Raw Strawberry Cheese Cake

 

 



This is a very healthy yet delicious cake. I could not find a single flaw in this recipe, all healthy ingredients, simple steps and a presentable look. So I made this cake with a 7" springform pan for father's day and it was good for 6-8 person. The cake was best after it was taken out from the fridge for 15-20minutes, so I had enough time to decorate the cake with some fresh strawberries and followed by some camchore time.


Crust ingredients:
40g raw organic macadamia
20g raw organic walnut
30g pitted organic medjool dates
a pinch of salt

Cheesecake filling ingredients:
250g raw organic cashew
90ml lemon juice
20g honey
80g virgin coconut oil
1 tbsp vanilla extract
water

Topping ingredients:
150g strawberry
40g pitted organic medjool dates

1. In a food processor, blend all crust ingredients until they are mixed well but still airy.
2. Pour into the springform pan and press hard to form the crust
3. Place the springform in freezer
4. In a high speed blender, blend all cheesecake filling ingredients. Add just enough water for the blender to move.
5. Pour the filling into the springform and flatten the surface.
6. Place the springform in freezer again.
7. Clean the high speed blender.
8. Place the topping ingredients into the high speed blender and blend well.
9. Pour into the springform and flatten the surface.
10. Place the springform in freezer for at least 6 hours.
11. Decorate with some fresh strawberries and serve.






Shark's fin melon and dried longan sweet soup

 

 

Yesterday when I saw shark's fin melon in organic shop for the very first time, I put it in my recycle bag without hesistation. Shark's fin melon tonifies Qi and blood, expels cold, harmonises the blood, induces bowel movements and has many other wonderful benefits.

 

 

It is very easy to boil shark's fin melon sweet soup. Just cut the shark's fin melon to smaller pieces, remove seeds and boil in water. After about 30 minutes, take out the shark's fin melon, use a fork to mash it, it will turn into shreds easily. The shreds look like the real shark's fin, that is where it gets its name. Put the melon shreds back to the pot, add in dried longan and slow cook for another 15 minutes. Add sugar to taste and it is done.

 

 

I packed the sweet soup into few thermos for everyone to bring to office/school. Then I filled two ceramic stew pot and kept them in fridge. Phin Zhe's daddy will love this after his badminton tonight. :)

Rainbow fruit platter

Trying to create healthy eating habits at home by serving these fruit platter few times in a week. Have to show good example to my son. ^_^

Persimmon, grapes and kiwi gold 

apple, orange, kiwi gold and kiwi green  

kiwi gold, orange, cherries and peach

Easiyo Biolife Fruit Yogurts

I have to admit that I am a super rigid mom. When baby Phin Zhe was below 1 year old, I did not give him any processed food, that includes yogurt, cheese, bean curd(toufu) or even bread. After his 1 year old birthday, I slowly introduce some of the processed food to him, one of it is yogurt.

With enough research done, I have decided to give him home made Easiyo Biolife Organic Yogurt with fresh fruits. One pack of easiyo sachet makes about 1litre yogurt. For small family like us, it lasted about 5 days. One serving size is about the two glasses in the pictures below.

Since the yogurt is unsweetened, each time I will mix with some blended fruits and then top with fruit cubes. I serve it as dessert in the afternoon or evening as I do not want to serve something cold for breakfast at this age yet. We love it, the taste is so natural and fresh. I asumme baby Phin Zhe loves it too because he will stay with me and ask for more. :)


The first day I tried with mango. The texture was very close to the yogurt in the market, not too thick or too watery.


Second day was Phin Zhe's favourite, strawberry yogurt. The strawberries were very juicy so it turned out more like smoothies. But it was still yummy.


The third day we had papaya yogurt. I guess the papaya cubes was too much. So it was more like papaya with yogurt. But again, it was a hit.

The fourth day and fifth day we had banana yogurt and kiwi yogurt which I did not take photo. Will post it next round.

