Holiday

----What is holiday?

Food

(Celery with Almond butter and Dried Cranberries)

(Apple Cider Brined Pork(cubed) with Apple, Pearl Onion Plum Sauce)

Gift

(Mastering the art of French Cooking by Julia Child)

Santa

(A letter from Santa)

This is my holiday( of couse, there were many other kinds of wonderful food), how about yours?

Celery with Almond butter and Dried Cranberries:

Celery: peeled, put into the boiling water( when boiling , add some oil into water,and the vegetable will be shiny afterwards) , take them out when the water is about to boil again

Almond Sauce: almond butter, white/black pepper(prefer to white), salt, sesame oil, stir as well as adding hot water to adjust the thickness

Serving:  mix celery , chop dried cranberries and almond sauce

Apple Cider Brined Pork(cubed) with Apple, Pearl Onion Plum Sauce( Chinese Version):

Brined the pork tenderloin, sliced them , then using hammer ( or the back of knife) to make cubed pork steak, pan fried.

Sauce: Instead of using Dijon mustard,using Chinese plum sauce and oyster sauce

Compromise Vs. 30min running rule--Tofu meatball makeover, 2 ways

I made myself a rule yesterday, I should run everyday, only 30mins, but not 1hr. Since an one-hour running plan is always intimating and I tend to postpone it and everything else that  looks like with higher priority jumps into the queue. So I thought what if I did  it only 30min each time, it  would be easy to keep it on and I would still have energy to run the next day , so  the rule is : No more than 30min!

But the reality is I was super cold, tired and hungry after school, then you can guess, I didn't go...

It is frustrating anyway.  I can easily break my rules without any guilty, how horrible it is! How about my dream about being a real chef? Will it also be compromised? Will it be able to survive from various complicated  factors in real life?

I do other art things as fun and I enjoy it, because I know I will never feed myself by art. But when things become serious, it also brings in more pressure. Is my dream realistic? Am I really talented enough?

Is it too late?

Maybe I should just stop worrying but keep this blog on.

It is kinda boring only have poached tofu meatball, so I worked on them a little bit and made them over in two ways- pan-fried and deep-fried(panko version), the dipping is hoisin sauce. And it is a nice match, I think.

Say Happy Bday in 'person'--Poached Tofu/shrimp meatball

Today (11/10) is XiaoDandan's birthday. I noticed that in facebook , then I decided to give her a call instead of writing the several words in facebook. And I did, she sounded very happy to hear that from me. We are close friends, we should TALK. Do you agree?

I also remember, the other day, my another friend's birthday, I pinged him to say happy B-day, he was so surprised that I knew his birthday , which I did appreciate facebook. And I am sure he was happier to get the wishes on IM. It was a communication between friends, which means an 'asking' will be followed by an 'answer'.

So if you can , make a call or an email,  at least an IM to your friends on their Bday. I guess your wishes will stand out, because it's specially from you in person

I know Xiaodandan likes steak, not sure she is also a fan of tofu, but should be, ( Chinese girls love Tofu~~)
But I am sure Cindy will like it, ' Hello,Cindy, how are you?'

This is something I learned from '天天饮食‘, very healthy but delicous.

I mixed 'meatball' with what I had by hand: parsley, minced garlic, shrimp, sausage, water chestnut, tofu (medium firm one, pre-processing: boil it so that it will get rid of some water, but still not recommend to use firm tofu)

Use blender to mix them, add a little bit starch, egg( which I think is optional), if too dry, add unsweetened soymilk(or milk or chicken broth)----don't worry , it won't get apart, adding water into meatball is the sercret to make it juicy, season it with white pepper, salt.

Prepare a bowl of startch water, while heating a pot of water or chicken broth.

When water is lukewarm, wash meatball with startch water , then put it into the pot. When the water just starts to boil, turn the heat down to medium , let it simmer.

when meatball are floating in the pot, they are done.
I like the cruching surprise from water chestnuts  : P

Legend of Fall(Squash)-- Hey, we miss your smile

Spaghetti Squash+ Shredded Chicken with Korean Spicy/Sweet Sauce

The motivation to smile:

It was actually a while ago, one day, a friend at work gtalked to me, said I was one of few people that smiled at work and they missed that. Beside flattered, I felt guilty at that moment, because I hadn't smiled for long. I think my friend must be very disappointed if he got to know I didn't smile too much during that time. So I just turned around and smiled at myself in the mirror. And from then on, when I am rushing around, I will remember to stop for a second and make a smile, because I know there might be some people somewhere talking about gaogao, the girl who likes smile'. It is such a pleasant fact that can make me smile itself and as well as it turns out to be a motivation for me to smile at the life...

Theorem about happiness:

Lemma: Doing exercises is a treatment for weeping , because tears will be transferred to sweater and be taken out from your body. Based on the lamma, it can be inferred that people that do exercises regularly tend not to to cry very much, therefore: people that do exercises are happier!

(I like this deduction!)

Does that also mean people are more tough in the summer than in the winter?

Recommended medication:

Deep breath + ice cream, and ...............................cook

Then magically, you will find you can smile again.

This is a spaghetti squash topped with Korean chili sauce chicken.

