Simple dinner for 4

Sweet sour pork, egg fu yong and lettuce

This is something simple that I made for dinner, sweet & sour pork, egg fu yong (omelette) and some vegetables.

Getting the ingredients ready

For the sweet and sour pork, I sliced the pork into smaller pieces, and then marinade it with soy sauce, 5 spice powder, sesame oil, salt and pepper, and egg white. Mix it in a bowl of flour right before you deep fry them. After it turn to golden brown, remove from the fryer and put it on paper towel to get the grease out. Prepare the cucumbers, carrots, pineapple, pepper, tomatoes for the sweet and sour sauce.

For the sauce, put some oil in a pan on medium heat, add garlic, fry until golden brow, add carrot, then pepper, followed by the other vegetables and fruits. Put 3-4 tablespoon of ketchup, and some hot chili sauce. Add some water, and then some tapioca starch when it's almost cooked. Mix in the pork.

For the egg fu yong, just slice some onions, fry it with shrimps, some people put mushrooms too with the beaten egg, add some salt and pepper.. as simple as that, but it's my favourite, and Noah's too, he loves eggs.

The vegetables is the simplest of all. Boil water in a pot, put the vegetables in, and take it out after couple minutes, do not over cook it. It doesn't take too long to cook. In the mean time, fry some shallots or green onion with some olive oil. Strain the veges, add the oil with shallots plus some oyster sauce or soy sauce. Easy breezy. You can use iceberg lettuce, or romaine, or the chinese veges, eg bok choy, kai lan.. almost anything

Creamy Crab Soup

Creamy Crab Soup

 Nancy brought me some crabs, unexpectedly. She told me to cook it today as it's going to die soon. She has a friend that owns a restaurant and she's been getting fresh live crabs from her. I told her I like crab and was going to buy some frozen ones, so there, I've got some live crabs from her.

 I wasn't sure how to cook or kill the crab before, actually I am afraid of killing them. So I googled, and found several sites. They all said to put in the boiling water with salt for about 8 minutes, and so I did. I found something very funny about this site that mentioned, for more humane act, gently stroke the head and put it to sleep before putting it into the water, head down first. Well if you are to kill it, you are better just to do it quickly.

 This is how it looked like after being cooked. The shell suppose to turn red. I had trouble getting the shells out, it's sure wasn't easy. I pulled all the legs out and cracked it open inside. Honestly, my fingers still hurts. I should learn the proper method to crack it open.

 This is all I got from the 6 crabs. I was just going to eat it like that with butter, it is actually good that way too. My mom used to stir fry it with garlic, onion and other spices, but she killed it and chopped it before cooking it, I do not want to touch it so I just boiled it.

This soup actually turned out very good, hubby already had 3 small bowls of them. I found the recipe from allrecipe again. It's called South Carolina she crab soup, not sure how it is because I've never been there and never tried it. To me it tasted almost like those creamy clam chowder that I really like.

I did modify the recipe, as usual. I just put what I have at home to make it.

This is my recipe;

2 1/2 tbs butter
2 1/2 tbs all purpose flour
2 cups half and half cream
2 cups broth (chicken or fish )
1 stalk celery, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 small onion, chopped
some green onion or chives, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

I melted the butter in the pot, and added the flour, stirring it often until it's smooth.
Then I added the celery, onion and garlic, fry it for a couple minutes.
Add the half and half cream a little at a time, stirring it often. The real recipe asked for 1 cup whole milk but I don't have it, and 4 cups of half and half cream.
I used my leftover pork bone soup I had yesterday instead of the broth they called for. It turn out very well too.
Cook it in the pot, stirring it often, add salt and pepper, sprinkle with the green onion on top after it's cooked.
The original recipe also asked for sherry wine, worchester sauce and hot sauce, but I feel that this is good enough so I didn't add anything else. I am so happy that I can make my own creamy soup, I've always like this type of soup, now I can make it. If I can make it, so can you, and everybody else.

My Favourite Restaurants in Niagara Falls

There's no new recipe to post today because I've been feeling lazy again. We have been eating out. So I decided to share my favourite restaurants with you, if any of you decided to come to Niagara Falls one day, you'll know where to go for good food, with a reasonable price.

