried this oil free in a non-stick pan and it came out looking like roti canai instead of the Chinese dessert that I thought it was.  It just tasted like roti canai with red bean filling so I was kind of disappointed.  Edda said she didn't like it at all.  Oh well, guess we wouldn't be buying this in the future.

I think the one that I made here long time ago tasted better than this!

Roti Canai with red bean filling.

Chili Crab Claws!

While I was shopping at Sprouts one day with my elder daughter, I saw these gorgeous crab claws on sales for $5.99/lb.  The cheapest I have seen for sales was $3.99/lb.  But these claws looked big and tempting and it was Chinese New Year.  So, I asked my Evy, do you want to eat some crab claws and she said sure.  Hence, crab claws it is!

I had Chili Crabs in mind when I bought this and since I wanted a really easy recipe so I looked online and adapted the recipe from Food.com.  Of course I made some changes to suit what I had at home and viola, a chili crab claws was created.  We had it with bread as the gravy was so great to mix with bread (I was too lazy to drive 25 minutes away to an Asian market to buy mantau/steamed buns and deep-fried it, thus the alternative.).  Surprisingly my little Edda who was not so keen about the idea of Chili Crab, enjoyed it a lot.  I was quite surprised actually but looking at them enjoying their crab claws really made me happy.  They even requested me to buy more crab next time!  Hahaha...

Swirl Green Tea Vanilla Pound Cake

I have a block of cream cheese sitting in the refrigerator so I had to find a recipe for it.  I remembered I once made a orange cream cheese pound cake that was really good.  I should have follow that recipe with I adapted instead of trying this new recipe at allrecipes.com.  It is still good but it was not as good as it could be as I have tasted better.  I was kind of disappointed.  Next time I will use the recipe in my blog for cream cheese pound cake instead of trying another recipe.

I added green tea powder for the middle layer.  Next time I probably make it all green tea flavor as this high quality matcha powder is really fragrant.  I took half to my work place and they all loved it. It felt great to share your food to someones who appreciated it.  :)

Chinese New Year Feast 2017

I am blessed to be invited to the Chinese New Year Feast of 2017.  Blessed with so much delicious and luxurious food to celebrate with co-workers and friends.  When you were faced with so much great food, what would you do but to dig in!  :)  Thank you boss for this divine and scrumptious meal.

This crab was super delicious!  Finger licking good!

Steamed fish for nian nian you yu.

Lobsters! 

Deep-fried Quails, my love!

Steamed Chicken, tradition.

Stir-fried Leek with squids, so that every day you get to count money.  Haha...

Girls' Lunch Boxes

I am back to making my girls' lunch boxes.  Organic bread, organic spring salad, organic Ranch dressing, all natural uncured turkey, all natural pepper jack cheese and non-GMO popcorns.  I can't stress that enough, homemade is the best food that you can give your body.  I tried to cook more often as eating out can be costly and packed with GMO ingredients.  It is hard to avoid GMO ingredients but I am trying to feed less of it to my kids.  For the process food, I mostly buy the non-GMO and organic ones these days, but my girls still have access to the GMO chips at school.  My girls are well informed believe me because I talk to them all the times but they don't have a choice when they are in school and were given the GMO snack.  Unless they have the will power to say NO to snack that was given which is hard.  Even I had a hard time to say NO to free food.  We all have a choice and sometimes I do like to cheat.  Cheat in moderation??  :P

Golden Shrimps to Welcome the Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai to those who celebrated!!  May this new year brings all of us much joy, peace of mind, great health, good luck and fortune!  I had experience a lot over the past three years.  Hell in 2014 and 2015 and basically had my world turned upside down.  Things that I have never thought could happen to me, happened to me and I had to wake up and be strong for myself and both of my girls.  Emotional roller coasters that I had to overcome and the responsibilities that I had to bear to ease the transition for my girls.  Glad to say that everything worked up well in God's hands.  Everything flown into place with the help of the invisible hands and the universe and I am very blessed.  We settled ourselves and move on in 2016.  That was the reason for the lack of postings all these years, I didn't have the luxury of staying at home and inventing and experimenting with new recipes anymore.  My time was limited to sending my girls to school and back, taking care of them and work, work, and more work.  My day off I just want to rest and/or bring my girls out to eat and do stuff.  I finally got more half day off for myself and spending more time with my girls and get to cook more home-cooked meal which was great!  I needed a break and learned to truly appreciate those working and full-time moms. It was not easy.

