Fruit Pastry using Puff Prata/ Pratha

Summer came with abandon of fresh berries, peaches, nectarines, melons, mango and all were on sales.  My house was fulled of all sort of fruits.  My hubby bought some nectarines but it were sour and soft and I bought some plums and it were sour as well.  So, all these sour fruits had been left in the refrigerator uneaten as the sweeter fruit would be chosen.  I had been thinking of a way to eat these fruits since I don't like to waste food.  Was thinking to make them into the fruits pastry cake but I was a bit lazy to make the cake.  Then, an idea came when I remembered I still have two pieces of frozen roti puff pratha in the freezer.  Thus, this fruit pastry was created.  Out of convenient and not wanting to throw away sour fruits.

I will show the step-by-step picture in the next page with the simple recipe.

First, cut and core the nectarines and plums, put them in a bowl.  Add in some blueberries and sweeten them with sugar and cinnamon (optional).  How much sugar to add depends on how much fruit you have and how many fruit pastry you are going to make. Stir to mix well.  Set aside.  [I used 4 nectarines, 2 plums and 1/2 cup of blueberries, used about 4-5 Tbsp. of sugar.] Take out your frozen prata/pratha and let it rest at room temperature until soften.

Second, place the soften prata on a Slipat or parchment paper.  Stretch it out a little bit, add in the filling like above picture.

After that, pull the prata over some of the fruit, like a blanket.  Brush the puff pastry with egg wash (from one beaten egg).

Lastly, bake it preheated 400'F oven for 25-28 minutes or until golden brown.  You can serve this with sprinkle powder sugar on top.  Good when it's still warm or at room-temperature.  Of course, you can use frozen puff pastry or filo papers for the wrapping as well.  You can also serve it with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream. 

Verdict:  Everyone loved it!  Great way to dispose of the sour fruit and make such a great dessert presentation too.

Satay Dinner

I found a lazy way to eat and grill my satay!  No troublesome and messy way of pricking the marinated meat through a satay stick anymore.  I cut the chicken breast thinly and grill it on my in-door grill.  Our out-door grill, used only couple of times, sadly had been abused by the Colorado weather through strong wind, heat and snow and now was a piece of junk.  I bought this in-door grill 10+ years ago via a home shopping network on T.V.  Yeah, I used to love those channels and loved to see what they were selling.  It was a great buy even though  I only used it occasionally.

The finished product!  Of course you can use boneless thigh meat if you prefer more fat.

Eaten with Malaysian satay sauce.  I used a premix for this, if you want to see which premix I used, click here. If you are using this premix, add 2 heap tablespoons of creamy peanut butter and some toasted ground peanuts when stirring.  Lastly, add more toasted ground peanuts to garnish and for extra kick. If not, you can make a delicious peanut satay sauce here using my short-cut and delicious recipe.

Deep Fried Oyster Mushrooms

I saw this recipe emerged during the Chinese New Year period.  Deep-fried oyster mushrooms, how interesting and said to be delicious.  I seldom do deep-frying so it has taken me a while to revisit this idea of deep-frying oyster mushrooms.  Speaking of which, I wonder why people only do this during Chinese New Year?  Since I have tried this, I got to say it is very delicious when just out of the deep-fryer, it is hot and crispy on the outside and slightly soft inside.  I was trying a new batter here and it turned soft when cold, so you got to eat this hot!  Or use your trusted batter recipe for this.

This is the fresh oyster mushrooms.  You can buy it at the Asian grocery store.  It is said to be able to lower the cholesterol levels because it is naturally contain lovastatin.  Asian eat this mushrooms a lot, we used it in soup and stir-fry.  I prefer the fresh one when comes to oyster mushrooms, the canned oyster mushroom has a smell that I dislike.

Ingredients:

Fresh oyster mushrooms

Batter:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup rice flour

Salt to taste

White pepper to taste

1 tsp. chicken stock granules

1 Tbsp. Chinese cooking wine

Enough water to make a thick batter

Method:

1.  Quickly rinse the oyster mushrooms under water to clean.  Pad it dry with paper towel. Or you can brush or clean it with towel if you believe mushrooms are not supposed to be wash under water.

2.  Mix the batter in a bowl.  Heat up your wok or deep-fryer with cooking oil, when hot, turn to medium heat.

3.  Take one mushroom, dip in batter and slowly put into the wok to deep-fry, put 4-5 and deep-fry until golden brown.  Dish out and drain on paper towel before serving.  Best to eat it hot and crispy.  Turn soft when cold.

