Honey Bamboo Stir Fry Pork

I love bamboo, especially when they're fresh. My mom have tons of fresh bamboos preserved in a jar, but after moving away, it was hard for me to get fresh bamboos. When I lived in NC, I would have to drive about 6-7 hrs. away just to get a few jars of these delicious fresh bamboos. They wouldn't even last me a month.

I use these bamboos in my red curry noodles, in my black noodles stir fry, and in whatever I crave. Being in Hawaii now, it's hard to find them fresh so I buy the canned bamboos. I don't like them much. They have this salty taste and texture is different. However, I found a way to change it's taste. The texture, obviously, can not be changed.

Ingredients:
1 can sliced bamboos
2 thin sliced pork chops
2 cup chopped daikons
2 Tbsp honey
2 tsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp hoisin sauce
2 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp ginger, minced *optional*
salt
1 Tbsp oil

Slice pork chops into bite size pieces. Pan fry them on medium heat with garlic and ginger. Add salt. Add diakons and soy sauce. Stir until sides of pork and daikons are slightly browned. Add in oyster sauce and stir. Taste and adjust with salt if needed. Dish it on a plate and set aside.

Using the same pan, add oil and turn heat onto medium. Drain out the bamboo liquid and add it to the pan. Stir for a few minutes until sides are slightly browned. Add in the honey and a pinch of salt. Stir until the honey is fully coating the bamboos. Add hoisin sauce and stir until sides are more browned. Add the pork mixture back in and stir for a few minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Homemade Noodles

It was a weekend and I was in the cooking mooding. Sadly, there was nothing for me to cook and I was craving for some noodles. I had this idea to make noodles out of a recipe that I use to create dumplings. With some alternations, it turned out very good. Chewy noodles, kind of like chinese hand-pulled noodles. Sadly, I did not write down the recipe,but I'll be working on this recipe in the future to perfect it and share it with the world. I know flour, water, and egg was used.

                                                      "home made and hand made"

I boiled the noodles for a few minutes and add it to a soy sauce broth.
Added sriracha sauce and cilantro...it was delish!

Easy Banh Mi/Saigon/Viet Sandwhiches

Ok...so I love eating these sandwhiches. Grew up eating them in the east coast, but when my family and I moved up north, these sandwhiches were very hard to find. It's been years since I've had one made fresh until I moved to Hawaii. Within the first month of living in Hawaii, I was eating these sandwhiches like crazy (I was in my third trimester of my pregnancy). I also got my husband to try them for the first time and he got addicted. But it was a hassle for me to drive so far just for a sandwhich so I decided to make my own from scratch.

Pate` is not your everyday spread on bread or crackers. It's basically baked pureed liver paste with additional seasonings. It tastes like liver but with an apple sauce texture. I love it on almost everything. To me, the must have ingredients in this sandwhich is, obviously, the pate`, pickled vegetables, and cilantro. For me, if any of these ingredients is missing then it's just not a banh mi.

I have made my very own home made pate` before, but never wrote down the recipe with exact measurements. However, I've found an easier way to make the pate`. Of course, home made from scratch is always the best.

                                                      **In this picture, I used turkey**
Ingredients:
8 oz braunschweiger
1/2 tsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp Maggi sauce
1/2 tsp corriander seeds
2 star anise
3 cloves
Steamed pork, cooked (use ham, turkey, shredded chicken or other meat fillings)
Cilantro
Mayo
Sriracha *optional*
Baguettes, sliced lengthwise

Pickling: Dou Chua
3-4 carrots, thinly julienned to about 2-3 inches long
1 large daikon, same as carrots
1 1/2 cup white vinegar
4 Tbsp white sugar
2 tsp salt

Make ahead of time:
Mix all vinegar, sugar, and salt in a pot until dissolved. Fill a jar with both the julienned carrots and daikons. Add vinegar mixture until covers vegetables. Close lid and let it pickled for a few days or at room temperature for about 1 hr.

