Tofu Ball with Ground Pork and Mushroom

Ground meat is mainly used when we make meat ball. I called these tofu balls because tofu is used as primary ingredient and ground pork is acting as a secondary one. In addition to tofu and ground pork, some finely chopped Enoki mushroom and chopped dried mushroom were used to give it more taste and texture. The ground pork takes up only about one-third of the total weight. This is a great and healthy way to cut down meat consumption.

Ingredients:
1. 1 case medium firm tofu
2. 150 g ground pork
3. 120 g Enoki mushroom
4. 2 dried mushrooms
5. 8 heads Green Baby Bok Choy (or 4 heads regular Bok Choy, quartered vertically through the head)

Seasoning A : 3 tablespoons cornstarch, 1 teaspoon salt, ground pepper
Seasoning B : 2 tablespoons Oyster Sauce, ½ tablespoon sugar, ½ cup water, ½ tablespoon wet cornstarch (mixed with 2 tablespoons water)

Directions:
1. Remove the root of Enoki mushroom, drop Enoki in boiling water for few seconds, remove, drain and rinse it in cold water, squeeze off excess water and chop it in fine pieces. Soak dried mushroom in warm water, remove the stem when it becomes soft, chop mushroom in fine pieces. Press and cut tofu in fine pieces with a spoon (or press it through a strainer). Chop ground pork to make it even finer. Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

2. Add everything in Seasoning A in tofu mixture, mix well. Heat up oil in a deep fry pan to high temperature (a tiny drop of tofu in the oil will sizzle right away), then lower to medium high. Place a tablespoonful of tofu mixture in one palm, shape it with a tablespoon and form an egg shape ball, drop the ball in the hot oil gently. Do the same with the rest tofu mixture (several ones in each batch). Deep-fry these balls until they turn golden brown, and float at surface. (Tip 1)

3. Boil Green Baby Bok Choy in boiling water for 30 seconds (Tip 2), remove, drain and rinse in cold water. Heat up 2 tablespoons oil in wok, stir-fry Bok Choy briefly, remove and arrange it at outer rim of a big plate.

4. Boil Seasoning B in wok, lower to medium low flame, add tofu balls in the gravy sauce, mix well, remove and place in the plate surrounded by Bok Choy.

Tip 1: It might stick at bottom of pan when it was just dropped into the oil. Don’t move it until it turns slightly brown.
Tip 2: Add ½ teaspoon salt into the boiling water will help keeping the green of the vegetable.

Lemon Chicken Slices

Most of time soy sauce is used to marinate chicken or is used as sauce base for stir-fry chicken. Today I am thinking of a different way of cooking chicken, soy-sauce-free. Lemon is used as the sauce base. The tender chicken goes through your taste buds with sweet and sour taste, and you smell the fragrance of lemon in every bite. It sure will give you a good appetite.

Ingredients：
1. skinless/boneless chicken breast 250 g
2. sugar snap peas 100 g
3. 1 carrot
4. 3 brown mushrooms

A. Marinade seasonings for chicken breast:
1. 1/2 tablespoon wine
2. 1/4 teaspoon salt
3. 1/2 egg or 1 egg yolk
4. 3/4 tablespoon cornstarch

B. Seasonings for lemon sauce:
1. 1 slice lemon, quartered
2. 3 tablespoons lemon juice
3. 3 tablespoons sugar
4. ¼ teaspoon salt
5. 1/3 cup water
6. ½ tablespoon cornstarch

Directions:
1. Cut chicken breast in thin slices, use seasoning A to marinate chicken for about 15 minutes。
2. Trim both ends of sugar snap peas; peel carrot and cut it in thin slices; remove mushroom stems and cut it in slices.
3. Heat up 4 tablespoons oil in wok to high temperature, add chicken slices and stir-fry briefly. Remove from wok when the color changed.
4. Heat up 2 tablespoons oil, briefly stir-fry sugar snap peas, carrot and then mushroom, one after another, mix well and remove.
5. Boil lemon sauce in seasonings B except lemon slices, add chicken when it’s boiling, add vegetables and lemon slices, mix well and serve.

Spaghetti with Shrimp and Red Onion

This simple yet tasty spaghetti is always placed on the high priority in my quick-and-easy recipes collection (can be done in 30 minutes). As an Asian, I prefer this kind of cheese-free or low-cheese Italian food. It just seems to be lighter and healthier. The combination of shrimp and cooked red onion tastes so sweet and yummy.