What is your favourite yogurt flavours? Or you have any suggestion for yogurt flavours? Tell me. :)

1 year old birthday cake

Since my little boy came to this beautiful world, i wanted to make him a 1 year old birthday cake that he can truly enjoy. I had a few ideas, but somehow I felt that they are not good enough.....until i came across this 100% fruit cake at very last minute.

Nothing fancy. The wordings are melon, cut with alphabet cutters. Cakes are 8 inches watermelon and 6 inches watermelon. Decoration is just whatever fruits that are available. Most important we had fun 'making' the cake and finishing it.

Happy Birthday my dear boy. Mummy will make birthday cakes that grow with you every year. Love you.

Walnut Paste 核桃糊

Recently I want to eat more walnuts. Besides the normal oat breakfast that I usually recommend(read here), I make walnut paste, almost every week. It is a very famous Cantonese dessert. Here is my simplified recipe.


Walnut paste for two
1. Soak 1 tbsp of white rice in water for 2 hours.
2. Toast about 30 whole walnut in Oven at 120degree for half an hour.
3. Put the walnut and white rice together with the water into blender, add in another 350ml water. Blend it!
4. Transfer it to a small pot and turn on medium heat.
5. When it starts to boil, sweeten with 2-3tsp of sugar. Add a bit of water if needed.
6. Ready to be serve.

Anti Aging Black Sesame Paste

I am not sure how many have noticed that I am using my mobile phone to capture dishes since Herbal Salty Chicken. If not because of the poor photo quality, I would have fallen in love with its light weight. I could cook with one hand and capture with another hand. By the way, if you are interested to know, my camera was on a Taiwan vacation trip. :)

It is raining season in Malaysia now. I always fancy a bowl of Cantonese sweet soup(or what we called tong sui) in a rainy day. Most of the tong sui stalls in Malaysia only sell the bean soup, but not the paste type which is very time-consuming. I miss the rich, smooth and fragrant paste in Hong Kong so much until I decided to make a bowl of black sesame paste for myself. I received a questioning look when I served this bowl of black sesame paste, but luckily the feedback was positive. ;)

Ingredients（Serving for 2-4):

Black sesame 200g(washed, drained)

White Rice 50g(washed and soaked for 2 hours)

Brown sugar in pieces ~80g

Method:

1. Stir fry black sesame in a empty wok over medium heat until fragrant.

2. Blend black sesame with 500ml water until smooth.

3. Filter black sesame water with a fine sieve.

4. Blend white rice with 400ml water until smooth.

5. Filter white rice water with a fine sieve.

6. Mix black sesame paste and white rice water into a pot.

7. Cook with medium heat, keep stirring. Keep stirring in the same direction.

8. When it starts to smoke, add in brown sugar.

9. Add in more water if needed. Adjust the sweetness with brown sugar.

10. Make sure that the paste is not too watery or too thick. 

11. Turn off the heat when it starts to bubble. Serve immediately.

yum yum!

No bake cheese cake

4 days Raya holiday was over! I had a contented holiday, shared a good friend's happiness at her wedding, hosted Alor Setar's VIPs for a day trip(besides all the good food, we went to Gua Lang. It was my first time there too, did not know that Ipoh has such a beautiful place), went hiking with my family(a great exercise for my mum, she was complaining muscle pain the next day), did some shopping at Jusco(where my mum bought a box of mooncakes for my auntie and got herself a nice blouse), visited my uncle and, of course spent more time with my family.

My mum cooked all the delicious meals. In return, I made her cheese cake. But she does not really like cheese, so we could have more pieces. ;) I hired my brother as the event photographer, and had fun pulling him away from TV/computer/newspaper each time I needed him. :)


I used Philadelphia cream cheese which had recipes on the package. It was just 3 simple steps to make a cheese cake, mix, beat and pour. To make the base, I mixed the melted butter with the biscuit crumb and press into a lined springform pan. Then, I used a electric mixer to beat all the ingredients. The last thing I did was just to pour the mixture on top of the biscuit base and place it into refrigerator.


I made two layers just because I was using Oreo as the base. I did not want my whole cake to look dark in color. By the way, the chocolate layer was made by mixing 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the mixture.


