serene’s posterous

Well...it is more like fake chawanmushi or egg custard.  It didn't turn out smooth like the chawanmushi in japanese restaurants because I didn't bother to strain the egg mixture through a fine sieve and carefully control the temperature.  Also I used chicken broth instead of bonito stock, so the taste won't quite be the same.

I got the tea cups with lids from Daiso.  Mix one egg with about 1/6 cup of chicken broth gently with chopsticks so that no bubbles are formed.  Add about 1 teaspoon of sweet mirin sauce for flavoring. Add whatever you like to the egg mixture.  In this case, I put in 2 raw shrimp into mixture.  Steam the tightly covered cup for about 15 minutes in low heat.  When it is done, there would only be clear soup when the custard is poked with a stick.

I finally bought some red beans for red bean soup.  It seems vaguely festive for Chinese New Year...  Cooked it the same way as I cooked green bean soup from a few weeks ago.  But since the beans were bigger, the cooking time was longer. The pretty blue bowl was made by a friend.  It is just the perfect size for soupy desserts, breakfast cereals and fruits, and is a bowl I reach for quite often these days.

I don't have a hang-up about brussels sprouts because my mom never cooked it.  Therefore, I don't have terrible memories of nasty, overcooked boiled brussels sprouts.  I don't eat them too often since Eu-Jin doesn't like the bitterness of the vegetable.  But when I saw them at Sigona's Farmers Market at the mall, I jumped at the chance to bring home some brussels sprouts.

I was inspired by this recipe.  I added chopped garlic to fry with the brussels sprouts, and used very little cheese (Parmesan) because I thought it made the dish too salty and heavy.  The photo was from my first batch, which I burnt a little because I left the pan too hot.  When I cooked the same dish again later in the week, they turned out a lot better, albeit a little too oily.

I was out of ideas about what to make for dinner to go with the brown rice steaming in the rice cooker.  Fortunately I came across a can of chickpeas in my cupboard and made chickpea hot pot inspired by this recipe.  I used broccoli and frozen peas and added half the quantity of diluted chicken broth (Trader Joe's low sodium version) because I was cooking the brown rice separately.  I liked having the hint of orange in the broth from the half cup of freshly squeezed orange juice.

It is funny that baked beans is one of my comfort foods.  My mom usually has a few cans of baked beans at home to make this simple dish of baked beans and potatoes.  Essentially, you fry some cubed potatoes and then add a can of baked beans in.  I do make a few minor changes to my mom's basic recipe.  Sometimes I would use a mix of potatoes and sweet potatoes.  And I do like frying some finely chopped garlic and onions with the dish as well.  Easy vegetarian meal with some steamed vegetables and brown rice:

Green Bean or Mung Bean Soup supposedly has "yin" or cooling qualities, and is therefore best consumed in summer.  It has been cold and windy these past few days, but I had only green beans on hand (and no red/azuki beans that have the opposite "yang" quality), so I had to make do.

I rinsed and soaked half a cup of green beans overnight.  I boiled about 3 and a half cups of water with 2 pandan leaves (defrosted and knotted together).  Since I didn't have any dried tangerine or orange peel, I just threw in a few pieces of fresh tangerine peel as well.  Then I turned down the heat and added the drained green beans, cooking it for about an hour.  In the last 5 minutes, I added some rock sugar to taste, and fished out the pandan leaves and tangerine peel.  The first bowl I had plain.  I added coconut cream to the second bowl I had later in the day, for a Southeast Asian touch.

Adapted from this recipe.  I used finely chopped hazelnuts, reduced the sugar, and didn't bother with the icing or the shaping into perfect balls.  Eu-Jin likes the mix of the nuts and the mocha flavor, but I think they are a little too crumbly and rich.

This was a quick meal using the S&B Golden Curry sauce mix (available at Asian grocery stores).  I mixed the sauce with chopped potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, red bell peppers and broccoli.   For protein, I had some boiled shrimp.  This is a little unhealthy with the boatload of salt and fat in the sauce, but it tastes great with rice.

I had wanted to bake these cookies ever since I saw them on this website.  Peppermint and chocolate, what's there not to like? I recently bought some peppermint bark from Trader Joe's (at about $10 for a 1 pound tin) and had the rest of the ingredients at home.  Unfortunately, these cookies didn't turn out all that well mainly because I didn't halve the recipe properly, and ended up with dough that was too wet.  They also spread out more than I expected in the oven, resulting in the cookies running together.  Next time, I will probably make the full batch (and freezing the dough I don't use), reduce the sugar a little more, and place them further apart!

   

This week's NYT Recipes for Health is on sweet potatoes. I try to keep a few sweet potatoes or yams at home, but I mainly cook them with my rice porridge (稀饭).  Sweet potatoes add a great sweetness to the rice porridge.  This pot had both yellow and orange fleshed sweet potatoes.