Ingredients (for 2 servings):
1. 200 g Spaghetti
2. 12 jumbo shrimps
3. 1 medium red onion（around 400 g)
4. 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
5. Vegetable oil (or olive oil)
6. 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Seasonings：
1. Salt
2. Cooking Wine
3. Ground pepper
4. Parsley Flakes


Directions:
1. Use a deep pot to boil water. Add spaghetti when water is boiling; add 1 teaspoon salt for seasoning and 1 tablespoon oil to prevent spaghetti stick together. Boil the spaghetti at medium high heat for about 15 minutes or until the spaghetti is getting tender. Drain the spaghetti and set aside (1 teaspoon olive can be mixed with spaghetti before the sauce is ready)
2. While boiling the spaghetti, have the shrimp peeled and deveined, slice the shrimp open on the back. Season the shrimp with dash of salt and 1 teaspoon of wine.
3. Cut red onion into thin strings.

4. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in pan, add chopped garlic, stir-fry until fragrant. Add shrimp, stir-fry until the color changed. Remove the shrimp.
5. Heat 2 tablespoons oil; add red onion and salt stir-fry until it turns translucent. Add shrimp and mix well, Season with ground pepper and parsley flakes. Before it gets ready, add butter and stir-fry until the butter melts, mix well. Remove; pour over the spaghetti and mix well to serve.

Ketchup Fried Rice with Omelet

This is a dish that always reminds me of my childhood with my grandma.  When I was very young, I found out that grandma can turn a Fried Rice into this delicious dish, Then, I’d ask her to cook this dish as a special treat for us whenever she came to visit us.  Though she is a vegetarian, but she would cook this dish with meat and vegetables to make it a nutrition-balanced dish for us.  Best of all, grandma always cooked it with the right taste and made it look so professional.

After I have my own family, I try to replicate how she did this dish in the past, and learn to make this special dish for my family.  They always appreciate it when I present it with a “Happy Face”.

Fried Rice Ingredients: Please refer to Egg Fried Rice with Sausage (Tip 1) reduce to 3 cups rice for 2 servings.

Directions:

1. Follow the directions in Egg Fried Rice, except leaving the eggs out.  When meat and vegetable are cooked and mixed, add 3 tablespoons ketchup and 1 teaspoon sugar, mix well.  Reduce the heat to low, add rice and salt to taste.  Mix well and remove the Ketchup Fried Rice.

2.  2 to 3 eggs can be used for 2 servings.  Beat eggs and add 2 teaspoons wet cornstarch (mixing with 1-1/2 tablespoon water).

3. Clean and dry the wok.  Heat up 1 tablespoon oil in wok to high, tilt the wok to let oil cover a circular area about 25-30 cm in diameter.  When the wok is very hot (Tip 2), remove excess oil, reduce the heat to low, pour half of the egg mixture into wok and start tilting the wok, so the egg mixture will form a circular egg sheet at bottom of wok.  When egg sheet is almost become solid, use a cereal bowl to take half of the Ketchup Fried Rice, carefully flip the bowl, let the rice fall out onto the egg sheet and form a dome shape.  

Use spatula to loosen the edge of egg sheet and fold the siding inward to cover the rice.  Flip a plate upside down to cover the rice and omelet.  With one hand holding the plate and the other hand holding the wok, flip the plate and wok upside down at the same time.  Give the plate a little twist, now the fried rice and omelet should easily fall onto the plate.

4. Use ketchup to draw a happy face for the diner or let the diner to design what they like showing on the omelet.  This can be a fun meal.  Serve a soup at the side will make this a complete and delicious meal.

Tip 1: Kernel corn, green onion, shrimp or meat can all be used or substituted with in the fried rice.

Tip 2: Make sure the wok is very hot before pouring in the egg mixture, this will ensure the egg sheet won’t stick to the wok when it’s flipped over.

Pumpkin Soup with Leek

It’s filled with Halloween spirits everywhere in October. In North America, pumpkin is a very important, traditional part of the autumn harvest. It is used not only in Halloween decorations; it is also often made into various traditional festival foods, such as pie, bread or soup, for Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday.

Pumpkin is not only loaded with Vitamin A, it’s also a very good source of Vitamins B6, C, E and Dietary Fiber. This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol and Sodium. Passing by the loads of pumpkins on sale, I cannot help to get one for the pumpkin soup I’ve been craving for. I use two other ingredients, leek and celery, to balance out the heaviness and richness in pumpkin taste without adding much seasoning.

Ingredients:

1. 1 small pumpkin (around 2.5 lb.)
2. 1 bunch Leek
3. 1 stalk celery
4. 1 can (14 oz.) low sodium chicken broth
5. salt, ground pepper

Directions:
1. Put the whole pumpkin in steamer to steam for about 50 minutes or until tender. Cut the pumpkin in half, spoon out and discard the seeds and stringy portion. Peel the pumpkin, cut it into small pieces, put them into a food processor or a blender; puree with 1 can of low sodium chicken broth.
2. Cut leek diagonally in thin strings. Soak in water for a while and wash off the dirt.
3. Cut celery horizontally in 0.5 cm thin sections.

