How Do You Make Guacamole?

Because I'm sure everyone has their own recipe that they swear by. Here's my version, but I'm interested in adding in sour cream next time as recommended by Our Best Bites. Maybe next time... when avocados aren't expensive and my budget will allow me to afford sour cream too. *Sigh for delicious-but-expensive fruit*


Here's how I make guacamole that I think is AWESOME:
Avocados-meshed
Tomatoes- diced into small pieces
Onions- diced into very small pieces (no bad breathe guacamole please!)
Garlic- cut into very small pieces as well
Lemon/ lime juice- a few drops
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix. Serve. Eat. Enjoy.

Yummy!

And yes, there are no quantities with it. It's however much you want to put in- adapt to each person's preference . A very flexible recipe- that's why I love it.

Serve with a bag of tortills chips- yummy yummy!

What about you? How do you make guacamole?

Introducing... THE OAT GRAIN ;)

I want to talk about oats today. Yes, as in oatmeal oats.

Boring subject? NOPE. Not if if you know how to cook and eat them right.

Tell you something you didn't know before?
Well, how about... quick oats or rolled oats (the flat ones) are the equivalent of processed food in the world of grains? They have slightly less nutritional value but more fat (seriously... it's strange) and higher glycemic level. Don't even get me started on instant oats- instant oats only fill you up but have no other benefits what so ever. Kinda like iceberg lettuce. *Shudder*

If you want to eat oatmeal, make sure you cook the oat grain in its pure form, or what is termed the "oat groat." If not, try for the second best version, which is steel-cut oats. Steel-cut oats, as the name implies, are oat groats cut into smaller pieces (probably using a steel-blade knife) for faster cooking. These two types of oats cook longer but they taste soooooo much better and provide the real nutrition that oats are famous for. Plus, steel cut oats are not expensive at all.

Steel-cut oats

Notice how they are SO NOT FLAT!

I used Alton Brown's recipe, and I have to say, Alton Brown does not disappoint. I wish there was a way transport the fragrance and taste of the "toasted" oats to my readers- unbelievably aromatic nutty flavors!

I cooked up about 2/3 C oats, and that fed me 3 delicious breakfast meals. They keep in the fridge for up to a week, and in the freezer even longer. How convenient is that to simply take it out every morning and microwave before seasoning?

Two ways I "flavor" my cooked oats
1) Coconut oil. Sounds disgusting, but you would not believe how DIVINE it tastes. Btw, coconut oil is actually one of the healthiest oils on the face of the planet. It is also one of the best oils used for frying at high heat.
Start with one teaspoon to every one cup of oatmeal, and add more according to taste.

2) Cream and fruit

Oatmeal, fresh raspberries and peaches, and chocolate shavings
Mmm... 

Don't be stingy when adding cream - at least 2 tablespoons for every one cup of oatmeal. Cream is a very healthy fat, so don't be afraid! I also add in cinnamon for a nice "kick."

Enjoy!

The Best Pancake Syrup EVER!

Sorry, the spotlight today is on the syrup itself, NOT on the pancakes (pardon the deceiving nature of the pictures).... pancakes still needs tweaking. I'm transitioning to only using whole wheat flour when baking, and... that's another post.

Meanwhile, the syrup was SO GOOD!
My favorite pancake syrup is pure/ real maple syrup (nothing beats natural sweetness). This Buttermilk Pancake Syrup though, is pure awesomeness... no kidding. Tastes like caramel but this is a healthy version- instead of using white sugar and corn syrup, I substituted it with honey and ta dah! Healthy syrup... an oxymoron for sure but who cares when it tastes so good???!!!


Adapted from a bunch of recipes from allrecipes.com

3/4 C buttermilk
1/2 C butter (1 stick)
About 1/3 C honey
1 t baking soda
2 t vanilla
1 decent size saucepan because the sauce will "froth" over when boiled


Stir all ingredients in the pan except the vanilla.
Bring to boil.
Cook a few minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Get ready for pure heaven.

Makes slightly over one cup. 

*P.S. I accidentally added in the vanilla with the other ingredients, and it didn't hurt my syrup, so don't freak out if you do the same too!

