Recipe: Peanut Butter Sesame Noodles

Recipe: Peanut Butter Sesame Noodles

Adapted from (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Peanut-Sesame-Noodles-106572)

Ingredients:

1 package of wheat spaghetti pasta
1 cucumber

Dressing:
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of warm water
2 tbsp of rice vinegar
2 teaspoons of honey
1 tbsp of red hot pepper flakes
1/2 cup of chunky peanut butter
1 1/2 tbsp of sesame oil

Directions:
Place all dressing ingredients into a food processor and pulse until it's smooth. Cook spaghetti according to directions. Rinse under cold water. Cut up cucumber into thin slices.

Place peanut butter sesame dressing on the noodles and add cucumbers. According to Epicurious don't let the noodles sit in the sauce for long. Just toss it together before serving.

I've been meaning to make this dish forever. Yums. It usually cost about 5-6 dollars at the noodle house I've been too.

Too bad my husband doesn't like cold noodles or cucumbers. But I made it for me and the little baby in my tummy! ;) I'm currently on maternity leave. :D 9 days till her due date.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Puff Pastry

Recipe: Sweet Potato Puff Pastry

Ingredients:
1 box of puff pastry
3-4 sweet potatoes
1 red onion
1 package of ground turkey

Directions: (makes 18)

Inspired by the numerous dishes at WokAndSpoon, I decided to mix sweet potatoes and coconut milk. So to make these sweet and salty treats: Bake the potatoes in the oven for 40-45 minutes. Smash them w/ a fork and add coconut milk until a nice smooth mixture is formed. Brown some ground turkey with red onions. Mix everything together. Thaw puff pastry per directions. The puff pastry is folded into three. Separate them into three pieces. Then create about 9 squares per 2 sheets. Fold them into triangles and add the mixture in between. Press the edges with a fork. Poke a few air holes. Place them in the oven for 15-20 minutes per instructions on the box. These were a treat. I brought them to a party and we gobbled them all up. Mr. Bubbies liked them a lot.

Recipe: Spicy Korean Hot Tofu Pot (Stew)

Recipe: Spicy Korean Hot Tofu Pot (Stew)

Recipe: Spicy Korean Hot Tofu Pot (Stew)


Ingredients:
1 tablespoon sesame oil
A couple tablespoons of garlic
2 tablespoons Hot Pepper Paste (Gochujang)
2 tablespoons Hot Pepper Powder
1 bunch of enoki mushrooms
1 egg
about 7 oz of beef, chicken or veggie stock
1 package of tofu


Directions:
Pour about 1 tablespoon of sesame oil into pot. Add garlic and sautee. Then drain the tofu and place into pot w/ 2 heaping tablespoons of hot pepper paste. Mix tofu up breaking it into bits and mixing w/ hot pepper paste. Add just enough beef stock to cover the tofu. Add 2 tablespoons of hot pepper powder for a more spicy flavor. Allow mixture to boil. Wash enoki mushrooms and cut off the ends. Add enoki mushrooms just at the end. Make sure to cover them in the stew. Then just before serving crack a egg into the mix. Serve over white rice.


I love this dish. It's not exactly authentic since I don't own a claypot and improvised with the recipes I have found. :) I think it's pretty tasty though. It is a nice spicy stew. I'm in love w/ the Gochujang flavor. I could eat w/ a spoon. :D The key is this hot pepper paste and powder. You can change the amounts of pepper paste/powder to add depending on your likes. My hubbub loves this dish as well. My friend told me about the key ingredients and the basic steps to make it in a conversation through instant messanger. I have since looked up different recipes and improved upon it. She compared it to making instant noodles! It's that easy but so much more tasty. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. We've eaten it many times since I first learned how to cook it.

Recipe: Fat rice noodles and Broccoli

Recipe: Fat rice noodles and Broccoli

1/2 package of rice noodles
Broccoli
Garlic
1 onion
Oil for frying
Some hoisin sauce

I love the fat rice noodles and broccoli combination. The bits of garlic are very sweet. Sautee the onion and garlic. Toss in the broccoli. Then break noodles apart and combine them. Fry them all up and serve w/ hoisin sauce. It was very tasty. Hoisin sauce is so yums. The cost was very low too. Rice noodles are like under 2 bucks and broccoli from costco is under 4 dollars. I still have broccoli and I only used half of the rice noodles for this dish. (Serves 2)

Recipe: Onion Wonton Envelopes

Recipe: Onion Wonton Envelopes

Ingredients:

Oil for deep frying

Wonton wrappers

2-3 Onions

1 egg for sealing

Directions:

Chop the onions by cutting ends then slicing the onion in half. Place the cut side on the board and slice. Take a wonton wrapper lay it out, place the onions in the middle. Fold the ends up creating an envelope and seal it with a kiss (no seal it with some egg wash) where the onions are fully enclosed. Deep fry the envelopes until they are golden brown.


