Rustic Fall Theme Wedding Cake and Decorations

I'm so excited I finally got my wedding pictures from my photographer.
I had a fall wedding this year and did my own wedding cake.
The reception was at the Hart House at the University of Toronto.
It has a nice rustic setting and it's simple and elegant.
I wanted to do something to match the place and the fact that it was the fall.
So all my decorations for the wedding and the cake just ended up as a fall theme wedding.

I baked a 3 tier cake for my wedding. The top 6in is a dark chocolate cake with pistachio buttercream.
The 9in layer is a white chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream.
The bottom 12in layer is a vanilla cake with a mango and citrus buttercream.

Covered by fondant. The brown ribbon is also fondant.
Used leaves and a branch with pumpkin as decorations.
I used fishing wires to hold the leaves onto the cake.


This is the center pieces on the long tables we had. The color leaves we used in an effort to match the cake. All fall colors. We scattered small acorns and pumpkin along the long table since it's so long.

Along with some candles as well ;)

I weaved all the baskets myself. Rolled newspaper, white glued the rolls into tubes and used them to weave. After the spray paint job you can't even tell it was newspaper!


The headtable had garlands of fall color leaves for simplicity sake.

And our table seating was pretty much harvest color as well.

:) I'm so glad everything turned out so well. Had such a great time and I'm glad our guests did too.

For our cookie wedding favour, Click Here.

Fuzzy Melon and Chicken

Fuzzy melons are awesome in taste and texture.
It also absorbs flavour so when you cook it with meats, it becomes very flavourful.

This is a very simple dish. The melon takes time to soften when cooking but length of time depends how soft you like the melons.
The melons are cooked as soon as it's translucent.
I personally like them a bit softer so I cook it a bit longer.

This is the base recipe for you to scale if you need to cook more.

Fuzzy Melon and Chicken

Makes 1 Plate Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 10-20 mins

Ingredients

• 1 small fuzzy melon (just 1 of the melons in the picture on the left)
• 200g chicken
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• ~3/4 cup of water, use as necessary
• Optional handful of "Bean Thread Noodle", usually the bag says rice noodle but it's not vermicelli. Chinese character for it is 粉絲 and it's very different from vermicelli which is 米粉

Directions

1. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and add in the soy sauce and and sugar and mix.
2. Use the blunt side of a small knife to scrape off the skin of the melon.
3. Rinse the melon and cut into strips (refer to picture on the left). Cooking time will depend on how big you cut the melon.
4. Add a bit of oil to a heated pot and add the garlic.
5. Cook the chicken until 70% and then scoop out the chicken into the bowl or plate you will be serving with. Leave behind any liquid left from cooking the chicken. This will be flavour for the melon.
6. Add the melon into the pot. Add a little bit of water and cover the pot to cook.
7. Stir every so often and add more water as necessary to make sure you do not burn the pot or melon.
8. Cook the melon until it's translucent. Can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes depending on how big you cut the pieces and how much water you're using.
9. If you are cooking noodles, add the noodles when the melons are translucent. Add more water if necessary, really depends on what type of noodles you're using.
10. Add the Meat as well to finish cooking. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.

Done :)

Note: If you don't have 粉絲 on hand, you can always use potato starch noodle as well.

Match (Green Tea) Honey Spritz Cookie

 Originally we were going to give 2 bottles of wine per person for wedding favours. One day my hubby had and idea and asked why don't we do cookies and wine. I wasn't too thrill with the idea since we already have all the wine but I figured we can drink it ourselves if we want to.
So I decided to make green tea heart shape cookies since it's a recipe I've done before.

The nice thing about these cookies is that it's freezable so you can make them well ahead of time. The most I've tried freezing these cookies before eating them is 1 month. Since I know 1 month will work great, that's how far ahead I made the cookies.

I saran wrapped pairs of cookies so I can easily put them into the favour bags the day before the wedding.
I got these pretty favour bags on the left from China.

I found filling the gun to be very time consuming. Even more time consuming then it is to make the cookies and squeeze out each cookie. Since I had to make 200 cookies, I had 2 cookie guns going. I would fill while my hubby would squeeze it out.

The heart shape from the Wilson cookie gun isn't as good as you can see from the picture on the left.
It looks a bit weird but the cookie gun is easy to use.

I borrowed the second cookie gun from my friend.
Her's is an Italian brand cookie gun. It's harder to use but the heart shapes turn out a lot better as seen in the picture on the right.

Overall, the product taste good so I cared less about the shape.

