Fun with Tofu

Time to clear out the vegetable compartment, and what better way to do so than to chop everything else and toss em all into a stir fry?

(Literally) Toss Everything In Stir Fry

½ package firm tofu, sliced
¼ cup green peas
1/3 medium sized carrot, cut into chunks
¼ small bell pepper, cut into strips
2 water chestnuts, peeled and sliced
1 small handful spinach, washed and de-stemmed
2 shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
3 pieces wood ear fungus, softened and sliced thinly
2 strips spring onion, sliced thinly
1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
½ teaspoon white pepper
¼ cup vegetable stock or water.
1 teaspoon cornstarch

1. Boil water in a pan over high heat and cook tofu, peas, carrot chunks and wood ear fungus for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat, drain water, and set aside.
2. In a pan, heat 1 tablespoon oil over moderate heat and fry tofu until both sides turn golden brown. Remove tofu from pan and set aside.
3. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in pan and fry spring onions until fragrant. Add bell pepper strips, and the rest of the vegetables in and stir fry until tender. Add tofu to the stir fry. Add soy sauce, sugar, and pepper to taste. Pour in vegetable stock and allow to simmer for half a minute. Stir in cornstarch until the sauce thickens.
4. Serve warm

Banana Date Streusel Bread

I was shopping at the Lotus supermarket when I spied by the fruit weighing counter, bags of overripe bananas going really cheap. It was like 2 kuai a jin! I mean come on, what did I REALLY have to lose? (or so I reason)

With the help of google, I figured out that the best way to use up 7 overripe bananas was to bake banana bread with them. So I did. And I'm telling you, it was well worth my kuais!

Banana bread is a lot of fun to make because it involves mashing up bananas. You wouldn't believe how much fun banana mashing can be until you've tried it yourself.
Got an anger management problem? Take it out on some bananas!

Ah, carbs can be fun after all...




Banana Date Streusel Spice Bread
modified from Allrecipes

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
110 ml oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
6-7 mashed overripe bananas
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Nutmeg
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1/2 cup chopped Chinese dates

Streusel Topping
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons wheat bran
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1.Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (350 degrees F).
2.In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda,cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together oil and brown sugar. Stir in eggs, vanilla and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Mix in chopped dates.
3. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. (I had enough batter for 2 loaves)
4.In a small bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon, bran. Pour in the oil mix them by hand until it looks coarse and crumbly. Sprinkle topping over the bread batter.
5.Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Allow the bread to cool and then turn it out of the pan to eat or store.

Spinach with Century Egg Bits

I have never bought or cooked a century egg before. I was never too crazy about them, in fact, I have probably not eaten one for at least 2 years now.
These preserved eggs are usually eaten with porridge or as a cold dish, at least in my family. Anyway, I found this recipe on a Chinese site and decided to try it out because I love spinach (like Popeye,come to think about it, all Popeye eats is friggin' spinach, does he ever eat carbs or fats?)


I added chopped salted duck eggs into mine and it got too salty. So...don't.

Spinach Stir Fry with Century Egg Chunks
1 bunch spinach, washed
1 century egg
1 small piece of ginger root, cut into thin strips
1 tablespoon oil
100 ml vegetable broth
salt
white pepper

1. Steam century egg for about 7 minutes. Then soak it in a bowl of cold water, peel it, and chop it up coarsely (the cold water makes it easier to peel)
2. Heat oil in a pan and stir fry the ginger until it becomes fragrant. Add the egg and stir fry for about half a minute.
3. Add the spinach and cook until soft. Add salt and white pepper to taste (if your broth has enough flavor, you can skip the salt)
4. Pour the vegetable broth and cook until it's heated through. Serve warm.

Sweet Lilies in Pumpkin

Pumpkins are the featured food item of this month's issue of Self (China) magazine. They're full of vitamins, fiber, potassium, antioxidants etc, plus they fill you up pretty well at 50 calories a cup.

So what better way to finish off the godforsaken lily bulbs of last month than to cook up them in a pumpkin?


Sweet lilies in pumpkin
1 small pumpkin (squash)
2 lily bulbs, cleaned and flaked
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons rock sugar
3/4 cup water

1. Cut the top off the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds.


2. Steam the pumpkin for about 10 minutes until cooked.


3. In the meantime, bring water to boil in a pan and dissolve the honey and rock sugar. Add the lily bulb flakes into the sweet liquid and stir over low heat until they are cooked (about 2-3 minutes)


4. Pour liquid into the pumpkin in the steamer. Cover and let it stand for about 20 minutes before serving (or longer, I was hungry).


