Chocolate Covered Cornflakes Cookies

From the boo boo of my previous post, I created this Chocolate Covered Cornflakes Cookies.   This is a yummy cookie.  Almost like my chocolate clusters yet a bit different.  Since some of the cornflakes cookies that I made early won't stick together, I have resorted to use chocolate to bind them together.  I couldn't waste a bowl of fragrant buttery and crispy cornflakes mix.  Chocolate is excellent especially in this cold weather (super cold winter here), I don't even have to store it in the refrigerator.

Closer view of the cookies.

My two trays of cornflake cookies, now finished, all in our tummies. :P

Ok,  back to the draft on this cornflake cookies, if I failed again, more chocolate one will be created.  Even though the chocolate ones are delicious, but this plain one has it own place in our hearts, even my girls who love chocolate wanted to eat this too, Evy said both were good.  To me, this is more suitable for warm weather as chocolate will melt if it's warm. 

Cornflakes Cookies without Flour

If you are my avid reader or someone who have tried my Chinese New Year cookie recipes, you should know I have been making cornflakes cookies for years. The one that uses flour and oil/butter. This year I wanted to try something different. Cornflakes cookies without flour and I am still experimenting with the recipe. Let me perfect it first before I share it with you because I am having problem for some to stick together. I ended out creating another version of this cookies, the chocolate covered cornflakes cookies which is equally delicious if not more.



Sharing pictures of this delicious treat for now. Recipe will be share once I perfected it. First, I need to go buy more cornflakes cereal.

Green Curry Paste Cookies

I had been thinking...whether to create new Chinese New Year cookie recipes for 2010. I came across Laksa Cookies last year but never tried it. 1) Living aboard good laksa paste was hard to come by. 2) I am too lazy to make my own paste (too much extra work just to make a cookie). And then it kind of strike me that I knew a good Thai green curry paste and in fact I had it at home. So, why not make a Green Curry Paste Cookie instead of the Laksa cookie for us who live overseas? Hence, this cookie was inspired by Laksa cookies and I was eager to try it out. So, sharing with you my tried and tested Green Curry Paste Cookies. This cookie is crunchy and very spicy! Definitely for adult who likes it spicy. And of course tasted like Thai green curry! 





Ingredients:

(A)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup icing/powder sugar
(B)
50ml coconut cream
1/4 cup packed Thai green curry paste ( I used Mae Ploy)
(C)
1 + 3/4 cup all-purpose/plain flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Method:

1. Hand whisk (A) until blended.

2. Add (B) and hand whisk well.

3. Lastly add (C) and use a spatula to stir it together. When it almost come together, use your hand and knead into a dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Roll the dough out and cut out with the desired shape of your cookie cutter. Place on parchment paper lined baking pan.

5. Bake in preheated 300'F oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

~Yield about 53 cookies with my rose shape cookie press cutter.


This is how the flower cookie cutter press looks like.  I forgot whether I bought it at Giant or Jusco supermarket in Malaysia.

Pandan Sesame Pizzelle Cookies

This is a new Chinese New Year cookie recipe I invented for 2010. I didn't know how to name it so I just name it as it because this cookie is baked in a pizzelle maker. It stays crispy after it's cold and it stays that way which I like because I didn't want to bake or toast it again. This was a recipe I accidentally created last year but it was a plain version. For this year, I added pandan paste and additional white sesame seeds. Since the majority of the flour used was rice flour, to me it tasted like rice cookie with the fragrant of coconut milk, sesame seeds and Screwpine leaf (pandan). Edda loved this and has been asking for it everyday.




Ingredients:

125gm rice flour
100gm cornflour

85gm all-purpose flour

250gm sugar

200ml coconut milk

3 eggs

1 tsp. pandan paste
1 Tbsp. black sesame seeds
1 Tbsp. white sesame seeds

Method:

1. In a big bowl, use a hand whisk and whisk coconut milk, eggs, pandan paste and sugar together. Then, add in all the flours and whisk again until blended. Lastly, add in black & white sesame seeds. Whisk and mix well to combine.

2. Heat Pizzelle press and brush with a little oil and pour about a tablespoon of batter in the middle of the press. Close the lid and bake until the light indicator tells you that it's done. Remove with a chopstick and let it cool completely before storing. [I used setting 4 on Cuisinart pizzelle press.]