Match Honey Spritz Cookie

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp matcha
• 180g non bleach all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 113.5g butter
• 50g sugar
• 1 egg
• 50g honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F.
2. In a bowl, mix together the matcha, flour, baking powder and salt. 
3. In another bowl, cream the butter until fluffy using a stand mixer or a hand mixer. 
4. Add the sugar, egg and vanilla to the butter and beat until evenly mixed and fluffy.
5. Add the dry mixture to the ingredients and mix until the dry ingredients is just incorporated. The dough should look shaggy and somewhat fluffy.
6. Check if the dough is too wet, if it is, add more flour.
7. Load the dough into the cookie gun and press the dough onto a cold, ungreased cookie sheet.
8. Bake for 8-12 minutes or until the cookies are lightly golden brown around the edges. Remove from heat and onto cooling grid.

Enjoy :)

Birthday Cupcakes Oct 2014 - Strawberry Buttercream and Lemon Buttercream

It's been a while since I posted since I was crazy busy with moving and the wedding. But I finally did something I want to post about (besides my wedding cake, I'll do that when I get the official pictures)

This year we celebrated 4 birthdays at the same time as Thanksgiving. My husband, brother, niece and nephew are all born in October.
So what sort of cake do I make to celebrate 4 birthdays?
This year I went with cupcakes! Multiple for everyone.

Actually I was super excited this year to try out a new buttercream recipe.
I recently experimented with Swiss Buttercream and found out just how big of a difference methods contributes to the final product!
I used the exact same egg white:butter:sugar ratio as I normally do for my Italian Meringue Buttercream (minus the water because I don't need it anymore) and it was amazing!
It was every fluffier then normal!
I was so happy. This is now my new go to method.

Ratio-wise I'm still playing with it to see if I can decrease the butter and sugar a bit more to see if it'll get even fluffier.
I'll eventually settle on something I really like.
I also need to check if making my own butter helped too. That was also quite easy. Machine did all the work :)

Until then, here is the method I'm now using.

1. Mix sugar into the egg whites and whip over a double boiler set up.
2. Keep hand mixing until whites are 160 degrees F
3. Once it's at 160 degrees, remove from heat and mix in stand mixer Thick, glossy and cool. Can take up to 10 mins.**
4. Add in the whipped butter and mix until smooth. (if the butter is not pre-whipped, you can add it in little chunks at a time. I find with my stand mixer and pre-whipped butter I can drop in the entire thing)
5. Flavour accordingly

**Whipping time depends on the mixing stand you use!! I have a Bosch Universal Plus and it only takes about 3-5 mins to whip up on speed 4! I talked to the ladies at healthykitchens and they said with older Bosch machines you should use speed 3 and it takes about the same amount of time.
My friend uses a Kitchen Aid Stand mixer and it takes her about 10 mins. So please watch while it whips. I've tried whipping it for 10 mins before and nothing really changed too much, maybe a little less fluffy but at least it didn't collapse.

This time I made Strawberry and Lemon butter cream :) both were a hit.
I added a small fondant star for decoration on them just for cute factor

Have fun experimenting!

Pesto Chicken Beer Crust Pizza

At my parent's house we cook Chinese food every weekday. Since we have all the Chinese seasoning on hand, cooking Chinese food is the easy way out. On weekends my brother and I like to mix things up sometimes if we're not feeling lazy. Pizza surprisingly can be quite labour intensive depending on what type of ingredients you use.

If you use things like pepperoni, already cooked meats, pre-sliced veggie and shredded cheese, then it's super easy.

For this Pizza, I used homemade beer crust dough and Pesto sauce.

I'll eventually write separate posts for those items.

Pesto Chicken Beer Crust Pizza

Makes 1-12 inch pizza, Prep Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 20 - 40 mins

Ingredients

• 300-500g Pizza Dough (Depends on crust thickness and size of pan)
• 1 Chicken thigh meat (sliced and cooked)
• half an onion sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 Tbsp Pesto Sauce (a little more doesn't hurt)
• 200g Mozzarella

Directions

1. If you're making your own pizza dough, make it and let it sit for 30 mins while you prep the rest of your ingredients.
2. While the dough is sitting, slice up the onions and dice up the garlic. Cook in a little bit of oil in a pan on medium heat to slowly caramelize the onion. Doesn't have to be fully caramelize when you use it for this pizza.
3. Cut the chicken meat into small bite size piece. Add to the pan and cook the meat
4. Let your toppings cool
5. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (or to the max heat your pan allows, I like 400 as it makes my crust nice and crunchy)
6. Grate your mozzarella
7. Roll our your pizza to your prefer thickness. The one in the picture above was cracker like because I like my super thin crust pizza.
8. Spread the pesto on the dough. Since this is pesto, cover even the the edges, your crust will taste awesome.
9. Spread a thin layer of cheese
10. Add the chicken, onion and garlic topping.
11. Add the rest of the cheese
12. Bake until the crust is brown and the cheese is all melted. Depending on thickness of your dough, can take anywhere from 20 mins to 45 hour. So keep an eye on it.

