Pork celery and shiitake mushroom

I had left over celery from making an other dish so I decided to make a stir fry with it.

It's super easy. The most time consuming thing in a stir fry is to cut everything up to the right size. Other then that, heat up your wok and off you go.

Pork celery and shiitake mushroom

Ingredients

• 300g pork, sliced
• Half a stalk of celery
• 4 shiitake mushroom
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup of cashew (optional)
• 1 tbsp splash of rice wine
• 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp corn starch
• 1/4 cup water

Directions

1. Soak the shiitake mushrooms for at least an hour to re-hydrate. Squeeze the water out once it's re-hydrated. 
2. Slide the pork into thin slices.
3. Cut the celery into 1 inch pieces. 
4. Mince the garlic.
5. Heat up the wok to medium heat.
6. Add in a bit of oil and the garlic. Stir it around so it doesn't burn.
7. Add the pork and the shiitake mushrooms and stir it.
8. When the pork is about 80% cooked, added the celery and quickly stir..
9. In a bowl mix oyster sauce, sugar, corn starch and water. 
10. Deglaze the wok with the rice wine.
11. Make a whole in the middle of the wok and add the sauce mixture.
12. Once it starts to thicken up and bubble mix turn off the heat and mix everything together. 
13. Plate and top with cashews.

Tip: during cooking, if more liquid appears in the pan, you might need a little more corn starch. If you do, just add a bit more corn starch to more water and mix it in to thicken the sauce some more.

Earth Day 2016

An other year has past.
What will you be doing for earth day this year?

This year, I'm working from home (saving on commute) and I'll snuggle up with a book instead of watching TV.

The Toronto Green Living Show was last weekend just ahead of earth day this year.

Once again it was a great show. Showcasing healthy living and green living items.

Here are a couple of highlights for me this year.

Highway of Heroes Tribute - Great initiative to plant trees for every fallen Canadian coldier since Confederation along the stretch of highway between CFB Trenton to Toronto. Definitely go check out their website and facebook to monitor their progress. It's a 5 year project so lots of time to get involved! They're pretty full for Spring planting already. If you would like to get involve, fall is their next target.

Dalcini Stainless - Stainless steel tupperware. I was really hoping they would have double walled products as that's something I've been looking for but that's currently in design. They currently have single walled products which is great for cold items for kids to pack their lunch in. I'm keeping my eye on them for the doublewalled products that can keep food warm.

Harmony Organic - This year I had a chance to chat with the people at the booth at Harmony Organics to understand more about their farm practices, the feed they use, the lifestyle of their cows. It's great to know that their feed practice is very similar to Rolling Meadows where the cows are grass fed above 90% of their feed. Very little of it is grain. I like the fact that they have 4L bags, I'll be looking out for that. Oh the the glass bottle, it can be returned for refund on the bottle as it's reusable! I haven't seen that in so long, better then plastic but I like buying in bulk :(

Green space brands - So I found out that Rolling Meadows was only 1 of the brands under an umbrella of them. Their booth this year sampled the rolling yogurt and kefir. The life choices foods all beef hot dogs and their breaded chicken. And nudge foods Mac and Cheese made with their Rolling Meadow's 1% milk.
Their yogurt was so yummy even without anything added to it. I'm pretty use to plain yogurt being sour, but I was surprised this one wasn't as sour and if you really concentrate you can even find a sweetness to it. The only thing in the ingredients list is milk and bacteria culture like it's suppose to be. And honestly it's only $3.99 at full price which seems really reasonable when I look at the cost of other organic brands. I will definitely be switching over to this yogurt and add my own fruits. The hot dogs and the breaded chicken was very tasty as well. I was surprised at how moist the chicken was. If you're looking for alternative products for all those processed food you remember growing up with, I think this is a great choice