We had extra wonton wrappers laying around and I was scouring the kitchen for some ingredients. Avocado I thought? hmm.. okay maybe not. I found an onion. The recipe I made yielded only about 10 wontons. So if you are using a full package I'd recommend maybe 2-3 onions. I like onion rings! Similar I think but w/ a twist. My baby cousins helped me wrap up these cute little envelopes. It was fun and yums to eat.

Recipe: Mushrooms Tomato Ground Turkey

Recipe: Mushrooms Tomato Ground Turkey
1/3 cup of Worcestershire sauce
1 pound Ground Turkey
1 can tomatoes
10 oz of mushrooms
Pepper to taste

Directions:
Mix ground turkey and 1/3 cup of Worcestershire sauce in sauce pan and cook on medium heat. Mix in tomatoes. Drain the cooked turkey. Saute some mushrooms and mix ingredients together. Sprinkle pepper on top. Serve over white rice.

I was testing out using my newly purchased Worcestershire sauce. This was very tasty w/ white rice. Do you ever drain your food? This time I did. I packed this for hubbub and myself for lunch and I usually place the food on top of rice. So I didn't want the rice to be too soggy. :D

What taste good and is good for you? A: Kim Chi.

I love eating Kimchi. :D My mother in law gave us some that she bought from costco and it's so good w/ white rice. My hubbub is convinced that anything that taste good is bad for you. So I looked up kimchi and healthy. What do you know, Kim-chi is quite delicious and healthy.

Kimchi has been cited by Health Magazine as one of the world’s five “healthiest foods,” for being rich in vitamins, aiding digestion, and perhaps even preventing cancer. "

Recipe: Yellow Coconut Curry

Recipe: Yellow Coconut Curry

Ingredients:
1 can of coconut milk
1 can of corn
6 potatoes peeled and cut
2 carrots
1 tablespoon of yellow curry powder


Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut peel carrots and potatoes. Mix curry powder and coconut milk together. Place all ingredients into oven proof pot (dutch oven perhaps? if so rub oil on lid and inside the pot :D). Cook for 50 minutes to an hour. Serve over white rice.

This is my first time using coconut w/ curry! It's yummy. :) Hubbub liked it. (Like the new nickname?)

Recipe: Thit Heo Kho (Braised Pork w/ Eggs)

Wandering Chopsticks, Thank-you for the recipe.

Recipe: Thit Heo Kho (Braised Pork w/ Eggs)

Ingredients:
1-2 pounds of pork shoulder
Fish Sauce
Pepper and salt to taste
4 eggs
1 tbsp sugar
1 medium onion
1/4 cup water
1 8 oz can of coconut juice (coco rico as Wandering suggest, I picked up canned drink coconut juice :D)

Directions:
Boil 4 eggs, Cut up meat. Marinate meat in salt, pepper and fish sauce for 10 minutes. Place sugar and coconut juice together. Dissolve it on heat. Place water, coconut juice, onion and meat into dutch oven or a pot. Heat on low for 1 hour. Place eggs in about 15 minutes before finishing. Serve over white rice.

I was impatient so I didn't wait for the coconut juice to caramelize. :D It still turned out delicious though. :) Note, I didn't use that whole pack of meat. I used about 1 1/2 pounds. The rest I placed in the freezer. :D

Recipe: Wonton Pineapple Coconut Dessert

I tried really hard to recreate the delicious looking treats from Melting Wok's No bake macaroon recipe. I however was unsuccessful. My little treats fell apart. :( I think I didn't leave the pineapple on the heat long enough? Perhaps it didn't form into a paste? Melting? :D Not sure but this is my first time cutting a pineapple and didn't want it to go to waste! Plus I tasted the mix of coconut and sweet pineapple and it was so refreshing! So instead my little brilliant red brain thought to place the mixture into the wonton cups.