Okay, back to this recipe.  I made this super-easy deep-fried Golden Shrimps recently for a CNY party.  One bag of 2 lb extra large shrimps, shelled but with the tail on.  Made some cuts on the side of the shrimps to make it straight.  Then season the shrimps with sea salt, black pepper, organic no-salt seasonings from Kirkland, sesame oil and a little sweet potato starch.  Mix well.  And then wrap each in the wanton wrapper, seal with flour/water glue, set aside and finish the rest.  Lastly, deep-fry until golden brown and cooked through.  Serve with Thai sweet chili sauce.  Enjoy!

Baked Cheesy Rotini

I hardly cooked a proper Chinese meal these days.  Hmmm...not sure why!  Perhaps when I have an off day, I wanted to bring my girls out.  It might be also it will be too hot to cook at home during the Summer when my house doesn't have an air-conditional.  I didn't want to warm up my house and sweat myself when wok frying on the stove.  If I do cook, simple one dish meal would surface. Maybe one dish rice dish finished in a rice cooker is another idea.  Or just a simple noodle soup with frozen dumplings, green veggie and an egg throw in.  Something simple like that or just a bowl of fresh salad with dressing.

This pasta dish was actually not quite simple to make as I have to precook the pasta first and then set it aside and then cook the ground chicken (with chicken breast that I have to cut and ground myself) with tomato sauce and then set it aside.  Before I assemble the poultry tomato sauce and pasta with cheese in layers before finishing it off with a cheese layer on top and then baked it in a preheated 350'F oven for 20 minutes and then broiled it for 3 minutes to brown the cheese to finish it off.  I probably won't be making this anytime soon as it was quite tedious.  Ha!

Butter Parmesan Linguine

This is one simple one dish meal to prepare for your family.  I like the simplicity of it and yet so delicious.  All you need is some leftover chicken breast meat, frozen veggie, linguine or any kind of dried pasta, butter and shredded Parmesan cheese.

I like the frozen broccoli and cauliflower mixed as it matched well with the pasta but you can certainly used any kind of veggie you have at home, frozen peas and carrots work well too.

Marmalade No-churn Ice-cream

After I learned about this easy self-made no-churn ice-cream, I just loved to play around with new flavors!  This is one flavor that I tried after the green tea flavor.  I had some marmalade that I made in the refrigerator, so I thought why not I tried putting preserves into the mix and hence here it is!  Next time I would love to try the mocha flavor that I loved.  Creativity is endless and so does the flavors, just play with it as you will create your own kind of flavor that none in this world!  Enjoy and have fun experimenting!

Coconut Mochi Cake

I have some sweeten coconut flakes in the refrigerator and making a coconut mochi cake just strike me as an excellent idea.  It couldn't be yummier and the crust was crispy in the day it was baked and turned soft the next day.  Nevertheless it was still delicious!  If you like all things coconut, you might want to give this recipe a try!  Least to say it was super duper easy to make as well.  Enjoy!

No Bake Chocolate Oat Bars

No Bake Chocolate Oat Bars to go!  I made this bar before back in 2013!!  I think it's about time that I made another version of this bar again.  Any healthy nuts, dried fruit, seeds you have, just add it into this bar and you are good to go!

Packed and ready to grab and go bar.  My girls loved it!