Alveole - Very very local honey from bees. They're from Montreal but have started expanding their network. They had brought honey from Montreal for the show and it was very interesting how you can actually taste the difference in the honey based on the location it was harvested at. Honey from hives in different parts of Montreal taste different just because of the flowers around there. If I had a lot of land, I would consider putting a beehive around me so I can get honey from local flowers and hopefully build up against my allergies. But as it is, I'm pretty sure my neighbours would not be happy with me if I put a beehive in my backyard. I guess I'll just have to look for a local farmer for my honey :)

This year I didn't find any booths giving out seeds or promoting seed saving which I was surprised at. The only place that had a booth with Toronto Master Garderner there gave away little cups of soil with a flower seed planted. But Urban Harvest was there again. Great to see them there.

Once again I spent a good half a day at the show. Lots of good stuff. Lots of fun. Totally encourage everyone to go to check things out next year to just learn more and get more ideas.

Napa Cabbage Rolls

This recipe is inspired by Just Bento's cabbage rolls.
Usually the napa cabbage I buy are so big that I usually make giant cabbage rolls, but i found that if I cut the cabbage in half, I can make smaller 2 bite rolls.

For this roll, I make a dumpling like filling with shiitake mushrooms, dried scallops and mini dried shrimp. Asian flavours for an Asian cabbage roll.

Napa Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients 

• 6 Short (and fat) napa cabbage leaves, cut in half for 12 or 12 small leaves
• 300g Ground pork
• 3 Shiitake mushrooms
• 1 big dried scallop or 2 small ones
• 1 tbsp mini dried shrimp
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp corn starch

Directions

1. Soak the shiitake mushrooms and dried scallop for several hours to re-hydrate. If you do not have several hours, soak in warm water to hasten the process. 
2. If the cabbage leaves you're using is really wide, you can cut it in half down to middle to make it skinnier. But make sure you can still wrap it around the meat when it's cut in half.
3. Do a quick blanch of the leaves to soften them.
4. Once the mushroom is re-hydrated, cut into small pieces and add it into a bowl with the meat.
5. Shred the dried scallop and add it into the bowl with the meat and mushrooms
6. Rinse the dried shrimp and lightly chop it into smaller pieces, add it into the bowl.
7. Add the sugar, soy sauce and corn starch into the bowl and mix all together.
8. Once it's all mix, spoon the mixture onto the soften napa cabbage leaves and roll.
9. Tuck the tail of the cabbage into one of the sides.
10. Your rolls should have a diameter of about 1 inch so it's a bite size roll. 
11. Steam in a dish for 15 mins and you're ready to go!

Memories and seedlings

These past couple of weeks starting seedlings and setting up my garden takes me on a trip down memory lane.
I remember when I was young, the most important thing when we were looking for a house in Canada was having a garden because that was what my grandpa really wanted to do when he moved over from HK.

He loved gardening and would spend hours in the garden every day.
Of course he planted all Chinese veggies which takes a lot of room and lower yield, so it was always special on nights we eat veggies from the garden.

He grew bak choy, choy sum, winter melon, fuzzy melon, Chinese chives, peppers and tomatoes.
I remember he let me plant a strawberry plant from school one year and not only did we never get to eat the strawberries because animals came and ate them, but it took over his garden so he eventually removed it.

I loved the melons he grew and would like to grow it too but sadly I don't get enough sunlight in my side yard (west side of house).

So this year, being the first year I'm gardening, I decided to try to stick with easy things that can potentially grow in with less light

I'm hoping to be able direct sow lettuce and transplant some items next week as the weather is starting to warm up.
Right now it's still less then 10 degrees C and it goes to about 0 degrees at night so I'm hoping with the mini-hoop up, the soil can get to around 15 degrees C by next week.

So to get ready, I've started my seedlings 2 weeks ago. Funny thing is, the bigger pot on the bottom left has 4 seedlings growing but I only put 2 seeds in that pot. So I have no idea what else is growing in there....and I don't know what to pull because I don't know what is what....I guess I'll just have to wait until they grow bigger :(

The sugar snap pea on the bottom left is growing very well right now. It should be ready to transplant next week and good news is that it can survive with only 4 hours of sunlight, which is about what I get in the side garden.

