I was lazy, so I said to my parents: “how about we order pizza and skip the whole cooked giant prepare for entire day meal?”

They said: “Okay…sure, we don’t wanna tire you out” (something along those lines, but less considerate)

at 4 pm on Chinese New Year: dad comes home with groceries and the cooking begins

I did the majority

Actually I practically made all of it, except for boiling the dumplings

Pre-Boiled Dumplings with Pork and Celery Filling

The while SSSHHHIIIBANG

GOT: DUmplings, FISH, PIG’S FEET (which the chinese supermarket dude insisted on calling them) CELERY, BOK CHOY with SHITAKE, KUNG PAO/really SPIcy CHicken, and thE BEST DARN DUMPLING SAUCE (made by me)

and there must be dessert! and a recipe

Sticky RIce cake with sweet Adzuki beans

Recipe for Baked Rice Cake:

1 lb Glutinous rice flour

1-2 cups sugar (depending on how you like it, i used 1 1/4 cup)

2 tsp baking powder

2 1/2 cup milk

4 eggs

1 stick butter, melted

2 tsp vanilla extract

Optional: Sweet, cooked adzuki beans

Preheat Oven to 350 F on Middle Rack

1. Melt butter, stir in sugar, vanilla, eggs, and milk

2. Add glutinous rice flour and baking powder, and stir like crazy until the batter is smooth and has no lumps.

3. Pour into one large baking pan, or two 8×8 square baking pans. Grease them really really really well (really well…) sprinkle on adzuki beans, if using

4. bake for 50-60 minutes, until tops are golden brown, and inserted toothpick comes out pretty clean. (no liquid)

17 days and I went from white sand beach to tropical rainforest to mountains of ice. If it wasn’t for my running out of clean undies, I would never wanna come back.

Other then the scenery and unusually friendly peeps, there’s great food and lots of alcohol…at least amongst my tour groupies.

My first few days, I spent at Pakiri Beach, at a horse farm riding horses, running around on the beach and chilling out with my jetlag

Beautiful White Sand Pakiri beach...and all to myself

THe ULtimate FERGBERGER in Queestown

I can’t not mention Fergburger in Queesntown. The meaty goodness above in “the Tropical Swine” loaded with cheese, bacon, beef, and grilled pineapple. Picture=many more words then I can come up with so just droooool and stare

Also in the SPETEBULAR Queenstown, I underwent some emotional trauma …but in a good way: In the form of  a Bungy Jump.

I wasn’t brave enough to jump the 134 meter Nevis, so went with the 43 m Kawarau Bridge. It was soooo beautiful  and picturesque. I was just too scared out of my mind to take it all in.

Other then the fact that they are very sweet, it was pretty easy to make,

Good: somewhat tasty, not hard, not ThAt messy

Also good: I’m going to NZ in 3 weeks! warm weather…

Bad: my chocolate coating gunked up on me cuz i used butter…so I dumped a bunch of canola oil to thin it out. It worked out in the end

Also bad: Final exams are next week and i can’t focus

For a recipe: please visit foodnetwork.com and look up chocolate covered marshmallow cookies. Cheers

so my mom has a friend gathering, asking me to make some stuff…

The cookies are lime meltaways (from martha stewart website) i’ve made them many many times before…meaning they’re very good. I took the photo while they’re cooling and waiting for a bath in powdered sugar.

The other roundish things are matcha “cookies” with taro filling. I bought the canned taro filling from some chinese mart, but making it yourself is pretty easy too. Just cut the giant taro into chunks, then steam it, then puree/crush with sugar and some butter until it’s the right taste for you!

The skin is almost like a quick puff pastry in that it’s got (or suppose to have) many layers:

If you’re interested, here’s the recipe:

Matcha balls with Taro Filling

Water dough:

151 grams all purpose flour

57 grams butter or shortening

18 grams powdered sugar (regular sugar is ok too)

62 grams water

divide this into 36 gram pieces

Butter dough:

123 grams flour

5 grams matcha powder

64 grams butter or shortening

divide this into 24 gram pieces

1. wrap each butter dough (the green one) inside the water dough. roll out slightly with rolling pin, and roll it into a scroll. Flatten again, and roll again to form a small log. Cut log in half and flatten with cut side down. wrap filling inside.

For the filling, each portion will use 35 grams or taro paste.