Recipe: Wonton Pineapple Coconut Dessert
1 fresh pineapple
1/2 bag of shredded coconut
1 bag of trail mix
1 bag of large wontons

Directions:

Wontons:
The wonton cups were made the same way as my as my little dynamite wontons . Cut large wonton sheet into smaller rectangles. Pinch the two ends and place into mini muffin pan creating a pinwheel type shape. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

Mix:
Place the trail mix into a sandwich bag and use a mallet or in my case a meat tenderizer and crush the nuts. Cut pineapple and place into blender. Put pineapple into a pan on low heat until the pineapple forms a syrup like paste. Mix coconut, pineapple and crushed nuts together. Refrigerate mixture before eating. When the mixture is cool enough and it's time to eat, spoon the mixture into baked wonton cups.

Recipe: Mini Dynamite Wontons: Salmon Motoyaki

(Click on picture to see a larger image)

I remember the first time I had a dynamite at a Japanese restaurant - It came right out from the oven (a slighty browned mayo on top of salmon and oysters and rice). Ever since then I've tried dyanmite at almost all of the sushi restaurants I frequent, none of them good as the first. However, I think I've struck gold (golden mayo that is) thanks to Chow Times! I didn't have any oyster shells so I thought of using baked wonton wrappers. Besides that I pretty much followed the recipe for the salmon mix. These are scrumptious.

Recipe: Mini Dynamite Wontons: Salmon Motoyaki

Ingredients:

1 piece of salmon

1 onion

Cutie Japanese Mayo

1 package of large wonton wrappers

Pepper to taste

Bakeware:

24 cup Mini Muffin pan

Directions: (makes about 54 mini dynamite wontons)

Cut large wonton sheet into smaller rectangles. Pinch the two ends and place into mini muffin pan creating a pinwheel type shape. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 5 minutes. Slice up salmon into little bits and onion. Sautee onions add salmon. Sprinkle some pepper into the pan. Place fully cooked salmon mixture into the pinwheel shape wontons and then cover w/ mayo and then sprinkle on some parmesan cheese. Broil in oven for 2-3 minutes on lo. I made a couple of batches for our new year's party. :) I ate a lot of them.

Recipe: Banh Day

Happy New Year!



The story behind Banh Day:

Legend has it that the ancient King, King Hung Vuong was growing old and wanted to find a successor to the throne. Not knowing which one of his three sons to choose he decided to challenge them. Each of them were to provide a dish of food that they would serve to him at the end of the Lunar Month, and based on that dish they would be come the ruler of the Kingdom. The first brother offered a fish dressed in sweet chilli and expensive lotus seeds. The second offered a boar dressed in mushrooms and rare wild fern sauce. The third prince opened his basket to reveal simple plain rice cakes:

He said:
"Rice is the most precious and valuable of all food found in this Kingdom, yet it is also the most abundant. I have prepared a dish that represents my love for you and our beautiful Vietnam. I have cooked it thoroughly then molded it into a round rice cake, and called it Banh Day as it symbolizes the sky we live under. I have cooked a square rice cake, stuffed it with cooked bean paste and ground meat in the middle and called it Banh Chung. This will symbolize the earth we live on."

Realizing that he was the wisest one of the three, the third prince became the successor to the throne. The recipes were passed to all the people of the Kingdom and are traditionally given to family and friends in celebration of the new year. The following Banh Day recipe I pass on to you as we celebrate! Happy Tet!

For a more detailed version of the tet story and my resource:
http://www.chaobannewsletter.com/article-tetstory.html

I believe this is not exactly the traditionally way of making them. The traditional way requires that you break up Glutinous rice. Here is a quick simple recipe:

Ingredients:
1 16 oz bag of Glutinous rice
2 tablespoons of Rice flour
2 tablespoons of Oil (Don't use olive oil)
1 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of milk
Banana Leaves (1 sheet)

Directions:
Microwave the milk for one minute. Just so that it's at room temp not boiling. Mix all the ingredients in together. If it is too hard then add some water. Take some mixture it should be about a size of a small lemon. Take it and flatten it a bit. Dip your hand into some oil and rub it on the side and place on a small piece of plastic wrap. Place the pieces in a steamer. Steam for 10 minutes. You can also cut little squares out of banana leaves. Remove plastic wrap and place the Banh Day on the leaf. Traditionally this is eaten w/ Vietnamese Ham.