So in the pots, I have broccoli di ciccio, cabbage "green express" and sugar snap pea started.

Today I direct sow 1 line of Purple Plum Radish and I started soaking a blue jay bean, a slenderette bean and and Orca bean. I'm a little hesitant to plant these because they're all bush type and require 6-8 hours of sun. I hope they'll still be ok even if it's slightly lower yield. One key reason why I'm planting them is because they can help pull nitrogen into the soil and I'm trying to make the soil richer anyway I can.

Next week I hope to get more things in the ground so I can start harvesting as soon as the end of May or early June :)

Congee with Fish Paste

Ah the versatile fish paste. I personally like it best pan fried as it's much tastier but if you want a fast meal, scooping it into boiling water is the fastest way to cook it.

You can use existing chicken stock and cooked rice to make this congee in 10 mins.

However in the recipe below, I'll be using a chicken shell and uncooked rice which will result in longer cooking time.

It's really fast to put together but you'll need a bit of time to let it simmer. 

Congee with Fish Paste

Ingredient

• 2 to 3.5L of water
• 1.5 rice cooker cup of frozen rice
• 1 chicken shell
• 3 slices of ginger
• 1 tub of fish paste
• 1 green onion
• 2 tsp salt

Directions

1. Add 2 L of water to the pot and bring to a boil.
2. Add the Chicken shell and ginger and let it simmer for 15 mins. 
3. Add the frozen rice.
4. Bring the pot back up to a boil and then simmer for 20 mins.
5. Now that the base of the congee is cooked, you can add in the fish paste. Easy way is to use a spoon and scoop out little balls and dip your spoon into the congee so it releases from the spoon. If you want it prettier, you can try to cut it but you will probably want to freeze it before hand so you can cut it. It's pretty soft and malleable so hard to cut if you don't freeze it.
6. Let it cook until all the fish paste floats to the top to signifies that it's cooked.
7. Add the salt and stir.
8. Chop the green onions to be used as topping for your congee after you scooped it into bowls for serving.

Enjoy :)

Mini Hoop Tunnel is up

So I think Spring is finally going to start with the last of the snow coming down yesterday.
We're still going to get some pretty cold temperatures but at least we shouldn't get anymore snow.
So today, I went to put up my mini hoop tunnel.

Many different ways to do this.
Here are the things I used for my mini hoop tunnel
Stiff Plastic hoops
A large sheet of plastic that can be found at either your gardening store or your hardware store.
Spring clamps from Home Depot
Rocks and bricks I had lying around

I considered a lot of things to hold down the plastic. I honestly was going to use binder clips but then when I was reading the year round gardener, she mentioned how it all blew off so I decided against that since it's pretty windy where I live.

I started at one end, set up the side close to the fence first, and then moved along.
The clamps clamp on the plastic rather then the hoop itself so it does pull the plastic and make it a bit uneven. I did the best I can to even it out.
I used bigger clamps on the ends and smaller ones in the middle. With the additions of rocks I should hopefully have a stable system.

Below is a picture of the middle where I discovered if I place the clamp closer to the bottom it's easier on the plastic.

I will leave the garden alone for a week for the soil temperature to warm up before I try to direct sow anything in. I have also started seedlings indoors that will hopefully be ready for transplant in an other 2 weeks.