For detailed pictures on how to make the skin, go to this website: http://www.meishichina.com/Eat/Nosh/200903/58977_2.html

After making the cookies, bake at 350 F for 25 minutes

just like those sold in stores, except better cuz i made them. The recipe’s from this chinese baking book i got a few years ago, all measurements are in grams…because we’re exact people…yea

Just for the heck of it, i dipped the cookies in melted milk chocolate chips

Butter Spritz Cookie:

Yields 30 cookies (depending on size)

100 grams butter, softened

80 grams powdered sugar

90 grams all purpose flour

76 grams bread flour (it’s probably fine if you use all normal flour)

40 grams egg (about 1 small egg)

16 grams powdered milk (i didn’t use this because i didn’t have any…and because chinese powdered milk is alot more fine then American powdered milk, so it wouldn’t have worked very well)

pinch of salt

chocolate of your choice, for dipping

1. I dumped everything into a food processor and whirled until smooth…very easy

2. I piped the dough using a large star tip onto ungreased parchment lined sheet pan.

2. Bake in 350F oven for 15-20 minutes, until slightly golden around the edges.

3. cool for a few minutes before dipping into chocolate

it doesn’t have to be made in the slowcooker. i’m sure marinating, then grilled would work just as well

I got this recipe from another blog, originally meant for beef ribs. I’ve tried it with beef, pork, and chicken and they all work really well.

Slow cooker Pork Ribs

2 lbs baby back ribs, cut into pieces ( you can use chicken thighs or beef ribs)

5 cloves garlic

2 dried chilies, broken into a few pieces

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup soy sauce

3 tbsp white vinegar

a dash of sesame oil

1. put everything in the slow cooker, and cook on high for 3 hours (for pork. it takes longer for beef, and shorter for chicken)

3 hours later in the slow-cooker

I got this recipe from a chinese cake baking book. They sell this type of “cupcake” in chinese bakeries. It’s very fluffy and airy and smells like eggs ( in a good way)

This is just the plain cake, flavored with a little bit of vanilla. I’m sure you can add whatever flavorings you want.

Here’s the Recipe

Chiffon CupCakes:

yields 8 large cupcakes

Yolk mixture:

40 grams milk

50 grams oil

70 grams egg yolk (about 4 large)

30 grams sugar

70 grams flour

10 grams cornstarch

1/4 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Egg White mixture:

160 grams egg whites (about 5 large)

1/2 tsp cream of tartar (i used lime juice)

80 grams sugar

1. beat egg whites with cream of tartar until it forms soft peaks. Add sugar gradually and peak to stiff peaks

2. Combine all yolk ingredients and mix until smooth

3. add 1/3 of egg whites to yolk mixture, and whisk to combine. Dump and yolk mixture back into the rest of the egg whites and fold gently until smooth and there are no more white streaks.

4. bake at 340F for 20 minutes in lines large muffin tins. I used creme brulee cups lined with foil

I’m thinking this would be nice topped with a whipped cream frosting…totally an asian cupcake

I’ve been wanting to make a fruit flavor, so here we go. I made a coconut milk chiffon (which i really couldn’t taste the coconut…so i brushed the cakes with more coconut milk+sugar before frosting) topped with mango buttercream.

Mango Buttercream:

2 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 sticked butter, room temperature

5 tbsp mango puree ( i used frozen mango, defrosted, then pureed, and strained)

1. Puree mango and strain out bad bits

2. heat sugar and egg whites over simmering water bath. Whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and reaches 140 degrees.

3. take sugar/egg mixture off head and beat until fluffy and like marshmallow cream

4. add butter a bit at a time, and beat until firm and spreadable. Add mango puree and beat until well combined.

This was enough to cover 6 mini cakes

For the chiffon: i used my usual recipe, but just replaced milk with coconut milk

I baked them in individual creme brulee baking cups for about 20 minutes

I also tried out a whipped ganache. Except that once the ganache was whipped, it was really stiff and hard to pipe. I sandwiched some in between the layers and managed to pipe some through a really large star tip.

any suggestions on future cakes?

the flowers turned out better then i expected

I had some buttercream left over so i started going crazy with the leaves…

Here’s a slice:

I used the same recipe as the coffee chiffon cake, except added 1 tsp of matcha powder to the cake batter. the buttercream is also the same recipe, with matcha added.

the cakes are three layers, 8 inch in diameter and decorated with chocolate covered strawberries. This is my first attempt at completely decorating a cake…

i think it’s pretty ^^