4.  You can serve this baby with Thai's sweet chili sauce or Maggi's sweet chili sauce.

Yellowstone National Park Trip 3

 

Black Pool, West Thumb Geyser Basin

Black Pool

?

West Thumb Geyser Basin, Big Cone

Mud Volcano, there was a ranger tour guide here and it was really informative.  We got there just in time for the 1.5-2 hours tour, it was long but really worth it.

We missed some attractions, either because it was raining or we were short of time.  I think 6 days to a week is the best time to spend if you plan to visit Yellowstone.  Too much driving to do as the park is really huge.  And that was not including hiking or walking on the many trails.

 

Lower Falls

 

Lower Falls, girls with their cousin

 

 Upper Falls

 

Upper Falls

At Hatchet Resort (where we stayed), 30 minutes from South entrance.  When we tried to reserve the rooms, the hotels inside Yellowstone were all fully booked.  Heard that it need a year in advance booking if you plan to stay inside.  Next time, we will stay at Jackson Hole since we still drove all over there for Chinese food!  If you loved wilderness, stay here, it's a resort, so it basically have everything, nothing else in close proximity.  Like the sale clerk said, it's as wilderness as you get.  But if you love Chinese food or any other food other than the restaurant offers, and love to scroll along downtown, shopping and looking for some night life, stay in Jackson Hole. 

Red Bean Mochi Cupcakes

I first heard about mochi cake through A Food Lover's Journey.  I looked through the recipe and it is a lot like the baked nian gao that I did for Chinese New Year except probably half the recipe called for.  It is an interesting idea to bake it in cupcakes and I wanted to give it a try.  Since I love red bean flavor and have some red bean paste on hand, I made mine into a red bean mochi (glutinous rice) cupcakes.

It tasted like "kuih" (a Malaysian cake), soft, sticky and slightly chewy with red bean flavor.  You can certainly substitute the milk with coconut milk to make it richer. This recipe of mine stays soft even after three days in a container.  Best eaten within three days, might go bad after that. One thing to note though, the paper will be hard to unwrap on the first day it was baked, but easier on the second day onwards.

You can buy the red bean paste in a can at the Asian grocery stores in the U.S. for those who are interested.  Feedback to me when you try this red bean mochi cake.  I had made it twice and loved it!

~Yield about 12-18 cupcakes (about half of the normal paper cup size), depending on the cupcake paper size and how much batter you add.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1 1/4 cup milk

1 tsp. baking powder

200g red bean paste (sweeten) from a can

200g glutinous rice flour (about 2 cups)

Method:

1.  In a big mixing bowl, add in eggs and sugar.  Use a hand whisk or electric whisk and whisk until light and well mixed, sugar dissolved.  

2.  Add in oil and milk, hand whisk until combine.

3.  Stir in baking powder and red bean paste, whisk until smooth.

4.  Lastly, add in glutinous rice flour, whisk until well incorporated.  The batter will be watery so don't have to be alarm.  Use a soup ladle and fill the paper cup almost to the rim.  The cake will sink down a little after you take it out of the oven.

5.  Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 20-25 minutes or until tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack and store in air-tight container.

Yellowstone National Park Trip 2

Grand Prismatic Spring Area, Midway Geyser basin

 

Mammoth Hot Springs

 

Mammoth Hot Spring

Mammoth Hot Spring

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Spring

Girls came down to look at animals

 Can you spot them?  We also saw a coyote and black bear but didn't manage to take picture.

 

Bull Elk  

 

White-rumped deers (female elk?)

Herd of bison. 

We didn't see wolf pack, moose or grizzly bear, they were not easily seen.

Yellowstone National Park Trip 1

We drove there with our relative from Singapore, spent 5 days and 4 nights there (June 9-13, 2010).  It was about 9 hours drive and we got there in the afternoon.  We didn't go into the park on the first day but we drove to Jackson Hole for dinner.  This was the second day of our trip, via South Entrance.

 

Love this picture and the reflection from the lake

 

Road construction delay @ south entrance

Old Faithful, both exploded at the same time.  It rained after that, it rained every days while we were there and mighty cold (maybe due to the fact that I didn't prepare winter coat, but it's summer and I didn't expect it to be this cold).

 

One of the hot springs

 

Midway Geyser Basin

 Midway Geyser Basin

Hope I name the place correctly!  If not, correct me if I am wrong. :)

Stay tuned for part 2 and 3!