Thursday, July 30, 2009

Three Cups Chicken



Three cups chicken literally means chicken cooked in 1 cup of soy sauce, 1 cup of cooking wine and 1 cup of sesame oil. The resulted dish is very fragrant and the sauce is delicious. The cup measurement here must means the traditional Chinese rice bowl and cooked in a big pot of chicken, for a large family back then where everyone live in the same house (grandparents, uncles, aunties, etc). So, for the small family size these days (a family of four), we cannot use the stated measurement as the name. We have to cut it way down as long as the measurement is still the same, for example 1/8 cup for all or 1/4 cup for all or 1/2 cup for all. How much you add will depend on how much chicken you wanted to cook. I added Chinese mushroom into mine to soak up the delicious gravy. I won't be sharing my recipe here as you can easily find the recipe on the web.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Pork Balls Soba Noodle



When my husband was away for a business trip, I cooked something easy for lunch. I had minced some pork and decided to make pork balls with it. Then, I just boiled the soba noodle until cooked and set aside. Boiled another pot of water to make the soup for this noodle. When the water was boiling, added the marinated pork balls, boiled until the pork balls were cooked. Added in the bok choy and seasonings for the soup such as soy sauce, sesame oil, chicken stock granules, salt and a little dark soy sauce. I added some cripy fried shallots too.



Served the noodle in a bowl, added in the soup with pork balls and bok choy. Later cut some Japanese seaweed (for sushi roll) and place it on top of the soup. It was special with the added seaweed as it brought another flavor into the noodle. Easy to prepare and nutritious too! I ate mine with spicy chili in oil with soy sauce as a dipping sauce, shiok lah!



Now, I would love to share this dish with Presto Pasta Night, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast. This week host is Amy of Very Culinary , do go and check out her round up on Friday!



And I am also submitting my recipe to the Original Recipe event hosted by Lore at Culinarty. Check out others' recipes around the week of 15th.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Banana Cake



The only time I would make a banana cake is when I have some banana freeze up in the freezer. Sometimes we would have one banana left that was too ripe and nobody wanted to consume it. So, I put it in the freezer bag and left it in the freezer. When I have two in the freezer, that's the time I would make this cake for breakfast. This banana cake is made with butter and thus it's not that oily. Don't get me wrong, I like banana cake made with oil too as it's very moist but sometimes it can be quite oily.



Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Japanese Curry Rice



I don't know about you, but this looks absolutely delicious to me. We all loved Japanese curry, especially Vermont Curry Hot brand. When my hubby was on a 3 nights business trip away from home, I cooked a big pot of this Japanese curry with chicken breasts and mixed veggie with onion and red bell pepper. It was so easy and so yummy that we could have it for days. I also served easy noodle soup for lunch for variation. But seriously, this is so good and healthy. As you can see, I did not add potatoes in mine, not quite fancy with the starch and prefer mixed vegetable instead. This mixed vegetable has Lima beans too, extra bonus eh?



Look how good that is! Even though the packet said it's Hot, but it is not hot at all. My two girls can eat a bowl of rice with lots of gravy in it with no problem as Japanese curry is on the sweet side, very different from our Malaysian curry. What I love more is no coconut milk is used so I can eat with no guilt feeling. One packet came with two packs inside so you can actually cook two big pot of Japanese curry when you buy one. Very suitable for working people who cook big portion on weekend and pack it in individual serving size in containers for weekday meal.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Our Camping Trip (Part 2)


These two campsites had the best view of the lake, but not shaded all day long though.


Let's walked down to the lake.


The forest.


Finally the lake was in sight!


Beautiful blue sky and clear water!


So clear.


Lots of people fishing and boating too!


Let's have some fun!


Evy loved it! She kept saying the water was not cold.


Now, let's have some camping food! I wanted the meal to be easy to cook and delicious. Instant broccoli rice, low fat, low sodium SPAM and...


Fried eggs!


Enjoying their lunch.


Let's washed our hands.


Marshmallow dessert after dinner. Too bad hubby didn't take picture of our easy dinner of instant INA pan mee with fish balls and broccoli. Yum!


Rolling up her sleeves to wash her hands. Look at her marshmallow face!

In the end, it was a fun and relaxing trip. Both my girls loved it and they liked the camping food too. It was raining on our last night there, luckily it stopped for 3 hours just enough for us to have our dinner and some marshmallow treat for the kids before it started to rain into the night again. Hopefully we can do another camping trip before the summer end this year.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Our Camping Trip (Part 1)

After 3.5 years of camping hiatus, we finally geared up for our long awaited camping trip. It was Evy second time and Edda first. We love camping in the national forest where there was some distant between campers and lots of shades. This seem to be our favorite place to go camping as it had everything, a trail to a lake, lots of trees & shades, restrooms, fire pit, water supply and the basic necessity for a camper site. Now, I will let the pictures speak for itself.


Our campsite.


Lots of shades, it's shaded all day long.


The campground.


Our SUV was packed to the brim! This is what we called car loaded camping.



Inside the tent. Edda was happy sleeping in her Dora cushion bed.


Evy was helping me taking the water out from the truck.


Edda wanted to be a little helper too!


Enjoying their breakfast of apple juice and matcha castella cake.


Happy, happy!


Let's pose for the camera!


Trying to build a wood castle from the pile below.


Heeya! KungFu fighting jump!


I thought this was super cute!


Haha, now I could see you!

Stay tuned for part 2 when we walked to the lake and what's serving for our camping lunch!