Not too complicated. :)

Maple Miso Spare Ribs

These ribs are one of my favourites to make.
I love Maple Syrup. Ever since I got real maple syrup and tried cooking with it, I've been addicted to cooking with it. It's so good. I love it for my pancakes, but cooking with it adds a nice depth to your food.

This is definitely a fusion type dish since maple syrup is mainly from North America :)

Maple Miso Spare Ribs

Makes: 1 Plate Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• 1 lbs spare ribs (cut per rib)
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp corn starch
• 1 heaping tsp Miso
• 2 cloves garlic - minced
• mirin or other type of rice wine to deglaze (optional)
• 1 to 2 tbsp maple syrup

Directions

1. Wash your spare ribs to help get rid of chipped bones and then cut them per rib.
2. Marinate it with the soy sauce, sugar and corn starch for a minimum of 10 mins. The longer the more flavour your meat will have.
3. Mince your garlic
4. Heat your pan. Once it's hot, add oil and add the garlic and miso. Quickly stir.
5. Add the spare ribs and mix well. Keep stirring so your meat doesn't burn.
6. Add a little bit of water and cover to cook.
7. Check and stir your ribs every several minutes. Add more water if required, don't have to add too much, just a little to help the miso dissolve and to keep meat from sticking to pan.
8. Once your meat is ready, add a splash of mirin to deglaze the pan. Stir things around.
9. Turn off heat and add the maple syrup. I like to have all my ribs coated with maple syrup.

And you're done :)

Miso: It doesn't matter what type of miso you use. I find the taste is relatively the same between yellow and red miso. I don't find much of a difference between Korean and Japanese miso either.

Tip: you do not need a lot of soy sauce in this dish because the soy flavour really comes from the miso itself.
Also the Miso may be salty so do not add too much of both or your dish will be salty.
Balance it out with more sugar.

Simple Flower Pattern with Strawberries

It's summer time and it's almost time to pick the July strawberries.
Strawberries are not only yummy but they make great decorations for your cakes!
You can make simple yet elegant designs all by slicing up strawberries and placing them in specific patterns.

The default shape of the strawberries are great to work with. Pick out the small and large strawberries and dedicate them for different roles. (large sharp ones for the base of the flower, smaller pieces go go in the middle etc)

This flower design is actually very easy. The only thing that took a lot of time was slicing up the strawberries.
The cake I baked in this post is the Almond Chiffon cake from the Cake Bible.
They're 9 inch in diameter and 2 in tall each.

I used Raspberry Greek Yogurt as the filling in-between.

Take your strawberries, wash them and pluck out the greens at the top.
Then slice up the strawberries vertically.
Once you have a good pile of various sizes, you can start assembly.

Use the bigger pieces with a pointy end first and lay them in a big ring. I centered mine so that it'll end up right in the middle.
Once you're done 1 ring, lay the next ring overlapped on the first one. Overlap them halfway on top of the first layer and put the new slice in the middle between the strawberries that are already there.
Keep on going until you're almost in the middle
With my 9 inch cake and the first layer about an inch in from the edge, I only needed 3 layers of strawberries before I started using smaller strawberries and standing them up.
For the middle, use smaller slices and slant the first batch. Keep on going and eventually your middle ones will stand up straight.
If you want, you can even use a whole strawberry in the middle with the pointy side up.

Since I had left over strawberry slices, I did the sides as well.
No need for any yogurt or cream to stick the strawberries.

Pretty and simple!
Enjoy your summer treat!!

New Cook book - The Bread Bible

I'm so excited!!
I just got a new book as my birthday present. It's Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible".
I love her books. I have her 2 cake books and her pastry book. This adds nicely to my collection.

I had a chance to finally make bread over the weekend.
It was so good.
I tried the cheddar loaf and I was so happy with the flavour and the texture of the bread.
The cheddar flavour was really nice, I didn't have to add anything to the bread when I eat it as toast because it's so full of flavour already.

That pre-fermented sponge thing is really interesting. But I think my fridge is too cold for it because when I measure the temperature, it was below the temperature Rose noted it should be if you put it in the fridge.

I baked the bread on Sunday, today is Thursday and it's still soft.
So it seems to last as long as the Chinese soft white bread recipe that I had posted.
Only thing is that it used all purpose flour instead of bread flour. So that helped with the tenderness.

I'm going to slowly work my way through the book and do some experiments and adjustments along the way.
Once I get going with experiments and adjustments I'll be able to start posting recipes ;)

Sour plum pork spare ribs

This is a super easy pork spare rib dish to make. Great when you don't have time and you need to do other things. It's yummy and has a nice fruit sour taste that can help stimulate appetite.
If you have an electric steamer, you can leave it alone unmanned. You can do the same with the rice cooker method if you have a big enough rice cooker. I used my stove top steamer so I couldn't leave it completely unmanned but I can sit at the table and work on other things while it cooks.

