Red Bean Mochi Cupcakes

I first heard about mochi cake through A Food Lover's Journey.  I looked through the recipe and it is a lot like the baked nian gao that I did for Chinese New Year except probably half the recipe called for.  It is an interesting idea to bake it in cupcakes and I wanted to give it a try.  Since I love red bean flavor and have some red bean paste on hand, I made mine into a red bean mochi (glutinous rice) cupcakes.

It tasted like "kuih" (a Malaysian cake), soft, sticky and slightly chewy with red bean flavor.  You can certainly substitute the milk with coconut milk to make it richer. This recipe of mine stays soft even after three days in a container.  Best eaten within three days, might go bad after that. One thing to note though, the paper will be hard to unwrap on the first day it was baked, but easier on the second day onwards.

You can buy the red bean paste in a can at the Asian grocery stores in the U.S. for those who are interested.  Feedback to me when you try this red bean mochi cake.  I had made it twice and loved it!

Yellowstone National Park Trip 2

Grand Prismatic Spring Area, Midway Geyser basin

 

Mammoth Hot Springs

 

Mammoth Hot Spring

Mammoth Hot Spring

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Spring

Yellowstone National Park Trip 1

We drove there with our relative from Singapore, spent 5 days and 4 nights there (June 9-13, 2010).  It was about 9 hours drive and we got there in the afternoon.  We didn't go into the park on the first day but we drove to Jackson Hole for dinner.  This was the second day of our trip, via South Entrance.

 

Love this picture and the reflection from the lake

 

Road construction delay @ south entrance

Old Faithful, both exploded at the same time.  It rained after that, it rained every days while we were there and mighty cold (maybe due to the fact that I didn't prepare winter coat, but it's summer and I didn't expect it to be this cold).

 

One of the hot springs

 

Midway Geyser Basin

 Midway Geyser Basin

Hope I name the place correctly!  If not, correct me if I am wrong. :)

Stay tuned for part 2 and 3!

Minced Meat Noodle 2

I was experimenting DouBanJiang (Chinese bean Paste) in this minced meat noodle dish.  If you have a DouBanJiang in your fridge, did you buy the spicy one or plain one?  I saw two versions and decided on trying the plain one first because I was afraid the spicy one would be too spicy for my girls.  To spice it up, I can always add chili oil or chili paste in my bowl.

I learned this presentation from Chef Chen Kenichi as this was how he served his minced noodle in his cookbook, cool huh?  I seem to only pile it in the middle but this was a great idea from him.

I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.  This week host is Ruth herself! Check out her delicious round up on July, 2nd! 

Easy Baked Tilapia Fillets

This baked fish is super easy even for busy working mom or stay at home mom.  Total time in preparation and cooking is less than 20 minutes.  It looks like it has crusted top, but it has not, all it has on top is just spices and salt.

I used Italian herbs seasoning because I couldn't use Teriyaki sauce or Chinese seasoning in this as it needed to be paired with my macaroni pasta.  You can say it was a western dinner night.  :)

Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes with Junior Mints

I had relatives coming over to my house and I wanted to bake something for breakfast.  I really liked my peanut butter banana cake so why not?  I made it into cupcakes because it was easier to consume and I had the idea of using the Junior Mints as decoration on top.  What do you think?  Cute or not?  Since we would be leaving to Yellowstone National Park the next day, cupcake was an excellent idea for traveling.  I just put the leftover in a ziplock bag and we could eat it in the car.  They liked it and my girls would choose to eat this instead of croissant.

The recipe can be found at my post Peanut Butter Banana Cake.  Just instead of using a square pan, you lined the cupcakes pan with cupcakes paper and fill it 2/3 full and decorate the middle with a Junior Mint.  Bake in the same temperature but for only 20 minutes.  Let it cool completely before storing.

Watermelon Soup

Do you know all part of watermelon can be consumed?  I know the white part of the watermelon can be used to boil soup and the soup is actually healthy for us.  Watermelon is a cooling food so this soup is best to consume during the hot summer days, especially good to relieves heatiness.  This soup is sweet on its' own and you only need to season it with a little salt to bring out the overall flavor.  I saw the Chinese used the white part of the watermelon in boiling soup from the Chinese's cooking show and was really intriguing.  So, when I cut the watermelon, I saved the white part to try it myself.  I discard the green skin but I read that some people use it to make salad.  I saved it in portions in ziplock bags and freeze it for later use.  Just defroze it a day before in the refrigerator. 

