Chinese Smiling Sesame Cookie Balls 笑口棗

It's almost time for the Chinese New Year 中國新年 and happy, plentiful thoughts of food, food, and even more delicious food are on my mind!  As anyone with proximity to Chinese culture will know, all things Chinese revolve around the copious consumption of all kinds of yummilicious foods.  Nom, nom, nom!!  

We are going to celebrate the snack aspect of traditional Chinese New Year foods this time around and we start with the easy to make, delightfully addictive Chinese New Year favorite, Chinese Smiling Sesame Cookie Balls, or 笑口棗 or 開口笑.  I'm sure you've seen these before, these little crisp sesame infused cookies can be bought everywhere during the Chinese New Year to munch on or to serve your CNY guests.  But I'll bet you've never had them homemade and fresh and I think you'll find they are waaaaay more delicious made at home than bought from any store.

Pan Fried Cheung Fun (Rice Rolls) with Egg 香煎腸粉炒蛋

Recently we were really excited when a new little food shop opened on our street and we saw that they sold all kinds of chinese noodles (like Cantonese egg noodles), and most exciting of all, at least for me, was that they sold really fresh Cheung Fun 腸粉, also known as Rice Rolls or Rice Noodle Rolls.  

Cheung Fun is used for all kinds of dishes, both savory and sweet, but for myself the favorite preparation is the classic Hong Kong snack food Pan Fried Cheung Fun with Egg.  Chewy fragrant rice, just fried egg clinging to the rolls, splashes of sweet soy sauce and oh, the tasty deliciousness of hoisin sauce!  YUMM...comfort food alert!!

Seriously Amazing Chocolate Tart

I wanted to share this chocolate tart recipe because it really is seriously amazing.  Not due to any special skills of mine or anything, let me assure you, this tart is amazing all by itself! 

I had to bring a dessert to a New Year's Eve barbecue that we were invited to and naturally wanted to impress and thus stumbled on this recipe for chocolate tart that seemed easy yet delicious.  But I was wrong...it was super easy and amazingly delicious!  Not just my opinion, this tart got rave stand up reviews from the folks at the barbecue, many of whom are chefs themselves.  

So if you're a super chocolate fan (like we are!) and need to produce an impressive but easy to make dessert, do try this Seriously Amazing Chocolate Tart.  You won't be disappointed, I promise!

Egg Tarts 蛋撻

Greetings for the New Year and hope that you all have had a great holiday season!   I know that we've been really, really busy and have only now had a chance to breath a bit.  

So, in thinking of what to write about as the first post of this grand new year, I had the inspiration to bring in the year with a bit of sunshine and to me there is not a thing in the world that is as sunshiny and cheerful as the absolutely fabulously famous and wonderfully traditional Chinese Egg Tart, or 蛋撻!  

It's something that every Chinese kid grew up with, it's sorta programmed into our DNA or something. Egg tarts are the first 'desserts' I remember eating, my grubby little hand eagerly lifting up a tart from its big pink box, falling in finger lickin love from the first moment with that tender, sweet eggy custard and the cookie like crust.  Ohh...just taking one luscious bite of an egg tart takes me right back to warm and fuzzy times...

Stained Glass Cookies

Dear readers, in this Christmas season, I'm going to have to admit that I've got cookies on the brain, a veritable cookie fever, if you will.  Cookies, cookies, cookies everywhere!  What can one do, though, with Christmas parties coming up one after another and a little girl at home that loves her cookies and milk?  

Our latest discovery of fun cookies to make and bake for the holiday season are these wonderfully fun and amazingly beautiful Stained Glass Cookies.  I can't believe that I had never seen these cookies before!  Where the heck have I been?  Who would have thought that one could make cookies that let light in through a colorful candy window?!  Amazing cookiness, if you ask me.  And you can even hang them on your Christmas tree!

Chinese Sweet Potato Ginger Dessert Soup 番薯姜糖水

Brrrrrr! All day long a chilly autumn wind has been blowing in through the crack in my window, outside its been raining on and off and the world is all wet and dreary.  On days like this there's nothing that warms you up better than a touch of the right kind of traditional Cantonese sweet soup.  

And the right kind of sweet soup, at least for me, is the kind of sweet soup with a bit of ginger in it, no, no, I must be upfront, a darn boatload of ginger in it.  Yummm...that delicious spiciness of ginger!  How good this Chinese Sweet Potato Ginger Dessert Soup 番薯姜糖水 is, soft comforting pieces of luscious yams floating in a sweet and fiery soup that warms you right through to the tips of your toes!

Snowball Melting Moments Cookies

Yeah, it's that time of the year!  The countdown to Christmas is here!  I love the Xmas season despite all the rampant commercialization of it these days.  There's always been something really wonderful, warm and fuzzy to me about it all.  And now that we've got a little girl it's even more fun to celebrate Christmas, there are gifts to hide, decorations to put up, christmas carols to sing!  

We kicked off the season this year by making these yummiliciously fun Snowball Melting Moments Cookies; a cookie easy enough for my little girl to make, mostly, by herself and good looking enough to give away as a gift.  I mean who wouldn't want to make and eat cookies that look, taste (in my imagination, at least), and melt deliciously in the mouth just like real snowballs!

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!