My Dad Will Be So Proud of Me

I've turned into quite a health-food junkie! I only eat wheat pasta now, I can't stand plain white bread (whole grain bread tastes so much more interesting!) or sugary cereals except once in a while, and I eat so much vegetables and fruit now, I feel like a rabbit.

Not that I will ever give up meat unless I have to.

It all started with Sis Brooks, my bishop's wife. Actually, it started with my Mom because she always made us eat healthy, but you don't appreciate all her efforts until you hear it from another authoritative source, right?! Sorry Mom- I appreciate your conscientious cooking even more now.

So anyway, Sis Brooks held a nutrition class last year and introduced us to all the yummy goodness of eating healthy. Since then, my diet and life has changed completely. I used to HATE the grainy texture of wheat pasta, and now that's all the type I buy now. I still eat white rice though... it's hard to give up a staple I grew up on.

But nutrition is a whole other post.

My point in this particular post is to demonstrate how you can take everyday food and turn it into something that is not only healthy but looks extraordinary and tastes phenomenal. Everyday food such as... Jiao Zi/ Dumpling! Well, "everyday food" as in Chinese everyday...

Step 1a: Get Chinese roommates, though this can be skipped if you are very determined.
Step 1b: Make your own dumpling filling, which is basically a mixture of ground pork, chives/ pickled vegetables and all types of Chinese sauces. The longer you marinate, the better (as all meats are).
Step 2: Get ready flour and water.
Step 3: Insist on making your own dumpling skin. This is very important because once you have perfected the art of making it, you won't want to go back. I was quite apprehensive about making our own dumpling skin because we were making over 150 (!) of them but my roommates refused to use store-bought ones, and I am so glad they did!
Step 4: The fun part- EXPERIMENT! We actually weren't quite sure how the different skins would turn out since we did not consult the omniscient machine a.k.a. the internet, but who cares?

And the results...

Verdict- 
Homemade white skin is healthy because there are no preservatives, but nothing special.
Spinach flavored (blend some spinach with water till liquid, and add to mixture... almost like coloring) was great, except after cooking it turned yellow-ish. Note to self: use more spinach but not more water.
The wheat was my favorite, but that's because I love whole wheat. Be careful though because the wheat flour made it less "elastic." 

Step 5: Wrap a meatball with one of the extremely pliant, soft, healthy dumpling skins. Arrange neatly in a row.

Lining in a row, ready to be frozen for future eating... 

With the fruits of our labor

Step 6: Cook
Final Step: ADMIRE BEFORE ENJOYING!!! Oh and no need to feel guilty about eating so many since it's also healthy!

Loving my bag in my freezer :)

Feast for the Eyes

Food blogs I've read a few, but a food decoration blog?
http://sweetsugarbelle.com/

Oh yes indeed.
Sweet~!

When You Can't Go to the Food...

Make the food go to you.

Thanks to Mom for sending me sauce packets. I made mee siam yesterday, and ooh la la! I was in food heaven.

Mee siam, sambal chilli, red peppers (courtesy of Fan) and vegetables cooked in mee siam sauce. Yum yum!

Dinner Group Disasters... Made Right. Sort-of

Disaster #1 Almost-Failed Hainanese Chicken Rice

My dinner group has 12 people, and I wanted to cook this famous Singapore dish. I only had 2 sauce packets left and *erhem* decided to simply increase the amount of rice and chicken in the rice cooker by a third. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and I was left with half-cooked rice and half-raw chicken. Oops! I had to scoop out half of the rice and chicken and cook it over the stove.

Disaster #2 Almost-Failed Vegetable Curry

This dish was going well until I tasted it at the end and realized that it was much spicier than I anticipated, which meant that many of my American friends would find it to spicy. Panicking, I added in sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. In fact, too much sugar, and it became too sweet. What did I do? I decided to add in more curry paste, except I ran out of vegetable curry paste, and (my "brilliant" idea) added in Singapore Curry Paste instead. It tasted... not like vegetable curry, but oh well, no one except I would know right? ;)

(Potential) Disaster #3 Almost-Didn't-Get-Done-On-Time Longan Almond Jelly

I made only one packet of almond jelly and one can of longan, and then thought I better make another batch just in case. I made my second batch of jelly just 10 minutes before dinner started. I boiled the water, dissolved the powder and poured it into the mold all in record time, then into the FREEZER to harden. Good thing I made another batch though, because the first batch was gone.