OverStuffed chillies (Yong Tow Foo) over rice noodles

*overstuffed*

I used Rasa Malaysia's Yong Tow Foo stuffed chillies recipe and Tigerfish's use of rice noodle and garlic to create this flavorful, colorful simple dish.

To make the Yong Tow Foo:
2 stalks scallion
9 red chillies
3 dashes of white pepper
1 tub of fish cha ca

Yong Tow Foo Sauce:
2 tbsp of garlic
2 teaspoon sugar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon starch

Rice Noodles:
Oil for frying
Rice noodles
1 clove of Garlic
2 stalks scallions

Directions:
Thaw the cha ca the night before. Chop scallions and 1 red chilli and mix w/ cha ca and 3 dashes of white pepper. Deseed chillies and cut off the tops. Place the mixture into the chillies and place in steamer. Steam for 5-10 minutes. Heat up oil. Stir fry w/ garlic and scallions. Break up noodles and place into the mix. The rice noodles will soften. Once done plate rice noodles and place chillis on top. Pour over Yong Tow Foo Sauce. Makes two large *overstuffed* servings.

Do you like my little steamer? I just got it. It was only 10 dollars. :D It's cute and it is three levels high. 2 for steaming and 1 for the boiling water. :D

Recipe: Garlicy Baby Bok Choy

Recipe: Garlicy Baby Bok Choy

Ingredients:

4 cloves of garlic
4 lbs of baby bok choy (1 full bag probably 10 little stalks)

couple of dashes of soy sauce

Directions:

Cut and wash baby bok choy leaves. Blanch baby bok choy for 1-2 minutes in boiling hot water.Use a slotted spoon to remove the baby bok choy from the water. Sautee 4 cloves of garlic. Top baby bok choy w/ garlic and a couple dashes of soy sauce. Serve over white rice. I bought baby bok choy after seeing the cute stalks on Rasa Malaysia's site. They are cute but not cute enough to save from the budding cook's budding belly. ;)

Budding Cook Reveal:

Costco sells minced garlic for under $4. :) I thought this looked interesting and I love garlic. :D So I used this garlic in the above recipe. Doesn't the garlic look so uniformly cut? :) It was cause I didn't do it.

Recipe: Chicken Flavored Ramen and Egg

Ingredients:
Chicken ramen Instant Noodle - Maruchan (Recommended by Mr. Budding Cook)
Water per directions
1 egg

Directions: Cook instant noodles per directions and then crack and egg in it before removing from heat. Flip egg around try not to break it but make sure it's cooked.

Introducing Mr. Budding Cook - This is my husband's creation (recipe) and his picture taking. :D He isn't feeling too well lately and he wanted a soupy substance. So he made himself some ramen. He called himself the budding cook. hehe So I decided to feature him. He loves Maruchan chicken flavor. This however is Nissin. Only 12 cents at Albertson's :). He said they taste similar. Did you know that instant noodles are fused w/ oil? I saw it on the tv show Unwrapped! Why must everything good be fused w/ oil? wah...

Recipe: Spicy Peanut Chicken Drumstricks on Soba Noodles

Spicy Peanut Sauce: (Adapted from the Spicy Peanut Sauce in Teany Book)
4 tsp Soy Sauce
4 tbsp Sriracha Sauce (has a rooster on it)
2 tbsp Creamy Peanut Butter
2 tsp Sesame oil
2 tsp rice Vinegar


Soba noodle:
Place soba noodles in boiling water for 4-5 minutes. Drain and place under cold water.

Directions:
Place chicken into oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Flip chicken over for another 30 minutes. Once the chicken is pretty much cooked, lather peanut sauce onto the chicken. Bake for another 20 minutes on each side. Serve over hot soba noodles.

This was the first time I tried my peanut butter sauce on chicken. It was actually through a conversation with a friend. He said that he usually makes spicy peanut butter wings. And we found out that we use used Sriracha sauce in both our recipes. The teany book didn't specify the type of asian chilli sauce to use. And I decided to use the rooster sauce. Woo hoo I think that means that I'm really a budding cook! :) You could try variations of the peanut sauce. I think this version may be too spicy. I tried it on a group of girlfriends once over soba noodles alone and it was way too hot for them. If you want to lessen the hottness factor add more peanut butter and soy sauce and reduce the number tablespoons of hot sauce.

