Chrysanthemum Herbal Tea

Sunday, 23 May 2010

With 3 events (HDB's 50th Anniversary @ CCK, Papa Mama I Love U, YT GRLs Magic Workshop) to attend & dear hubby is on the afternoon shift overtime today, I prepared a quick lunch b4 going out this morning. Cooked a simple vegetable dish, baked honey chicken wings in the oven & brewed a big pot of cooling Chrysanthemum Herbal Tea for the children to drink thru'out the day.

I always brew this tea when I fry chicken or heaty food.  It helps to relieve sore throat or cough & is my children esp meimei's favourite drink.  At times I would bring a jar down for members during meeting or give a bottle to nearby friends, neighbours when they're having irritable throat.

Here is how I brew the Chrysanthemum Herbal Tea, it's super-duper easy.

Ingredients:

1 Luo han guo (buddha fruit)
3 Gan cao  (licorice root)
abt 3 tbsp Jin yin hua  (honeysuckle bud)
abt 3 tbsp Ginseng roots
abt 1 big scoop / handful  Chrysanthemums
Yellow crystal rock sugar (individual liking, I use 3 Tupperware scoop)
abt 4 litre Water

Method:

1. Rinse all the ingredients except rock sugar.
2. Bring the water to boil in a big pot, crack the luo han guo by pressing it on the table-top or between your palms and add in.
3. Add in the gan cao, ginseng roots & jin yin hua.
4. Then, add the rock sugar & boil for few mins.
5. Add in the chrysanthemum, cover pot and then off flame. Stand for abt 30 mins.
6. Pour over a sieve into a jug to serve.

Note:
1. All the above ingredients are available in Hockhua or any Chinese medical hall.
2. You may use any type of sugar or brown sugar. I like the yellow crystal rock sugar for its caramel taste.
3. My induction hob cooks super fast, you may have to boil slighter longer if you're using the gas stove.

Properties:
1) Luo han guo -  helps relieve sunstroke, moistens the lungs, eliminates phlegm, stops cough, & promotes bowel movements, www.itmonline.org/arts/luohanguo.htm.
2) Gan Cao  - relieves pain & coughing and detoxifies poison *
3) Jin Yin Hua - expels heat & useful in fighting virus & fungus *
4) Chrysanthemum - disperse wind & heat, useful for arterioslerosis & coronary diseases *

* Source: `Nourishing Recipes of 100 Chinese Herbs' bk from Popular

Fried Ai Cao Egg

Friday, 21 May 2010

After morning exercise, neighbour Mun gave me some young shoot of the `ai cao' from her garden. Was told that they have the properties of removing `wind' from the body when consumed.

Here is how I cooked them:

1. Wash ai cao, then cut them very finely. Next beat 3 eggs. 

2. Heat up the fryer, add some seasame oil & chinese cooking wine.

3. Fry the ai cao for 1-2 min, then pour in the beaten eggs.
4. Fry till slightly brown, dish up & serve with rice.

My Cookware

B4 I proceed with my food post, let me present u the sets of cookware that I use to prepare my daily meals. Dear hubby bought the Kuhn Rihon (KR) & Spring (Sp) stainless steel cookwares for their multi-layers of high-quality heating-elements that heat up extremely fast to retain the food nutrients. KR pans are in double-layer to keep the food tender by further self-cooking off-flame, thus saving energy & time & furthermore food can keep warm for few hours.

When I attended herbal cooking at Bishan East Z3 RC in 95, Irin demonstrated fast & tasty cooking of 2 dishes using the KR pressure cooker with an insert for 2nd dish. Bought our 1st Multi-therm set, 3L & 5L pressure-cookers with double-boil & steam inserts from ex-agent Ani & attended her cooking classes. We took over the induction hob (given away to a neighbour when shifted here), a 2L casserole & 2.5L braising pan when Ani closed her cookshop. We also bought a Sp wok with wooden handles, the only induction wok with a small flat base that is able to sit on the hob.

