Chinese style egg custard (pudding)

Ingredients

• 400 grams whole milk
• 100 grams white sugar
• 2 grams salt
• 3 to 4 eggs (see Notes)

Instructions

• Make burnt sugar and put in bottom of 6 oz cups


• Stir milk, sugar, salt, and eggs together clockwise quickly without lifting the whip.
  
  


• Filter through strainer
  
  
  


• Put the mixture in the 6 oz cups and let sit 30 minutes


• Put pudding cups in a tray with about 1/4 inch water. Add enough water so the cups don't move by themselves and there will be enough left when you're done baking.
  
  
  
• Bake at 305 F for 50 minutes

Notes

• You will know the mix is ready when you can stir the edges of the mixing bowl without the mixture threatening to spill out due to centrifugal force. Also lift the whip and see if there are egg whites remaining.


• It's best if you let the eggs thaw first so it's easier to stir them in.


• You want to avoid adding air to the mixture.


• If you want to eat immediately when it's soft and warm, 4 eggs will make the custard firm enough. If you're planning to serve it cold, then 3 eggs will be enough as the custard will firm up when it gets cold.

Basic lettuce salad

Yes, I need to write a recipe for basic salad as I've never made one before! We got really great salads from Riverdog Farm today so I tried it for the first time and it wasn't too bad.

Ingredients

• Mixed lettuce
• 1 small carrot
• 1 mini red onion
  
• a dallop of honey mustard
• 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• salt
• pepper

Instructions

1. Wash your lettuce, try to take as much water out as you can. Shred them by hand into a mixing bowl
   
2. Peel your carrot and grate them using a box grater.
   
3. Cut up onion in thin slices, add to bowl.
   
4. Mix the olive oil, mustard and balsamic vinegar together. Add salt and pepper to taste
5. Mix your lettuce with your salad dressing.
6. Put on plate and add the shredded carrot on top

Notes

1. For onion, cut it in half, then thinly slice either way.
   

Red Bean Soup - Crockpot version

I definitely prefer cooking red bean soup this way than the traditional way, as I can start it the previous night before I go to sleep and have it for breakfast the next morning.

Ingredients

• 1 cup organic red beans
• turbinado sugar or regular sugar
  

Instructions

1. Wash red beans in cold water
2. Put beans in crockpot, cover with water. Water level should be 2-3 times the level of the red beans in the pot
3. Cook in crockpot for 9-12 hours. It's done when the beans have broken apart and start becoming a bit mushy. This part is a preference issue. I personally like it as mushy as possible without becoming a paste.
   
4. Add sugar to taste. Start with 2 tablespoons and go from there.
5. You can add a bit of milk (not into the crockpot!) when you drink the soup.
   

Note

1. The bean soups WILL absorb the water when you leave it overnight. So you may want to slightly undercook it the first time. Leave it in the fridge overnight and it will be the right consistency the next day after you heat it up. By undercook, I mean cook it till it's edible for you, but on the firmer side.
   

Three color vegies

Ingredients

Lots of ways you can do this, as long as you have minimum corns, peas, and carrots. Some of those mix vegi bags have other weird beans or peas and that's fine too.

• 1 bag mixed vegies (peas + carrots, peas + carrots + corn, peas + carrots + corn + beans)
  
• 1 can low sodium corn
• corn starch

CSA version:

• 1 bunch small carrots
• fava beans
• 1 can low sodium corn

Instructions

• Boil the frozen bag of vegies
  
• Heat up wok and add a bit of oil
• Add all the vegies
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Mix cornstarch with a bit of cold water. Mix well and add to wok
• Gently stir and serve. The cornstarch should coat all the vegies so that they kind of stick together instead of individual nuggets. Add more cornstarch + water if needed. Don't stir too long or too hard or the cornstarch will lose its effect!
  