This soup is really delicious, very sweet and has the cooling effect.  Watermelon is in season during summer days so what a great way to utilize most part of the watermelon eh?  It is similar to the sweet soup came from fruit such as apple or snow pears.  Since this soup is very cooling, it is not advisable for pregnant women to consume.

Stir Fried Macaroni with Broccoli and Tuna

This meal was created when I took out the fish fillet to defroze in the refrigerator and ended out too lazy to do a Chinese stir-fry dinner for the night.  I loved baked fish because it was easier and healthier.  The baked fish above was really easy which I will provide the recipe in a later post.  Since I was not cooking rice, I had to come out with a dish to complement my American style baked fish .  I came out with stir-fried macaroni pasta and added broccoli and tuna in canned.  I did a similar pasta dish before but with a different pasta.  This pasta dish alone was healthy because it had broccoli, tuna and extra virgin olive oil. 

Have you tried turkey bacon before?  I tried it at Denny's when I ordered my healthy breakfast (egg white scrambles, turkey bacon and chicken patty).   I was hooked since then because it was really crispy and good and less fat than the original bacon.  I would recommend you to cook the bacon in a convection microwave oven if you have one, it was really crispy and most of the oil oozes out during the cooking process.

I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.  This week host is The Sweet Kitchen. Check out her delicious round up on June, 18th!

Chinese Water Chestnut Cake

My friend gave me three packets of water chestnut flour recently.  I wanted to try this Chinese water chestnut cake for a long time and finally I got my chance.  The above is my Chinese water chestnut cake without the bits of chestnuts.  I didn't have the water chestnuts but decided to make it anyway.  It turned out pretty good I think, tasted like cold jelly straight from the refrigerator.  I will certainly play with this recipe in the future because I saw others people water chestnut cake in yellow color instead of white.

This cake is actually served during Chinese Lunar New Year by Chinese, depended on where they are located.  I don't think we Malaysian eat this during Chinese New Year.  I pan-fried this with the equal mixture of flour: rice flour.  The batter was really crispy!

Stir Fried Pork with Long Beans

This dish was created with something I had in a restaurant here.  They stir-fried it with a kind of Chinese preserved vegetable (usually come in small packet selling for few cents each and slightly spicy, gosh what does it called!).  Anyway, I omitted here because I hardly buy Chinese preserved vegetable.   I read that it is best to eat less of the preserved food, more so if it is from China.  I even stay away from the salted fish and used only dried anchovies as substitute.  The motto for me is "If I don't buy, then I don't have to cook with it, thus we don't have to eat it", with this motto, we certainly eat less of the preserved and salted food.  It is hard to resist from not buying all the times, so once in a blue moon, I gave in.  Do you all stay away from certain unhealthy food? 

Peanut Butter Banana Cake

I am not sure whether you have noticed.  I have been baking lots of banana cake lately, ranging from just plain, marble, chocolate and now I am trying with peanut butter!  I needed variety so that even though I have been baking almost the same thing but it tasted different.  As I was figuring what else I can put into the banana cake or how to make it different and peanut butter came to mind.

I added chocolate chips per my daughters request, but I didn't add much.  You can add more if you like.  Since the top was kind of bland, I decorated it with heart shape chocolate chips design.  It turned out well don't you think?

This turned out great!  We all loved it and we could definitely taste the peanut butter in it even though it was subtle.   Evy even ask me to make it again.  If you are a fan of my banana cake recipe, give this a try too, providing of course you have no peanut allergy in your household.

Chi Ku Teh (Chicken Dark Herbal Soup)

Bak Ku Teh, a popular herbal soup that is dark in color that uses pork ribs, meat, etc.  But there is another version that uses chicken.  This is my first time uses chicken drumsticks for this soup because I believed the pork ribs made the soup sweeter.  After trying this, I can say it was good with chicken too, the drumsticks tasted good with the herbal flavor in it.  I loved to add boiled eggs and taufu pok (fried beancurd puff) in mine.  I was planning to create a marble eggs in this but decided against it at the last minute because I was afraid a piece of the egg shell might fall off and my daughter might accidentally drank it.  Thus no beautiful marbling effect with my boiled eggs here.