In the meantime, I hope the flowers that were growing here last year that I removed will start showing itself so I can start pulling before I plant my plants in so it's easier to identify.
I have a heck of a battle coming up because of those flowers....Hopefully I will be able to remove most of it this year....fingers crossed

Teriyaki Marinate

This is a simple marinate I make when I feel like eating teriyaki. It's best to marinate the meat 24 hours for full flavour. This marinate is watery, if you want a thicker marinate you can substitute the sugar with honey or molasses.
When I want to cook with a thick teriyaki glaze I add corn starch to the recipe to thicken it up and make it sticky.
I'm also lazy so I tend to throw everything into my hand blender and blend it all together :)

Teriyaki Marinate

Ingredients

• 30g (2 Tbsp soy) sauce
• 118.5g (1/2 cup) water
• 25g (2.5 tbsp) brown sugar
• 3g ginger
• 5g garlic

Directions

1. Put all the ingredients together and blend

And really that's it. You can wait for the bubbles to un-foam before you use it if you want, I haven't noticed difference between when I wait and not wait. 

Tip: If you are using food saver bags, Freeze your marinate into a thin layer. When your meat is dried, put it into your food saver bag. Spread the frozen marinate around on the meat and vacuum seal with the food saver. Leave it in the fridge for the marinate to unfreeze and coat your meat nicely.

Let it marinate for several hours before you use it or put it into the freezer.

I found this is the easiest way to marinate using a small container with little marinate.

If you try to marinate in a box, you'll either have to flip and mix a lot or you'll just use more marinate so you can cover all the meat. 

Sunlight vs Grow light

We're getting close to gardening season (sort of close...there's 15cm of snow outside but we're getting there) so it's time to look at starting seeds indoors.

I have a south facing window so I was really debating if I needed a grow light or if my seeds will do ok in only sunlight.

Here is what I have discovered so far.
January, there just wasn't enough sunlight to sustain plants at all. Almost everything I started in Jan died.
February, there was more sunlight and I was able to start several lettuces but they were all stunted in growth. Didn't get bigger then 2 inches
March, once again the sunlight increased, but it was quite uneven across my plants since the sunlight is coming in various angles. So out of the 3 lettuce I planted side by side, I had 1 tiny, one medium and one bigger. None of them were big enough to eat yet and after a certain size, new leaves would die as if there just wasn't enough light to sustain it growing.

Even though sunlight in March for my area is suppose to be about 11hrs, the plants were at most getting 2-4 hours of sunlight depending on position because of the position of the sun.
Also, there were lots of cloudy days in Jan-Mar so it's hard to get 3 hours of sunlight consistantly.

So I finally gave in and decided to buy 1 grow light to see how it would help.
After a lot of research, I decided to try an LED Grow light that is specifically Red and Blue.
There are different ratios of red to blue depending on what type of plants you're trying to grow but this is the one I got. Mine has more reds then blues. The bigger blurry ones are the blues.

My friend was actually very skeptical about my grow light since I got it from China. It's definitely hard to tell what quality are you getting and if it was done properly so it actually works. But I figured if Philips is selling their LED business to China, the tech there should be fine as long as I can find a good seller.
I spent a lot of time shopping on the Chinese websites, looking at reviews, etc before I finally brought this one.
Key things to look at for any online buying no matter where it's from, look for light with the right voltage for your area, look at reviews for the product and look at seller reviews.

I don't have an expensive branded LED Grow light to compare with, but this one seems to do it's job.

I noticed immediately after using it the second day, the weak leaves on my lettuce that was about to die actually got stronger. I don't have wilting leaves anymore and the smaller plant is finally growing.

So far I'm only using it to supplement the sunlight I get as I do not like to leave lights on when I'm not at home. However, this helps stretch the hours of sunlight my plants are getting from 3 hrs to 6 hrs.

Since I'm having success with it, I'll now be using it on the seedlings I'm trying to start for my garden.
In the next 2 weeks, I hope to have my sweet peas, broccoli and cabbage seedlings started so that I can transplant in about a month into the garden.

If the weather warms up next week, I'll finish my mini hoop tunnel and sow some lettuce directly outdoors once the soil is warm enough. I'm hoping to actually get some produce by May if the mini hoops work.
Fingers crossed :)