My Oreo cheese cake

Everyone enjoyed the cake(except my mum, she only had one small slice) and I made a second cake the next day. It was a lemon cheese cake. But the photos are with the event photographer, so no photos to show.

Jelly Mooncake

Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching and it is time to savour mooncakes again. There are many selections in the market, the traditional mooncakes(baked skin) and the modern mooncakes(snow skin, jelly or ice-cream). Do you notice that we could have dumplings(bak chang) all over the years, but not mooncakes? Mooncakes are only available for 1-2months in a year.

For the recent long weekend(Mederka Day), I spent most of my time making 4 flavours of jelly mooncakes. This time my mum suggested to make it. After my first attempt 6 years ago, there will be request to make it every year. One of the year, I even made more than 100 boxes. Even tough I was a bit relunctant and was complaining all the way(I was not feeling well), but I was very happy with the outcome.

My recipe made 20-24 boxes. For this recipe, you will need egg yolk mould, small mooncake jelly mould and big mooncake jelly mould. I had 2, 3 and 6 of these moulds. We split out the works to 3 days. On Saturday, we made the egg yolk(2 rounds to get enough egg yolks). Then on Sunday, we prepared the 4 fillings, red bean, mango, sweet corn and caramel lotus. So on Monday, we were more relaxing(not quite also). We made the mooncake jelly(4 different colors) and packed them in boxes.

I would suggest to split the works to at least two days. One day for egg yolk and fillings. Another day to finish the mooncakes. I will share my 6-years experience recipe in the next post. Meanwhile, here is some of the photos taken during the making. Enjoy!

Glutinous Rice Balls with Black Sesame Filling

I was back in hometown for Father's Day. And see what I had prepared for my family. Yes, black sesame glutinous rice balls. It was not anything fancy but yet it took me more than one hour. This is going to be another post with many photos. Are you ready?


Wash, drain and toast the black sesame in a wok over medium heat until fragrant. Blend the toasted black sesame and then mix well with castor sugar. Do not ask me the exact amount for sugar. You could just put some in your mouth and start adjusting the sweetness. When you are satisfied with the sweetness, add in some shortening and mix well. Roll the mixture into small balls. Now you have the black sesame filling ready.


Sprinkle some glutinous rice on the black sesame balls and shake the plate until all the sesame balls are lightly coated. If this is not done, then you will easily contaminate the white glutinous skin with black sesame color. I learnt this tip from an astro programme.


Mix glutinous rice flour with warm water and knead into dough. Pinch off small portion of dough, roll to a ball shape and flatten the dough.


Take one black sesame ball and place on the flattened dough.


Wrap the black sesame ball with the dough.


Roll gently to form a perfect ball shape.


It should look something like this.


Cook the glutinous rice balls in a pot of boiling water until it floats to the surface. Serve with ginger syrup.

Bubur Cha Cha & Dai Lok Mee

I had a special guest last Sunday morning.
This choosy guest requested to have bubur cha cha with yam, yellow and orange sweet potato.
Here is a picture of the bubur cha cha we had.
I had also added in kidney bean and sago even though he did not request for it.



Besides bubur cha cha, we also had dai lok mee. The first time I used lard and crispy lard bits in dai lok mee. Other ingredients used were cabbage, prawn, fish cake and pork.

It was a brunch to us as we had it quite late. After the Sunday brunch, We were full to the brim. I do hope he had enjoyed the breakfast.

Sea Coconut Dessert

Sea coconut dessert with dried longan and water chestnut

I found a pack of fresh sea coconut dessert in wet market.
And I did not have it for a long time.
I meant the fresh sea coconut and not the cane type.
The most troublesome part was to remove the skin of the sea coconut and the water chestnut. I did it while watching Astro.

Recipe:
Bring 1 pack of sea coconut, 1 pack of water chestnut, few tablespoons of dried longan and some pandan leaves to boil. Then simmer for 2 hours and sweeten with brown sugar in pieces.


This is how the fresh sea coconut looks like. Sea coconut is good at relieving internal heat from body.