I honestly don't use measuring spoons when I cook, but I can give estimate for how much of each sauce I use. Please use it as a guideline, it really depends on your taste if you want more or less.

Sour plum pork spare ribs

Makes 1 Plate Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients

• 2 lines of spare ribs
• 2 Sour Plums
• 1/2 tbsp full of ground bean sauce (full as it over the top and not flat top)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp corn starch

Directions

1. Add the ground bean sauce, Soy Sauce, sugar and corn starch to the plate/container you're going to use to steam the ribs and mix together.
2. Take 2 plums out of the jar and add it to the plate. Squeeze the plum to break it apart. Mush the plum around and mix with the rest of the sauce.
3. Wash the ribs and cut the ribs into individual blocks (1 hard bone per block, if there's no hard bone, make it about the same size as the others)
4. Add the meat to the plate and mix with the sauce. Let it sit and marinate.
5. Add water to your steamer and boil the water. Wait for it to get to a good boil and steam hard.
6. Optional step, saran warp your plate so you avoid too much water in your dish.
7. Place your plate into the steamer.
8. Steam for 20 mins and check if the meat is all cooked. It really depends on how big your plate is and if you had to stack the ribs together. If you didn't have to stack, it's most likely done. If you stacked, poke around to make sure
   it's all cooked.

Buttermilk Waffle

So my brother picked me up from work the other day and when we were talking about what we're going to do on the weekend and what to buy at the grocery store, we somehow ended up at waffles.
Luckily, I was able to borrow my friend's waffle maker to satisfy our cravings.

This was the first time we made waffles at home and I wanted something very fluffy but crisp.
Looked up several recipes, made some adjustments and it was so yummy.

This base recipe makes 4 batches of the waffles in the waffle machine I used.

Buttermilk Waffle

Makes 8 Waffles, Prep Time 10 mins Cook Time 10 mins

Ingredients

• 124g flour (Because I have unbleached all purpose flour, I did a half and half mix between that and cake flour)
• 1 tbsp Brown Sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 16 g melted butter
• 1 eggs (separated)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.
2. Separate the egg and add the yolk and vanilla into the buttermilk and mix.
3. Whip the egg white to stiff peak.
4. Add the dry ingredient to the buttermilk mixture and mix well.
5. Fold in the egg whites using the whisk so you don't loose too much air.
6. Use a 1/3 measuring cup to scoop the batter into the waffle iron.
7. Follow waffle maker instruction and cook until it's golden brown

Tips: At first, I tried to pour the mixture into the waffle iron but I found that the batter either overflowed because I poured too much or there were holes because I couldn't spread it well enough at a fast rate.
Using the scoop allowed us to spread the batter better so it helped eliminate the holes.

Soft White Loaf Bread

My recipe is adopted from pain de mie. The original recipe is in Chinese, I had to get my mom to translate it for me. I modified the method and a little bit of the ingredients to suit my taste.

On the original website, she said to split the dough if it's too much for the pan but she didn't tell how to tell if it's too much...

So after some research, this is the measurement I decided to use: 900g for a 9x5x3in pan or 600g for a 8x4.5x2.5in pan.

So measure your pan before you bake to determine how much dough you'll need.  

One thing I found out when measuring, is that the width you see on the paper, is measured across the top and not the bottom since the bottom is more narrow and the top is wider.

This recipe adds up to slightly lower then 600g so I used a 8x4.5x2.5in pan since it was the closet pan size.

Soft White Loaf Bread

Ingredient

• 300g bread flour
• 4g instant yeast
• 5g salt
• 25g honey
• 15g oil
• 195g milk, i have 1% milk at home so this doesn't add a lot of fat (130g is 2/3 of the milk, measure this out first because you might not need all 195g. Depends on humidity)
• 15g butter
• This adds up to 559g

Directions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.
2. Add in honey, oil and 130g of the milk and mix well.
3. Knead the dough and slowly add more milk as required. Even if you're not mixing it by hand, you should be able to see how well the dough is absorbing the milk to judge if you need more. Or you can always stop the machine and feel the dough.
4. Knead until it is smooth and elastic. Best test I found was the window pane test.
5. Knead in the butter
6. Let it rise to about 2 times the size. When you press a finger in, it should spring back slowly. 
7. Flip onto table and deflate. Then fold the left side 1/3 and right side over the folded side. Then do the same thing up and down.
8. Flip around and cup the dough with palms facing you. Pull the bread into you. Do that on all 4 sides so in the end you'll have a round shape.
9. Let it rest for 20-30 mins
10. Press on it to degas, try to keep it in a circle
11. Make a triangle shape by folder the right and left side towards the middle at a slant
12. Start at the pointy end and roll towards you
13. Once you finished rolling, tuck in the ends and put the dough edge side down into the pan.
14. Let it rise to double to triple the size.
15. Use the poke test to see how much longer does it need to rise. When you poke the dough, the indent is suppose to slowly come back and not to the full point. It should actually stay a bit indented. If it rises back right away, then you need to poof longer, if it doesn't rise back at all, it's overpoofed.
16. Bake it at 375 degree F for 35 mins.