Pate`:
Finely grind up the corriander seeds, star anise, and cloves. In a bowl, combine the fish sauce, maggi sauce, and liver paste until well mixed. Add a little of the grind spices at a time to the liver paste (I love the spices so I added most of it). Taste and add more spices if you'd like but remember...you can always add more but can never take back. Mix well until all is combined. If too salty, add some salt.

Assembly:
Lightly toast both sides of the baguettes. Spread mayo on top bun. If using sriracha sauce, spread some onto the mayo. On the bottom bread, spread a layer of the liver paste. Add a layer of your meat filling. Top it off with some pickled vegetables and cilantro. Sandwhich together both breads and enjoy!

Roasted Pepper Eggroll Lasagna

Since it was just me and my husband eating the food from the superbowl, we had leftovers. There were patties left with no buns and roasted peppers and cheese. I didn't know how we were going to eat it all before it goes bad. So the next morning, while staring blankly at the left over food, a recipe came to my mind. LASAGNA!!! I love lasagna, but had no lasagna pasta. Not even tomato sauce. What was I going to use? Let's see...I have eggroll wrappers in the freezer and ketchup. Problem solved! I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out but I went with my guts anyways. SUCCESS! I was very surprised at the finish product.

(I had a few frozen raviolis and so I just placed a single layer on top, then add sauce and swiss cheese)

Ingredients: (leftovers from fatty patty burger)
Roasted red and green peppers, chopped
2 Tomatoes
1 Onion
2 Garlic clove, minced
Fatty patty, finely chopped
Bacon, chopped
Eggroll wraps, thawed
Swiss cheese
Mozzarella cheese
1 cup Ketchup
Water

Blend onion and 1 tomato in a food processor until well blended. Heat up olive oil in a pot and add the minced garlic. Slowly pour in the blended onion and tomato mixture. Stir until browns. Add ketchup and stir for 2-3 minutes. Add water until it covers the mixture. If you like a thick sauce, add less water. For a thinner sauce, add more water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil. When it comes to a boil, add the chopped up roasted peppers and fatty patty. Lastly, add the bacon and stir. Taste for more salt or pepper. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes. If sauce needs more water, add a little bit at a time.

Preheat oven to 375. Grease lasagna pan and spoon a small amount of sauce on the bottom. Next, triple up on the eggroll wraps and apply a single layer to the bottom. Spoon sauce over. Add mozzarella cheese and repeat process. ***Eggroll wraps a fairly thin so to really taste the layer, you can always add more eggrolls*** Top off the lasagna with swiss cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes until cheese is nice and bubbly.

My Fatty Patty

It was SuperBowl XLV weekend and I was excited for my Packers team. I wanted this to be the best superbowl ever...I'm talking about food. I came up with this hamburger 3 days before the game and I just wanted it full of flavor. This burger is now going to be my family burger...it's called a fatty patty but it's actually pretty healthy. Now...I'm a huge fan of messy, sloppy food so I purposely made my burger sloppy. It's just something about a burger that is dripping with grease and messy that makes it so good.

Ingredients:
Pears, peeled and halved
Red and green peppers
Onion, sliced in rounds
Bacon
Tomatoes, sliced
Lettuce
Swiss cheese

Sauces:
1 Avocado, peeled and halved
3 Tbsp. Miracle Whip
1 tsp. Lime juice
1/8 tsp. of Salt and pepper
Cilantro, chopped
Sriracha Sauce

Patty:
2 lbs. Ground beef
Mozzarella cheese, diced
2 tsp. Oregano
2 tsp. Thyme
Cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper
1 Egg

Grill

***I didn't measure out the ingredients so the measurements aren't exact...I just eye balled everything. Just taste as you go.***

Prepare the grill. Place onion rings and pears on grill until carmalized. Place bacon on grill until cooked. Place red and green peppers on grill until skins are charred. Place them in a bowl and cover with siran wrap (this steams the peppers), then peel away charred skins and seeds. Cut into strips.