Despite my almost-failures, I'm still a huge dinner group junkie!

Maid of Honor/ Bridesmaid Duty

Other than the lingerie that my roommates and I bought for her, I also contributed a

Veggie Tray 

Do you know how expensive veggie trays are?! Ridiculous! Hence, I made my own. Not only did it have more vegetables for a cheaper price, everyone loved the fact that I boiled the broccoli first. 

And I baked a cheesecake since I still had leftover cream cheese from Memorial Day (see previous post). I made Valoy's Orange Chocolate Cheesecake but instead of mini cheesecake cups, I made an entire pie.

Oreo crust and chocolate layer

Beautiful 3 Layers- and yummy too

 I'm tooting my own horn. Sorry- I just love good food!

Cheesecake Off!

I never thought I would ever say "I am so sick of cheesecake."
Well, I did.

Yesterday, for Memorial Day, my singles ward hosted a BBQ (with steak! Ooh la la!) and Cheesecake-off.

The Table of Cheesecakes

Since I love cheesecake, I naturally made not one, but two different types of cheesecakes!
The first was Paula Deen's Caramel Apple Cheesecake.

Crust, layer of apple pie filling, cheesecake and more apple pie filling. It was super easy and tasted really good, except the next time, I'm going to stop at this:

Notes to myself:

• Not a good idea to sandwich cheesecake between two layers of pie filling- pie filling taste is too overpowering. Skip the on top layer, this way the pie filling inside would be a surprise to eaters thinking its just a normal cheesecake
• Bake cake right before eating. Best admired and cut when just taken out of the oven, and it's all puffed up and "breathing"- effect is super cool!  

The second cheesecake I made was inspired by my Mom's mini cheesecake cupcakes and Giada's Orange and Chocolate Cheesecake. I combined the two recipes and came up with my own recipe.

I'm going to name it Valoy's Triple Layer Orange Chocolate Cheesecake Mini Cupcakes in honor of my mom. I seem to have a thing for layers (see previous post on double layer trifle). I'm *erhem* pretty proud of myself because it IS so dang good. I know it's good, because I'm not a fan of orange chocolate, but I love this! 

Thanks to my roommates for helping me decorate them at the very last minute!

3 Layers:
Oroe Crust
Chocolate cheesecake
Special orange cream

Made the batch for the BBQ on my 4th attempt- no wonder I'm so sick of cheesecake! The one with strawberries is plain cream, while the other one has orange cream.

New skill

Last night, I helped Vickie wrap "水餃/ shuijiao"  and as we were working, she told me that the chefs at 鼎泰豐/ Ding Tai Feng  had to master pinching the 小籠包/ xiaolongbao skin with an exact 18 folds, before they were allowed to work there.

I'm not a professional chef of course, but here is my attempt to beat their record.

The one behind had 16 folds, while the one in front had a 21 folds!!! Not bad eh... Of course, my pinching is highly uneven, and wrapping 小籠包/ xiaolongbao takes a lot more skill than wrapping 水餃/shuijiao.
Vickie said that my record-beating dumplings have so many folds in them, they look more like 水煎包/ shuijianbao than 餃子/ jiaozi. Ha ha ha!

Yummy yummy! I am so lucky to have roommates that cook very well.

New Equation

2-3 bananas + a handful of blueberries + a dash of milk ( + possibly some chopped up spinach)

=

Yummy milkshake!

Enjoying early morning deliciousness

My Feeble Attempt at Creating

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul... Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter."

Pres. Dieter F. Utchdorf

"Happiness, Your Heritage"  October 2008 General Relief Society Meeting 

May I present to you my very own creation:

Keshia’s Double Layer Trifle

Indulge me a little while I boast a little about it please?! :) I confess that this recipe is based on a trifle recipe by Sis Dalebout (family friend). I helped her make her Christmas trifle, and loved it so much, I wanted to make one myself. After some trial and error (and with some inspiration from Above), this is the result- ta dah! I have to say, I'm very pleased with it. It did taste simply wonderful! 

My roommates and I finished the bigger bowl in ONE day.
Good thing I gave the smaller one away- can't imagine the calories... 

FYI, the layers are:

• Cake
• Jello
• Fruit
• Real whipped cream
• Crushed up Twix bars

Let me know if you want the detailed recipe!