Stilton Pizza-Dessert Pizza

What's on this dessert pizza:  Apricot Stilton, bosc pears, caramelized onions, walnuts.  Too bad I didn't have time to toast the walnuts, to get more flavor out of them.

And yes, I have a whole in my pizza.  That's because I stretched the dough too thin in that area, and it burnt as the other parts were still cooking.

Flat noodleees!

Veggie-tofu stir fried flat noodles.... with a fried egg!

Coconut Sticky Rice

On the right (green): pandan-flavored beaten sticky rice with fresh grated coconut.  

On the left (yellow): sticky rice cooked with split mung beans and fresh grated coconut too.

Festive looking, aren't they?  I used to make a pink color sticky rice too!  You eat these as snacks with sweet and salty roasted peanuts on top.

Congee and pot sticker dumplings

Warm congee on a chilly day.  Here, this congee is accompanied with homemade veggie pot stickers and sauteed cabbage and carrots.  I actually enjoyed making pot stickers, and it might be something that I'll play around with on a rainy day.

So some additional add-ins that I used and you may also like in your congee too: sesame oil, scallions, fried tofu puffs, hot sauce, parsley, thousand year old eggs, quail eggs, chicken eggs (yolk only), etc.

I used the Shanghai Style dumpling wrapper, because it's the right thickness and the right texture too.  They're crispy and chewy at the same time.

Spicy Scallion Corn Waffles!

These corn waffles are definitely my favorite so far from all the waffles that I've made.  They actually got more crispy as they cooled down from the heat.  I was going to add some mexican cheese to the batter too, but I didn't have any and was too lazy to run to the store.  Ahh, well.  They still taste very good!  The scallions work well with the cornmeal batter and bits of jalapeno and sambal oelek sauce.  

The batter I used was a mix-n-match of things I have on hand.  Only one jalapeno!  So I used some sambal for more heat.

Brownieeeees!

Black bean brownies with walnuts.

Truthfully, I don't like brownies. At all. Except the one time I had this AWESOME sour cherry brownie from Clear Flour bakery in Brookline. MMm! I actually still think of that today.

This recipe was very interesting and intriguing. However, I'd rate it 7/10. I guess brownies are just not my thing. For my preference, I'd like my brownies very fudgey, not cakey. This came out pretty fudgey, but I still didn't like it. :(

Braised pineapple chicken

How do you select a pineapple? And how do you tell if it's ripe and ready to use? You sniff it! If it has the sweet smell of pineapple, then it's ready to use. When you buy it in the store, it's probably not ready to be eaten, so just store it in a cool and dry place for a few days.

Pineapples are one of those fruits that will continue to ripe after being cut off from the tree. Well, not really. Pineapples don't grow on pineapple trees,, but on short bushes about two feet tall.

If you must... then use canned pineapples. If not, then definitely go the fresh route. It doesn't take much work to slice into one. There are recipes for orange chicken, so there's nothing strange about chicken 'n pineapples together. ^-^

Spicy Stir-Fried Pork Blood with Chives

Stir-fried blood pudding with chives, bean sprouts, lots of garlic, ginger, and chilies. I didn't eat it, but I think it was good! :D

My mind thinks the blood pieces taste better if it's a little crispy on the outside when stir-fried with garlic first, which was what I did.

Rice Cooker Banana Cake

You've heard of people baking bread, chocolate cake, brownies, etc. in the rice cooker, right? I've been really intrigued with this method for a while now, so I decided to test it out. I actually baked this banana cake in a rice cooker.

This is just a regular whole wheat banana bread recipe that I like, but I adjusted it by adding some yogurt to make it more moist. To be honest, this experiment was not entirely successful for me. I have 2 rice cookers in the kitchen currently, one for cooking brown rice (for myself who likes brown rice) and one for cooking white rice (for others who likes eating white rice) ^_^. One of the rice cooker is more modern, with a timer that you can set to cook congee or other things for an extended period of time, and the other rice cooker has only a switch for cooking and keeping warm.

Anyway, since the batter I made was way too much for rice cooker baking (the recipe was for regular baking in a loaf pan in the oven), I decided to divide the batter in half, one for each cooker, so that it'll bake faster.

This successful cake picture is from the modern rice cooker. And the one from the other cooker? Well, it was burnt (badly)! It was my fault actually. The switch from that rice cooker flipped from "cook" to "keep warm" after just 7 minutes! I didn't believe the cake was actually cooked, so to "override" the control button, I held down the switch by plugging in some paper towels. Very high tech. After a little while when I was cleaning up the kitchen mess, I smelled smoke... Wha??

Ahh, my burnt cake! :(

If you're wondering how I got the cake to be nicely caramelized like that in a rice cooker, it's because I put it under the broiler for 3-5 minutes after the baking. I think this saves more energy, because you're cooking in a smaller enclosed space, as opposed to heating up a big oven. Though, turning on the oven to bake on a cold winter day does make the house feel nice and cozy.

Lunch: Rolls, rolls, roll it up!

Crisp apples, creamy avocado in maki rolls.

I want some more now!