Tip: If your house is cold, turn on the oven light and put your bowl in there to let the bread rise. My house is 17-19 degrees C in the winter so I have to do this. It works quite well

The more I did research into bread making, the more scientific I found it. It can be easy if your oven, material etc matches nicely the recipe you find. If something varies, like temperature or material, it can become very complex to troubleshoot and adjust the recipe unless you understand the science behind making bread. 

But I find it very fun. After a several loaves, I think I finally have a good feel for my mixing machine and the proofing process.

So don't get discourage if the first time doesn't pan out for you. 

Allergy season is upon us - Natural way to help stuffy nose

Ah Spring. Time for new life, rain and allergies.
I am allergic to some pollen and dust. It hits me bad in the spring and fall.
I get stuffy nose and 10 years ago, there was no pill to address this.
They only had allergy pills to address runny nose, itchy eyes etc.

When they finally made pills that address stuffy nose as well, they were freaking huge and I hate pills :(
And I was so dependent on the pill it was horrible. If I miss taking it, I just suffered.
But since I hate pills, I avoided it and suffered for years.

So a couple years ago, my co-worker told me about neti pot. I looked it up, what it does sounds gross but I gave it a try and I was so happy I did.

Pills suppress the symptoms but never fixes it.
I found that the irrigation actually helps get rids of the symptoms rather then suppress it.
I found that over time, I actually didn't have to wash as much and still get by the day without really congesting.

However I still found the pot somewhat hard to use. When I'm super stuffed up, it just didn't work. The pot can be very frustrating and time consuming and it just turns me off from using it when that happens.
An other friend told me to try the squeeze bottle, but I was very skeptical about it. Finally when I had to get new pot, I decided to try the bottle and now I can say I'll never go back to the pot again.
The bottle is awesome. Maybe because you can control the water pressure and make it work even if it's super stuffed up, it's awesome.
I used it when I have a cold and for allergies to wash out bacteria and pollen/dust.

Please use boiled water and not water straight from tap. Apparently there are parasites in unboiled water that can potentially latch on to things inside your body (like your brain) when you do the wash so just to be safe, use boil water.
When i'm in maintenance mode, I don't have to wash twice a day. I can wash maybe once a day of every other day just to keep from getting a pollen and dust build up.
I'm also able to get away with half a packet of salt rather then a whole back when I'm in maintenance mode.

Yes it's a bit gross, but the relief you get is totally worth it. It's natural and actually helps solve the problem rather then just putting a band-aid on it.

Happy Spring :)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Propolis Honey for skin care!

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) is not only good for salads, but it's actually good for your skin!

I only made this discovery a few years back and I wished I made it a long time ago to help my brother's skin problem.
He has eczema and seasonally, it gets really really bad. He's tried everything when he was a kid. The Dr recommended using Aveeno or the special prescribed cream we have to get at the pharmacy and honestly, none of them really worked. We found that he has to constantly put on the cream as he's dependent on the cream and if he forgets to put it on, it will show. The cream never heals his skin, just keeps it moisturize.

A couple of years ago when I was doing more research into natural skin products and do it yourself stuff, I started looking into Olive Oil and honey.
Someone used EVOO for a face mask and she found her skin became really nice and soft after.
Another masked she liked to do as aspirin mixed with honey. I tried both and found nice results after.
So that got me thinking where else can I use those 2 items and I did some further research.

The Greeks have used it in ancient times for multiple reasons including on skin and hair.
EVOO is high in anti-oxidant and it's anti-inflammatory.

So I experimented on my dry hands in the winter. Once I noticed it actually improves the quality of my skin, I tried it on my brother.
Within a week, his skin started looking better. It wasn't as dry and he only had to apply at night.

Then we tried propolis honey. The problem with propolis honey is that it's a bit sticky and in liquid format, it has alcohol content so it can sting if your skin is broken.
Due to the fact that it's a bit sticky, we only tried experiment at night after showers and before bed time so the skin had time to absorb before going to bed.
Propolis honey is anti-inflammatory, high in anti-oxidant and anti-bacterial.