Ground pork with onions

This is one of my favorite dishes to eat over rice.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 1 medium onion or 2 small spring onions
• soy sauce
• black pepper
• salt (optional)
• oil
  

Instructions

1. Chop up the onions into small square pieces. 1/4 in to 1/2 inch?
   
2. Put 1/2 tbsp? oil into wok, wait till hot.
3. Put onion into wok, stir fry a bit.
4. When the onions are just starting to get cooked, put the ground pork in.
5. Stir fry some more.
   
6. When the pork is mostly done too, add the soy sauce to taste. Start with 1/2 - 1 tsp.
7. Add some pepper before you take it out.

Notes

1. Technically, you should stir fry the pork and onions separately so that the onions aren't overcooked. I'm too lazy to do that.
2. I don't know how much soy sauce to use. I usually judge by the color of the dish. This allows me to use either low sodium soy sauce or regular soy sauce. If it's the right color but still not salty, I add some salt. The color should be light brown to medium brown.

Tsubu-an (Chunky Redbean Paste)

This recipe is adapted from Just Hungry's recipe. I used crockpot to cook instead. This will be used in my mochi.

Ingredients

• 1 cup - Organic redbeans
• 1/3 cup - raw sugar
• 1/2 tsp - sea salt

Instructions

1. Soak redbean overnight in cold water. You've soaked too long if they started sprouting.
2. Bring to boil the redbeans twice. According to Just Hungry's mother, it tastes better this way.
3. Dump beans into crockpot and add water till it is 1/2 inch over beans.
4. Cook on low for 6-12 hours till beans are falling apart.
5. Roughly mash the beans with a potato masher, fork or a pestle and let cool.

   Keeps for up to 3 days in fridge.

Notes

1. The reason why you want to soak in cold water is so that the beans don't sprout! Don't be lazy and skip the soaking, it helps the redbeans cook faster if you've pre-soaked them.
   
2. Amount of water is 1/2 of original recipe because we're using a crockpot
3. When you cook the red beans, you need to find that right time to stop cooking. You want it to be mushy enough but not so mushy it's just mush.
   
4. 
   

Red Bean Mochi - 紅豆麻糬

Did you know that mochi in Japanese means cookie in Chinese?

This was my first attempt at mochi, based on mom's recipe. I'm still looking for the perfect recipe.

This cooks about 15 large mochi.

Ingredients
1/2 box mochiko rice flour
1.5 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 can chunky red bean paste (tsubu an)
potato starch

Instructions

1. Mix your sugar and water together in a large bowl.
   
2. Slowly add your mochiko flour in with a bulb-shaped wisk will it's completely mixed.
   
3. Pour your mix into a rice cooker container. That's the container you put into your rice cooker.
4. Put that onto a steamer and steam on medium boil for 30-40 minutes. It is done when you stick a chopstick in and it comes out clear.
   
5. Wait for it to cool a bit. You don't want it completely cold though.
6. Prepare two plates. One with potato starch, the other covered with parchment paper to avoid dough sticking to plate.
   
7. Wet your hands. Stuff the red bean paste into your mochi dough.
   
8. Toss it into the potato starch. Cover well.

Notes

1. From my research, the flour to water ratio is 1:1. I havn't figured out the sugar to flour ratio yet. You can cut down on the sugar since the red bean paste is really sweet.
2. My steamer could not accommodate the rice cooker container. So I used the little container that you can put on top of that instead. According to mom, the time varies depending on the type of container you use, how thick its walls are, etc.
3. Some water may form at the top when your mochi is cooked, just pour it out.
4. To stuff mochi, I wrapped it as I would a pork bun. You try to form a little ball, flatten it with the edges thinner than the middle. Scoop a large spoonful of red bean paste. Usually in an amount that seems too big for the dough. Then push the paste down while you bring the edges together into the middle. Twist the middle shut.
   
5. When you toss it into the potato starch, cover it as much as possible and you can then shape it into a rounder ball with the ugly side on the bottom.
6. It's up to you to figure out if you like big or small mochi and make them accordingly. I've found that it's better to make smaller ones because the paste is very sweet and the mochi rice makes you feel stuffed if you eat too many.