Happy Chinese new year of Horse

Dear all, happy Chinese new year! It is the year of horse!

Wish you all a healthy, joyful and prosperous year!

The Chinese written form of horse = 馬

Idea for breakfast: Corn bread - recipe & corn meal vs corn flour

My American friend stayed at my home for a while, one day she made me a corn bread. She said it is typical American food. 

She asked me to try - wow, it's wonderful! 
It is served hot, the texture is spongy. She recommended me to put butter and then honey on it. It is perfect for breakfast!

She said it can be eaten during a meal, like spaghetti, noodle, rice... What a fantastic discovery!

Unfortunately, we cannot find cornmeal in France. The only way to get it is to have friends brought it from the US. :(

Comparison between cornmeal & corn flour

So I tried to use the corn flour (yellow in color), you can buy it in bio (organic) shop.

When I finished cut it into piece, it looks almost the same as the one with cornmeal. 




Right: corn flour







However, when I taste it, it tastes the same but the texture is much finer than the cornmeal. 

The reason is that corn flour is much finer than cornmeal.




Left: cornmeal







Recipe
1-1/4cups all purpose flour
3/4cup corn meal or corn flour
1/4cup sugar
2tsp baking powder
1cup skim milk
1/4cup vegetable oil
2 egg whites or 1 beaten egg => I always use 1 beaten egg
Optional: 1/2tsp salt => usually I don't add it

Instruction
1. Pre-heat your oven to 200°c
2. Combine all dry ingredients, mix it
3. Stir in milk, oil and egg, mix it until the dry ingredients are moistened
4. Line a baking sheet or grease the pan, then pour the mixture to the pan
5. Bake 20-25mins or until light golden brown.

Enjoy!

One of my favorite cooking method - Steaming

Steaming - traditional Chinese cooking method, especially for dim sum :) I miss dim sum!

It can conserve better the nutritive value of food than other cooking method.

It is also healthier since you don't need to add oil.

Therefore, we decided to buy a steamer and make some Chinese dim sum (very excited).

In the Chinese supermarket we had 2 choices - plastic ones & bamboo ones... We decided to buy bamboo ones because I am not sure if plastic can have some negative effect to our health in long term... 











It is very simple to use - put the steamer on the top of a pot. The pot size should be exactly the same as the steamer or a bit smaller.

If you have never used it, you may want to read the following part.

There are some care instructions of using bamboo steamer:

1. If you want to use it for longer time, then you should line a baking sheet at the bottom each time you use it

2. During the steaming process, you need to be careful of the water level, do not let it dry up!

3. When the food is well cooked, turn off the heat, remove the steamer carefully, and then open the lid & lift it away from you - to avoid burning yourself...

4. Do not put the bamboo steamer in the dishwasher, just use hot soapy water and rinse well. Let it dry completely before you store it.

Reference: http://tipnut.com/bamboo-steamers/

Banana bread - with recipes & tips

I do not like eating banana, and if you ask me to choose my favourite cake, I would never say banana cake.

However, since I found this recipe and tried it, I love banana bread. It is very delicious and moist :) It is just like the cake.

This banana bread becomes one of my favorite breakfast :)














The recipe shown below - I will list the original quantity of each ingredients, but I will tell you the quantity I use without degrading the quality of the cake (I like staying healthier if possible haha)
Ingredients (for 6 persons):- 250 g flour
- 160 g sugar => I always use 130g
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- salt
- 2 - 3 bananas (preferably ripe) => I always use 3
- 85g butter => I always use 60g
- 2 tbsp milk
- 2 eggs


Instruction:
1. Preheat the oven at 165° C 

2. Mix in 150g flour with sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt

3. Original recipe: add smashed bananas, butter and milk. Mix it vigorously for 2mins until the mixture becomes homogeneous
My recommendation: Add butter, mix well first => it is to ensure the mixture is well mixed, then add milk & then smashed bananas. 

4. Add eggs and the rest of the flour


5. Line baking sheet or grease the cake mold, then pour the mixture. Put it into the oven for 55-60 mins


Optional
Original recipe: You can cover the cake with cream when you serve it.
My recommendation: Add walnuts either on the top or during step 4. Walnut and banana is perfect match.

Enjoy!

Write to me if you have any question.

New trial - chocolate cream cheese icing

Yesterday I wanted to celebrate sister's birthday because I will not be able to attend her birthday party, so I made a cake for her. I'm glad that she likes it :)

The icing made in this photo, I didn't use any butter (very proud), yet I can still pipe the icing on the cake and it is super easy to make it!

So if you want to know how to make the icing... here you go!