We found that when we combined the 2, honey first and then olive oil after, his skin actually healed.
He can put it on every night, and his skin actually looked normal by the end of 2-3 weeks of using honey+EVOO. That was something creams were never able to do.

I highly recommend giving it a try during the dry season.
I put it on a couple nights a week during the winter season to help prevent my skin from becoming dry.
If you're doing this as a maintenance program, usually you don't need to use the honey. The olive oil will be enough.
If your skin is in a really bad state, I find the honey helps speeds up the healing.

The most common question people ask when I tell them I use EVOO on my skin is "isn't it oily?"
Well, yes it's oil, but if you use extra virgin, I find that your skin absorbs it rather fast so you would not get it all over the place.
It's natural and absorbs nicely.

There's a lot more research now into EVOO and Propolis honey since people have turned their attention to using natural items.
So if you want to look up what specific properties are in each that helps, it's easily available now on the internet.
I just wanted to share our experience and hope it helps others.

Cheers

Dragon Fruit

 So you might have seen this in the supermarket and wondered what are they and how do you eat it.
Some find dragon fruits tasteless but I find them sweet.
They're also very easy to eat.

Because the fruits are imported from far away from where I live, I find that most of the time the fruit is a bit bland. I suppose it's one of those fruits that don't hold it's flavour as well. Once in a while, I'll get lucky and get one with more flavour and sweetness.
Hopefully just because it's picked before it's ripe doesn't make it lose too much nutritional value.

So how to choose the fruit?
Look for a fruit without spots and is not too hard and not too soft.
Unless you live in a country that grows the fruit, chances are most of them are on the harder side because they pick the fruit before it's ripe in order to ship it.
If it's squishy then it's probably bad.
I buy ones that are slightly soft to the touch and I find them sweeter.

The flesh and the seeds of the fruit is edible.
Cut the fruit into slices.
And then you can peel the skin away from the flesh to eat it :)

Fish Paste and Egg "pancakes"

I love eating fish balls, squid balls, beef balls etc, but I was never very fond of eating fish paste by just cooking it as is.
Even though fish balls is made from the paste, when the manufacturing companies make the balls, they add more things into it to make it springy rather then soft.
So if we have fish paste lying around, I would cook it with something rather then eat it on it's own.

This "pancake" is a nice way to change the texture of the paste and adds flavour to it.

Ingredients
Half a tub of Fish Paste
3 Eggs
1/2 tsp to 1 tsp of white pepper powder (to taste)
1/8 tsp of salt



Directions
1. Use a fork and stir the fish paste to mix it up and break it loose
2. Scramble the eggs, add the white pepper and salt to it
3. Add the egg very very little at a time to the fish paste in it's container. Mix well after every addition.
You'll probably want to add about half an egg every time you add and mix or else it'll be very hard to mix.
If you find that it's not mixing very well because you poured too much egg, do a folding motion to help incorporate some of the egg and keep folding until you're at a point that you can stir to mix well.

4. Once all the Egg is incorporated, heat up your pan to medium heat.
I used my cast iron griddle and I was able to cook everything at once.
5. Oil the pan and pour the mixture like you're cooking pancakes onto the pan.
They should be able 3 bite sizes.
6. Cook them like you would pancakes, wait for 1 side to set (you can tell by the edge), then flip it over
7. They will expand when you cook, brown both sides nicely and you're done!
:)

Tip: I like using the container to mix as I find it easier, if you start with a full container and need to use a bowl, find one that is similar size to the container. If you use a big bowl it's actually harder to mix.

Rice Water

The first day of spring has just past. Meaning it's about that time to start your seedlings indoors so you can be ready when frost disappears.
I don't like gardening because of the weeds, so I try to grow things indoor.
We have various house plants around and my basil plants seemed to have survived through the winter.

I don't like using chemicals to nutrients but organic stuff is so expensive. But over time, you need to refuel your soil to help your plants grow.

We got this tip about rice water from my aunt and tried it out.
The results were pretty amazing. Our Christmas cactus that use to bloom once a year started blooming every couple of months after we started giving it rice water.

So you might be wondering what's rice water and where can I get it.
When I say rice water, i'm actually referring to the water you drain away from your rice after you wash your rice.
Typically, you would wash your rice before cooking it. When you swirl the water around when washing the rice it comes cloudy and white. And that water is usually poured down the drain.
So now instead of getting rid of all that water, I now use it to water the plants around the house.

Just be careful and check if your plant likes basic or acidic environment before you do it.

This is pretty amazing considering it's at no extra cost and we use to just pour it down the drain.

Homestyle Cream of Corn with Fish Maw Soup (魚肚)

This is a super fast soup that you can make in less then 30 mins.
It honestly only really needs the cream of corn, water and Fish Maw but at my house, we typically add a couple more items.