  


4. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in pot. Drain the leek and add it into pot, stir-fry until tender and fragrant. Add celery pieces, stir briefly. Add pumpkin puree and one can of water, season with salt and ground pepper. Once the soup comes to boil, lower the heat to medium low and simmer for about 3 minutes. Remove and serve.

30-minute Chicken Noodle Soup

It starts getting rainy and chilly in this early autumn. As I returned home from GYM in this gloomy and damp morning, an idea with a hot soup for lunch has crossed my mind. Hope it will warm my body and my heart.

This soup is made with No Yolks Noodles which claimed to have no cholesterol. It comes with different shapes and sizes.  It can be cooked with other ingredients without pre-cooking.  The leftover is also easy to re-heat that noodle won’t stick together.  I use it quite often to make this quick and easy dish.

Ingredients for Chicken Noodle Soup (for 4 servings):

1.    1 boneless/skinless chicken breast (250 g)

2.    2 carrots

3.    4 stalks celery

4.    1/3 head cabbage

5.    170 g No Yolks Noodles (extra broad dumplings)

6.    1 can (14 oz.) low sodium chicken broth

7.    salt

8.    ground pepper

9.    2 teaspoons dried Mediterranean Oregano Leaves

10.  2 teaspoons dried Parsley Flakes

Directions:

1. Cut chicken breast into chunky cubes.  Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a deep pot, add chicken cubes, season with salt and pepper, stir-fry until chicken turns white.  Add one can chicken broth and four cans water.

2. Peel carrots and cut them into chunky pieces. Add carrots to the pot.

3. Cut celery horizontally into 1 cm wide sections and add them to the pot.

4. When water in the pot is boiling, add Noodles.

5. Cut cabbage into pieces (2 cm square).  Add cabbage to the pot.

6. Season with salt, ground pepper, Oregano Leaves and Parsley Flakes.  Cook until noodle and cabbage are tender, remove and serve.

Tip: Some water may be added if it needs to be re-heated.

Sweet Potato Muffin with Walnuts

 

Sweet potato, this sweet vegetable loaded with many good nutrients, is in season now.  Last weekend, we went to a Sweet Potato Festival in the adjacent town, of cause we have to bring home some freshly picked sweet potatoes.  After having roasted and boiled sweet potatoes, I decide to make some muffins out of it, for a change.

Ingredients for Sweet Potato Muffin with Walnuts:
1. 1/2 cup cake flour
2. 1/2 cup self-rising flour
3. 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
4. 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
5. 1/8 teaspoon salt
6. 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
7. 2 eggs
8. 3/4 cup sugar
9. 3/4 cup cooking oil
9. 1-1/2 cups meshed sweet potato
10. 2 tablespoons honey
11. 1/2 cup raisin
12. 3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
1. Combine item 1 through 6 in a bowl, sift and set aside.
2. Beat eggs and sugar, until the egg mixture becomes creamy white.
3. Alternate adding in the cooking oil and the sifted dry ingredients.  Mix well after each addition.
4. Mix meshed sweet potato and honey well with a pastry blender.  Add the sweet potato in to the batter and mix well.

5. Add raisin and ½ cup walnut, mix well.  Using a big scoop to fill the batter into the muffin pan lined with cupcake liners.  Add more pieces of walnut on each muffin batter.

6. Bake in the preheated oven at 350 degree for 25 minutes, or when the muffins turn light brown and the toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Enjoy the yummy Sweet Potato Muffins!

Steamed Tofu with Shrimp

I discovered this dish several years ago at a local Chinese restaurant. There are very few Asian families in my town so the food at Chinese restaurants tends to be more Americanized. When we came in for a meal, the owner decided to try out some experimental, more authentic dishes on us. I felt honored and excited to be a food critic. Surprisingly, he brought out a plate of steamed tofu with a very fragrant clear sauce. It looked like a piece of white marble decorated with flowers (pink shrimp), leaves (green onions) and some white clouds (egg white). We gave it a high mark by emptying the plate in a swift. And now, this tofu dish is always a hit at our dinner table.

Ingredients:
1 case of soft or medium Tofu
7 jumbo shrimps
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 cup chicken broth
Cornstarch
1 egg white, beaten
1-1/2 tablespoons chopped green onion

Seasonings:
Salt, wine and ground pepper

Directions:
1. Evenly cut the tofu into 8 rectangular boxes. Soak the tofu in salty water for 10 minutes. Drain the water and lay flat the tofu boxes in a deep dish. Scoop off the center part of the tofu boxes to make it a pocket.

2. Remove shell and veins of the shrimp and chop it to fine. Mix the shrimp with minced ginger, cornstarch, and season with salt, wine and ground pepper.
3. Scoop the shrimp mixture to fill out the tofu pockets. Steam tofu for about 20 minutes.

