Spring Onion/Scallion Pancake with yeast dough- Recipe 2

I grow up eating rice and was never a good bread eater until much later in life. Being married to a man of Northern Indian Origin, I picked up a thing or two about bread and wheat flour along the line and started playing around with flour a lot more in recent years.

I had full intention to feed and raise baby A as rice eater, his first cereal was RICE cereal, and I feed everything to him with rice porridge. To my dismayed, he slowly grow up to love more of everything made from wheat, pasta, dumplings, noodles, you name it and he likes it!

For I am a mother who doesn't know how to deal with a very adamant toddler, I have now resolved to work on baby A's taste bud, as long as he eats Chinese food, be it wheat or rice! LOL

So long story short, I made this raised pancake for lunch on this rainy afternoon, 3 of us shared two 8 inches pancake with some lentil soup.  It was yummy and everybody is happy!

Spiced Boiled Peanuts (With Shell) 【带壳五香花生】

I was shopping for Christmas dinner at the Asian supermarket the other day and saw these fresh peanuts packed by the pound. I instantly had the vision of stall selling steamed peanuts at roadside/Pasar Malam back in Malaysia. Those were just peanuts freshly harvest boiled and steamed in salt water, it is a simple, earthly and super yummy snacks!

I grabbed a bag of the peanuts, went home and made this five spice (五香）boiled peanuts. This snack is simply Perfect! You just gotta try this out!

前几天在超市买菜时看见中国超市里摆着好多新鲜的带壳花生，突然想起回乡的时候去了一家港式餐厅吃饭，有一道卤水花生俊宝非常喜欢吃了好多。

于是买了一磅的新鲜花生，做了一锅五香花生当零食，结果家里老的小的抢着吃噢！

Vegetable Fruit Cupcake With Yogurt Frosting

Baby A turned 1 two weeks ago, we had a great party with love ones and close friends over the weekend.
I was still yet to recovered from the preparation of party, there actual day came and I was thinking of taking the shortcut to just get some shop bought cupcakes and candies for his celebration in Daycare.

So I went to the supermarket to look for something ready for babies... After reading like 20 labels with chemical terms that I can't even pronounce, I decided that what I cannot give to my own child, I cannot serve them to the little pumpkins in the daycare!

So I went home and baked a dozen of mini vegetables and fruit cupcakes with greek yogurt frosting... I also manage to made some chocolate coated strawberries for the kids!

The babies loved the cupcakes and we had a blast at the daycare that afternoon!

Seafood Crispy Rice Noodle 【香底米粉】

Last week was a very bad week for me and baby A, it was Friday afternoon and he started showing signs of fever, his fever spike up to 104 F that night, we brought him to his pediatrician first thing Saturday morning, apparently my poor baby had ear throat double infections, no wonder he refused food and nursing completely. 

Worrying that he will be dehydrated I had to forcefully give him liquid, he swallowed with great difficulty and lots of tears.

To cut the story short, it was 5 days and nights of no sleep and lots of tears for both mommy and baby. When he finally nursed after 5 whole days of nursing strike... I sigh with relief and promise to myself that I will never complain about his night time marathon nursing again!

So today after sending the baby to the daycare, I decided that I want something that could comfort me and compensate the harsh week I had! I set out to make this crispy rice noodle. 

There is this restaurant near my parent's house that made the best crispy rice noodle ever. I tried to make this as close to the one they made back home as possible. This recipe tastes slightly different than the one I liked, but not bad as a home cook version, not bad at all.

我娘家门口有家餐厅做的炒粉非常好吃，尤其是这道香底米粉。它的做法是把干米粉先炸脆沥干油后淋上煮好的海鲜和汤汁。

炸过的米粉淋上滑蛋汤汁滑滑软软的，夹着没淋到汤汁的部分，带点脆脆的口感，是一种很不一样的饮食体验哦！

Mooncake Golden Syrup -- The first step of making Cantonese Mooncake

The Mid-Autumn festival (中秋节）is approaching again. It is time to make the famous mooncake!

A group of us in NJ get together around this time of the year every year to make mooncake together, some of us will prepared the fillings and some of us made the skin dough, we made so many different kind of mooncakes, ranging from Shanghainese meat/salted mooncake to the sweet treat like Cantonese mooncake.

