Easy Recipe for Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the largest festivals in a Lunar calendar and Chinese community. As the date of every 15th of August of the Lunar Calender, which means autumn has come. In this year, the mid-autumn festival is 15 September 2016 (Thursday).

On that day, family will reunion and enjoy a dinner earlier and then have the mooncake for the dessert under the Full Moon. The next day of the Mid-autumn festival is a public holiday in Hong Kong.

Mooncake is a very traditional baked cake, made of egg yolks and lotus seed paste. Various ingredients such as nuts and Chinese ham are also available for another variation. Usually it is sweet. I recommend the best way to taste the mooncake is to bake for few minutes (180C ) so the crust is more crispy. Some of mooncake lovers will have mooncakes within that week / month as the mooncakes are only available for sales in mid-autumn festival.

To pair with the mooncake, I am sharing my recipe which is also a dessert of Hong Kong :

Pomelo, Sago and Mango Drink , let’s do it.

POMELO, SAGO AND MANGO DRINK  (for 1 pax)

Ingredients:

Mango :  1 piece (Matured)

Pomelo : 2 slices

Sago  :    2 table spoons

Fresh Milk :  half cup

Coconut Milk :    1-2 table spoons  for seasoning

Coconut Sugar/ Sugar (Optional)

Equipment:

Blender

Method:

Boil sago for 10 minutes until cooked transparently (can keep in the container for serving)

Now we make the mango drink :

(1) Peel mango and cut into small pieces

(2) Put coconut milk, milk

Combine (1) and (2)

Blend together to smooth mixture

Then combine pomelo and sago, with the mango drink to serve. It is a no sugar added drink as Mango already contains sugars for sweetener.

 

Serve it chill is recommended.

Enjoy! Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Easy Recipe – Pain Perdu , good for tea time !

Pain Perdu, meaning a “Lost Bread” from French, is one of recipes from France. This one is easy to cook at home, and less fats than the version from Hong Kong. The one from Hong Kong is deep-fried and with peanut-butter filling between two of the sliced breads, which is deemed as a high calories tea break item in Hong Kong.

So, today I will use one piece of bread for my tea time serving with some fruits and my coffee, hoping that it is less calories… 🙂

Ingredients  (1 pax)

1. bread of your choice 
2. 1 egg
3. 30 ml of fresh milk
4. cinnamon
5. salt
6. butter

Method

1. beat the egg in a mixing bowl
2. add a pitch of salt
3. add a pitch of cinnamon
4. mix well the mixture
5. put the mixture on a tray with milk
6. soak the bread until all mixture is absorbed (cut your desired size in advance)
7. heat the skillet with butter
8. pan fried on medium heat and serve with Nutella or toppings of your choice.

Bon appétit!

Easy Recipe – Organic Soya Milk

Soya beans are rich in protein so it is good for vegetarian. Even though I am not a vegetarian, I suggest you to make soya milk at home instead of purchase the packaged one, with less sugar and more nutrients intake.

I picked the organic soya beans here.

 

Organic Soya Milk

Ingredients:

Organic Soya Beans : 250 grams

Sugar : a little (optional)

Equipment:

Blender

Filter bag

Method:

1) Soak soya beans in the water and remove the skins (it takes time to remove)

I recommend to remove all beans for mise en place and keep in the fridge for preparation. 

2) Use a blender to blend the amount of your desire , the pictures shown here is only 3 tablespoons of beans I have made. 

3) After blending, use a filter bag to filter the milk.

4) Boil the soya milk and add sugar if you prefer.

5) Serve it hot or chill !

As soya milk cannot keep long, so it’s good to cook desired portion for consuming.

Let’s try!

Soya Beans – After removal of skins

Boiling

Easy Recipe – Pearl Barley Drink for Hot Summer

Summer time what do you like to drink ? There is a popular drink for Chinese culture that is Pearl Barley Drink, which is a drink for dehydration of water of the inner body. It helps for weight lost too.

Ingredients: (for 4 portions)

Pearl Barley : 100 grams

Oat (optional) : a little

Sugar (optional) : a little

Method:

1) Soak the pearl barley with water overnight

2) Another day, Boil water and put all Pearl Barleys for cooking until all are soft

3) Add some oat for tasty option

4) can serve in hot or chill for serving.

Eating the barleys can change your fortune if you are born in summer time.

You can keep a bottle of drink , no sugar added , for the diet season.