Chicken Rice Dinner

The spread of our Chicken Rice Dinner using Prima Taste premix. I heard a lot of great thing about Prima Taste Hainanese Chicken Rice from bloggers and readers alike but never got a chance to try it. My chance finally came when I received a packet as a gift from a relative from Singapore. My review: I really liked it, super easy to make and the taste was pretty authentic, really cut down a lot of labor work because I didn't have to make the chili and ginger sauces.


The white chicken. Tender, soft and moist with the fabulous sauce. I used two chicken thighs.


Baked chicken for my hubby who won't touch white chicken.


Chicken rice cooked with sauce provided.


The leftover chicken broth from cooking the chicken and rice. Just add some green, soft tofu and seasonings to create a soup.

All I needed to buy for this dinner were 4 chicken thighs, 1 English cucumber, some scallions, 1/2 block of soft tofu, some nai pak (Asian green) and rice.

Sweet Lily Buds and Lotus Seeds Soup

This is a pretty common Chinese sweet soup in Malaysia. I know I didn't like this soup when I was little or when I was back in Malaysia. It is just not my thing especially the lotus seeds and lily buds, not something that youngster would like. But as I got older, my taste bud changed as I am more into healthy food these days or food that would provide benefit to my body as to the opposite. I came into this soup again and the benefits of drinking this simple soup really changed my mind about this soup. This soup is said to be supporting heart, nourish kidney, fight memory loss, insomnia, loss of appetite, nourish brain especially for students or white collar workers who need to use brain to think a lot and anti-aging. I believed in Chinese medicinal soup for prevention and overall body wellness so I guess I will cook this sweet soup frequently from now on. Yeah, I thought my girls wouldn't like this soup but surprisingly they both loved it, even finishing all the lotus seeds, longan, wolfberries and lily buds I gave them. I seriously thought they wouldn't eat the lotus seeds and lily buds like when I was young.



Ingredients:

15g dried lotus seeds
15g dried lily buds
10g wolfberries (Goji berries/ Ke chi)
12 red dates
12 dried longan
800-1000 ml water
Rock sugar to taste

You can add 1 or 2 beaten eggs if you like (optional)

Method:

1. Rinse lotus seed, lily bud, red dates, wolfberries, dried longan under running water. In a pot, add in water, let it boil. When boiling, add in the rest of the ingredients except rock sugar.

2. Turn the heat to low and let it simmer for 2 hours. Add in rock sugar to taste and continue simmering for 10 minutes.

3. Add in beaten eggs (if used) to create egg drop soup effect before serving.

Vietnamese Fried Springrolls (Cha Gio)

We loved Vietnamese fried spring rolls (Cha Gio). I loved the texture and crispiness of fried rice paper, it added a touch of difference from the usual fried Chinese spring rolls or egg rolls. It was quite pricey to order it in a restaurant as it costs about $2 a piece. So, I decided to make it at home. I got to put more ingredients in my filling as usually what we got at a restaurant was filled with minimal ingredients. It was definitely a treat but I hated that my hair smelled of fried oil afterward.




Ingredients:

(A)
Ground Pork
Wood ear fungus, soften
Carrot, shredded
Green onion, chopped
Glass vermicelli, soften in hot water, cut
Fish sauce
Sesame oil
Salt
Black/ white peppers
A touch of sugar

Vietnamese rice paper
Oil for deep-frying


Filling before wrapping.

Method:

1. Mix (A) together in a bowl. Let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

2. Soften the Vietnamese rice paper in warm water, place filling on it and wrap it up spring roll style. Set aside and finish the rest.

3. Heat up oil in a wok. When hot, turn the heat to medium and deep-fry Cha Gio in batches. About three at a time and be careful not to let it touch each other as the skin would break. Deep-fry until golden brown in color, drain on paper towel.

4. Serve with Thai chili sauce, or Vietnamese Nuoc Cham (sweet vinegar sauce).

Note: 

1)  I read that by adding a little sugar in the warm water to soften the rice paper will help the rice paper to brown evenly when deep-frying.

2)  Adding an egg or two in the filling might help the rice paper to remain crispy, the filling has to be dry so that it won't create moisture when fried and soften the rice paper.