After I made hot chili chicken, I looked up many Chinese website and tried to find out the best way to stir –fried meat, so this dish is for experimenting.

Actually the way I did it last time is not very correct, but it still turned out good.

The correct way is :

1. Rinse the meat in the starch water+wine, but NOT dry flour. It will help to keept the juice in the meat, while dry flour/ starch will absorb more water from meat.

2. Heat the wok until very hot

3. Pour into enough oil, so that meat can swim in it( it sounds greasy but you don’t have to eat all the oil)

4. Heat the oil to medium temperature but NOT very hot. Then add the meat, and let the meat and the oil heated together. Other wise, under a high temperature the outside of the meat is cooked right away but inside still takes some time , and then the outside will be dried out.

5. Take meat out and sit aside.

Korean Chili Sauce:

Korean sauce can be identified solely by the color of the box, no language required 

Red: Spicy, used for bibimbap

Green : Not spicy, used as BBQ dip sauce( not marinade)

Yellow: Soybean paste

This sauce has: red/green/yellpw box sauce, sugar, a little bit wine, ginger, scallion, garlic, oyster sauce(I don't have it on hand)
Cooking :

When everything is ready.
1. Cook chicken->, take them out, put it on the side
2. Cook garlic/ginger/some red color vegetable(red pepper, carrot)(I didn't have it on hand) , add sauce
3. Put chicken back
4. Quick stir, done

Spaghetti squash: Put garlic in the squash, spread with olive oil, then bake them together,(Garlic lover, you know what happened in the kitchen, right?)  about 30-40min

After it’s done, cool aside, mix with sesame oil and scallion before serving.

Legend of Fall Series II(squash) -- Let me cook for you [Assignment]

Hot Chilli Chicken in Squash Bowl

I read something about ' if the food is prepared for you, it will be extremely delicious ', and it just reminded me Mommy's food, those kizzas, chicken and super handmade dumplings... yes they were, not only I could taste it but also I could feel the attention and affection in it , and the good taste as well as the feeling of being loved both will be lasting. And that is also the reason that I don't quite like buying food from stores, especially after I saw them preparing the food in a very casual way, ( I guess they are complaining the time passes so slowly) so the taste in my imaginations was already degraded. Well, I understand them, they are serving hundreds of people everyday and to some point, it was just a job. But without any reason, I just believe the happy single Executive Chef in the Friendly was full of passion , making sandwich, quesadilla, sundae and all kinds of friendly food, I feel happy for those customers that could enjoy his work.

So, every time, when I cook, I will imagine cooking for you, you , and you, and let my food achieve the most top level of gourmet:

every bite has the taste of Love

This is an assignment based on JoJo Taibei's Hot chilli chiken. I was amazed when I had the first bite, it is such a hit to add (A LOT) cilantro to balance the spicy, no wonder it is the start food in that restaurant, (of course, thanks to the genius foodie that ordered this for us). I had wanted to make it for long, but not sure if I was really busy or just a slacker, I never go to Chinatown to get Chinese hot chilli sauce(剁椒).

Until recently, I accidently found this guy, very similar to Chinese hot sauce, so I gave it a try. But in fact, they are not the same, to make Chinese hot chilli sauce, it also uses some alcohol for fermentation , so it comes with more flavor, and it is sweeter.

It is actually  very simple to make your own and it is fresher and much much more healthy than the one from stores, which could be in my age.

Scientific Fact:

When vegetable are brined (like pickle~~), and the process is actually to produce nitrate, and the longer it is brined, the higher the nitrates contains. So, eat fresh and drink green tea.

Squash bowl: brushed with bacon grease, sprinkle sweet paprika, bake until tender.

Hot chili chicken:

The secrete to stir-fried meat in Chinese cuisine is: Hot Wok, Quick Work,

1. Pat diced chicken with flour(or meat tenderizer) , mix in scallion or minced arlic or minced ginger, depends on what flavor you want to emphasis.

2. Heat enough oil in the wok, until it is hot enough, quickly stir fried chicken until 80-90% done.

3. Take them out of the wok, then you can cook other things, like vegetables and make sauce. For this hot chili chicken, I used medium heat to saute garlic , then adjust to high heat, add cilantro and hot chili pepper, the next step is season, adding soy sauce and sugar( important)

4. Put chicken back to the wok, stir a bit, and it is done

This is my submission, which I cooked specially for YOU ^_^

For Super ZhaoZhao, exclusively--Chinese steamed bun(pan fried) sandwiched with spicy beef

My Super Sweet Zhaozhao lent me her brand-new A/C. So I drove over tonight and accidently made her a wonderful dinner just using those leftover. I am kinda proud of myself.

The highlight part is Chinese steamed bun(pan fried) sandwiched with spicy beef.

The inspiration is from the movie, I saw she used butter pan fried bread then put bruschetta on it. And I did two flavors, one is plain , the other is pepper(chinese styp) salt.

And the spicy beef is Zhaozhao' beef stew( chinese five spices style) , thin sliced , then mixed with garlic, some spicy sauce, and a little bit vinegar(like balsamic)
I am so happy seeing Zhaozhao was enjoying it so much, and it is going to be for my guests in a dinner party in the future.