What is Fish Maw (魚肚)?
When I say the word in Chinese and translate it directly to English, it's "Fish Stomach". But it's not the stomach. It's actually part of the fish that allows it to float.
It has a spongy texture, sort of like tofu that you freeze and find it full of wholes after.
If I didn't tell you what Fish Maw is, you would probably think it's some sort of tofu product :)

Here's the package of Fish Maw that I usually get.

This will make enough soup for more than 10 bowls of soup.

Homestyle Cream of Corn with Fish Maw Soup (魚肚)

Makes 1 medium size pot Prep Time 10 mins cook time 15-20 mins

Ingredients

• 2 Cans of Cream of Corn
• 2 Cans of Water
• Half a package of defrosted Fish Maw (177g)
• Several Slices of Ginger
• 1/2 Tbsp of Salt
• 1 Egg (scrambled)
• 1 package of Firm or "Old" Tofu (Optional)

Direction

1. Open the 2 cans of Cream of Corn and pour it into a pot on top of the stove top.
2. Turn on the heat to high.
3. Use the Cans to measure out the 2 cans of water. Use a chopstick to stir the water in the can to get all remaining corn in the can loose. Pour it into the pot.
4. Rinse the Fish Maw under water and squeeze out all the water before cutting it to bite size pieces
5. If you are going to add Tofu, now is the time to open the package, rinse it and cut it into cubes.
6. Once the Corn mixture comes to a boil, add the Fish Maw and Tofu
7. Let the soup cook for ~5 mins or so once it comes to a boil.
8. Crack an egg and scramble it.
9. Add salt to the soup.
10. Use a ladle or chopsticks to stir the soup and pour in the egg.
11. By mixing the soup when you pour in the scramble egg, it will make 蛋花 ("Egg Flower"). The wisp of eggs add a nice look.
12. Make sure the soup is still at a boil and then turn off the heat because you're done!!

Super easy and super fast. :)
Enjoy!

Tangerines(桔) - Chinese New Year Fruit

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Chinese New Year is a time for huge celebrations and family gatherings.
In Asia, they have a week off and many people take additional time off to travel back to their home village to celebrate with extended family.
Traditionally it's 2 weeks of celebration.

It's very festive in Asia but here in Canada, we do what we can.
Close to the time of New Year, you'll see lots of New Year stuff on sale, ranging from food to decorations.
Food is very very important and everything we eat has meaning behind it!

The meaning is derived from the way the name of the food sounds like (sometimes they even come up with special names just to be used around the celebration). And that brings us to Tangerines.

Tangerines usually go up in price around New Year for this reason. It's considered one of the "New Year" food and everyone buys it, so price goes up. Why do we eat Tangerine?

Well, there's a specific Tangerine that is called 桔. 桔 is Luck!
Luck is very very important in Chinese New Year.
So if you want luck, you must get the fruits and have them in your house to bring you luck.

There's usually another name I call the tangerines by which sounds like "Gold" in Chinese but my mom says 桔 is slightly smaller.

Either way, both the fruits work during New Years because it sounds good when you say the name.
So how can you tell if it's the right one? Usually there's special New Year packaging on the fruit so it'll be hard to miss.

I wish you all good luck for the new year.

Ma Po Tofu

Serving: 2-3 if it's the only dish

Cooking time <10 mins

Prep time <10 mins not including marinating time

As always, if possible, marinate the meat in soy sauce, sugar and corn starch for a min of 15 mins before cooking. If not possible, then as long as possible.

You do not have to finish all the cutting before you start cooking, that will shorten prep time as long as you can multitask :)

Ingredients
1 package of Firm /"Old" Tofu
300g Mince Pork
2 cloves of Garlic
a bit more then 1 tsp Ground Bean Sauce (If you use the tsp, don't scrap it flat, overload it)
1 tsp Chile Garlic Sauce
2 Green Onion, chopped

Thickening Agent - if required
- Water (just enough to dissolve the Corn Starch)
- 1 TSP Sugar
- Corn Starch (pending how much water is there in the wok)

The Sauces that are used: 

Directions
1. Heat the pan and add the oil and garlic when the pan is hot. Stir the garlic around.
2. Add the pork and stir.
3. While the pork is cooking, rinse the tofu and cut into cubes. Not to small because when you stir fry it, it might break smaller.
4. Add the Chili Garlic Sauce and the Ground Bean Sauce and mix.
5. Add the tofu when the pork is 80% cooked.
6. Since Tofu is technically cooked already, heat until it's warm and pork is 100% all cooked.
7. Check how much water is in your pan and if you want to get rid of it/thicken it. If I have a lot, I usually pour out a bit of the water to use to dissolve the corn starch and sugar. Pending on how much water I have, I use anywhere from 1 TSP to 1 TBSP of Corn Starch. Make a hole in the middle and pour in the solution and mix. The moment it bubbles mix in food with the sauce.
8. Add in green onion and mix
Done! :)

Tips:
Firm or "Old" Tofu is firmer and will not break as much when you cook!
Cut bigger pieces so when it breaks, it won't disintegrate into mush

My House Cooking Staples for Chinese food

Since I decided to add Chinese cooking to the blog, I thought I better write a brief note about the cooking staples in my house.