For this chicken dark herbal soup, I just used the A1 Bak Kut Teh premix that easily available at any supermarket in Malaysia.  I always bought some of these to bring back here whenever I am back in Malaysia. Got to stock up on food that I can't get it here right?  I noticed there were two types, one was without the Chinese herbs, just the premix and was selling at a cheaper rate.  The other one was in bigger packaging and included some Chinese herbs in it. I bought the one with herbs and just followed the packet direction in cooking this.  My hubby bought some fried yu tiao from Denver and we had this soup with some yu tiao just liked how I used to eat back in Malaysia.

Spicy Long Beans with Minced Chicken

This is one easy and delicious Malaysian dish we often have at home.  At home, we normally cook it with home made sambal belacan and pounded dried shrimps.  Living in the U.S., I managed to find a cut short for this dish many years ago.  I combined the shrimp paste in soy oil (Thai product) and fish sauce (to substitute belacan) to recreate this dish.  Now making this dish is so convenient, just open a bottle!

I finally saw some fresh looking long beans at my Asian store here, so I grabbed a big bunch as I haven't cooked with it for a long time.  Evy loved this long beans too.  If you don't have children at home, feel free to add bird eye chili or chili paste/sambal to make it spicier.  You can use ground pork/beef if that's what you have a home.

Mom's Crepes

This is the crepes I remembered from home.  One that is plain and sweeten.  My mom used to make this plain crepes for us when we were young and I remembered we all loved it very much.  Did you have this plain crepes before?  When I came over here, I was actually surprised that American served their crepes differently, with so many condiments and fresh fruits.

Now, I made it occasionally for my girls (no school day).  As you know, fortified cereal with milk is the easiest breakfast to serve kids in America.  We don't have a pasar pagi (morning open market) to go to buy the kuih-muih, nasi lemak, porridge, or whatever goodies the market sells.  So, I just give them what is convenient and also healthy for them.  Even though most cereals that my kids liked are probably sweet but it is still better for them since all have been fortified with vitamins and minerals and they had it with milk.

Stir Fried Chicken with Broccoli Stems

You can separate the broccoli from the broccoli steams and make different dishes out of it.  I used the broccoli for my microwave broccoli with butter and thyme and the stems I used in chicken stir-fry.  Nothing is wasted right, I even saved the green leaves on the stem to stir-fry.  I julienne it and if you are not an expert in taste, you might not even know what you are eating, unless the leaf gives you the hint.

I couldn't remember how I cooked this dish already, it had been left in the draft for too long and I couldn't refresh.  Looking at the picture, I don't think it is just oyster sauce, I seriously couldn't recall.  I know I lost a few good ones because of that.  Even I have to refer back to my old recipes to cook a certain dish again.  It was just too many over the years and I realized some of my old favorites I hardly cook it again.  Do you have the same problem?

Pork in Hoisin Sauce

I had this dish in one of the authentic Chinese restaurant in Memphis 10+ years ago.  They prepared it without the carrot, just the pork and fresh scallion and it was simply divine.  I tried to recreate it here and it was not bad too.  Except my girls won't eat the fresh scallion as predicted.  I knew they won't eat it so I added the carrots, well at least they will have a little vegetable in their diet.  Of course I cooked another veggie dish to go with this.  In my house, there will always be a veggie dish, in fact, I prefer more veggie in a meal.  My veggie dish will only be veggie but my meat/seafood dish will be paired with veggie as well. 

Try this easy dish for yourself.  Just a few ingredients with sauce you have at home.  Preparing dinner doesn't have to be difficult and a delicious and healthy meal will be your reward.  I am someone who will prefer Chinese food (no butter, heavy cream, and cheeses) over American food because it scream healthier to me. I guess it still fall on what you order on your plate.  Even in Chinese food, if you order crabs, lobsters, prawns, squids, coconut laden curry or dessert, fried food, beef and pork dishes all the times, you will end out with high cholesterol too.  I know in Chinese culture, when you eat out, you are obligated to order a variety of seafood and expensive items, as it to show your social status or whatever.  But I think we should eat for our health first and indulge only on Chinese New Year or special occasions.  Order healthier food actually cost less on your wallet too.
 