We went to Sushi Jade for lunch today. It has become our favourite sushi place. The price is reasonable. $13.99 for lunch, and $19.99 for dinner, all you can eat, seniors get discount for lunch, and kids under 4 eats free. Their food is quite fresh, you order, they make it right there and then. It's located right across from the Factory Outlet store, and just couple minute from our house. Too bad I always forget to bring my camera when we go out for lunch or dinner, well it's hard to bring everything when you have 2 little ones to take with you. Noah really loves the tempura and the ice cream there. I can't believe that he actually ate a sushi today. Kiana loves their deep fried tofu, it's so soft and smooth. I love practically anything there.

My other favourite sushi place is Taki Restaurant. It's a bit more $$ but the food is really fresh and the decor is really nice, you get your own booth, it makes you feel like you are in a real Japanese restaurant with real Japanese server who doesn't speak much English.

As for Thai Food, we have been a regular at Mai Thai. I recommended it to my neighbour, who is not a regular there too, and we gave them very good review on tripadvisor. The price is good, with big portions, and it's more authentic. It's the best you can get around here. I was told that it was a mother and daughter team who owns the place, they sure did a very good job. Personally, my favourite is the green curry, pad thai and Noah loves the fried spring roll.

Another reasonable priced place with good food is Pho Vietnam 999. It's the same as the Pho Dau Bo in St Catherines. They are located not too far from our house too, it used to be a Donut Diner Restaurant, they converted it so the decor doesn't match with the place, but who cares, with good price and food like that.

My favourite Italian Restaurant is Carpaccio. My neighbour recommended it to me and we really like it there, my in laws loves to go there, used to, because now they prefer to go to Mai Thai. Their specials, stuff lobster ravioli was one that you will never forget, unfortunately they do not serve that anymore.

We went to the Skylon Tower Restaurant. I just love how you can see the view of the city from up there, the revolving tower. If you go earlier you can get their early bird specials, it was a reasonably not too expensive place to go, well it is expensive but it is worth it.

Just one more recommendation before I sign off tonight, The Lake House Restaurant is another one of my top choice. It's located by the lake, a little bit further from my house, but it's worth the drive. They have the patio in the summer, we went in the winter for my in laws anniversary, if you go earlier you can get the early bird menu, it's really worth it. My favourite is the escargot.. it's the best I've ever eaten in my life. I wish to go back there again, sometimes soon, well it's not as affordable and need a longer drive, but I like the food and the atmosphere there.. so I'll be back again, some day.

Next time, maybe I'll write about things to do in Niagara Falls, the free stuff anyway. When I first came here, we came to Niagara Falls for honeymoon, we've never thought that we'll move here some day, and now we ended up here some how. I did not like this place as much before, I thought everything was too touristy, but now we are exploring different places of interested, things that we can do for free, because the touristy area is not as great, we grew to love this place now. I am happy that we moved here. This is a great place to become our home.

Vietnamese Style Grilled Lemongrass Pork

Dinner for tonight, lemongrass pork. Yesterday I went to a local groceries to get some fresh veges and met an older Chinese lady, who turned out to be a mother of a friend. She was going to take a bus home, so I offered to send her home. She bought a lot of pork, because it was on sale for 99 cents a pound! I decided to get some and try it out too. The type of meat looks like the one we usually get at our favourite Vietnamese Restaurant, so I looked for the recipes. After modifying it, here's the recipe;

1 lbs of sliced pork chop, centre cut loin or butt chop
1 tbs of fish sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbs brown sugar
2-3 cm ginger
2 garlic cloves
1-2 stalk lemongrass
salt and pepper to taste

Put the lemongrass, garlic and peeled ginger in a blender and blend it until smooth.
Rub in the pork, marinade for a couple hours or overnight with the rest of the ingredient.
Put it in the barbecue to cook it. You can probably use the oven but might not taste as good.

I put a fried egg, some cucumbers and carrots, because they serve it that way at the restaurant.
They also dip the meat in a dipping sauce, that you can mix with lime juice, fish sauce and chopped garlic, with a little bit of sugar.

This recipe actually turned out pretty good. It's almost as good as the one at the restaurant, we will not need to order this dish anymore, now that we can do it ourselves.

I made wintermelon soup with pork bones, as a side dish because they serve with soup too at the restaurant. The only difference is, this is home made, fresher and healthier.