Dan took over KR agency for a short period. When he quit, we added the beautiful set of Sp Goldstar casseroles & saucepan. We also bought a Sp 1.5L whistling kettle.

We snapped the only displayed 2L Swiss kettle here when KR Regional Office in Spore was down-sizing, couldn't find induction kettle then. Sp kettle is quite small & it's difficult to open the (whistle) cap when hot. We added the 2.5L pressure-cooker for its unique long handles.

Esta took over KR agency in 98 but she was promoting the 3-pc Hotpan; ie pot, insulating bowl & cover. Didn't like them initailly & ordered a Multi-therm 1L pot (esp flown-in but can't locate it now) to cook porridge for my late-dad. Attended her cookshops & end-up we bought a whole set of Hotpan as well as the 6L & 8L single-wall pressure-cookers as they're much lighter. Total, we've 5 pressure-cookers, enough to cook a feast. I did a few demos to friends & neighbours when we 1st shifted here. An unused 4L dutch oven with plastic insulating bowl is somewhere in the store.

Last purchase is the Tupperchef fryer, couldn't resist the long-handle frying pan for its broad flat base to fry pancake, roti prata...

The smaill WMF flat-base pan was redeemed at Metro last year. It's good for quick frying of small wanton, nuggets...

KR in Facebook is in the alien Swiss language. Hence I'm creating a Kuhn Rihon Fan Group for all KR users or food lovers to interact & share our & healthy recipes.

Thanks to Shira for introducing Picasa 3 to do the photo collage.

Banana Cupcake

Wednesday, 19 May 10

Not to waste 4 slightly over-riped bananas, I decided to use them for making Banana Cupcakes. Recipe is adapted from Hugbear `Baking Mum' with slight changes. They are easy to make, delicous & my children cleared them real fast.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

500 g Plain flour

300 g Fine Sugar

250 g Butter

4 Ripe banana, mashed

4 Egg

180 ml Fresh milk

5 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Baking soda

1 tsp Cinnamon Powder

1 tsp Salt

Method

1. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda & cinanmon powder and set aside.

2. Cream butter, sugar & salt. Add eggs & mix well.

3. Stir in the milk & mashed banana and mix well.

4. Fold in the flour mixture till well combined.

5. Place paper cups in egg tart mould.  Spoon mixture to 2/3 full.

6. Bake in pre-heated oven at 170 C for 25 mins.

Notes

To clear my balance brown sugar, I had replaced 50 gm of fine sugar with brown sugar.

Cinanmon powder can be subsititued with vanilla essence or banana essence.

You can use muffin disposable cups or greased muffin tray to fill the ingredients for baking.

It's worth giving this recipe a try & do give your comment.

Happy baking!

Japanese Bun

Sunday, 16 May 10

I went over to my neighbour, Ju's house to layer & thin her hair last night. She gave me two small Japanese Chocolate buns that she had just bought esp for her twin daughters.  They're pretty expensive, $6 for a pack of 10 pieces.

I ate them for breakfast this morning . Wa! They're real yummy & super soft. I quickly brought out the camera to take picture of this balance piece. I'm interested to try & make them so I sms her for the bread name. She bought the Wassant from Petit Provence. Surf the net for the recipe, found that the softness is due to a home-made bread improver known as 65C Water-roux starter, ie by cooking at 65 degree C a mixture of bread flour & water in ratio of 1:5.

Fave Sago Dessert

Thursday, 13 May 10

Sad to learn recently that banana plant can bear fruits once only. A plant need lots of space to grow, much sunlight & water to flower. Pity that after all the care & nurturing, the young & healthy plant has to be chopped down once the fruit ripes.

When I went down for morning exercise, I was given 2 big banana leaves when the plant was disposed. With hoon kuey flour at home, I decided to make the cooling Sago Hoon Kuey Dessert to share with them. Quickly went market to get packets of the green-coloured pandan sago & coconut milk. I treated the sago with Florence's method in her Sago Crystal Cake to get the clear pearly effect.

