Baked Dijon Salmon

It has been awhile since I posted anything. This is the first one for the year. It has been pretty busy so far, I was feeling a little depressed, and the kids were not well, down with stomach flu, and I caught on it too. Hubby's travelling a lot....again, hope I'll have more time to share new recipes this year.

Just made this for dinner, it was actually pretty good. Sobeys had the salmon for $2.99, we normally get the marinade wine and herb salmon, but they do not sell those anymore, so I searched on allrecipe.com and found this recipe, I have all the ingredients (except parsley) so I tried it out. Hubby really loves it. We'll definitely try it again.

The only thing i changed was the parsley because I did not have any, and I pounded the pecan myself, I did not have chopped ones, and I halved the portion, because there's only 2 of us. I did not use the correct measurement, but it turned out very well.

For the vegetables, I just stir-fried the beans, peppers, celery with shrimps and garlic, not forgetting the oyster sauce, and a little bit of corn starch to make it thick... (also add a little bit of water when you fry the veges). It's a simple meal, can be ready in 30-45 minutes, very inexpensive, but probably cost a fortune if you dine at a restaurant.

Sweet & Spicy Fried Tilapia

Sweet & spicy fish and stir fried vegetables

Dinner menu for today was fried fish with sweet and spicy sauce and stir fried vegetables with cashew nuts. My friend's a member at the Sam's Club and she goes there very often, recommended the tilapia fish that they sell there. It's only about $12+, there's about 5-6 in a bag depending on the size, frozen in separate packets that you can just take it out, defrost and cook it whenever you want, how convenient. And the best part is, it's scaled so you don't have to worry about getting your hands dirty.

 I used broccoli, carrots, onions, celery and garlic for my stir fried veges. I found the Heinz Thai chili sauce at the grocery store here, and it's actually pretty good, well good enough to make the sauce for my fried fish. For the sauce of my fish, I fried the onion and garlic first, I put some carrots in too (and the remaining tomatoes from my garden), and then I added 2 tablespoons of chili sauce, and a little bit of ketchup. When it's almost cooked, I put a mixture of tapioca starch with water, you can also use cornstarch, to thicken the sauce.

For the stir fried veges, I fried the cashew nuts first, you don't have to fry it if it's already roasted. Then again, I fried the garlic, onion, followed by carrots and the other veges. I added 2 tablespoon of oyster sauce with water, a little bit of soy sauce and ground pepper. I put the lid on for a couple minutes and let it cook. When it's almost cooked, I added a little bit of chinese cooking wine, and then the tapioca starch mixture again to thicken the sauce.

Fried Tilapia Fish

For the fried fish, after I defrost it, I dried it with paper towel and put some salt on it, rub it on the skin. Make sure that the pan is really hot before you put the fish in, and the fish is dry to prevent it sticking to the pan. Use medium heat, and put the lid on. To know if the fish is cooked, you can see if the eyes turn white and pop out, but in this case, I cut the head out, I'm keeping it for my fish head curry for the next time. To make sure it's cooked easier, I cut 2 lines in the middle part of the fish. Just cook it until it's golden brown, I prefer mine a bit more crispier so I let it cook longer. This is another simple dish, my father in law really like the fried fish we had in Thailand, and the Thai restaurant, similar to this. I am going to cook this for him the next time they come here, I hope they will enjoy it as much as I do.

Pineapple Fried Rice with Fish cake

Pineapple Fried Rice

 Some of my non-Chinese friends were asking me how to make fried rice. I can't believe there's so many people out there who doesn't know how to make this simple fried rice. It's so easy, it's my leftover dish. Normally we'll have leftover rice that I'll use it the next day for fried rice, and I throw in whatever vegetables that I have in the fridge.

 This is what I normally put in my fried rice. Carrots, frozen green peas (and corn sometimes), green onion, I added celery this time because I have it, some meat (can be ground pork, chicken or even shrimp), chopped garlic, eggs, and most important is the overnight rice. Noah loves pineapple in the rice, so I added the pineapple too, lots of pineapple.

 What I do is, I usually fried the bottom of the green onion ( the white part) with garlic in a tablespoon of oil. After you can smell the aroma, you can start frying the eggs, and then scramble it after it turn golden brown. Then I add the carrots, because it take a longer time to cook, or meat first if it's raw meat, but this time I used the leftover pork I had the other day. It goes well in fried rice too, followed by the other vegetables. Stir fry with a little bit of water and oyster sauce for a couple minutes until the veges are half cooked.

 Add in the rice, stir fry it for a couple more minutes. Add water if it's too dry, or soy sauce if you like it salty. Sometimes I push the rice and make a hole in the middle of the pan and crack an egg in the middle, so the rice will get the flavor of the egg, and not too dry. I did not add the extra egg this time  because I was making the fish cake with rolled egg. Too much egg is not good for you. Add the green part of the green onion last and just stir it a little.

 I had this ground pork mixed with chopped basa fish and chopped green onion in the freezer, and decided to cook it today. You can use ground chicken too. I buy the frozen basa fish from Walmart, chopped it up and mix it with the meat, add salt and pepper to marinade.

 After frying the egg, I put the mixture of the meat for the fishcake on top of the egg and then roll it up, cut it into smaller pieces.

I just pan fried them in a pan on medium heat with a lid on for about 10-15 minutes as in picture. You can probably deep fried them too. I used to love this when I was little, and now my son loves them too. If you do not want to roll it in the egg you can just fry the fish cake, it's just as good, but it just look nicer with the eggs, little kids love them.

This is the finished product, my fishcake and fishcake rolled in fried egg. I took the bigger piece and cut it into half to check for doneness. Please be aware that I am not a chef, I learn most of the dishes online from other people's blog, or some I remembered how my mom used to make them and try it by myself, it's mostly self learn, self taught by experience. I never used to cook much before I move here, now that we have a family I have to learn more and create fun dishes for the family. We love this dish, it's fun and easy to make. I hope you do too.

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.