(Normally this is cooked with the pumpkin cut into cubes, but I wanted it to look prettier,don't judge me ><)

D'oooooh

I don't know which freaks me out more, carbohydrates or fried food-but one thing's for sure: if you combine 'em, I'm definitely gonna hate em'...

...which is why I can't think of anything nice to say about doughnuts.

They are first and foremost carbs-empty ones that that!-and the whole concept of fried dough is enough to make any carb fearing health freak (myself) shudder. (*enter frightful images of golden brown dough taken out of deep fryer and soaked in and dripping with oil*)

Honestly, how did people ever come up with the idea of frying a carb? I can't help but to stare at people biting into a doughnut, or those that line up for ages at J-Co for them (like my brother), how can people eat that stuff? How is it even a food?!

Ok. End doughnut hate rant.

Why then, am I making the very food item I just professed my hate for?

Two words: Bimbo Doughnuts. (or should I say donettes? )


My boyfriend loves chocolate Bimbo doughnuts and is constantly buying them from the nearby mini mart.

(I know this sounds psychotic but) It disturbs me to a degree to see him eat that stuff because well, you see doughnut, I see sugar, flour and fat. (*enter horror film scream**return frightful images of golden brown dough taken out of deep fryer and soaked in and dripping with oil*)

So I've been wondering for some time if it were possible for me to give this "treat" a healthier makeover. I finally found recipes for baked doughnuts on veganyumyum and littlecornerofmine that sounded just about all right so I decided to try them out today...

...and learned to hate them even more....



First of all, I didn't have doughnut molds. The dough was sticky AS and impossible to mold with my hands. So what was I supposed to do?

I'll tell you what I did and did not work!!!
I placed the tin cap from my bottle of smirnoff in the center of a ramekin cup and poured in the dough.



I have to admit, I really thought it was going to work up until the dough (as it began to rise, and this dough rises like crazy) lifted the damned bottle cap up like the beanstalk lifted Jack's house into the air. So every few seconds, I had to stick a fork into the oven to press the bottle cap down in hopes of keeping its shape.

When I finally took it out of the oven, I had to operate the "doughnut" with a kitchen knife to get the bottle cap out. I also trimmed the doughnut hole to make it prettier (and ate the center, which I will admit did taste pretty good)



So much work for a stupid cake with a stupid hole!
To make it look more presentable, I heated up some cream and poured it over chocolate chunks to make an icing of some sorts.


Doughnut-cake-thing gets a makeover


So I set out to bake doughnuts but ended up with half a dozen cupcakes instead...


...each disguised with chocolate icing


I suppose the problem really was me. Had I owned a doughnut pan or been more skilled a baker, this might have ended better ><



But really, when you think about it, aren't doughnuts really just cakes with holes in them?

Lily Lotus Stir Fry

Buying the lily bulbs was kind of like buying a really cute pair of shoes didn't go with the rest of my wardrobe-only in this case it was the refrigerator-and so I ventured out to get another series of oddities: lotus root and water chestnuts.

I found a stir fry recipe on a Chinese website and thought I'd give it a try. The recipe came only with the ingredient names (lotus root, lily bulb flakes, water chestnuts and celery) so I was winging it most of the way.

The honey gave out a nice flavor but the end result was still missing something to be honest,soy sauce? I guess I'll figure it out another day...





Lily Lotus Honey Stir Fry
1/2 cup lotus root, peeled and cut into thin pieces
2 lily bulbs, cleaned and flaked
5 water chestnuts, peeled and cut into chunks
1/4 small red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 strip ginger root, minced (optional,depending on how you feel about ginger)
1 tablespoon oil
3 tablespoons warm water
1 1/2 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
Salt (to taste)

1. Boil water in a pan and toss in the lotus root pieces for about 1 minute. Blanch and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, dissolve honey and cornstarch in warm water and set aside.
3. Heat oil in a wok or pan, fry ginger and pepper strips for about 1 minute. Add water chestnuts and lotus root pieces, stir fry for about 2 minutes.
4. Stir in the honey mixture. Cook over moderate heat for another minute, stirring to coat.
5. Add lily bulbs and stir some more until everything looks tender. Turn off heat and add salt to taste.

Alternatively, you can use soy sauce in the place of salt. You can also decrease the cooking time if you prefer a crisp texture for your veggies (or flower parts).