If you use cocoa powder...
Ingredients

• - 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• - 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• - 3 cups sifted powdered sugar 
• Note: You can decrease this amount if you don't care about it being as stiff for piping
• - 1/2 cup cocoa powder*
• *if you want to make vanilla flavor - 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. 1. Beat cream cheese until soft and then add in butter, beat the mixture until smooth and creamy
2. 2. Mix in powdered sugar, one cup at a time
3. Note: you might need the quantity written according to your taste
4. 3. Mix in cocoa powder or vanilla extract

If you use chocolate bar...

Ingredients

- 1/4 cup butter, softened

- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened

- 3 ounces (3 squares) unsweetened chocolate, melted

- dash of salt

- 3 cups confectioners' sugar

- 1/3 cup half-and-half (you can just use milk, preferably whole milk)

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Cream together the butter and cream cheese. 

2. Add melted chocolate, salt, sifted confectioners' sugar, half-and-half, and vanilla. 

3. Beat until smooth and spreadable.

* If you want the icing stiff enough to hold the shape when you pipe it, I suggest you using at least the quantity indicated above... Actually butter can help once you cool it in the fridge

Home made soya milk

Soya milk... yum :) it has many nutritive value. 

I found a post about how to make our own soya milk, so I want to try. 

It is the 2nd time I make it! I really love the result, though the process is a bit frustrating... last time I made it I said it would be my last time to make it. Yet, I still want to do it after tasting the soya milk... 
It is a real reward. I always think of the farmers who grow rice when I drink the soya milk! What a hard work but it brings a wonderful reward!

Anyways, my kitchen is the victim when I make the soya milk, because the process is a bit complicated and I always make it messy (I really hate messing around the kitchen)

If you want to try - I used 1500ml water & 500g soya bean & Sugar (optional - I don't add it)

1. Soak the soya bean in water (largely cover the bean because the bean absorbs the water quickly) for at least 5hours - I always soak it over night

2. Mix the soya bean & 500ml in the food processor. 
Note that you don't need to mix it for too long time to make the beans become too fine for the 1st time.

3. Squeeze it in a fine fabric bag, you can see the milky water, good news :)

4. Put back the squeezed soya bean into the food processor and then repeat step 2 & 3 for 2 times more

5a. Optional: You can add sugar into the soya milk and you can boil it now

5b. If you don't add sugar, then you can directly boil the soya milk in a pot - better to use higher height ones... because when you boil it the milk will form bubble and will spread everywhere once it is boiling...
When it is boiled, keep boiling it at low heat for 8 mins.

6. Done - Enjoy!

Please let me know if you have any question :) I will be happy to answer you if I can!

Importance of breakfast

I know many people know about the importance of breakfast... but still I want to share it with you all...

Breakfast is really very important to start a new day. We need energy for whole day activity. 

No matter how busy how rush you are, you must eat your breakfast!
You cannot skip it! 

Some people want to keep fit so they skip it, which is WRONG!
This can damage your body!

Usually I make my own breakfast, which means I bake cakes, bread, pancakes....



My breakfast consist of the following elements:
- Warm water
- Fruit, mainly kiwi
- Bread/cake
- Tea (preferably green tea)
- Dairy product like yogurt, milk etc.










It is the best to start with drinking a cup of warm water, I always put lemon juice inside. Lemon is good for your skin and for health (of course! with vitamin C haha)

Also, it is very important to eat a fruit like kiwi which is rich in vitamin C.

Bread/ cake can provide carbohydrates, protein...
I avoid putting butter on the bread, I will put honey or home-made jam directly on the bread.

Tea is not a must but I prefer drinking something hot, especially green tea is good because it can help to avoid cancer.

Dairy product - some people say they are good, some say not good. I think we can never 100% avoid bad food right? just as we all have some cancer cells in our body! So eat it reasonably, the rest will leave it to God :)

Craft sale at church

Finally I got the photos from the craft sale at my church on 15-Dec :)

We had a small scale of craft sale for people to buy last minute christmas gift to friends and family. All the funds are going to the general church fund.

Last year 2012 we had our first bake sale during christmas time, it was successful! This year 2013 we had few bake sales they are all good, that reflected people like cakes and sweet stuffs.

Here is the photo of our bake sale in June 2013. Yummy :)









So.... This time I was thinking better to change the sale product type, so craft comes to my mind... I'm glad that I am the one who organize it, because there are many things to learn :) I think I will make some improvement next time!

Thank God that my sister at church is taking cartonnage class, she taught me how to make bloc telephone (see my 1st post). People like it and they even ordered some!

We also have other cartonnage stuffs like mirrors, porte-crayons, letter carriers...

On my side, I made some crochet teddy bears, crochet bookmarks :)



The week after the craft sale was crazy, since we had some orders... but we were happy because people buy what they like and at the same time they are giving money to the church :)

What I need to improve - make more stuffs in stock in advance little by little now, so that I will have larger quantity to sell next time.