Chinese Ma Lan Tou (Kalimeris Indica) Tofu Salad 涼伴香乾馬蘭頭

This special little dish, the Chinese Ma Lan Tou (Kalimeris Indica) Tofu Salad, or 涼伴香乾馬蘭頭, is one of my personal favorite vegetable dishes of Shanghainese cuisine.  It reminds me, in its simple yet very presentable ethereal grace of those Shanghai ladies of old, so classy with their beautiful cheongsams, not a permed hair out of place, delicately floating by trailing scents of flowers and soap. Never before and since have Chinese ladies looked so good! (In my humble opinion, that is.)

Stir Fry Beef Udon Noodles 牛肉炒烏冬面

Sometimes there's nothing you want so much as a good heap'in plate of steaming hot stir fried noodles.  Yuummmm...  Noodles are a great all in one dish!  

You've got your long twirling noodles that you can slurp or suck up, your various bits of lovely vegetables (healthy!), and your lovely splash of marinated meat (scrummy!).  Everything you need for a super tasty all in one dinner or lunch.  

We love to use udon noodles to make our stir fry noodles cuz you get the added perk of the udon oozing just enough starch to make a deliciously sticky, oh so satisfying! sauce that juicily coats all your stir fry.  So good!  Try this Stir Fry Beef Udon Noodles, it's an easy, throw together leftovers kind of dish that makes a lovely, tasty, saucy plate of delicious noodles.

Chocolatey Chocolate Ice Cream

Yum, yum, yum, my favorite flavor of ice cream!  Chocolatey chocolate!  No matter how many new and exotic flavors appear on my ice cream horizon, I always float back lazily to that rich, velvetly, creamy, uniquely chocolatey taste of chocolate ice cream.  (Well, that, and also my other classic childhood favorite ice cream, Strawberry Ice Cream!) 

We always like to have some homemade ice cream in the fridge and this Chocolatey Chocolate Ice Cream 巧克力雪糕 is a great favorite of ours for eating and for dressing up to make fancy ice cream cones!

Chinese Daikon Brisket Stew 清湯蘿蔔牛坑腩

Finally we here in Hong Kong have felt the cool soothing touch of the occasional autumn breeze!  As usual, it's been a long, hot, humid summer and we're just crazy glad that the weather has cooled down enough to allow us at times to live with open windows and no air conditioner blasting away.  

The change in the weather been so uplifting in a way (silly me, I know!), that I have been inspired to start dreaming of warm, fortifying autumn dishes for our dinner table.  This Chinese Daikon Brisket Stew, or 清湯蘿蔔牛坑腩, is one of those comfort dishes that fills you up heartily, tastes just yummilicious with tender beef and meltingly soft daikon swimming prettily in a clear soup that will give you strength to fight against the autumn chills.

Chocolate Ganache

I don't know about you dear reader, but I love me my chocolate.  And if at all possible I like to have chocolate...with chocolate!  So these little Chocolate Ganache filled Chocolate Macarons are a great favorite of mine (see our recipe for Chocolate Macarons here).  This creamy, soft yet solid ganache filling is super yummiliciously chocolately and a great filling for macarons.  

Try this super duper simple to make Chocolate Ganache that dries to a perfect semi solid state, creamy when you bite into the macaron, but solid enough to keep its lovely round edged shape.

Chocolate Macarons

In Hong Kong there are many places nowadays selling this very frenchie delight of the macaron, one of the many of the patisserie of that nation that has traveled far in fame and glory.  I have bought them as a treat for my little girl and she was ever so delighted with them, these light, airy, sweet, nutty, colorful little delicacies that look almost too pretty to eat.  But they are so expensive!  And my girl was always longing for them!  

Then I got addicted to watching The Great British Baking Off, the most delightful baking show ever, and I noticed that the home bakers on the show often made macarons for decorating their luscious creations.  They made it look so easy that I thought, if these folks can do it so can I!  So I made these elusive Chocolate Macarons.   And to be honest these lovely chocolate delights were not as hard as I thought it was going to be!

Homemade Mung Green Bean Flour 自製綠豆粉

Mung beans skins off

When making our Macau Almond Cookies 澳門杏仁餅 during the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival I discovered that I could not find one vital ingredient for the cookies: mung bean flour also known as green bean flour or starch.  So I thought to use some elbow grease and just make it myself.  

It turns out that it is not so hard, just needing a bit of time and patience to make this nutty, roasty, aromatic Homemade Mung Green Bean Flour 自製綠豆粉.

Macau Almond Cookie 澳門杏仁餅

Chinese Mid Autumn Festival 中秋節 is just around the corner and my little girl is beside herself with anticipation!  (It's her favorite holiday of the year plus she gets to stay up late!)  

The yearly celebration of the biggest moon of the year, the harvest moon, Mid Autumn Festival so much fun here in Hong Kong! There are moon cakes to make, shopping expeditions to make, lanterns to light and little children to dress up in festive Chinese attire , moon gazing outings to plan!  

After an early preparation of our traditional double yolk lotus seed paste mooncakes and our five nut mooncakes, I thought why not make an extra traditional treat to have on hand in case of the extra munchies?  I ended up making some of these delectably light and flavorsome Macau Almond Cookies  澳門杏仁餅, quite easy to make and delightfully easy on the eyes.

Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam

Recently I've happily discovered an important fact.  It turns out that you can make your own homemade fruit jam pretty easily and quickly!  Wow, oh wow!  

I've always hankered after making my own fruit jams, dreaming of the fresh, sweet sticky goodness that I could feed my family (and myself, of course!) if only I could make my own jam.  But I was intimidated by all the talk of canning jars and sterilization and super large pots of boiling fruit.  It all sounded so serious and ultra time consuming!  

And then I found out (by finally watching the amazing Great British Bake Off, OMG I'm totally obssessed with that show!) that if you only wanted one jar of jam to eat, why, that was easy peasy to make!  And so I tried it out and made my first jar of Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam.  Just like that I was in jammy heaven, sunshine and happiness in a jar! 

Asian Chili Hot Oil Sauces 辣椒醬

We reviewed the cookbook The Asian Kitchen - Fabulous Recipes from Every Corner of Asia by Kong Foong Ling (see our cookbook review here) and here we present the recipes that we used in our review.  

As you can probably see we decided to make a smorgasbord of Asian Chili Hot Sauces, one from each of three different countries.  What a fun idea it turned out to be!  Easy to make, gorgeous to look at.  And best of all, you can travel around the world with the tip of your tongue, all while eating a home cooked meal!