Meet Baby Mischa

Meet Baby Mischa
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

Here is a first glimpse of cousin T & M's new bundle of joy. I can already tell she is gonna be a looker!!

Shrimp Foo Yong

Shrimp Foo Yong
Originally uploaded by cutejoos


Shrimp Foo Yong 2
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

What happens when a crab-lover like me has to cook Crab Foo Yong for a crab-hater like father-earth? Simple. Just replace the crab with shrimps, which is exactly what I did for our dinner tonight. Saw the recipe in Yummy magazines Jan '08 issue and just couldn't resist trying it out since crab/shrimp foo yong has been one of my all time favorite dishes to order whenever we go out for chinese. I was tempted to try out this particular version because of the fact that tau miao (pea sprouts) was used instead of the usual bean sprouts and it really gave this dish a whole new dimension in terms of flavor. After peeling the shrimp (250g), I deveined it and washed it in some rock salt & water, after draining the shrimp I marinated them in a generous amount of ginger juice, (a staple in our kitchen) for a few mins. While waiting, I combined the sauce ingredients which consisted of oyster sauce, rice wine, stock, sesame oil, sugar, pepper & salt in a saucepan and let it cook till it came to a boil. I then set aside the sauce & returned my attention back to the marinated shrimp which I then strained of the ginger juice. The shrimps were now ready to be added to my 5 beaten eggs. For this dish I felt that a non-stick pan was the best thing to use especially since I was dealing with eggs, I wouldn't want to deal with eggs getting stuck to the wok scraper-rama!! So first I sauteed the garlic, onions & leeks till tender then added the tau miao & carrots, at this point it's best to turn down the heat of the pan to low before pouring in the shrimp/egg mixture. Continuously move the eggs & shrimp all over pan and cook till just set & not dry. Now you can add some cornstarch water into the sauce mixture then cook till thick. Pour this on top of the omelet. This dish is best served while piping hot.

San Bei Ji (3 Cups Chicken)三杯雞

San Bei Ji (3 Cups Chicken)
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

With mother-earth out & about traveling to the Land of our Forefathers, I have been whipping up dishes that I know she doesn't like but which I and father-earth like a lot. One of them is the dish that I cooked for dinner tonight San Bei Ji which literally means 3 Cups Chicken. The name stems from the original recipe which calls for 1 cup Sesame Oil (que horror!), 1 cup Soy Sauce and 1 cup rice wine as the main sauce ingredients that is then cooked with the chicken. This dish is quite popular in Taiwan but traces it's origins to Jiangxi province in southern China. I had to research quite a bit online as there were numerous recipe versions to choose from. The one I finally decided on used only 1/3 cup each of sesame oil, rice wine & soy sauce, which to me sounded like a reasonable portion of ingredients. Cooking this dish was quite easy, I just sauteed the garlic, ginger & chilis in the sesame oil then added the chicken pieces & poured in the sauce mix of rice wine, soy sauce & sugar then let it simmer for 30 mins. I then added the basil leaves & scallions at the very end before serving. That was it, easy peasy and super yummy!!! Go on and try lah!

Earth Day & Buridibod

Earth Globe
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

I knew Earth Day was fast approaching with all the events being advertised over the radio & on TV. So with all the talk of green this & green that I unconciously planned tonights dinner menu to include not one but TWO healthy vegetable dishes, an event that is unheard of in our highly carniverous household. For the first dish, I used the leftover ground pork stir fry that mother earth made extra before she embarked on her annual trip to Lam Hai, I decided that I would saute it with some chayote which I knew father earth liked a lot. The next dish was one that I saw in Yummy Magazine and featured a very interesting combination of ingredients. Imagine grated RAW plantain bananas, mashed sweet potato, mushrooms & malunggay leaves as it's main ingredients. The dish had it's roots in the Ilocos region and was called Buridibod. Believe me I was a bit wary at first to the success of this dish but decided to push all negative thoughts aside and put my faith in the capable editors at Yummy. In a casserole, I first sauteed the garlic, onions & the grated banana in some olive oil till tender then added some chicken stock ( the recipe called for water), then in went the sliced mushrooms & mashed sweet potato & I let it simmer for 5 mins. after which I put in the maluggay leaves & added salt & pepper & a dash of sesame oil. Then came the taste test. The dish was amazing!!! It was creamy but still had some texture from the maluggay leaves & mushrooms. It's so hard to describe how it tasted because it's as if my taste buds were still adjusting to this new flavor experience. The bottom line is that IT IS GOOD & HEALTHY!!!! Happy Earth Day!!!

BAck to Blogging

04/13/2008
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

It's been AWHILE since I updated my blog, sorry to my loyal readers for abandoning you. Now that life has somewhat settled down to normalcy, I think I should jumpstart my blog again but this time I am changing the format a bit and will be focusing mainly on my foodie creations & travels & experiences with food. I know I know there are so many blogs out there talking about food, but what's life without food, food makes life interesting & fun. Food makes the world go round in my book! To start off my blogging with a a bang, I am featuring my first ever crab dish that I cooked on Sunday for lunch. Mamasan brought me home a lovely live crab from the wet market and I was (as brutal as it may sound) quite excited with the prospect of killing my first crab. I tried to remember all Master Lu's lessons in my head with regards to killing & cleaning crabs & was quite surprised to see that it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I even remembered to remove the sac located near the crabs eyes to remove the bitter taste. Guess I've seen Master Lu do it so many times that I just sorta remembered it by default. I decided to make Crab with steamed egg since the recipe looked easy & I luckily had all the ingredients on hand. Crab with steamed egg is kind of like eating Chawanmushi with a whole crab cooked in it, and believe me, the steamed egg tasted heavenly since the combination of the crabs natural juices mixed with the egg made it extra flavorful. It was cooked perfectly if I may so!

Birthday Queens

My neck and shoulders have been giving me a lot of grief lately, so I was forced to skip the joint birthday celebration of Mona & mAe at Click the other night and hie off to this massage therapist from China. I decided that in my absence I would send them both roses, and thought it would be even cuter if they each got a beauty pageant crown to go with their bouquet. It was quite easy to find these crowns at Q, and I had my florist attach a crown to each of them. Thanks to Jigs for sending me this lovely pic she took of them.

Aaargh! I SPLURGED!

Aaargh! I SPLURGED!
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

Couldn't resist buying this Tokidoki belt bag, the design was really the selling point for me. Couldn't find any other pattern with this specific belt bag design though, so I had to shell out quite a bit of moola - no more shopping till next month!!!!