11/1/2010

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Black bean brown rice, boiled egg, cauliflower, baby eggplant, tomato, green pepper, salmon.

Avocado Ice Cream

There are several avocados sitting in the fridge for a while but I don't plan to use them for sushi at the moment. Before they turn rotten, I decide to make the avocado ice cream. The recipe was found online by a Taiwanese lady. This is not a typical ice cream recipe because there is no egg added. Although it's  milk based, it is more like sorbet, avocado sorbet.

I don't usually have heavy cream at hand, no exemption this time. So I tried whole fat milk instead, and surprisingly, it turned out pretty good. The only problem was that I didn't use an ice cream machine so I have to stir it every 30 minutes before it set. But it all worth the effect. The final product is smooth, creamy, and so avocado...the bonus is the color of the ice cream-I love the light green presentation!

Hummingbird Cake

I never made a Hummingbird Cake before. Several times I browsed the recipe but felt too much trouble, or missing some ingredients. However, days ago I saw a beautiful Hummingbird Cake online and that inspired me to make this longtime-eyeing cake. After baking, I realized that actually it was not fuzzy at all. In fact, the required baking time is shorter than other cakes I made. I guess the reason I didn't try earlier might just because of being lazy.

Recently I only make cake when there is a social event, so this has been long that a cake was baked just for fun. Partly because of that, I spent quite some time doing all the components required by the recipe. Which means I didn't skip a single step, even decorating the cake! (usually I don't care too much about decoration) It was a lot fun! I am very happy about how this cake looks like at the end.
Frosting with cream cheese is always my weakest cake skill, but this time, it went on smoothly and was even on the cake, no cracking or messy, yeh!

The recipe is here.

10/29/2010

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Herb quinoa, kabocha, tamagoyaki, ginger pork, baby eggplant, tomato.

10/28/2010

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Herb quinoa, curry veggie, cauliflower, stir-fried pepper, ginger pork.

10/27/2010

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Thai curry couscous, ginger marinated pork, veggie curry, boiled egg, stir-fried purple pepper.

10/26/2010

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In this bento: Thai curry cauliflower, terriyaki perch, stir-fried purple pepper, peas, pan-fried ginger marinated pork, fried rice.

Black Ba Bao Fan

Black Ba Bao Fan, or we call it in Chinese 血糯米八寶飯，is a dessert very popular in Shanghai, served after dinner, usually at the Chinese New Year. Usually they are made with white sticky rice, but I like the black version because I love the black sticky rice :) Eating it simply reminds me the cheerful memory with my family. It's fairly simple to make this dessert. (1) soak 1/2 cup of black sticky rice and 3/2 cups of white sticky rice in water for 3-4 hours. (2) steam them until cooked (rice cooker will do the same) (3) mix in sugar while the rice is still hot, amount of sugar added depends on how sweet you want it to be (4) put a thin layer of rice in a buttered bowl (lard will be preferred if you have it), along side the edge of the bowl (5) use store bought red bean paste to stuff the middle (home made bean paste is also good, just too much work) (6) cover the top of the bowl with the rice left. (7) steam the rice together with the bowl in low flame for another 2 hour. (8) once done, let it cool before unmold it from the bowl.  

10/21/2010

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Sweet and sour lotus root, teriyaki white perch, stir-fried cabbage with carrots, peas, tomatoes, inari sushi.

10/20/2010

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Black Sweet Rice inari sushi, green onion tamagoyaki, sauted shrimp with peas, stir-fried carrots with cabbage, tomato.

10/19/2010

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Stir-fried cabbage with carrots, steamed shrimps, broccoli, tomato, brown rice mix.

10/18/2010

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Brown rice mix, stir-fried cabbage, broccoli, red pepper, tomato, squash with shrimps.

10/17/2010

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Inari sushi(brown rice, black sweet rice, mung bean, mullet, job's tear), stir-fried cabbagee, broccoli and red pepper.

10/12/2010

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In this benton: eggplant, shrimp, stir-fried broccoli and red bell pepper, cabbage, pasta with squash and green onion.
This week's cooking is done with the finish of this bento. The rest of the week I will be in Chapel Hill for a conference. So see you all next week :)

Pumpkin Pie

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I picked two big fresh pumpkins from the Cherry Crest Farm yesterday. My first time hand-picked squash experience :) The only idea I can come up to use this jack-o'-lantern rather than craving a monstrous face is to make a pumpkin pie. I never made pumpkin pies before, not even mention to make the pie filling from the fresh pumpkin. So I spent 3 hours this morning cooked the squash, scooped out and pureed the flesh, made the pie crust, flavored the filling, and finally baked the pie. I was very careful watching out the baking time to avoid the crack of the top of the pie.Since I never made this pie before, I can only compare it with the store brought one, with the canned puree filling.  The final product came out beautifully with the shinny amber color and a smooth top. The crust is deliciously buttery and flaky. And the fresh filling really tastes good and healthy, without those canned food additives. With the successful first time experience, I have enough pumpkin left to make three more pies :) The recipe I used is here.

10/11/2010

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Eggplant, stir-fried broccoli, carrots, shrimp, pasta with mushroom and green onion, tomatoes.

Teriyaki White Perch

In cold days I sometimes will crave for teriyaki dishes, like today. The weather is becoming cooler, the smell and the taste of the sweet and savory teriyaki dish can remind me best of the warm feeling of home. Honestly, I am not good at teriyaki, but this time, I made it. The flavor of the fish comes out perfectly the way I want. It's just like sitting around the table having dinner with family, but by myself now.
It's fairly simple to make this dish, I made it from scratch though. Saute scallion and ginger while the oil is hot; lightly brown two sides of the fish; remove the fish from the pan, add wine, soy sauce, sugar, a bit water to simmer; reture fish back to the pan; cover the pan until the fish is cooked through. Yup, I should send this picture to my mom :)

10/6/2010

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Indian bitter melon, stir-fried carrots, teriyaki white perch, Chinese eggplant, cherry tomato, broccoli, brown rice with black beans.

Apple Streusel Cake

Fall is on the way. That somehow inspires me to use more apples in baking. However I am never a big apple person. It's weird that I like the crispiness and juiciness of real Fuji (not those called Fuji at the local grocery store here), but sometimes annoyed by the crispiness, which make my gum hurt. Also, it has been a long time question I have which is why to bake fruit that eat perfectly lovely when fresh. It seems normal in the west that people bring the freshest fruit home, and bake it. Very interesting. Anyways, I was going to make an apple streusel cake, trying to see if the taste of the cake can provide me the answer. Well, my question is still there. The cake is good, but not good enough to show me why to bake an apple while eating fresh tastes much better.

10/4/2010

Salmon, Indian bitter melon, stir-fried mushroom with corn,
canned bean, tomato, brown rice with black beans.

I am at home today. The weather has changed a bit fast but my body doesn't seem to follow up. The whole weekend I was tired, sleepy, with runny nose, plus toothache. I hope can come back to normal before it's getting busy this month.