Here is the recipe. It's easy to make & all of them give the thumb up GOOD!

Ingredient
250g Pearl Sago (I use pandan sago)
250g Hoon Kueh (green bean) flour
1250ml Coconut milk, from 2 coconut + water
300g Fine Sugar (can add / less to your taste buds)
1 tsp Salt
3-5 Pandan Leaves (washed & knotted)
2 Banana Leaves

Method
1. Cut the banana leaves into 6" wide, scald them to soften & wipe dry.
2. Soak sago in a covered pot with lots of boiling hot water for at least 1 hour, stirring occasionally to prevent lumpiness. Then rinse with cool tap water to remove the starch.
3. Mix the hoon kuey flour & coconut milk in a bowl. Stir to blend well & strain into a clean pot.
4. Add sugar, salt & pandan leaf.
5. Cook over low heat till mixture thickens, stirring continuously with a whisk.
6. When done, stir in the sago.
7. Scope spoonfuls of filling onto the centre of each banana leaf. Fold down both sides lengthways & then the 2 short ends. Repeat till finish.
8. Chill in the fridge to serve cold.

Notes:
1. Drain the sago after 30 mins & top with hot boiling water to clear the raw white centres.
2. You can replace the coconut milk with milk for a healthier version.
3. Banana leaf can be subsitituted with shiny plastic sheets for wrapping the kuey

Cool Dessert for a Hot Day

Wednesday, 12 May 10

The weather is unbearingly hot these days & we, homemaker still have to do the endless household chores. I would be perspiring with just sweeping the floor & worst of all is when I'm ironing, the sweat would be dripping down my body. Local stores should pro-actively GO-GREEN & start charging for the too many plastic bags to reduce the worsening global warming effect.

Meimei always ordered Ice Jelly with Fruit Cocktail when we ate 4x at the newly-opened Kopitiam so I bought a packet of ice jelly powder & home-cooked the Ice Jelly. With lots of mangoes (leftover from mango mousse cake & bought some more when I saw them big & nice @ NTUC last Sat) & a box of mango yogurt drink, I cubed 2 big mango & some ice jelly, mixed them together with some ice to get this cool & refreshing Mango Yoghurt Dessert. The children & I love Mango & we finished up as soon as it was served.

Verdict - With the sweet mango & a bit sourish yoghurt, gege commented that the ice jelly is a bit too bland, suggested to use mango jelly to bland in the all the mango taste.

Mothers' Day Celebration

Monday, 10 May 10

Dear hubby had to work overtime yesterday so my family celebrates Belated Mothers' Day today. We had steamboat for dinner which the children enjoyed. I pressure-cooked soya bean for the soup base, throw in fish ball, crabmeat ball, fuzhou fishball, dumpling... I have learnt not to over-prepare & yummy, we finished up everything today.

I home-made Roast Pork with KWF 'Pure Enjoyment!' recipe, replacing garlic salt (don't have) with fine salt. I marinated a fat piece of blanched pork belly with 3 tsp salt & 1.5 tsp five spice powder then left it uncovered in the fridge for few days. Today I baked it for abt 30 mins @ 220 -230 C. It turns up nice & crispy except a bit too salty.


I made a big Mango Mousse Cake too, baked a 10" round sponge cake with Optima Sponge Cake Mix yesterday. For the creaming today, I sliced the cake into 2, placed it into the newly bought 11" round cake ring & followed Florence `Do What I like' recipe. Her cake size was not stated, the mousse was insufficent to cover completely the side of my big cake. I topped with cubed mango.

My lovely darlings each bought me their own presents. Jiejie is in choir, she give me the musical DVD `Grease 2'. Gege was in Lot 1 for 2 hrs looking for presents within his & Didi's budget, finally he had the hook massager & handphone holder gift-wrapped. Told Meimei that I will bake the cake (she bought me a small figurine cake for past yrs), she got me the flowers & a strawberry mousse.






So sweet of them!! My wish is that they're able to love, care & concern for each other FOREVER...