The debate of which should be official -- the salted version or the sweet version is always one of the heated debates during our get together, the debate will continues to the next few weeks when we meet again to eat our mooncakes and celebrate Mid-Autumn festival together with a lot of yummy pot luck dishes. We can never remember who won the debate,but the memories of celebrations, good time, good foods and food friends are always in our mind.

This year I decided to make a batch of golden syrup, even though I could not make it to the mooncake making get together due to personal reason. 

The Chinese Forum - Wenxuecity that I was honored to be appointed as a moderator (版主) is currently running a Mid-Autumn Festival activity. I figured if I can't write a post about mooncake, maybe I can submit this Golden Syrup as part of the show/Activity.

【南瓜椰子酱 】Pumpkin Kaya（Pumpkin Coconut Jam / Vegan Kaya )

小时候最爱的早餐之一就是抹上牛油(Butter)和椰子酱(Kaya)的烤土司再加上两只半生熟蛋，每次吃都那么让人满足，那滋味至今仍然让我念念不忘。

每年一到南瓜季节我总忍不住要买一些回来，这个南瓜椰子酱在网上流传已久，我一直想做一次，今天终于如愿，出来的效果太让人惊喜！金灿灿的颜色也让我非常欢喜！

I went out to the pharmacy to pick up a few things yesterday and was surrounded by Halloween decorations in the stores! It is a good reminder that pumpkin season is here again! I am a big fan of pumpkins and would love to try just about any recipes that called for this golden color treat!

This particular Coconut Jam/Kaya recipe has been circulating around bloggers for a good couple of years, I have read about it and thought it was such a smart and brilliant way to make this renown coconut Jam vegetarian friendly! I bumped into this recipe again not long ago, and since I have a big piece of pumpkin sitting in the fridge, guess what I did yesterday?

Yupp! I made this jam and the outcome is so great that I can hardly take my eyes off of it! I hope my pictures do justice to its beauty. 

I also enjoyed a piece of toast with butter and Kaya right after I was done making it. Now the idea of fall approaching is not that depressing anymore.

【阿多博卤鸡】Chicken Adobo

好吃到不行-- 阿多博卤鸡 （Chicken Adobo），终于知道菲律宾人为什么老夸他们这款卤鸡了，香浓，软糯，入口即化的鸡肉配上热腾腾的白米饭，减肥的人请自行绕道而过！

As I mentioned in my previous post that I was reading a couple of Filipino food blogs and could not but to notice that everyone of them rave about their yummy national dish -- Chicken Adobo. I made a mental note that I definitely have to try making it once. And how glad am I that I did! This dish is super yummy and I had to drag N and baby A out for a 3 miles walk to burn off the extra rice I had for dinner!

【焦糖核桃】Candied Walnuts

第一次吃这个焦糖干果是多年前有个朋友从亚洲来纽约出差，顺道来我家玩。

当时他带来的手信就是一包他在纽约街边买的焦糖干果。我不是一个嗜甜的人，对于甜味的干果总有点抗拒，我更喜欢原味或者咸味的做法。

前几天跟妈妈聊天，说起侄儿侄女很爱吃零食，外边买的又不健康，较后在厨房里看见还剩下大半包的核桃，就想尝试做一次焦糖核桃，以后回去可以给小朋友们做了当零嘴。

It has been raining cats and dogs today, it really is not helping with my mood. Baby A has been waking me up several times every night for more than 2 weeks now, I have ruled out teething, sickness and even growing spurt... It is really tough living with broken sleeps every day nowadays.

This morning after sending baby A to the daycare, I came home planning to work on some paperwork. So I turned on my laptop and begin to work, out of sudden I just could not proceed anymore, I could not even look at my computer screen. 

All I wanted was to rest. I turned off my laptop and went to bed, after about half an hour of tossing and turning, I got more irritated and tired. I was probably so severely sleep deprived that my body doesn't know how to relax and just rest anymore.

So I get up and made this candied walnuts, cooking is always therapeutic for me, seeing my own creation just makes me forget about things in life for a bit. 

When I was done, I went to bed relaxed and manage to nap for 45 minutes. Life is all great again!