Green Bean Soup

Just the normal green bean sago soup.
Rock sugar was substituted with the palm sugar that I have brought back from Malacca.
If I am not lazy, I will make Cendol with the palm sugar next week.

Ginger Milk Curd 姜汁撞奶

I was always curious how did the ginger milk curd theory work. When hot milk was poured into ginger juice, the mixture solidified in minutes. Later I found out that it was the protease in the ginger reacted with the protein in the milk and formed the milk curd. I adjusted the recipe a few times and this is my version:

1. Prepare 1 tbsp of OLD ginger juice in a bowl.
2. Slowly heat up 150ml HIGH PROTEIN fresh milk with 1 tsp of sugar until bubbles aside.
3. Pour the milk into the ginger at certain height.
4. Leave aside for 5 minutes and it is ready to be served.

It is considered success if you place a spoon on it and the spoon stay on top.

Red Bean Soup

A breakthrough for me.

Before this, my red bean will be slightly mushy after slow cook for just 1.5 hours. Until one day I bought the red bean from one of the shop near my house. I used to buy from Jusco. The red bean was still hard after 1.5 hours. So, I let it continue for another 1.5 hours. It turned out to be perfect. The red bean was very soft but still in good shape.

And, I received comment saying that it was the best red bean soup that I had ever cooked. I think it was the different type of red bean. I must go and buy more stock from that shop.

Marie Biscuit Chocolate Cake

Can you make a cake without a mixer and an oven?
Here is an example, Marie Biscuit Chocolate Cake, also known as Batik Cake.
There is no beating or baking needed in making this cake.
So you do not need to invest a mixer/oven if you do not have one.

Ingredients:
500g Marie Biscuit(break into half piece)
250g Butter
1/2 cup condensed milk
4 spoons of Cocoa/Milo powder
4 eggs

Directions:
1. Melt and Stir all the ingredients except Marie Biscuit over slow heat.
2. When it becomes thick, mix well with Marie Biscuit.
3. Pour into a 9' square cake tray and press down firmly.
4. Refrigerate for more than 4 hours.

You definitely can make the batik pattern better than me. :)

Celebrating Merdeka

Last Sunday was Malaysia National Day and the holiday replacement was on Monday. I was lazy to cook when it came to holiday.
Imagine you need to spend hours in the kitchen while the rest is having fun in the living room. Or imagine after one whole day of outing, you still need to drag your tired body to the kitchen.
So, I bought a big piece of unagi from jusco, Qb. Steamed it and served it with japanese rice.

Since it didn't take me long to prepare the dinner, I had also prepared this delicious ice-cream dessert.
Nothing rounds off a good meal better than dessert.
2 big scoops of ice-cream in espresso and Sheridan's Original Irish Coffee Liquor.

Happy Merdeka!

Bird's Nest Soup

Few years ago, I had received this forwarded email saying that we might be eating bleached bird's nest. It is definitely not very smart to pay for bird's nest that comes with extra chemicals. Therefore, I had stopped eating bird's nest.

Recently, one of my friend has started the bird's nest business. She is selling the processed house bird's nest with no addictive or bleaching. Since now I can get it from a reliable source, I decided to give it a try.

Nest piece before cooked


First, soak the bird's nest with warm water for half an hour. Then simmer the bird's nest with water in a ceramic pot for one and a half hour. Add rock sugar to taste. Take it right before sleep with empty stomach to get the best result.

my bowl of bird's nest

Olympics Fever

I have become a couch potato since the olympics opening.
So I have to cook with minimum time.
Was having prawn fried rice while watching women volleyball game china vs holland last night.



Dessert for the night was white gourd and longan dessert.
Good for olympics time when you don't get enough sleep.

Black Glutinuos Rice Porridge

Chinese food therapy believes that black glutinuos rice(or black sticky rice) is good for kidney. In fact, most of the cantonese tong sui is believed to have certain medicinal effects. But unlike some of the bitter chinese medicines, these desserts are so sweet and nourishing that it's hard for me I to link them together with medicine. I always like to have one bowl for evening break or supper.

How can one resist a bowl of black glutinuos rice porridge served with thick coconut milk?