Have a Happy Panda Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!! Thank you to all my lovely followers. Your likes and comments really support and inspire me. :) Have a great one!!

I'm making all the sides this year. We have a mix of American and Chinese dishes: green bean casserole, stir fried mushrooms, potato salad, and danko (white turnip) soup. We bought the turkey with sticky rice and a stir fried greens at a Chinese restaurant this year. I'm too scared to actually try to cook a turkey. hehe And 3 types of desserts: almond jello with fruit cocktail, red bean mochi bars, and apple turnovers. Yum!!!

Healthy Dinner

I made this healthy dinner tonight. :)

Baked lemon and pepper trout using this recipe. It is paired with a romaine lettuce salad with walnuts and raspberry vinaigrette. For all those who know me, I don't do raw salads. For myself, I had a small amount of brown rice under the trout with a topping of saute mushrooms. :)

Hopefully this will be enough fuel so I can complete my current project and some earrings. :p

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone's Thanksgiving is going smoothly. :) There is too much to be thankful for and for that I am extremely thankful. :)

Thanksgiving Turkey!!! So yummy and moist! Thanks Mrs. Tang! :)

Look at all the yummy food! We eat American food on Thanksgiving but not the traditional sides. There is fried cream cheese wontons, fried and baked potato balls with ground beef and cheese inside. Next there is corn with bacon, traditional stuffing, croissants with ham wrapped inside, and Chinese stir fried zucchini and mushrooms in butter, garlic, and black pepper. My mom bought tamales and french rolls. (I don't know why...hehe) The youngest daughter made boiled string beads that you dip in a mayo and soy sauce sauce. That was really yummy! But my fav is the potato salad with ham and carrots, no peas for me please. :)

Dessert is Whole Food's cheesecake with fruit topping (blackberry, blue berry, and strawberry) and Fresh and Easy Cappuccino ice cream.

You can also add almond slivers and Fresh and Easy Mango Sorbet. I have to say the Mango is very good in flavor and when you pair it with the blackberries, it is super yummy! :)

I had a half coffee and half black tea to drink with dessert. Now, I am so full and have food coma. Gotta wait 1-2 hours before taking my nap or else it will all become fat! In the meantime, I am going to finish another scarf! :)

Have a great holiday with friends, family, and lots of good food!!! I am thankful for you all!

Catfish with a side of Asian

I was tired of waiting on my friend to stop being lazy and cook this catfish that I had bought, so I decided to do some research, online of course, and cook it myself. I did the same for the sides. My limiting factor was that I did not want to go buy supplies, so I only used what was already at home. It came out well, I think. :) 

Dinner plated

I used this Catfish Amandine recipie, not because of the name..hehe..but because I had just about everything except the lemon and almonds. I think that the flavors of the side dishes over powered the subtle flavor of the sauce for the fish. But the fish's flavor was still strong enough to be good. I actually started to rub the fish in the green bean sauce, which was really good too. Next time, I will replace the green beans with the fish in the recipe.

For the green beans, I had bought this bag of green beans that were already cleaned and trimmed. All you had to do is steam them in the bag. I have been on a green bean, sweet pea binge lately..hehe I was going to stir fry it Asian style but I found this Thai recipe for Green Bean and Shrimp. I didn't have shrimp but I liked the sauce. It was really good. The green beans were crispy but slightly under done because I didn't have the wok hot enough to fry them quickly. I will remember for next time.

Those "boobies" hehe are Roasted Garlic and Wasabi Mashed Potatoes. I combined a couple of recipes for this. You boil the potatoes and add butter, milk, wasabi paste, garlic, and salt and pepper. The wasabi over powered the roasted garlic sadly. It still tasted good but next time I would do one or the other, not both. I will try to roast another garlic bulb. Roasted garlic tastes really good but I found it very messy when I tried to squeeze the garlic out of the bulb. 

Yes, I was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Yes, I have a pile of dishes in the sink, But no, I did not make a huge mess of the counters and stove. :) Hopefully, someone else will do the dishes for me since I'm the one who cooked dinner. :)

Don't wait for others. Cook on!

Mom's Red Bean Mochi Bars

I have been craving my mom's red bean mochi bars for a couple of weeks and I finally got her to make it for me. I was actually asking her to teach me how to make it but I ended up making spaghetti and she made the dessert. hehe I got her to write down the recipe for me though so I would have it. :) 

Mom's Red Bean Mochi 

It smells so yummy! The smell permeates to the second floor too...drool...hehe My mom was saying how she over cooked it by 6min so the edges are too crunchy. It was still good. You see, my mom had to kind of remember how to make this, since she has not made this in years. Good job Mom's memory. hehe

The ugly but very yummy inside.

My mom didn't put enough of the mochi on the bottom and too much red bean paste so it came out looking ugly to her. It still tasted really good to me. The top is crunchy but the middle is sticky/chewy. I like the difference in textures. The red bean and mochi are both not too sweet. It was everything I remembered from childhood. :) I had two big pieces. :P

Rice flour to make the mochi part

My mom buys this brand. We get it from a Chinese supermarket named 99 Ranch. (Tip: you will have to pay for bags so bring your own) I did not realize that this is made in Thailand. :)

Sweetened Red Bean Paste

Yes, it is from a can but it is not that sweet and it is a lot easier than making your own paste. :) Yes, I had to lick the can just a little. hehe

She wrote down the recipe for me. :)

Now I am going to translate the recipe just for you guys. :)

Mix together:
1 bag of rice flour
3 Large Eggs
2 Cups of milk

1 cup of Vegetable oil
1 cup of white granulated sugar

Pour 2/3 of this mixture into a pan.
Add 1/2-1 can of red bean paste in globs randomly and evenly throughout the pan. You can just drop the globs of red bean on top of the mixture.
Pour the rest of the mixture on top of the red bean paste to cover.

Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Let cool. Cut and Enjoy. :) It will be sticky but not as sticky or chewy as mochi. :)

Doesn't every love their mom's and grandmother's recipes? It is really sad that more and more of these goodies are getting lost and not passed down. So, I DARE you ALL to take one day and learn just one recipe from the generation before you. It is a legacy that should not be lost in this day and age of fast everything. :)
Have fun! :)

P.S.
I forgot to tell you about my spaghetti dinner. I usually cook semi-homemade style. I took Prego spaghetti sauce added chili powder, red pepper powder, ground black pepper, garlic salt, chipotle seasoning, and paprika to make it spicy. :) I added sausage that I took off the skin and cooked like ground beef, mushrooms, and broccoli. Instead of spaghetti noodles, I cooked up wheat spiral pasta. I like it because 1. I don't like regular spaghetti noodles, I like thick spaghetti noodles 2. I am trying to eat healthy and 3. It holds the sauce better. :) Tip: add a little of the noodle water to the sauce, it helps to thicken the sauce with the starch from the noodles. :) You are also suppose to pull the noodles from the water 1min early from al-dente and put them into the sauce so it cooks the last min in the sauce and flavors the noodles more. :)

I love one pot well, here 2 pots but I love it when all my food groups are in one dish. The dairy is from the parmesan cheese you can put on top. :) I don't think it is because I'm lazy, per say...hehe I just like how it is easy. It is just like soup. I can put all of my food groups into a soup and it is really healthy. :)

Eat on!