Why would I add Chinese dishes?
It was because of my brother. When my brother heard about me learning to make Chinese Soup, he asked me to send him copies of the recipes.That's when I realized, even though we both can cook normal day to day food, we never learnt how to make soup and without our parents, we would be totally soupless :*(

That made me think about posting them to my blog as well because I'm sure there's other people out there who would like to have Chinese soup but doesn't know how to make it.

I figured, since I'll be posting soup recipes, might as well post other quick dishes that we make for dinner.

So in our kitchen, we have the day to day items and then a variety of sauces and spices etc that we use a couple times a month.

In this particular post, I'll at least make a note of all the stuff I use on a daily/weekly basis. The rest will be found in recipes as I post them.

I will eventually post another one on soup items when I compile the list of what should be refrigerated and what doesn't have to be. 

Soy Sauce

This is a must have!! But did you know that there's many different types of Soy Sauce? Not just the different brand but the taste as well! I still remember my little brother's none Asian Best Friend telling us that our Soy Sauce taste so much better then what he uses at home and we were so surprised that there can be a difference.

The most basic difference between Soy Sauce is light and "old"/Dark.
Light Soy Sauce is the one that is most typically used and what you see at restaurants. You can get less sodium version or just normal. This is the one we use
The less sodium one I also use is this one:






Both are now widely available now so you don't have to go to Chinese stores to get them.

Old/Dark Soy Sauce is the darker in colour and stains your food in the dark colour. It's actually less salty. We typically use this for colouring in things like Soy Sauce Chicken.

Fish Soy Sauce is used on fish like the name suggests :P Whenever we steam a fish, we will pour this Soy Sauce on along with Green Onion, Ginger and Oil. This Soy Sauce is sweeter and less salty and less intense.








At our home, we have all 3 of these Soy Sauce all the time.
All our meats are marinated in Soy Sauce and Sugar base before we add any other flavours.

Salt
Yes, we actually have salt in the house. We don't use Soy Sauce for everything.

We put Salt in soups and for the veggies.
Salt is the flavour of life. It helps bring out the flavour in the food you cook so just use a little if you need to watch your salt intake.
Use Sea Salt to be healthier :)

Sugar
We have several types of sugar we keep in the pantry
Normal white sugar for most of our cooking, marinating etc
Brown/Yellow sugar for my baking. But I should really be replacing white sugar with this instead. They're basically the same but this is slightly more sweet and moist
Rock Sugar - used when we cook things like Chinese soupy desserts or things that are more liquid in nature

Brown Rock Sugar - similar to the Rock sugar above, but because it's brown, usually we use it more in cooking anything liquid in nature but not desserts because it would colour the dessert







Garlic
We cook just about everything with a bit of garlic. It adds very nice flavour so my brother and I love using it.
At our house, we pre-mince lots of garlic using a food processor and then store it in jars in the fridge. That way it's all done and all we have to do is scoop out what we need. :)
You can buy minced garlic in jars at the stores too but it's honestly not too bad to do it yourself.
You can buy bags of garlic that is already peels and all you have to do is cut off the stem and throw it into the processor. Just sit in front of the TV with the bag of garlic and start cutting away.

Ginger
Very important in Chinese Cooking. Ginger "chases away wind" and warms you according to Chinese eating theory. Store Ginger in a dry cool dark place. We typically put it under the sink.
We usually wash, peel and slice some and keep it in a box in the fridge for easy access.
My aunt likes to do the same but mixes it with oil. So when she cooks all she does is scoop the oil+ginger mixture and that's all the oil she'll use in her cooking.

Onion
We always have Green Onion and normal Onion at our home.
Both adds nice flavour so I like to have both at hand when I cook.

Corn Starch

As apart of the marinate, we typically add some Corn Starch. According to my dad, it makes the meat more "smooth". It also helps with thickening liquid that appears when cooking.
Corn Starch + sugar + water is a very typical mixture added to thicken the sauce of any dish you're making that you deem necessary to thicken.

Cooking Wine

We have Chinese cooking rice wine at home. There's so many of them to choose from when you're at the super market. Pay attention to see if it has salt or not. Some of them have a specific smell or taste as well. I'm afraid you will have to try them to see if you like them. Usually, I'll add a splash when required to help either bring out flavour or de-glaze a pan/wok.