Where to buy Morel mushrooms

This kind of mushrooms ..... is crazily expensive! Wholefood viva

Cabbage salad for super hot day

It's super hot Monday, let's make a simple Japanese style salad dish. A man also can make it.

This is my new slicer: Kyocera with adjustable ceramic blade. You can find it at any Japanese supermarket or order online Here

 - A clean cabbage, I use organic one (safer when you eat it raw)
- Use 1.3 adjustment to slice until you think it's enough cabbage for your dish.
- Rinse under cold water (or tape water if you don't have ice water) may be 2 to 3 times
- Drain it with a salad spinners
- Add salad dressing: I use Japanese sesame dressing

How to store fresh herbs from farmer market

It's summer time, and you can easily buy any kind of herbs from near by farmer market. The problem is if you have only 2 people at home, it's hard to consume a big bunch of herbs, like mint, cilantro, green onion... If you store it in a nylon bag directly after you buy it, it might not last freshly after 4 or 5 days, but you can't buy a smaller bunch every time. Here is the solution to let you store and use it for at least a week:

- Clean all herbs after you buy
- Use a salad spinners: I bought a very good Le creuset one at an outlet for just $10.

- When all the leaves dry, store it in clean bag or box, you can use for more than a week.

Steam tofu sandwich

This dish is very simple but it takes more time if prepare for more than 2 persons if you use Breville Risotto Plus 

1. Ingredients:
-Firm Tofu: 1 pack , it's better to have tofu as I bought in Asian tofu store: Dong Phuong tofu
- Slice pork (I bought from Mitsuwa)
- Napa cabbage or cabbage: some leaves
- Carrot and green onion
- Cilantro, garlic, black pepper
- Fish sauce:1 spoon, oyster sauce: 1 spoon, sugar: 1 spoon, lemon juice: 1/2 spoon, 1/2 spoon tapioca powder.

If you eat spicy, prepare some slice of red hot chili

2. Method:
- Marinate meat with  1/2 spoon oyster sauce, pepper, tapioca powder

- Pour water to the bow and use saute setting (you can pour up to 30% capacity of the bow if you want to cook for 1 hour)
- Prepare the vege: cut into same size as tofu

- When the water is broiled, carefully put the sliced meat and vege between every 2 slices of tofu

- For two persons, you can use 2 layers of meat, and it takes about 25 mins to cook, for more people,use as many layers as you want but it will take about 1 hour.

- While waiting for the steam, you can prepare the sauce:  put chopped garlic and cilantro and the rest of seasoning into a small bow, add 1/2 cup of cold water (better to use warm water) and mix together.

- Take the tofu out and pour the sauce on it.

Stir fry bacon with cabbage

 1. What you need:
- 1/4 cabbage (prefer white cabbage or Taiwanese cabbage)
- 4 slices of bacon (I bought at Trader Joe's)
- 1/4 cup white wine (or rice wine)
- Pepper, chopped garlic

2. How you do:
- Wash the cabbage and cut into small size

 - Cut bacon into small pieces
 - Preheat pan, add bacon and garlic, stir some times to let it not stick to the pan. NO oil added. Use medium heat.

- After 10 minutes, you can see the brown color in the pan, add back pepper, stir a bit, then add cabbage, mix well, use high heat.

- After 2 minutes, add white wine, mix again and again for another 3 minutes, close lid, reduce heat to medium, wait for 5 minutes.

And here is the result!

Autumn vegetables from farmer market

Very fresh but pricey mushroom

Will try the sprouted seeds next week

 Orchid corner

First time I saw sugar cane that fresh in USA,  got 1 for myself.

So fresh baby zuchini, just 1 dollar per pound

And here is my harvest

How to make Salad with Japanese sesame dressing

This brand you can find at Mitsuwa. It's pricey but worth the price: no MSG, no preservative (so use it as soon as you can).

Just prepare some slices of onion, tomato, and lettuce, add the dressing, then you have a great salad for any meal.

A vege dish for Monday

A simple tofu dish with Breville risotto plus -  great choice when you are student

How to Stir-fry napa cabbage with dried shirmp

Stir-fry pumpkin leave with garlic

This morning, we went to farmer market next to school, it's amazing. You can find lots of summer Asian vegetables there, this is one of them: young pumpkin leave.

Taiwanese bitter melon

Let's have a traditional Asian lunch! Love the flavor of bitter melon stew with pork rib:

Prepare for 2 people.

1. Ingredients:

- Pork ribs: 10 small pieces (the best pork ribs I can find in Irvine is at Wholefood. It's clean, fresh, and no extra water or blood)

- Taiwanese bitter melon (the white one): 1 ( you can find it in Asian market eg 99 ranch): clean, cut into small size

-  Garlic: 2  , shallot: 1, ginger: 1 small piece, green onion: 2, cilantro: some 

-  Seasoning : Salt, black pepper (or white), fish sauce 

2. Cooking:

- Marinate pork ribs with chopped garlic, shallot, ginger,  and all seasoning for 10 minutes

- Use medium heat to cook it until the meat change color 

- Pour water into the pot and cook for 15 minutes

- Add bitter melon and cook at medium heat for another 15 mins (or low for 30 mins)

- Before serving, add chopped green onion and cilantro

RE-GROW Green onion project 2

Day 2 

Day 8

After two weeks, I have enough green onion for breakfast. They all are organic and fresh (much cheaper than the one you can buy from whole food's store). You don't have to dig up, no soil, so bug, just have change water every two days.

This is how I used it: Asian fried egg for breakfast. You can eat with rice or toast.

- Chopped green onion mix with
- egg: 2,
- sake (2 tea spoon) , if you don't have sake, use rice wine or even water
- mirin (Japanese sweet sauce) (some drops), or little sugar
- black pepper, salt
- Use medium heat and see how beautiful the dish is.

Adding  dried seaweed make the flavor is better

RE-GROW Green onion project 1

With shallot left after cooking and soil, you can recycle it for the next use. Make sure the soil is moisture. 

Day 5

Day 20