4. Heat up the chicken broth (or the excess liquid coming out of tofu after it’s steamed) with medium flame in a pan; season with salt and ground pepper. When the chicken broth is boiling, add the wet cornstarch mixture (mix 1 teaspoon cornstarch with 3 teaspoons water), slowly add the beaten egg white into the gravy sauce, add chopped green onions, and mix well. Pour the gravy sauce onto the steamed tofu and serve.

With the look of the dish and the appetizing smell, it will make you want to try it at the first sight.

Eggplant in Si-Chuan Style

I planted two Ichiban eggplant (Japanese eggplant) shrubs in my vegetable garden the past spring. They did grow well and provided us with good crop all summer long. Normally, I’d like to steam the eggplants to preserve its natural taste and nutrients, and eat with soy sauce and minced garlic dip. Though the eggplants I grew didn’t look very outstanding, but we had fresh pesticides-free crop all the time, and we always enjoyed the fresh sweetness of the eggplants in every bite.


Now the season has come to the end, and I’d like to cook the last few eggplants in a different way, Eggplant in Si-Chuan Style (yu-xiang-qie-zi 魚香茄子).  As I know, many kids don’t care for eggplants very much.  In order to introduce this good vegetable to them, I try to cook the way that they can accept it.  Ground pork is added when I cooked this Si-Chuan style dish and I used some red chili peppers to bring out the mild spiciness that they can tolerate.  I didn’t use Hot Bean Paste in this dish, so it’s neither too greasy nor too spicy, and it’s suitable for both old and young. 
This “Yu-xiang, 魚香” dish sounds like it has something to do with fish (魚), actually it does not.  It just has all the ingredients used in cooking fish in Si-Chuan style, such as green onion, ginger root, garlic and hot peppers (fish doesn’t have to be one of the ingredients).  This is one of the representative ways of cooking in Si-Chuan cuisine.

Ingredients:
4 Japanese Eggplants (about 300g)
150g ground pork
2 tablespoons minced ginger root
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons green onions
1 red chili pepper, chopped (adjust quantity based on personal preference）


Seasonings:
2 tablespoons wine
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch


Directions:
1. Remove stalk of eggplants and wipe them clean. Cut eggplants into thumb size pieces. Heat oil in deep-fry pan until it’s very hot.  Put eggplant in to deep fry until it’s soft (Tip 1). Remove eggplant, drain and squeeze out the excess oil and set aside.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in frying pan, add minced ginger root, minced garlic, chopped red chili peppers and green onions, stir fry until fragrant. Add ground pork, stir fry until it’s cooked.  Add wine, soy sauce, sugar and 1/3 cup water and bring it to boil, add eggplant, lower the heat to medium high and cook about 1 minute. Add wet cornstarch (ratio of cornstarch and water is 1 to 3) and bring it boil, add sesame oil, mix well and serve.


Tip 1: Eggplant can be stir-fried with 6 tablespoons oil instead of deep-fry.

Stir-fry Chicken and Bell Peppers with Black Pepper Sauce

Bell peppers are rich sources of vitamin A and  vitamin C.  They are also good sources of B1, B6. Thus they can enhance human immunity and can promote fat metabolism; protect eyesight;  promote healthy skin; prevent cholesterol attached to blood vessels; prevent arteriosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes; reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and many other diseases.


The time of cooking bell peppers should not be too long. Best way to cook them would be stir-fry or deep-fried as tempura. With its high sweetness, bell peppers are also very suitable for fresh consumption.
 
With the help of abundant rainfall during this summer, the bell peppers crop has been good.  In market, you often see the large and fresh brightly colored bell peppers are on sale at half of the regular price.  Besides, I have planted two bell pepper trees in my vegetable garden this year; my friends also sent me more peppers from her garden, so bell peppers have always been stocked in my refrigerator all summer long. We seem trying to intake all the nutrients needed for the whole year in one summer.  In order to keep its nutrients and sweetness, I especially like to cook them with chicken (or any other type of meat) in a quick stir-fry.

Ingredients:
225g boneless chicken breast
1 cup chopped bell peppers
1 cup chopped onions
1-1/2 tablespoons Black Pepper Sauce
salt

Marinade for chicken:
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon wine
1 teaspoon cornstarch

Directions:
1. Cut chicken breast in cubes, marinate chicken cubes with the marinade for about 15 minutes (preparing bell peppers and onions while waiting).
2. Heat 2 tablespoons oil, stir-fry chicken until color changed, then remove.
3. Stir-fry onions in remaining oil until fragrant, add bell peppers and dash of salt, stir briefly.  Add chicken and Black Pepper Sauce, stir to mix well for about 2 minutes.  Remove and serve.

Sometimes, I would cut all the ingredients into strips, or add other peppers (such as sweet banana pepper), there'll be another dish then.