Banana Muffins

It has been a challenge to go shopping with A lately, not only his curiosity is at its height, he is also starting to have a lot of opinions and really enjoys putting things into my shopping cart, and will waste no time to protest if I take his choices out from the cart.

Result to that, our shopping trip always lasted much longer than anticipated, last week I had to make two big rounds in the supermarket to put back 3 bottles of hand wash soup ( yes, you heard it right, A wanted purple, red and orange colors!), the two rounds is to make sure he had enough distractions and long enough gap in between to let him forget about those items.

Together with those hand soups, some chips and lots of different types of candy, he also chooses a bunch of banana, which, I decided to keep and purchase while others go back to display isles. The only thing is that he realized that he didn't really want the banana once it was brought home.

As the bananas ripe fast and I have sometimes to spare today, I made 2 batches of banana muffins today, one with cocoa powder and one without.

Happy Diwali 2014 -- Besan Ladoo

The draft of this Besan Ladoo's recipe has been sitting in my draft folder since the Diwali day. I didn't had a chance to post it due to the festive season get together, followed by A under the weather and me got the nasty bug from him the day after. So here it is a little catch up on my post.

These yummy ladoos were made with homemade ghee and the residue from the making of Homemade Ghee, the residues gave the character of brown and white bits in the ladoos. It also gave the ladoos a slight twist in taste and texture, a true surprise and real yummy treat.

Diwali Count down -- Gulab Jamun

With Diwali (the Indian festival of light) being tomorrow, I had gear up on preparation and made a few sweets today.

One of them is this Gulab Jamun. It is a very popular Indian/Pakistani/Nepali/Arabian sweet dish, most often eaten as a dessert, and usually eaten at festivals or major celebrations, such as marriages and Diwali.

Teriyaki Sauce & Teriyaki Chicken

Teriyaki Chicken was my all time favourite when I was an exchange student in Japan back in the 90s, my liking for it extended to everywhere I go, I kind of like subconsciously looking for the "wow" effect it got on me the first time I had it in Japan.... with no avail....

And guess what, the way I am with things and life... I made it at home!

Vegetarian Roasted Duck Rice

Years back when I used to work in Jalan Ampang, KL, Malaysia. Among all the tall office buildings around Jalan Ampang, right opposite of my then office hides a small heritage Chinese temple. It is a very interesting scene to see white collars visiting the temple and do their prayers during lunch break or after working hours.

The temple also has a small canteen that sells delicious vegetarian/vegan meals. I loved their vegetarian wonton noodle and also the vegetarian chicken rice that they sell every Friday. Their Vegetarian roasted duck was also one dish to die for. Just like my hometown friend Stephanie said: " I don't mind being vegetarian eating this everyday!"

I was searching for recipe for this vegetarian roasted duck online and most of the recipes called for stuffing like mushrooms and shredded carrot. I liked that version too but it was not the ones that I really missed. I like my vegetarian roasted duck a little crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

So I decided to create my own version and this comes quite close to what I remembered! 

Chili Sauce for Hainanese Chicken Rice 【海南鸡饭辣椒酱】

This is the chili sauce I made to go with my Hainanese Chicken Rice and Vegetarian Duck Rice.

海南鸡饭要好吃，配的辣椒酱也一定要好吃。这款辣椒酱是做海南鸡饭的时候做的，很好吃。后来和素烤鸭饭一起吃也超级好吃哦！

Adzuki Bean White Fungus Sweet Soup 【紅豆銀耳湯】

I grow up eating red bean (Adzuki) soup as dessert/snack a lot. There are many ways to prepare this sweet soup, adding palm sugar, pandan/screwpine leaves, black glutinous rice are some of the variances.

But making this sweet soup with white fungus (銀耳）is something new to me, mom and I had this sweet soup made this way the first time sometimes ago at the Dharma Drum's Temple, it was part of the vegetarian feast they had over the Buddha's birthday celebration. 

We liked it instantly and thought the combination make a lot of sense, Adzuki bean being high in fiber and iron but slightly heat-y is well compensated with the cooling effect of white fungus, not only that, adding the white fungus make the soup that much more smoother and creamy!

我從小就喜歡喝紅豆甜湯，是家裡經常做的一款糖水。東南亞人還喜歡加入各種不同的帶有東南亞風味的材料如椰糖，香蘭葉和黑糯米來做這款糖水。

今年佛誕節的時候我和媽媽到法鼓山去浴佛順便在佛堂午飯，當天的糖水就是這款紅豆銀耳湯，味道非常好，入口潤滑，帶著濃濃的紅豆香，很好吃。

紅豆有很高的鐵質，維他命B和膳食纖維，而銀耳具有滋阴润肺、益气和血之功效， 實在是配搭相當合理而且好吃的糖水呢！

Fish Tikka 【印式碳烤鱼块】

As I mentioned in my previous post , N brought back a big piece of salmon last weekend and I turned the thinner part of the salmon into Teriyaki Salmon Bento for A. 

The thicker part were marinated with yogurt and spices overnight and made into this yummy fish tikka.  

We turned the TV on and watch a good movie while enjoying the tikkas with beer and ice tea in the evening. 

上一个帖子说过俊爸给带回一大块的三文鱼，一小半我给俊宝做了照烧三文鱼，肉很厚的部分给切成麻将大块状，加上优格和香料腌上几个小时，另外还做了些烤鸡块，晚餐就边看电影边吃烤鱼和烤鸡。