My Kitchen Gadgets

Saturday, 8 May 2010

B4 I start on my food posting, let me present u the working tools in my 10-year old kitchen. Yes, better tools maketh lighter tasks. Ladies buy when we like a product's lood but dear hubby would inspect closely at the quality, design, sturdiness, easy maintainence ... He loved collecting higher-end household gadets, I should be maximising their usage.

B4 shifting-in our current home in Dec 99, we changed the new gas stove to Brandt 4-zone Induction Hob. I would highly recommended it for all homes as it's very easy to use with auto-off timer. I love its even heat that cook extremly fast thus saving precious time & energy. It's grimeless & the flat top can be used for preparation. No flame, hence it's super-safe for kids to cook. Well, it only works on stainless steel cookware with electro-magnetic base so I had given away all Corningware.


Our built-in Ariston Ice Multi-Function Oven has precise temperature setting. It can take 5 trays of cookies. I bake birthday cake for family members & festive cookies. Have yet to try the pastry & double-grill functions, any receipe?


Another decade-old appliance is the Sanyo stainless steel Super-showder-wave cum Convention Oven which is used solely to heat-up food by family members. At times, need to open & close the door a few times to start.


The KitchenAid Professional with 2 stainless steel bowls is a powerful mixer/creamer/dough beater. We got the whole pack of attachment which I've yet learn to use, Mayer cooking class only demo mixer & oven. Blender is in the store-room, it's motor was overheated after grinding nuts.


Our ancient Kenwood Food Processor with attached blender & grinder is used only when I need to slice lots of vegetables. Hubby got a spare set of 4 grinder / storage glass containers (probably thought I would grind lots of spices) but don't know where they are kept now.


I still like my 1st set of Philps simple Blender & Grinder. The plastic containers are light, easy to use & wash. Occasionally I use the grinder only for spices when cooking kangkong or chilli crab.



My Philips Ice-cream Maker is somewhere in the store-room. This is the extra chilling bowl that we bought. The bowl has to be placed in the freezer for days till it's frozen hard b4 it can be used to churn ice-cream. Had tried once or twice only when new but the ice-cream didn't turn out good then, Philips doesn't conduct lesson.


Last acquisition bought at Philips Carnival few years ago is the powerful Juice Extractor where you can drop in a whole uncut green apples. Rarely use as it's troublesome to dismantle, wash & assemble back again unless I'm clearing my celery or green apples.


When all the children are not home for lunch on weekdays, at times I will just simlply make myself a toasted sandwich with the Cornell Sandwich Maker.

Our bread making machine (can't remember what brand) bought 10 yrs ago is in the storeroom too. We were buying large pack of bread floor to make white bread daily for a short period till at times the bread didn't turn out well.

Finally I'm done with this post, took a long time to edit, upload, re-size & re-align these photos to fit the text.

Marvellous Recipe Blogs

Wednesday, 5 May 10

Went with Shira to Star Net Marketing & Giant @ IMM this morning. Bought a cake ring to try the mango mousse cake & pork belly to make roast pork.

Glad that Shira from Quintet had added me as her friend in Facebook last month. I was reading her interesting blog `Shira's Choice Cooking & Baking Journal', then followed her link to a very detailed baking blog `Do What I Like' from FLee, HK. Found another great link `Quick n Easy Treats from Zu's Kitchen' & from there, I was reading more baking & cooking recipes from `Pure Enjoyment' by KWF Singapore.

Also came aross another blog from new Quintet Facebook friend on her `Irene's Favourite Recipes'. I had added as follower to all their very interesting blogs, recommend must read if you like to cook & bake.

Wa.. Envy all the yummy dishes, cakes, cookies & dessert that they had churned out. Try to locate my cold-storage ice-cream maker but storeroom is too full, must do spring cleaning soon.

Updated on Friday, 6 May 10
Found another interesting blog. Edith posted lots of local recipes in `pReCiouS MoMentS'.
Happy Reading!