What little time I have

 

I've been super busy with life...literally. I don't even have time for my family and friends any more. Unfortunately, I will be moving out of Hawaii. But, fear not, my next location will be another great journey in life. The good news is that I'm done with my classes for now, but the bad news is that I have lots and lots of packing to do. However, I found what little time I had to cook and feed my stomach. This is over the course of a few months. Sorry....no written recipes to post. Enjoy!!

Left: My favorite kind of eggroll....healthier kind. Cabbage rolls! Same process and method as regular eggrolls except rolled in cabbabe leaves and steamed. Smothered in my spicy red hot Thai chili sauce. Delicioius!!

Right: When my mom visited, we made two trays full of cabbage rolls for my husband. He loves cabbage rolls..more than me! He especially loves it with a peanut sauce. My mom's home-made cabbage rolls are delicioius...plain, but brings back childhood memories. I miss my mom!

Left: Some friends of mine were having a picnic at the beach. My friend Debbie is pregnant and she wanted to try my caprese bagel sandwhich. I made it for her and, luckily I did because we didn't have charcoal to start the grill. Well, I ran out of bagels, but still had the tomatoes, bacon, basil, and mozzarella cheese. So I turned it into a salad. My husban plated it nicely for me but it's drizzled with a little bit of olive-lemon salad dressing. Very delicious and lite...a new twist to the regular caprese appetizers.

Right: Valentine's day. Didn't give each other anything special....nothing special left to give since we have everything special already in our lives. He still got me roses and cards and balloons. We went out for a nice family dinner and then shopping for fun. It was a nice, relaxing Valentine's. I made strawberry cupcakes (boxed) with a home-made raspberry cream cheese and for decorations, I made hearts out of sugar. Nothing too special about this recipe, but I thought it looked nice.

Left: Here is steamed shark wrapped in banana leaf on a bed of carmalized vegies. Made for my father who had never had shark and shark meat was sold plenty at our grocery store. My husband also loves shark and so we bought plenty. I had a sauce to go with it, but it's not in this picture. It does not have a fishy taste. It has a clean fish taste and very easy on the tongue too. Delicious!! I will miss it!!

Right: Hmong steamed flounder with eggplant, tomatoes, and zucchini. The sauce is a soy sauce base. Nothing really unique about this recipe...just traditional Hmong style-ish. This was made for my parents when they visited. My dad loves fish and so my husband bought flounders to impress him hahaha. I'm not a fan at picking bones, but this was very delicious too. The tomaotes and cilantro really brought out the freshness of the fish.

 Left: Recognize the picture? My husband loved the steamed shark so much that he wanted me to make it again for him. Instead of steaming the shark this time, I pan fried it. I also added saffron rice to the dish just for color. This picture has the sauce with soy sauce as a base drizzled over it. It brought the right amount of salt content and flavor.

 Right: I made a double-layer white cake with mango curd for dessert when my parents came to visit. My mom doesn't really like cake that are too sweet so I chose a white cake, eliminating the egg yolks. I used the egg yolks to make the mango curd which was fruity and not as sweet. I made the frosting from scratch eliminating most of the sugar because it would've been too sweet for my mother. She loved it! She wished she could have all her cakes like this. It wasn't too sweet for her and tasted lighter than usual cakes. I'm glad it was a success!

 Left: Seared shark fillets on a bed of sauteed asparagus drizzled in a mango sauce. This sounds like a sweet dish because of the mango sauce, but it was actually a nice compliment to the asparagus and shark fillets. My husband loved this dish and I thought it was actually quite delicious with the sweet and savory sauce. I had left over mango puree so I thought a mango sauce would be new. Plus, I love the color on the plate. Beautiful!

Right: This is a dish you've all seen before...plenty in my blog. Pho! Hmong peope love Pho and home-made pho are the best!! Nothing new, but I was just craving for a bowl of hot and spicy noodle soup. I can never get enough Pho. I just recently made Pho a few days ago and mastered the rich broth...FINALLY!!! The key is the type of meat used in the broth...and I cannot give out my little secret.

