Panna Cotta - first try

Panna Cotta was the competition topic of December from food and photography facebook group that I'm joining. Even I've never tried this food before, I thought it was just like fruit jelly I usually watched my grandma made. Thus, on my mind, it's kind of easy, LOL. Plus the event hosts also said the recipe was not hard at all, simple, easy, just make and succeed. Yeah, I heard it clearly, just make and succeed!

Homemade Hot Pepper Sauce

Winter is officially coming here in Toronto now. As my last post in November about my little garden, I had to harvest all the peppers even though they were still green. Just a couple of them were ripe. The bad news is that I’m not very good at eating spicy food and all people I know couldn’t even eat as spicy as I do, LOL. That’s why two big bags of green hot peppers have been in my fridge all the time. I guess they should weigh around 5 pounds (or say 6 pounds at maximum). A month has passed by and I don’t think they can stay there in the fridge forever. Well, I have to do something with them. I thought about pickling them but still too much. Finally, I came up with the idea to storing them as sauce; require less space and easier eating in a long time. And the good news is that it was not too hard to do homemade hot pepper sauce at I thought.

Roasted Chestnut and Stuffed Bitter Melon Soup

Today I made roasted chestnut and another kind Vietnamese soup. Just share them here as my hobby. 

Roasted Chestnut

Very easy. Just buy raw chestnut from grocery, wash them out and cut 2 lines on top of them to make X sign. Be carefully not to cut on your fingers or palm since chestnut shell is pretty hard.

Put chestnuts all on a foil tray or baking pan. Turn on the oven around 425F and bake for 30 to 45 minutes. Remember to mix the nut once or twice during the time so they’re well cooked all sides.

You should peel the shell as soon as the nuts are warm enough to hold by hands. Don’t let them cool completely. The skin will stick with the shell and hard to peel when the nuts are cool.

Roasted chestnut

Fried simmered eggs

Simmered food is very familiar and popular in Vietnam. That kind of food has some good benefits such as non-greasy and perfectly seasoned. My grandmom and dad usually cooked fried simmered eggs for family parties when I was still at home. Actually they always cooked the eggs with pork (bacon). It's such a long time I'm away from home and my eating habit has been being changed more or less. I don't really eat pork for the whole year round.

For those who didn't know how simmered food looks like, this is a short description for simmered fish: http://www.vietnamfood.org/entry/ca-kho-simmered-fish.html

Some days ago, just suddenly I needed some Vietnamese food badly. I was like feeling fried simmered eggs on my tongue. I was missing its pattern in my mouth as well as its well-seasoned taste. What came had come, I ran into the kitchen and began cooking even though it was too late at night . I just cooked eggs alone, no pork (bacon).

Image source: http://www.camnanggiadinh.com.vn

All free recipes you can find for beef

More than 30 beef recipes were shared by beefinfo website. Hope that cooking with beef is more enjoyable now. 

Roast Beef Cooking Lessons - Perfect Oven Roasts Everything you need to know about cooking roast beef with step-by-step lessons. (152184) Download: English (PDF)

Click on more to get the rest of recipes.

Halloween dinner

Here comes my cooking for Halloween. Happy Halloween everyone!

Grilled cali flower, carrot, sweet pepper and purple onion

Taco - Mexican dish

Today, I treat Worm family my first Mexican Taco dish for dinner. I knew the dish the first time when eating out with some former co-workers. Since I don’t have much time today, I bought Taco shells from store. I don’t really like those shells since they’re too hard and crispy. I love the soft shells better. I’ll make my own shells next time or at least buy the soft ones.

Bánh mì quế - Amish cinnemon bread

Đang ngồi đọc email và làm một số việc riêng mà mùi bánh bốc ra thơm quá chịu không nổi, đành viết một entry cho bánh mì quế (lưu ý là tên do WM tự dịch nhe, hehehehehe). Đây có lẽ là mẻ bánh thứ 5 của WM rồi. Những lần trước cũng lười mà không viết dòng nào, chỉ làm xong chụp hình rồi xơi :P. Bánh này khá đặc biệt đối với gia đình WM vì men là từ ông chú cho. Nếu cứ tiếp tục nuôi men thì cứ khoảng 10 ngày thì làm 1 mẻ. Còn nếu dừng nuôi men thì WM cũng chưa tìm cách tạo men nữa, chắc ngoài tiệm có bánh men làm bánh. Đây là công thức của ông chú:

Nấm xào xả ớt, càri lưỡi heo và pasta

Để bù đắp cho tình hình tủ lạnh trống trơn 2 ngày trước, WM đã đi chợ và chế biến linh đình. Hôm qua WM có làm sơ sơ món cánh gà nướng để ăn bánh mì. Cái này ăn nhẹ, buổi sáng hay buổi tối đều được hết. Vì có thịt nên khuyến khích dùng vào buổi sáng sẽ tốt hơn ;).

Dọn tủ lạnh

Mấy hôm nay mưa gió đùng đùng suốt ngày cộng thêm việc WM mệt trong người vì mất ngủ, WM lười đi chợ. Thôi, đành coi trong tủ lạnh còn gì lấy ra trộn xào nấu vậy. Sẵn tiện dọn luôn tủ lạnh cho sạch sẽ. Nấu chỉ 2 món đơn giản để WD có đồ ăn trưa khi đi làm, mai nhất quyết sẽ đi chợ mua đồ tươi và trái cây về làm đầy lại tủ lạnh.

Món Việt với mớ rau tự trồng

Hôm nay WormMom vừa thu hoạch mớ rau dền ngoài ban công và định bụng sẽ nấu canh rau dền tôm tươi với trứng để đãi WormDad. Từ ngày qua Canada, WormMom rất ít nấu canh bởi khó mang canh theo ăn khi đi làm và cũng khó dự trữ trong tủ lạnh nếu ăn không hết. WormDad thì lại không hảo món canh lắm, trừ một số canh rất đặc biệt mà WormMom đã giới thiệu và o bế dài hạn. Hi vọng WormMom sẽ dụ dỗ WormDad thích nghi với món này.