Croissant with Avocado, Cheddar and Egg

I have a big issue with Costco's butter croissant -- I love them, absolutely! My self discipline is not to buy too much when get a chance, or not to eat it everyday. But I do allow myself to have some once a while. The toast oven is a good helper to reheat the frozen croissant, which is like fresh from the oven. I can eat it plain and be happy for the rest of the day, but croissant sandwich makes it to a upper level. This one in the picture was sandwiched with avocado, vintage cheddar and fried egg. I have been eating it two days in a roll and still am very happy.

Lardy Cake

Lard with sugar is one of the heavenly good combinations. This bread tastes best when hot out from the oven. For me it's a reminder of the sesame lard dumpling I love to eat when grow up. It makes me home sick. The recipe can be found here.

3/7/2012

In the bento: pork steamed with ground rice, broccoli, roaste pepper, stirfried shrimps, rice.

Daikon Rice Cake

This rice cake is popular in Hongkon,g Guangzhou and Taiwan. The city I grow up doesn't have it. Although I know the cake for a while, I never got a chance to try. The great thing about this dish is that to make at home is easy and tasty. I made it last night. The next morning, I sliced several pieces and pan-fried until crispy on both sides. This made a very conformable breakfast!

3/5/2012

In the bento: special steamed pork, steamed sweet potato, stirfried snow pea with carrots, rice ground pork.

3/1/2012

The same as yesterday's. In the bento: carrots stirfried with pork liver, broccoli, angel-hair with chili oil.

2/29/2012

In the bento: Angel-hair with meat sauce, stir-fried carrots with pork liver, broccoli.

2/28/2012

In the bento: rice with meat sauce, sweet potato pancake, steamed broccoli, pork with red yeast rice paste, stirfried carrots with pork liver.

Sweet Potato Pancake

I didn't feel eating very health today. So I decide to supply my body lots of fiber by sweet potato. This pancake is very easy to make, the only process that is labor intense is to shred the sweet potato. I did sweat when working on that, but it was a nice work out. After shredding the potato, just add one egg and a table spoon of flour to create the batter. Then add enough oil in a hot pan and pan fry the potato.

Red Yeast Rice Paste

Red yeast rice paste (紅糟) is a kind of marinade sauce used in southern east of China. It is made with red yeast rice, sticky rice, and cooking wine. The paste is very fragrant, with a pleasent sweet, salty and wine smell. It is wildly used for marinating meat, fish and etc to give the food a unique taste. The paste has a bright red color, which totally comes naturally from the red yeast. People who like me hate food coloring, shouldn't worry about anything about this bright color, it is safe, the gift from our mother nature. I used red yeast rice, miso paste, and sticky rice with a portion of 1:4:8. The red yeast rice was soaked in rice wine over night. Meanwhile, the sticky rice was soaked in water over night too. Then the 2nd day, cooked the sticky rice and let it cool down. Mix the soaked red yeast rice and miso, stir it untill well combined. Then cover the mixture and let it ferment for 3 days.

Angle-Hair with Truffle Oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano

For a pasta dish as simple as this, good ingredient is the key. All I have to do after the putting the pasta on a warm plate, was to shred some parmigiano-reggiano and drizzle with some truffle oil. It has to be PR, parmesan is not allowed. And yes, truffle is expensive, but just few drop is all I need .

Bolongnese Sauce

It's hard to believe that this is my first time to make bolongese sauce. And I guess it make sense: 1) I am not a big tomato sauce person 2) way too many choices in grocery store. So why bother. Things go unpredicted sometimes. I suddenly craving a very tomato meat sauce. I have to get all things and cook. And I did. Also I want a very specific pasta to pair with the sauce, no penne, no fusili, no shell, but has to be fricelli, only that is able to pair with my wonderful sauce lol

Three Citrus Cookis

Finally I don't have to upload bunch of pictures. The other blog I am using has the feature of collage multi photos and add water print. That makes life much easier. I happened to have some oranges, lemons and limes in the fridge (this seldom happens). To throw the nice skin after juice them feels such a waste. So I zest them and make the zest into cookies. The color of green, orange and yellow is simply pretty. Not even to mention the wonderful smell. The cookie is more close to a dry version of shortbread. I like to have a piece when my mouth need something to snack on.

Grilled Cheese Stuffed with Avocado

Who doesn't like grilled cheese? I have some very good vintage cheddar cheese got from the whole food. And half of the avocado left. That feels just right to stuff into the sandwich. A cup of good white tea after eating this sets the right tune of the morning :)

Chocolate Fondant

Call it molten lava cake if it makes more sense. I believe it turned out very good but because I am having a serious cold, my taste buds haven't been functioning for days. I can only taste the sweetness and the texture, but not too much about the flavor. I won't make this dessert very often because it does take some time, but definitely it is a good recipe.

2/14/2012

In the bento: rice, broccoli, shrimp balls, kelp with mushrooms, poached egg.

2/9/2012

In the bento: stir-fried rice with carrots, sausage and soybean crumb, shrimp balls, cabbage.

2/8/2012

In the bento: rice, fungus, intestinal, carrots, cabbage stir-fired with sausage.

2/7/2012

In the bento: quinoa, crispy soybean crumb, stirfried cabbage, shrimp balls, carrots, intestinal.

2/6/2012

 

In the bento: quinoa, shrimp balls, carrots, cabbage, intestinal.

My First Bread

.Actually, this is the first real eatable bread I made. The yeast I used before was grown by myself but it never worked. This time, I used the instant yeast and the bread rose up beautifully. I sliced the bread and spread it with butter and sugar. They were toasted at 250F for half hour to totally dry out and became crispy on the top. This is a super easy snack called Sugar Rusk. The bread recipe is here.

Cranberry Lime Cake

There were three reasons I baked this cake: 1) use the milk before its expiration date, 2) use the leftover cranberry from last baking, and 3) the picture of the cake from this site looks too delicious to not try. My cake did crack on the top, but not even half as moist as the picture showed. This was the 3rd butter based cake didn't turn out as well as expected.

2/3/2012

In the bento: quinoa, nori tamagoyaki, cabbage stir-fried with carrot, shrimp balls.

2/2/2012

In the bento: quinoa, carrot, butternut squash gyoza, pork sholder, cabbage with enoki mushroom.

Banana Chocolate Cake

This was the same cake I made before. However, it didn't turn our as good as the last one. The same cake can be found here.