Citrus Poppy Seed Short-bread Cookies

I was just in the mood for some short-bread cookies.  I had freeze some orange zest for use in baking in the future and this recipe definitely called for it.  This cookie is fragrant with butter and citrus and very crunchy.  I hope you would like this short-bread cookies.  It is not hard to make but the dough is crumbly so it can be hard to shape into a log.  Good luck!

No-churn Green Tea/ Matcha Ice-cream

Yay!  I don't have to pay more for green tea ice-cream anymore!  Creamy and delicious green tea ice-cream can be easily made at home.  Since I learned the method for no-churn ice-cream, I have been making my own ice-cream with the flavor that I loved!  With the basic no-churn ice-cream recipe, you can create any flavor ice-cream that you could think of! If you can think it, you can make it!  I would definitely experiment more flavors in the future.

My Pullman tin finally came into good use!  The ice-cream fit nicely in this tin plus it came with a cover.  So convenient and so lovely!

Green Bean Starch Banchan

I had this in a Korean restaurant before and I remembered wondering what was it, what was this jelly texture thing actually is.  And now I know, it is actually a green bean jelly that was made of green bean starch and water and then cook until thicken.

I remembered my mom used to make homemade glue for me.  Whenever I wanted glue for my school project, I would run to my mom and she would use hot water and this white flour to make glue.  I told my girls perhaps I should keep one packet in my pantry so that whenever you girls need glue, I can make some for you.  Haha...  Why not, it's edible glue and it's all natural!

I served mine with some sweeten soy sauce plus chili oil.  Added some chopped green onion as well. I think I could add more water to make this jelly a bit softer as I found it a bit hard.  Would be nice if the texture is softer I think.

Caramel Hoen Kwe Water Chestnut Kuih

This Hoen Kwe kuih is refreshing and so easy to make.  This kuih is supposed to be white in color but due to my inexperience or first time cooking using this hoen kwe flour, I sorted caramelized the sugar and resulted in this caramel color kuih.  Tastewise, it was actually a plus because this kuih was fragrant with caramel and soft with the crunch from the water chestnut.  The original recipe from the back of the Hoen Kwe flour tub was too sweet, so I cut the sugar down to 1 cup.  A bit similar to water chestnut kuih but the texture is different.

Pour into a glass container, let cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before slicing.

Steamed Radish Cake

Homemade steamed radish cake can be so flavorful, soft and delicious!  I always keep a daikon in my refrigerator or Korean round radish.  I used it to make soup, banchan (Korean side dishes), etc.  One day since I have all the ingredients at home, I said to myself, why not make some radish kuih?  I love radish cake, either pan-fried or eating it soft and fresh with Sriracha, so satisfying! This method is considering a short-cut method since I don't have to cook everything in a pan until thicken and then steamed it. Just mixed and steamed!

The end result is so good.  Just substitute taro for taro cake and pumpkin for pumpkin cake.  Or leave it out for a white plain rice cake! (Then you can cook some savory chai por/preserved turnips to eat it with) This recipe should be interchangeable.  Good Luck experimenting!

Cranberry Oatmeal Bars

I saw this recipe while flipping through my old Penzeys Spices magazine.  As you know, I am attracted to easy and healthy recipe, even though I couldn't really say this recipe is healthy but hey it has oats and dried cranberries in it!  Hahaha....  Anyway, what got me in the end is this one bowl and a hand whisk preparation method.  I don't like to see a sink full of things to wash in the end, so I always favor this type of recipe.

I liked this recipe, the cranberry oatmeal bars turned out very fragrant and delicious.  Next time I can make this for teacher treat or party.  My girls took this as their school snacks and ate it as after school snack.  Easy to make, less thing to wash and delicious to eat, what more can you ask for? *wink*

Avocado Chocholate Chips No Churn Ice-Cream

I first saw this recipe in a video shared by a friend via Facebook.  The easy recipe caught my eyes, I was like I could make ice-cream at home without an ice-cream maker?  Furthermore, it was so easy to make and the vibrant green color no-churn avocado ice-cream really tempted me to give it a try.