Water Chestnuts (马蹄)
Water chestnuts were not as easy to find as I'd expected: the little vegetable vendor in my housing area for example, didn't carry it, and neither did Carrefour. Eventually I found them at the Lotus supermarket, next to the lotus roots.
Anyway, they are actually a very low-calorie vegetable (around 50 calories per 130 grams) with health benefits similar to lily bulbs (cold energy, clears heat, etc. I'm beginning to realize that I incorporate quite alot of cold foods in my diet)


This was the first time I'd ever bought water chestnuts so I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, it turns out all you have to do it cut off the top and remove the skin using a normal peeler.(A little search engine told me so)

Tofu Enoki Rolls

This recipe was so simple that I didn't expect it to taste so good but it DID.

Tofu Enoki Rolls
4 sheets tofu skins
Half a package enoki mushrooms
1 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)
1 tablespoon oyster abalone sauce* (or soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, whatever sauce you like really)
Handful of goji berries (for decoration, but yummy too)

1. Wash enoki mushrooms and snip off the dirty looking stems (I use scissors because it's quicker). Blot them dry and set aside.
2. Place enoki mushrooms according to the amount of your liking on a tofu sheet. Roll up tight and hold together with a toothpick. Repeat with the other sheets. Brush rolls with a bit of sesame oil.
3. Place rolls in a steamer and steam for 8 to 10 minutes. Place rolls on a plate,remove toothpicks, drizzle with oyster sauce, sprinkle on goji berries. Makes 4 rolls.

*I had a mini mental dilemma making this because I didn't have vegetarian oyster sauce in hand so I figured what the heck, it's a sauce (said the unethical vegetarian ><)

Sweet Chinese Soup with Lily Bulb Flakes

Ingredients for Chinese sweet soups can be found on one big shelf in Beijing supermarkets (big or small) and most Chinese kitchens stock them because they keep well and most people (like me) can't use 'em all in a single recipe.

It occurs to me that to non-Chinese (or Asians), these items might as well be ingredients to some magic potion in a Harry Potter book (Eye of Newt, Tail of Dog... Goji Berries =_=''')

In a sense, Chinese soups are kind of like magic potions, used for warding off or counter attacking health problems: preventing fatigue, stopping colds, soothing nerves, promoting beauty and weight loss etc.

The whole knowledge of the characteristics of food, knowing what's hot or cold, warm or cool seems to be one of those things you grow up knowing as a Chinese person -I suppose it starts with grandmothers, mothers, aunts plopping some food in front of kids and explaining its goodness all the time, then kids going on to mention the properties of certain foods to whomever listens when they see that same food because that's just the thing to do.And eventually it becomes a cultural thing for you to discuss food properties at the dinner table. Go figure.

Anyway, this particular soup reduces heatiness (the suspected culprit of my cough) and reduces phlegm (which would be fantastic). It is supposedly good for your skin as well because it improves blood circulation and moisturizes your complexion (this is a nice bonus though normally I probably wouldn't sit around boiling a soup just for skin care).

Sweet Snow Fungus Soup
6 pieces snow fungus
1 fresh lily bulb, washed and flaked
10 dried lotus seeds
15 dried Chinese dates
20 goji berries
8 gingko nuts
2 tablespoons rock sugar (depending on your taste)
5 cups water (roughly)

1. Soak snow fungus and dried lotus seeds in warm water for 30 minutes to an hour.
2.Cut off and discard the hard stem parts of the snow fungus. Slice into small pieces.
3. Remove green stems from lotus seeds. (those are really bitter to bite on)
4. Place snow fungus, lily flakes*, dates, lotus seeds, goji berries and gingko nuts in a small pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 2 hours (until all the ingredients have become really soft). Stir in more water as needed.
5. Add in the rock sugar before you're about to turn off the heat. You can increase or decrease the sugar according to your taste.
6. Serve either warm or chilled.

*My lily flakes totally dissolved when I was done with the soup-come to think about it, I don't really remember really tasting them. I would probably choose to add the lily in with the rock sugar (towards the end) if I made this again





Not the prettiest dish, I have to admit, but undoubtedly good for you-as you will hear from most Chinese mothers

Eating Lilies

There's a short article in this month's issue of Self magazine that extols the benefits of eating lily bulbs(百合).

I read this on the plane to Shanghai, and being the highly impressionable consumer that I am, I promptly went out and bought about 20 bulbs from the nearest hypermarket.

Of course, now I haven't got a friggin' clue what to do with them.


Eat your flowers


I've seen fresh lily bulbs being sold in Beijing supermarkets, but never really took the initiative to figure out what I could do with them until now.

It turns out that at 162 calories/100 g (albeit starchy), fresh lily bulbs actually come with quite a number of health benefits:


They clear your pipes
Fresh lily bulbs can be consumed to "clear heat", relieving coughs, dry throats and other respiratory conditions.

They calm the spirits
It also works as a mental tranquilizer (no, not like weed) and helps treat insomnia and loud heart thumping ('palpitations')with it's tonic properties that promote restful sleep.