Soak overnight could cook pearl barley easily.

Easy Recipe – Pesto Sauce

Easy recipe to share tonight is homemade pesto sauce !

I have bought a basil for my herbal garden and tonight I hand picked some fresh basil for preparing my pesto sauce for my linguine.

Ingredients: (for 2 pax)

Fresh basil leaves (see photo)

Parmesan cheese (grated)

Pine nuts 30 grams

Seasoning :

50 ml extra virgin olive oil

1 clove of garlic

Salt

Black pepper

Equipment:

Blender with chopping function

Method:

1) wash the fresh basil

2) toast pine nuts (optional)

3) put grated parmesan cheese, basil leaves, and pine nuts with all seasonings

4) blend it all into a mixture

I have blended too much and not added so much olive oil, so the mixture is less fat (actually parmesan is fatty) .

Let’s try!

Homemade Pesto Sauce with Linguine

Easy Recipe – Gazpacho

It’s time to share my recipe again since talking so much on art and cultures.

Here I would like to introduce my secrete recipe of Gazpacho – a soup originating from Andalusia of Spain.  It’s a very low cost, high in nutrient and yummy recipe! Sometimes I have left little vegetables like half of cucumber, bell peppers, then you can just buy some more tomatoes to make Gazpacho. 

Gazpacho serves chill so it is ideal for summer.   

Ingredients:  (for 2 pax)

 

8 large tomatoes

1/2 cucumber

1 clove of Garlic

1/4 of green bell pepper

1/4 onion

1/2 slide of day-old white bread

Seasoning:

Olive oil (Extra Virgin)

Salt

Black pepper

Basilic leaves / mint for garnish

Luxury version: add Spanish ham on top (optional)

Cooking Method:

1) Cut a cross on the bottom of tomatoes and boil under hot water, to remove the skin of tomatoes

2) Cool down the tomatoes in a room temperature

3) Wash all vegetables and cut into cubes , leave some vegetables cubes for garnish

4) Use a blender to blend all tomatoes, bread and vegetables, seasoning with salt and pepper

5) garnish with mint/basilic leaves or Spanish ham for topping , with extra virgin olive oil.

6) Lastly, chill them before serving

Volia! Let’s try ! Really good for summer and it can keep up to 2 days.

Housekeeping Tips – Removal of Cup Stains

People drinking tea or coffee could leave the coffee or tea stains easily inside the cup. There is some cleaning detergents for that but I have used the cheaper option and I highly recommend you to use.

It’s Baking Soda!  You can see the before and after effect below:

Before and after (left to right)

 Method:

1) put a teaspoon of baking soda into the cup

2) add a little bit of water (1-2 teaspoons)

3) use a kitchen wrap or paper to remove the stains

Have a try!

Easy Recipe for Summer – Tofu Cheese Cake

Every one loves chilled dessert for summer time, as I do. In the summer, I will make the Japanese styled tofu cheese cake at home which delighting you after lunch or dinner.

It’s easy as you can find a fresh tofu at the supermarket or the market.

Ingredients (for 8 portions)

Creme Cheese 200g

Hard Beancurd (1 piece estimated 340 grams)

Lemon juice (1 tea spoon)

Sugar (2 tablespoons)

Yogurt (50 grams)

Gelatins (20 grams)

Cake Base:

Crackers (8 pieces)

Butter (30 grams)

Method:

Step 1: prepare the cake base with digestive crackers and melted butter. And chill the base into the fridge for minimum 3 hours.

Step 2: For tofu cheese cake fillings, melt the gelatin in water first and mix well all ingredients together.

Step 3: beat the tofu and cream cheese into fine mixtures

Step 4: Layer the cream cheese mixture on the top of the crackers base

Step 5: Chill for overnight before serving

Bon appetit!

 

DIY beading for Suribachi

That’s one of my new kitchen utensils for food grinding. It looks so simple so I have decorated it with the plastic beads. Suribachi is an essential tool for preparation of sesames, sauce, dressing and paste!

Suribachi Costs: HK$12  (US$1.6)

Original product

mise en place

bling bling!

 

Idea for party decoration

I like to have a party at home and I like decorating like a party even though the party is not rolling.

I found a pack of paper bunting with printed images and die-cut in bunting shape, a set of 40 buntings only for US$3.9 (HK$30) at a book store.  yeah!

Paper Bunting Set

UV and hot stamping effect