Coconut Ginger Tofu Pudding

I know that tofu pudding can never replace the real creaminess of regular pudding, so think of this as a lighter, more tropical dessert that you can eat 2 or 3 bowls of in one sitting (without much guilt). 

This dessert is really simple:

1.  Buy unsweetened tofu pudding.  It'll actually say 'tofu pudding' on the container, NOT soft tofu.

2.  Bring a can of coconut milk to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes, and then let it cool down.  Store in a container until ready to use.

3.  Julienne about 3/4 cups of ginger.  In a small pot, over medium-low heat, melt about 7 oz of rock sugar with 1  1/2 cups of water.  Add ginger to the sugar syrup and continue to  simmer until the syrup is reduced down and thickens up to a consistency of honey or maple syrup.  Let the syrup cool down and then transfer to a lidded container too.  

Now you're all set to have tofu pudding at anytime!  Store the ginger-infused syrup, coconut milk, and tofu in the fridge.

When ready to eat, take 1-2 TBS of the ginger syrup,  2-3 TBS of coconut milk, and scoop out about 1 cup of tofu pudding.  Try to mix the 3 of them together and careful not to break up the tofu pudding too much.  Adjust the sugar and coconut milk to your liking.  If you like to eat the pudding warm, then reheat it in the microwave for a bit, but not too much, or it'll melt into a puddle of sweetened soy water.  

I personally like to eat this cold on a hot afternoon, with lots of ginger from the syrup and light on the coconut milk (maybe just 1 tablespoon for the coconut essence).  Now that you know the recipe/technique, anybody wanna make it for me?? :D  :D  :D

Eight Treasure Congee

Did you know that congee can be made with other grains, other than rice?  Like millet, barley, and sorghum.  These types of congee are common in the north of China.  Here, I've made an 'eight treasure congee.'  The eight treasure really just means 8 ingredients that you will put in the congee (excluding water), and those are any 8 ingredients that you have on hand.  

For my eight treasure congee, I put in red kidney beans, glutinous rice, raw peanuts, lotus seeds, barley, red jujubes, dried logans, and grated ginger.  This is a sweet congee instead of a savory one, so I seasoned it with rock sugar (or jaggery).  I guess that'll make this a Nine Treasure Congee and not eight?  I can't count!  This is sort of like a mixed up Vietnamese sweet dessert soup. :)

Milky Adzuki Bean Dessert

Adzuki beans with seaweed and red jujubes in lightly sweetened soymilk. I heart adzuki bean desserts.

Plantain-Tapioca pudding

This Vietnamese dessert (Chè Chuối) is usually made with bananas, but I prefer using ripe sweet plantains. There is more texture to it after cooking. Soymilk is substituted for coconut milk, because it's just better health-wise.

Ingredients in this pudding: diced sweet potatoes, tapioca pearls, plantains, milk, sugar. Very simple, but very good. Oddly, this is one dessert I only like to eat hot or warm.

Basically, you boil diced sweet potatoes, drain and save for later. Then in a pot, simmer plantains in milk and sugar first, then add tapiocas. Put potatoes in again when tapiocas are cooked.

Sweet Tapioca Balls- Chè Xôi Nước

Secret dessert! Secret dessert!

Check out the texture of these balls! :D

What are inside these balls? And what's that on the outside?

This is chè xôi nước. It's like dumpling balls in a lightly sweetened ginger syrup. Inside these balls is mashed mung bean, and on the outside are tiny tapioca pearls.

The tiny tapioca pearls are mixed with some water first to make a paste, and then form into a shell of tapioca. This creates a very good chewy texture to it, as opposed to making the shell with normal glutinous flour (See second picture).

Chè đậu trắng

Chè đậu trắng is a Vietnamese sweet pudding.

Made with black-eyed peas (the legume, not the American hip hop group), sticky rice, and coconut milk, this dessert is usually offered to ancestors during Vietnamese New Year or other special holidays.

Coincidentally, did you know that black-eyed peas are traditionally eaten on New Year's Day in the American South and parts of the US too? However, they're cooked with bacon, ham, and meats, etc. The only place I've seen black-eyed peas in a dish in Vietnam is in dessert form.

I'd have to say that this is my least favorite of Vietnamese chè. The beans, I like in the dish. Maybe it's because of the mushy sticky rice that I don't like. Making it at home is better because I will make it less sweet, and adding ginger to the pudding also makes it tastier.

Vietnamese sweet soups- for dessert!

Vietnamese sweet soup (chè)

There are many kinds of chè. This one is chè đậu xanh- meaning a mung bean sweet soup. Usually, you can just cook mung beans until very soft, add palm sugar, milk and that's it. Or, you can add other goodies to the sweet soup, like sweet potato, lotus seeds, lychees or logans, seaweed, jackfruit, jujube and using coconut milk instead of milk/cream.

First one on the left is a mung bean sweet soup with purple potato (cubes), pearl barley, and jujube.

This one I made is simply sweet potato, mung bean, jujube, whole pearl barley and soymilk. The best part is the mung bean sweet soup can be eaten warm, chilled, or room temperature.







Black bean sweet soup with jujube and soymilk. I really love to add soymilk to sweet soup to make it creamy, yet still light and healthy. Serve chilled on a hot summer day, it is a perfect and refreshing snack.