Related Post: Japanese Soba Ground Turky Gyozas

Recipe: Curry Puff Pastries

I got the Recipe: Curry Puff Pastries from SimCooks. It was quite easy and delicious. I modified mine a bit.

Ingredients:
Curry Mix - Used Golden Curry Mix
Potatoes
Pastry Sheets - Used Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry cost 4.99 at Albertsons. :D

Directions:
Defrost the puff pastry sheets for 40 minutes per directions. Place a towel on them so as to not dry out (Sim's advice). For one pastry sheet it comes in three rectangles, instead of rolling it into one sheet I cut out nine equal squares. Place the curry in the middle and fold in half. I used a fork to poke holes and crimp the edges. Place on a ungreased baking sheet in a 400 degree oven. Please look at Sim's blog for her detailed instructions as well. :) With the left over pieces I created different curry puff creations as seen above. Hope you enjoy. I did. I will make this again but next time for a party. :) Yummy Curry Puff Pastries are the best! yum yum

I think I want to make my own puff pastry myself next time. :) Seems like a fun exercise. Has anyone tried it? Is it easy?

XXX-Rated Naked and Glutinous Goodies

In honor of Simcook's froclicking shrimp, I decided to name my dish XXX-Rated Naked and Glutinous Goodies. :)

This dish calls for glutinous flour. While slurping up these little goodies, my husband turned to me and said "These must be fat huh?". I then looked it up on the wiki . It turns out that they are only named "Glutinous" because the flour is sticky and not because it contains gluten. :) Doesn't this look like gluttonous? Wheew luckily it only sounds fat.

I got the recipe from TT's Playing with My Food website. He describes why these little guys are called "Banh It Tran" in vietnamese meaning "Naked Pasteries". It's because they aren't wrapped in banana leaves. I've been dying to try some of the recipes here. I have a long list of recipes that I will try from all the master cooks I've been reading. :D For now I'm just the little apprentice. :)

Below is my redition. Thanks TT for all your advice.

Ingredients:
3 tsps of Fish Sauce
A couple shakes of Pepper
3/4 lb of Ground Pork
3/4 of a 16 oz Glutinous rice flour bag
2 stalks of Green onions
Warm Water

Directions:
Fry the onions. Add the fish sauce and pepper and brown the ground pork with the onions. Form dough by adding warm water. The recipe doesn't specify how much water is to be added. TT said that it is forgiving. What I've seen is that you add just enough water to make a soft dough and if you add too much water the flour becomes too sticky. In that case you would probably want to add more flour. Flatten the dough and place ground pork into the middle. Roll the dough up creating little balls. Place them into a boiling pot of water. Once the critters float to the top you'll need to cook them for another 10 minutes. You can then scoop these babies out. I didn't add a lot of ingredients that the recipe called for: shrimp, mung beans, onion oil etc. I had dry mung beans but I didn't know how to cook them. :P Boil? Oh well next time...

After they were all done and plated, the little guys realized that they were naked and asked to be covered. So I topped them with some green onions and then ate them. :)

The End (At least for them. ;))

Vietnamese Soy Sauce Chicken Drumsticks

This is my mom's recipe. It's sooo good with rice and it's quite simple.

Ingredients:

Chicken Drumsticks, Soy Sauce, Sugar, Water to boil

Directions:

Boil chicken for 20 minutes in water. Take chicken out and place in a pan. Sprinkle sugar on chicken. I sprinked about 1 to 2 tablespoons on six drumsticks. Then squirt a generous amount of soy sauce on chicken. Cover for about 10 minutes. Flip over a couple of times. Serve w/ rice.

(The above picture is before the chicken was covered. I had just finished squirting soy sauce. The chicken should be light brown in color in the end. You can also use chicken thighs. Optionally you can add green onions to the mix.)

Bottomless Steamed Wonton Shrimp

Adapted from Rasa Malyasia's Shrimp wontons. I even took lessons from Rasa Malyasia's wonton wrapping cooking video. :)

I tried steaming the little shrimp with my Black and Decker steamer. I got it as a wedding gift. :) I've used it to steam veggies but I thought I'd venture off and try this. The only problem is the wonton sticks to the plastic so the little bottoms fell off hence the name ;). Does anyone know what the difference is between using this type of steamer vs stainless steel or a bamboo one?

I want to start making little steamed goodies. yum yum. And was wondering if I should invest or will this do?