House of Annie

Annie made some baked char siu bao last night that are really excellent. We picked up some char siu from the store next to Lion Market on King Rd and Tully. First, cut the char siu into cubes. Dice some onion and sweat it in a frying pan, then add the char siu. Mix in a sauce containing soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, salt, pepper, and some corn starch as a thickener.



She made a sweet bread dough consisting of flour, bread flour, powdered milk, sugar, yeast, butter, eggs, and water. Brought it together then set it aside to rise. Then she divided the dough up into 50-gram balls.


She flattened the ball into a pancake then spooned in some filling. Pinched the edges together and laid the ball seam-side down.

Proofed the balls for an hour to epand. Preheated the oven to 350*F. Brushed with an egg wash, then baked for at least 12 minutes, checking regularly until the tops were golden brown.


Here's a video of some of the process:

Aloha.

More favorite baked goods: Cranberry-Raisin Walnut Bread, Dinner Rolls, Dutch Apple Cake, Cinnamon Monkey Bread, Portuguese Sweet Bread, Red Bean Buns, Roti Boy Butter Buns, Third Aunt's Butter Cake

I'd been holding off from upgrading this blog to the new version of Blogger. The new Blogger allowed the use of tags ("Labels" in Blogger terms) but I was afraid of transition issues and lingering bugs. Finally, I decided I could not wait any longer and decided to take the plunge. (gulp)

What's nice about the new Blogger is that you can easily add custom page elements to the sidebar. As you can see, there is a Labels element now. Click on a label, and you will see all the articles that have been tagged with this category.

You will also see an element called the Picasa Web Album. Okay, this is a really cool feature. I've been jealous of all those blogs that have Flickr badges on them, displaying thumbnails of photos from various Flicker albums. So I googled up Picasa widget and, lo and behold, someone has actually programmed a widget creator. You plug in the RSS URL of your Picasa Web album, click the Generate button, and wowza - it outputs the widget code that will display 20 images from the album. You can copy the code to any blog or web page. Click another button, and the widget is automatically added to your new Blogger layout. Very, very cool!

One downside I've seen so far is that when I'm using Picasa to blog the photos, it will not publish the blog if I have trackback turned on. No big deal. Another small nit is that I have to log in to the Dashboard and add the labels after I publish from Picasa. I haven't tried posting more than 4 pictures yet, so I don't know if that is still broken or not.

Aloha.

Nate

--edit--
It turns out that the Picasa beta I'm running on my Linux box does not like the new Blogger. I get a blank screen when I try to blog pictures. That's a pain.

Daniel said he wanted some cheesy macaroni for lunch so I obliged him.

Diced up some cauliflower and added that to the pasta about halfway through the cooking process. Grated up some more gruyere and also some aged cheddar. When the pasta is done, drain, add a little bit of milk, fold in the cheese, add a couple of dashes of white pepper, and voila!


Way better than that yucky Kraft boxed mac n cheese, and doesn't take any longer to fix.

Aloha.

Nate

Saturday morning. Time for sleeping in and lazing around. Time for me (Nate) to make breakfast.

We had some white button mushrooms and some nice gruyere cheese in the fridge. I sliced up the mushrooms and sauteed them in bacon fat. Seasoned with salt, cracked black pepper, a little Italian seasoning, and a touch of soy sauce. Fried them until they got a nice golden brown color.

In the meantime, I grated up some gruyere cheese and also cut up some mozzarella cheese into small chunks. Just as the mushrooms were finishing, I started the omelettes. As soon as the egg began to set, I put on the mushrooms, topped with the cheese, and folded.

Plated it up, garnished with chopped parsley, and added a few dashes of hot sauce. This was very good!


Annie came out and said she wanted to try using the flour tortillas that we normally use to make quesadillas, and add bananas and Nutella. Kind of a banana-Nutella crepe but using tortillas instead of crepe.


It was...interesting. Oh well. You make some, you break some.

Aloha.

More breakfast recipes: Chantilly Crepes, Omurice, Pandan Waffles

This is a very easy recipe to make. The basic ingredients are 1 can of cream-style corn, 1 can of sweet corn, water and bouillon to make 3 cups of stock, 1-1/2 cup milk, 1/2 onion, some butter and flour.

Saute the onion in butter over low heat until soft. Add 4 tbsp flour and stir for 3 minutes. Add the bouillon and stock and bring to a low boil. Stir occasionally for 5 minutes. Add the milk and the corn. Salt and pepper to taste. Keep on medium heat for 5-10 minutes to thicken.

In our version, we added a couple of diced potatoes and 1/3 head of cauliflower, cubed, when we added the stock. We garnished with chopped parsley. You could put in bacon, cheese, whatever you think might work.


Very easy, very tasty, very hearty!

Aloha.

Nate

More quick and easy recipes: Corned Beef Hash, Crab Cake with Salad, Pan Fried Tilapia, Smoked Salmon Salad, Spicy Cod Roe Spaghetti, Sweet-Sour Tilapia Fillet

Annie made this absolutely delicious meal with less than an hour of prep. She took a whole chicken and rubbed it with kosher salt and let it sit in the fridge for about 6 hours. Ground some pepper and sprinkled a little sugar on the skin before putting it in the oven. Roasted at 450*F for 30 minutes breast-side down, then flipped and roast for another 20 minutes.

The sauce started with sauteeing chopped garlic and artichoke hearts in olive oil. Then added a mixture of chicken stock, lemon juice, and vermouth. Added defatted pan drippings from the chicken. Simmered to reduce.

Cut up some carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower, then tossed with some olive oil, salt, fresh cracked black pepper, and Italian seasoning. Spread out on a foiled baking sheet and roasted with the chicken for the last 20 minutes. Boiled some russet potatoes until fork tender and then drained, then mashed with salt, white pepper, heavy cream and granulated garlic.

The chicken skin was nice and crispy from the sugar. The meat (including the breast) was juicy and tasty all the way through. Definite do-over!


Chicken and sauce recipes were from Fine Cooking Magazine, February/March 2005 issue. Veggies were simply hantam.

Aloha,

Nate

Costco sells these wonderful flour tortilla starts that you have to finish cooking in a warm skillet. There are many applications but the kids love just a standard cheese quesadilla made with a shredded Mexican cheese blend (also from Costco).

I was feeling like fish the other day but wasn't in the mood for Chinese-style steamed fish. I was feeling more like a grilled fish sandwich. Annie said we have some tilapia fillets in the freezer...*ding!* How about a fish quesadilla?

We seasoned the fillets with salt and pepper then pan fried them with some olive oil. In another skillet we cooked the tortilla, sprinkled on the cheese, crumbled the fish onto the tortilla, then folded it in half to finish.

Meanwhile, I took a ripe avocado and diced it up. Then I diced up some garden tomatoes. Minced about a third of a red onion. Added a minced garlic clove. Seasoned with salt and pepper, and squeezed the juice from half a lemon over it all. Mixed together, and we have a lovely but not spicy salsa.


We still had half a bag of wild-caught shrimp in the freezer, so we defrosted, peeled, and deveined them. Then we sauteed the shrimp with chopped garlic and seasoned with salt and pepper. Those "shrimpadillas" were awesome!



Aloha,

Nate