Pineapple rolls

I might have posted this pineapple rolls before, but we just made it today so I'll just repost it again, if I did post it before. I was babysitting today again, my friend asked me to watch her daughter 3 times a week, not sure how will I be able to cope, but so far so good. I thought it will be great to get the kids to do something, to kill the time, and both of them like baking anyway, so it worked well. What's even better was, her mom finished work earlier today and came to help clean afterwards.

As you can see, it's a bit out of shape, but it very delicious. It's made with love. The kids really enjoy making the cookies. I used pineapple jam that I made, no sugar added. To make the pineapple jam, just cut up pineapple pieces, put in the blender and then cook it in a pot, stirring it often until it thickens. I put some cinnamon to cook it together.

I usually make the jam ahead of time and freeze it, use it whenever I feel like baking. For the pineapple rolls dough, here's the recipe;

150g butter
100g margarine
50g or 1/2 cup icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
4 cups flour

1. Mix the butter, margarine and sugar in a mixer, beat until light an fluffy.
2. add all the other ingredients except flour
3. Add in flour a little at a time, do not stir too much anymore after adding the flour.
4. Roll it out and you can use cookie cutter or cut a line, and roll the jam in the middle. Add flour if it's too sticky. I don't use the exact amount of flour, just add more if it's too sticky because once you put too much flour it's too hard, and you can't save it anymore.

Preheat oven at 350F or 180 C. Bake it for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from oven, put on wire rack, let cool. Your have to get it out from the baking sheets immediately, otherwise when it's cool it will be hard and get crack easily.

BBQ Chicken Wings

Just a quick post for my BBQ recipe. We had this for dinner last night and I decided to take a quick picture before it's all gone, and keep the recipe here and share it with everyone. This is a very easy recipe, you just need to marinade it overnight, and put it on the barbecue the next day.

1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp chopped garlic or garlic powder
1 tsp finely chopped ginger or I use ginger powder when I feel lazy
1kg of chicken wings ( drumstick or even breast in cubes like satay)

Simply mix everything together and refrigerate it overnight. Hubby used the charcoal grill instead of the gas because I like the taste better, but you can use the normal gas barbecue or even in the oven 350 F for about 30-40 minutes. They are good to eat just like that or dip it in peanut sauce.

To make the peanut sauce, ground some peanuts or buy some chopped peanuts, add some peanut butter mix it in with curry paste, it's as simple as that!

Panda Bread, 2nd attempt

 My Panda Bread turn out alright this time. My friend told me I should watch the video of lingling instead if yoyomax on youtube. It was in Cantonese, so if you don't understand it, here's what it's about. I find it easier and it has the better measurement, 40g for the black, 120g for the white and 350g for green dough. I did not follow the exact, just use my own judgement.

 Firstly, you roll it out, make sure the dough is just a little bigger than the bread pan that your are going to use. Cut out a small piece on the side, as you can see the picture below, the one side is cut off, and put in the middle, in between the black dough. The black will be the ears of the panda.

 I had trouble rolling the black dough, it was quite dry and it keep shrinking back. I had to add a little water, and it didn't work. So I rolled it out and cut it into 4 stripes and then roll them up. It's not that round but that was the best I can do. Will try to make it better next time.

 Roll out the white dough, and cut one stripe out as in the picture above. It's for the middle part in between the eyes.

 Put the white dough on top of the 'ears'. Put the black eyes on top of the black ears, make sure the alignment is right above.

 Roll up the white part. Put a little bit of water and pinch them together

 Pinch the rest of the dough together, use a little bit of water.

 Turn it over carefully and put it in your bread pan. Cover it up and let it rise for an hour, or double in size. I put mine in the oven with the lights on.

 I had the extra dough I used it for buns. This is how it looked like after 45 minutes in my oven, ready to go.

 Ta-da... Finally my very own panda bread. The eyes doesn't look too freat, but well, it's better than the one before isn't it?

 This is my super soft buns with lotus filling inside. See you it became flat? I put too much pressure to open it, it is too soft.

The kids enjoying their panda bread. I was babysitting today, and maybe many more days to come (if I can handle so many kids). The little girl really liked the bread, and she wanted to take some home for her sister and mommy... she said "This bread is too good" in Chinese.

 I guess it's considered a success if they kids like it isn't it? I'll have to look for more fun things to bake with the kids. I think they will enjoy helping, and eating them afterwards. It's a good way to make Noah eat anything~