In bowl, mix patty ingredients all together, except cheese. Form patties; not to fat and not to thin. Make sure to really press them together to hold their shape when grilling. Make a dent in the center and stuff with about 2-3 dices of mozzarella cheese. Grill.

In a small bowl, mashed up the avocado, lime juice, salt, and pepper together. Add miracle whip and cilantro.

In another small bowl, mix sriracha sauce and miracle whip. You can add as much siracha or as little as you like.

Butter both buns and place on grill for a nice crispy color.

Assemble: Spread sriracha sauce on bottom bread, add lettuce, tomatoes, onions, peppers, patty, swiss cheese, pears, and bacon. Spread avocado sauce on top bun and top off burger. Enjoy.

***If you have leftovers like me...I have a recipe for that too***

Asian Veggie Pot Pie

I love chicken pot pies, but I didn't have chicken thawed out that day. All I had were frozen vegetables. This was a last minute recipe so bare with me because I didn't write this recipe down. It was from the top of my head and so the measurements are not exact. I do, however, have the recipe for the pie crust.

Ingredients:
Frozen carrots, peas, green beans/mixed vegies *use fresh vegies if you have them*
Frozen cauliflower
2 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp Tapioca Flour mixed with 1 Tbsp water
1 can Chicken broth
Salt and pepper
Hoisin sauce

In a pot, heat up oil and butter together. Add in the vegetables and stir. Add a few swirls of hoisin sauce; it doesn't really matter how much. Just add to your liking. Stir for a few minutes. Add in the broth and salt and pepper to taste. Can always add more hoisin sauce if you like. Add the tapioca mixture to the veggie soup and stir until thicken. If soup doesn't thicken, mix more tapioca flour with water and add to mixture again, but you don't want it too thick. Creamy consistency is what you want. Taste and scoop them into ramkins. Made about 6 servings.

Pie Crust:
1 ½ cup flour
½ cup + 2 Tbsp shortening
½ tsp salt
2 Tbsp beaten egg *beat one egg and then measure out 2 Tbsp*
2 Tbsp + 1 ½ tsp cold water
1 ½ tsp vinegar

Preheat oven to 425. Sift flour and salt together. Cut shortening into flour mixture to tiny pea size. In another bowl, combine egg, water, and vinegar. Pour into flour mixture and blend until moistened. Divide into 2 equal parts. Roll out one part of the dough evenly to about 1/4 inch thick or however you prefer your thickness of the crust. I love the crust so mines was somewhat thick. Once dough is rolled out, place a ramikin over the dough and trace out the shape of the ramikin with a knife. DO NOT trace to close to the shape. You want to have extra dough around the ramikins so that you can tuck them in and krinkle the edges. After dough is all traced out, place topping on top of filled ramikins. Krinkle the edges like you would a pie or tuck them under. Make a slit in the middle so steam can be release when cook. Bake for 25-30 or until crust is nice and golden. It will be very hot so let it cool before you dig in.

Here's what to come...

Over the years, I've been experimenting on recipes and coming up with my own twists on everyday favorites. After all the hard work and some disappointments, they have made a hit. I have tons of people asking for my recipes and my secret ingredient, but it was a hassle looking for them all so I decided a blog would be best. After many attempts of creating a blog and then deleting them...a good friend of mine (Mai Nyia Lee) encouraged me to create one and keep it for good. So...I'll be looking forward to posting up new recipes and old ones. Please be patient, however, due to the fact that there's just not enough time during a day for me to find all my old recipes and post them up.

A little background info on me: I've been cooking since I could last remember. Been inspired to cook by my oldest brother who was always cooking up all kinds of stir fry. As I got older, I realized that cooking isn't just for the belly but the soul. When I cook, my mind goes on a high and I get inspired by all the simple ingredients around me. I started taking culinary classes and fell in love with all the techniques and amazing dishes that you can make with just two hands. My dream is to have my own restaurant one day or atleast be the head chef of a restaurant. I love to combine ingredients from different backgrounds and I love sharing my experiments with the world. I'm just a simple girl who loves to cook, eat, and everything in between =)