Edda's Drawings and Show Piece

I asked her what is this picture about?  She told me, on the right side is we are going out and on the left side is we are coming home.  Mmmmm.....

She said this is a picture of her sister, but the fat version.  Okay, it does look like a person with long hair.

But what about this?  She said this is a drawing about we are going out but didn't know where to go.  Great imagination huh?

She built this and asked me to take picture.

Then, she got excited and said she can make two and asked me to take picture.

Then, she kept building more so I asked her to be in the picture too.  I thought this was pretty good considering she made it closed together without it falling down.  Edda is three years and seven months old.  I would love to see her drawing before she goes to kindergarten.  Her abstract drawing now is too hard to understand.  Look at Evy's drawing before she turned three here.  I have one who draw properly from the very beginning (I'm serious ever since she started drawing, it was always proper drawing), one who draws abstract drawings only she can understand.  Why the huge contrast? 

My Mother's Day Cards from Evy

Front of card 1 (kindergarten, 6 years old, May 9, 2010)

(I saw mothers showing their mother's day card/ gift/ gesture made by their kids and I want to share mine too.  So that it will be documented here for my memory.)

 Inside of card 1

Her poem to me.  I asked her what did you mean by when you are gone?  She said it meant when she is at school and not with me.

Fish in Creamy Sauce

We know how important seafood is in our diet.  Among all the seafood, fish is considered the best choice for me as it is affordable, lower in cholesterol compared with the rest of the seafood except scallop & sea cucumber and nutritious.  I love to cook fish twice a week, alternating Salmon and Tilapia.

I used Tilapia in this and to get rid of the fishy smell, I marinated the fish with salt, ShaoXing wine and white pepper.  Of course in my cooking, I got to throw in colorful mixed vegetable for extra fiber.  I added one secret ingredient in this dish, evaporated milk for extra creaminess and fragrant.  Just don't over stir the fish to prevent it from broken out.

Another one of my easy dishes with minimal ingredients.  If you don't have evaporated milk, feel free to substitute it with cream or milk.

Spontaneous Las Vegas Trip over the Weekends

As spontaneous as it can be.  My hubby came home on Thursday and announced that let's go to Vegas tonight.  I was like how could that be possible since they (hubby and Evy) had to go watch Iron Man 2 at 7:30pm and what about his sleep since he had to drive 12-13 hours to Vegas.  Nevertheless, since the last time we had been to Vegas was 9 years ago, what the heck.  We reserved the hotel room at Circus Circus that night and took off in the morning at 4am.  My girls at one of the gas stops for branch.  Still chilly on the way there.  The last stop at Colorado before we moved on to Utah.

And where did we go when we arrived at Vegas?  China Town baby!  Got to have early dinner and shopped at Ranch 99 for drinks and snacks.  To my surprise, Vegas China Town is getting huge, it used to be a small area and now it occupied the whole street (Spring Mountain).  Any kind of Asian cuisine you can find it there, and it's authentic not Americanize.  One thing I did notice, lots of Koreans settled in Vegas, many Korean BBQ restaurants and supermarkets can be found there as well, not just Chinese and Vietnamese anymore.  One disadvantage about these restaurants, many accept cash only, so if you planned to dine in China Town, remember to bring lots of cash.  For your information, the Penang Malaysian restaurant there only accept cash.

The next day, we walked around a little bit under the scorching sun.  It was hot around 89'F and at time windy but very dry.  As you know, with little girls we couldn't walk very far and they were not interested at the buildings except M&M store.  Vegas has changed a lot too, old casinos were knocked down for the new, it was different from 9 years ago.  The traffic jam was bad, really bad, there was always a traffic jam on the Vegas strip.  We didn't have to wait long but there's always a jam.  Many people were there walking and shopping as well, pretty crowded.

This was one place they wanted to go.  We went in and they each got a bag of M&M to munch on.  Not forgetting to take a picture with yellow and red too.