They fight Cancer
Lily bulbs have anti-tumor properties (I am not a med student, so I don't know which ones) and are a cancer fighting food.

They make you pretty
According to the March issue of Self (China) magazine, the bulbous lily root also gives you a smooth,rosy and supple complexion.


I don't know about you, but I know what I'm going to be eating for the next few days...

My estrangement from carbs

I wasn't always repulsed by carbs- oh no, there was a time in life when I incorporated it into each and everyone of my everyday meals without fear nor remorse.
The thing is, in the heights of my obsession with my weight and the way I looked, we no longer saw eye to eye about where nutrition should go in my body, and so I cut it out of my life.
For a long time, I avoided all things high in carbohydrates, rice, noodles, bread, pasta, potatoes, you name it, I dropped it off my diet. Carbs terrify me even more than fats.
I guess the way things work in life is that if you do something long enough, it eventually becomes habitual, and what is habitual eventually becomes part of who you are, whether or not you like it. And the fact of the matter is, I am a carbophobic. My eyes see high carb foods, my brain says bad.
It's one of those things where once you know it, you can't un-know it and then you can't quite look at that thing the same way again. You know, like when you watch a magic trick after you know how the magician did it, or when you eat bird's nest after learning that it comes from bird saliva.
Even to this day, on the occasions that I eat carbs, I still can't do it without reprimanding myself afterward. On really bad days, I just mentally torture myself.
I just can't look at food the way most normal people do.
I'm not sure if it will ever go away, if I'll just wake up one day and get over it.
All I know is that I love making food. I'm just not always comfortable eating it.

Is it possible to be a weight conscious foodie?

Cookie Delivery

Before I begin, I just want to say this:
Shelled pecans are dangerous little nuts that should come with warnings on their packaging:
WARNING Do Not Attempt To De-Shell Entire Package With Fingers-or- Excessive Pecan Shelling Can Be Hazardous To Your Thumb.


Stupid innocent looking nut

I learned this the painful way.

-On a side note: I also discovered that the most efficient way to get the little buggers out (if you, like me, do not own a nutcracker) is by throwing them hard on the ground. They crack open quite beautifully this way-though some might question the ingeniousity of the method on the basis of hygienic concerns-

The reason I was shelling pecans of all things was because I wanted to use them in the chocolate chip cookies I was baking for my brother.

The last time I'd attempted to offer my cookies to him was during his birthday last year. I baked an assortment of cookies, put them in a pretty tupperware box, ventured out to the post office, endured looks of ridicule from post officers, paid for express delivery! only to have the cookies ROT in some obscure post office in Shanghai due to the fact that my brother was not home to receive the package and never went to collect it.

*breathes* I have gotten over that.

Since I am visiting him in Shanghai for the weekend, I figured that I could make a personal cookie delivery.

Bahtiyar once mentioned his like for Famous Amos and Mrs Fields, so I thought he might appreciate homemade cookies since you can't get either kind in China. You can get big cookies at Subway but they just suck.

I decided to bake him chocolate chip cookies using a recipe from Smitten Kitchen (a food blog I've come to like very much).



The thing about the recipe is that it calls for ALOT of chocolate chip, I'm talking about A WHOLE FREAKING LOT. The chocolate chips hold together the dough instead of the other way around...


...which is supposedly a good thing.

You see, personally, I don't appreciate chocolate much. I'm more of a nut-nut. I have great difficulty sympathizing with nut haters. If I had it my way, there would be nut chip cookies with no chocolate. If a chocolate chip cookie did not have nuts in them, I would not even want to try them. (but this isn't about me)

According to Smitten Kitchen, chocolate lovers apparently dislike having nuts because they don't want the "glorious" taste of chocolate to be overpowered by the nuts.

So I chopped up the pecans to the point where they were just nut specks. It was like mincing garlic but more fun.


Fact: Talia experiences maniacal pleasure when chopping chocolate and nuts. It is possibly the funnest part of baking.

I usually make my cookies big and soft, but my brother is a bit of a couch potato and I thought he'd enjoy having bite-sized ones.

BAD IDEA.

I almost burnt the little balls of dough and they came out really hard.


I fed two to Andy who, between loud crunches, informed me with all the decorum of a diplomat, that they were indeed slightly overcooked. He then proceeded to eat some of the cookie dough and declared that they were destined to be hard cookies.

Suspecting that I shouldn't have skimped on the butter, I threw the rest of the batter into the fridge and whipped up soft oatmeal cookies.

Those thankfully turned out delicious and beautiful. I divided the dough into three parts and made raisin, pecan and orange zest flavored oatmeal cookies.