Seafood Curry Soup

Soup is a great dish for a cold or horrible weather. Well, in Hawaii, you think the weather is always beautiful, but we do have rainy days. Although it does not rain badly in Hawaii, we recently had a few rainy and windy days combined. So I wanted soup, but not just any ordinary soup. I wanted fish soup. Sadly, we didn't have any fish, but we did have some shrimp and lobster tails. The tails were suppose to be for a special occassion, but we can always stock up later. So I decided to make a seafood curry soup. I'm not a big fan of soup only because I haven't found a soup that I really love, but I am a big fan of curry noodle soup. This is almost the same, but without the noodles. If you love khaub poob or thai red curry noodle soup then you'll love this. Serve with toasted bread and voila`!! It's a hearty asian soup.

Ingredients:
4 lobster tails, cooked
4 potatoes, peeled
1 eggplant
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion, sliced
package of crab imitation, bite size pieces
1 1/2 tsp karee curry paste (yellow curry)
1/2 - 1 tsp panang curry paste (red curry)
2 star anise
6 cloves
3 lime leaves
3 medallion slices fresh ginger
2-3 bay leaves
2 Tbsp oil
1 can coconut milk
Mint leaves
Cilantro
Toasted bread

First thing first: Cooked the lobster tails. I like to steam my lobster tails, but you can boil it if you like. The way how I steamed them, they come out looking beautiful like the lobster tails you would see at restaurants. I make a cut on the shell all the way to the tail. Then I pull out the lobster meat and let it sit on the shell. I then take a knife and make cuts on the meat half way down. I open up the meat and I repeat that step, but you can stop there if you'd like.

It's almost like butterflying chicken breast except it's lobster tails. This will make for a pretty presentation. If you're not into presentation, feel free to just steam the lobster tails in its shell.






Steam or boil for about 10 minutes. It doesn't take long to cook lobster so time may vary. I steamed it for about 6 minutes. It plumped up and turned out very pleasing to the eye.

This method of steaming allowed me to easily seperate the lobster meat from the shell. Whichever method is up to you. In the end, you want some cooked, chopped lobster tail meat.










I love to dip toasted bread in my soup and let it get soak up the soup. Delicious!!

Slice up some baguettes, drizzle with olive oil, and toast it until it is golden brown. Serve it with the soup and voila`!



Khauj Piab (Hmong Rice Noodles and Chicken)

I love khauj piab. It is my all time favorite dish that I can never get tired of eating. However, I do get tired of making it from scratch. I remember the first time I had this dish. I was probably around 8 or 9 years old and my mother made this dish before my oldest sister moved to Wisconsin from Rhode Island. Back then I did not know how to add flavors to it so it was very plain, but I still loved it. A few years later, I asked my mother if she can make it again since she hadn't made any since. She taught me the next day and I have been making it from scratch ever since. It is a long process that requires patience and getting your hands dirty. I came from a big family so my mother taught me how to make big portions only, so I would have leftovers when I make this dish for me and my husband and it would sadden me to waste it. After having my son, I just had no time to make it from scratch anymore. Lucky for me, I found some rice sticks at a korean store that can be used to make this delicious dish. I still prefer having this dish from scratch, but it is tastey either way.

Korean rice cakes are used in their famous
tteokbokki recipes

1 bag (2 lbs) rice cakes, defrosted
1 cornish game hen without giblets, quartered
6 quart water
1/2 stalk lemon grass
green onions, thinly sliced
fish sauce
additional toppiings

thickening:
3 Tbsp Tapioca starch
l/4 cup water

First, boil a pot of water and cook the rice cakes until soft; stirring constantly. *The rice cakes will plump up and double in size so you can use half the bag. I suggest you quartered the rice cakes lengthwise before cooking it because quartering it after will be a slippery and sticky mess. *

My son loves eating cornish hen

Meanwhile, wash the quartered cornish hen, take off the skin (optional), and trim off the fat. Cook the cornish hen and lemon grass in the 6 quart water, skimming off any fat that floats to the top. Add salt to taste. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. *If broth reduces in size, add more water and possibly salt to taste.*

Once cornish hen is fully cooked, take it out and let it cool. After it cooled down, shred the meat with fingers. *You can keep some meat on the bones if you have a bone lover in your family*

Add the shredded chicken back to the broth along with the cooked rice cakes. *Add more water and salt if needed* Make the thickening agent and add to the broth mixture. *Add more thickening agent if you prefer it to be thicker* Bring to a boil until it thickens up. Serve and top with green onions and additional toppings.

Plain khauj piab with green onions and fish sauce.

I like my khauj piab with black pepper, fish sauce, green onions,
chili and garlic pepper, alittle bit of sugar, dark sweet soy sauce,
alittle bit of soy sauce, and lots of sriracha sauce.