Hence, viola!  Frankly that vibrant green color was impossible to achieve, I am wondering whether they added green coloring for the video!  The picture provided by the Food Network recipe was the same as mine, more whitish in color instead of the vibrant green.  Only 1/2 an avocado used and we had to mix it in with 2 cups of whipped cream, that green color would be long diluted.

I added mini chocolate chips morsels as my girls and I loved chocolate, nothing would go wrong with this combination unless you dislike chocolate chips.  And my verdict for this ice-cream, it was good and creamy!

Yummy home-made no churn ice-cream!  As easy as 1-2-3!  Try it!  The only downside is lots of cleaning afterward, that was the least fun part of it. 

Korean Fish Cake and Italian Sausages

I had some Italian sausage in the refrigerator and thought that Korean fish cake and Italian sausage would make a good pair, so this dish was created.  You can add some sliced jalapeno too if you prefer it spicy.   My girls only picked up the sausages and fish cakes to eat and ignored the onion and carrot, haha...  I guess you can omit the onion and carrot if you have picky eaters at home too.  This is definitely a great side dish to eat with rice!

Long Grain & Wild Rice Chicken Soup

I got the idea of making this chicken rice soup from a sample lady working at Costco.  She used only 4 ingredients, chicken base, organic no-salt seasoning, Seeds of Change's quinoa and brown rice and canned chicken breast.  Just add everything with water and viola! 

I remembered I have packets of Uncle Bean instant rice in my pantry and some leftover chicken meat so I bought the Kirkland Organic No-Salt Seasoning and organic chicken base to make this.  Of course for me got to add some vegetable to make it more balance and colorful!  To think about it, instead of chicken noodle soup, you can always make this chicken rice soup whenever someone is not feeling well at home and just wanted some chicken soup eh?

Cheesy Sausage Rotini with Broccoli and Cauliflower

My little Edda told me she wanted to eat cheese pasta and my Evy told me she has a craving for sausages.  Hence, this dish was created to satisfy both of my girls.  As for me, I wanted some veggies in every meal so of course I had to add some broccoli and cauliflower into the pasta to make this one dish meal more balance.  Very easy to make and delicious to eat, try to make it yourself!

These days I found frozen vegetables more suitable to my lifestyle.  With work and taking care of my girls, sometimes I just don't have time to cook an elaborate meal anymore.  I am not a wasteful person and I hate to throw away rotten vegetable but I found myself doing that quite often because I just didn't have the time to cook it.  So, frozen veggies work best for me and it is so convenient too and I don't have to worry about wastage.

Taro Dessert Soup with Taro Chewy Balls

Slightly more work than the usual dessert but definitely worth all the effort.  I have a soft spot for taro, anything that made with taro root, I know I wouldn't be able to resist it.  I found Veronica chewy ball recipe on the web and decided to give it a try.  Mine didn't turn out as chewy, probably it was because I didn't use the hot water to knead the dough and used the tap water instead.  After I had mixed everything and then I remembered I forgot to boil water, oh well.  Also I would suggest to add sugar when mixing the dough so that the taro chewy balls would be sweet instead of bland.  Overall, it was still a nice dessert!

Korean Rice Cake Soup

My original plan was to make a seaweed tofu miso soup with added Korean fish cake.  And then I remembered I still have half a packet of the fresh rice cake in the refrigerator and then the AHA moment, why not I just mixed it in together with the soup?  Now I had a one dish meal ready to consume hot in this cold weather day and I didn't have to worry about cooking the rice.  This makes one excellent meatless meal as well.

The fresh rice cake is good in stir-fry, spicy with gochujang or non-spicy with soy sauce and so good in soup too, so remember to grab a packet of this whenever you are in a Korean supermarket, it can certainly comes in handy.

Caution:  Don't overcook the rice cake, otherwise it won't be chewy anymore, it will expand and become soft.