I then baked the chocolate chip cookie dough at a higher temperature, making them bigger this time and watched over the oven like a hawk.

This time they came out chewy.






Anyway, my brother ate them just now and he liked them. He is usually very picky with food. I am happy. Blistered fingers and all.

Hot toddy

The weather suddenly dropped like a bitch on Friday, from 12 to about -4 degrees.

We stayed in, watched movies that involved little thinking (Bolt and Yes Man)and got drunk off tea and soup (I am not kidding)

Andy got a sore throat (and now me)with sniffles so he got a bottle of scotch and made a hot cocktail called the hot toddy, which supposedly fights colds and helps with throats.


Andy's Hot Toddy Recipe
I cup hot tea
2 tablespoons honey
1 shot whiskey
1 wedge lemon

1. Stir tea, honey and whiskey together.
2. Squeeze in juice of lemon.
3. Drink Up.


My reaction to cold weather, as always, was to cook up a big pot of vegetable soup. Minestrone, in that day's case, with a cup and a half of sauvignon blanc.


My personal remedy for lousy weather

Minestrone Soup

4 tablespoons olive oil
½ Chopped onion
¼ cup chopped celery
¼ cup chopped carrots
½ cup diced cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can cannellini beans
½ cup shredded cabbage
4 tablespoon tomato paste
1 potato, cubed
900 ml vegetable broth
1 tablespoons dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 ½ cup dry white wine
Salt
Parmesan cheese

1.Melt olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Add onion, celery, tomatoes and carrots; saute for a few minutes till onions get brownish.
2.Add beans, cabbage, tomato paste, potato, garlic, stock, wine, parsley, oregano and salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat. Simmer for around 40 minutes.
3.Add more white wine if you feel like it.
4. Top with parmesan cheese

Cookie Monster Unleashed

I am probably one of the biggest carb-o-phobics you will ever meet.
Yet I love baking, and I love homemade cookies.


The carb-hating cookie monster, just another lovely physiological conflict in the mental world of Talia



I rarely make cookies, for fear of going into some kind of crazy binge, not unlike the actual sesame street character in question.

Since discovering what an awesome cookie baker I am, I developed a somewhat superior attitude towards all commercially packaged cookies-Oreos? Chips Ahoy? Famous Amos? So Not worth the calories.(which I suppose makes me a Picky Cookie Monster)

Anyway, I baked two batches last Saturday to share with my boyfriend, who was sweet and agreed to be my gastronomical guinea pig.


It doesn't help that I also happen to be an awesome cookie baker

Here's what I made:
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

¼ cup margarine, softened
¼ cup virgin olive oil
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch salt
1 cup quick cooking oats
½ cups rolled oats
½ cup dark raisins
½ cup golden raisins

1. Before doing anything else, soak the raisins in boiled water and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and olive oil with the sugars until smooth. Then add the vanilla and beat in the egg. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
3. Stir the flour mixture into the sugar mixture by spoonfuls, and then stir in the oats and raisins (drained).
4. I usually refrigerate my cookie dough for at least an hour, or overnight, depending on how soon I want it.
5. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Take a tablespoonful of cookie dough and shape it into the size and thickness that you want it to be (the end product will be a little bigger and flatter). Place it onto ungreased cookie sheets or aluminum foil and repeat with the rest of the dough (this much be the dumbest sounding recipe in the world)
6. Bake for about 10 minutes. Keep a close eye on them and when they look just about done, remove cookies from the oven and let them stand for ½ a minute or so if you want the bottom to be crunchier. Remove from sheets, and allow to cool. I got about 12 medium, soft cookies outta this.



Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

-recipe adapted from AllRecipes-

½ cup margarine
½ cup peanut butter (crunchy, smooth, salted, unsalted, whatever you have)
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup quick cooking oats

1.In a large bowl, cream together margarine, peanut butter, sugars and vanilla. Then beat in the egg.
2.In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Add this mixture by spoonfuls to the sugar mixture. Stir. Add oatmeal and stir.
3.Drop by teaspoons onto cookie sheet. Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes, or until cookies are a light brown. Remove from oven and allow them to cool. I made about 18 cookies from this.

The peanut butter cookies came out just okay. I think it's because I used salted peanut butter this time (that was what we had in the kitchen). Also, the original recipe makes peanut butter cookie sandwiches, which are prettier looking.

They turned out better the last time I made them, filling and all:



This is the filling step I'd skipped:
Cream 3 tablespoons butter or margarine with the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter, and the cream. Spread filling onto half of the cooled cookies, then top with the other half to form sandwiches.