Summer: Time for Jello!

Hotter days mean cooler food to me, my recent snack obsession has been Tutto fruit jello from Korea, they're kind of pricey at 2 for $3 but sooo good. There's quite a lot of real fruit inside and the gooey gel's just tart enough to make it my summer treat.

A vegetarian and cheaper option is Hsin Tung Yang's green tea jello(新东阳绿茶冻), made from seaweed powder instead of beef gelatin, it's healthier, and probably has less sugar since the fruit syrup comes in a separate packet. Wish they had the exact caffeine content on the label, it might have more buzz than it looks, since I was up pretty late after trying some last night.

Dinner

From top (left to right), fried peanuts, salmon salad with chopped garlic, satay shrimp, and bitter melon salad with salmon.

Braised Fish Soup with Radish and Seaweed

The fish was lightly sauted and then added to the stew.

Cucumber, Walnuts and Black Mushroom Salad

Easy to prepare, this is a great summer salad.

香香嘴 (Tofu Snacks)

Finally found one of my favorite Chinese snacks in a local
supermarket! They're about $2.50/pack, individually-wrapped and so
delicious. In China, they're about 10 RMB each. The ingredients
include MSG and bullion, which explain their intense flavor. I didn't
get too thirsty afterwards though, so maybe there isn't a lot of MSG,
hopefully.

Gui Zhou Beef Rice Noodles (贵州牛肉米线)

Gave $250 to Red Cross for the earthquake, went for dinner at one of
those cheap places on Main, right next door was a Sichuan snack shop,
wanted to ask him about his family....

A Harvest of Soy

Made soba noodles, with spicy bean paste added in, finished the
leftover bean curd (大溪豆干, a delicious find) and cucumber salad, then
boiled up a huge pot of soybeans (edamame) with star aniseeds and sea
salt for snacking.

Maybe I can make lunch boxes with 大溪豆干 like this smart blogger has done.

Simple Meals

Made a really delicious grilled cheese sandwich with spicy naan, munster cheese and some Chinese sausage this morning, waiting for a seaweed/preserved radish/egg soup to cool right now. The sausage tastes better cold, I think, cooked they taste greasier.

Yesterday at the potluck dinner, a friend brought a simple dish made of cold, uncooked silken tofu drizzled with a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, scallions and garlic. I was amazed at how the whole thing tasted very gourmet and savory, and yet, apparently took only minutes to make, it'd great for summer when no one wants a hot kitchen. I brought a takeout dish, salt & pepper fried squid, which was pricey and not that amazing, eh.

Saw an easy tofu and marinated soybean sauce recipe, will try it sometime.

A Easy Dinner

All you need are noodles, soybeans, some miso paste and if you like a saltier taste, spicy bean sauce.

White Rabbit Candy (大白兔奶糖)

Like a lot of Chinese kids from the mainland, I grew up with White Rabbit Candy, it's cheap and available everywhere and gives you a nice sugar fix. The taste is not too sweet nor rich, but just a little more chewy and milky than the typical American candy. The passing of time has only improved it, now there are new flavors like chocolate, red bean and yogurt. If you live near an Asian grocery store, you've gotta look for it in the snack aisle.

Dates

I read a funny story from where the date photo came from, a man who married a princess in ancient China was using the royal bathroom when he saw a beautiful lacquer box, curious, he opened it to find it full of dates. He marveled to himself, "Royal families really live it up, even their bathrooms are stocked with snacks!" After he helped himself to a handful, he told people in the house, and was embarrased to find out the dates are really meant to be used as nose stoppers so any foul smell would not be so noticeable.

Dried dates are my new snack obsession, they're slightly sweet, and satisfy my craving for sugar but are healthier than Twinkies. There is a new kind out, which are peanut-stuffed, I seriously will eat a whole bag of those if not checked. My aunt tracked down more of them for me, if I'm lucky, will get the new shipment in a week or so. Can't wait!

Sweet Rice Dumplings

Tomorrow is the Rice Dumplings Festival, I think I'll just boil up the frozen ones for the occasion. A French guy living in China has a great step by step on his blog of how he made them from scratch.

Don't they just look lovely?

Giant rice dumplings made at a festival in China. Who ended up eating them, I wonder?

Chinese New Year Dinner

My family back home had a feast on New Year's eve, known as Chu Xi, it's the most important night of all during the 15-day-long holiday.

The big get-together took place at a relative's restaurant, that's why you don't see dumplings and other more home-y stuff. Let's see, there were:

Chicken roasted with chestnuts
Sliced meat platter
Bamboo shoot stir-fry
Chinese cabbage
Cheery tomatos (kinda non-traditional)
Pancakes!
Shrimp
Meaty dishes in woks
Fish, of course, for its lucky name

Happy New Year

It's a Chinese tradition to have plenty of tangerines with leaves in one's home around New Year's. Tangerine in Chinese, "ju zi," rhymes with luck. You can't have too much luck right?

Tangerines with leaves usually sell around six for two dollars, this year though, because of the cold front sweeping South Carolina and the subsequent supply drop, merchants can't help but sell these at five for three dollars, quite a lot for something used more for decor than taste. I'll just have to see if the ones for sale are any good and shell out the money any way. Hopefully, there won't be any fistfights among customers jostling over the last branch of tangerines with leaves in tact.

Beef Noodles

Ingredients:
beef (preferably with some fat),
green onion,
ginger,
cooking wine,
aniseed,
soy sauce,
sugar,
salt,
rock sugar

Black Sesame Porridge

I get this yummy treat from the supermarket, individually-packed, it makes for a quick and easy snack. I'd totally eat more of sesame porridge if it wasn't so sugary. In China, they are often sold as nutritious food meant for women, this package even advertises this as Woman's Black Sesame Paste, sigh, marketing gimmicks...

Minced Radish Pies

Scallion Sausage Pancakes

You need:

Celery leaves
Vienna sausages
One egg
Corn
Scallions

Sesame Balls

Ahh, such deep-fried goodness.

Sauteed Seaweed Pancakes

The longer you soak the rice cakes, the softer they get. You have to change the water daily though.

Hainan Chicken

Sentosa, a great Malaysian restaurant in Flushing, has a decent version of this dish.

Dumplings

We eat dumplings on holidays, such as on Chinese New Year's Eve. I can't remember the last time we made dumplings from scratch though, the process is pretty time-consuming. These days, we get frozen dumplings from the supermarket and boil as many as we need for the meal.

Braised Fish and Rice Porridge

Some of my favorite dishes:

Corn Cake with Raisins

A Chinese classic, you can make this cake with dates too.

Pork and Leek-Stuffed Mushrooms

For this dish, you need fragrant mushrooms (Xiang Gu), easily found in Asian grocery stores in the dry-goods aisle.

Egg Tarts

I had a craving for egg tarts recently, so after wolfing down two bakery-made tarts in one day, looked for and found this photo of home-made tarts online. You'd need:

Flour
Milk
Sugar
Eggs
Pastry crust
Baking pan