~ Wanton

I have a problem. You see, I have been really busy with schoolwork nowadays.. And the products that were bought online are streaming in like salmon swimming up the river for mating season. With my to-do list growing longer and longer, how can I take time off to bake/cook? One good short-cut way is to assist Mum!

This time around, she had prepared the meat filling so what I had to do was to wrap them up and put them to boil before featuring them here. It might seem easy, but it really wasn’t. I was pretty puzzled over the fact that the wanton wrappers were rectangular, not squares, and this made wrapping challenging when I tried to shape them into triangles with a generous spoonful of filling each. Mum later educated me that the wanton wrappers were meant to be made into rectangles instead of triangles. Ops, so much for the aesthetic purpose =x

This is the outcome after boiling them in a broth containing caixin, soybeans and ikan bilis:

I’m always impressed with multitude of stuff that Mum uses in her wanton fillings. There will be black fungus, prawn, pork, carrot shreds.. And so on. Each time the wantons would be consistently delectable.

Another brilliant way to have short-cuts? Make simple recipes! I’m thinking of baking mung bean cakes. The texture is that of crumbly ones, but only when you put one into your mouth. I have heard of Vietnamese ones, but they seem to vary slightly from the Chinese ones. Regardless, mung bean cakes are still yummy, and I can’t wait to get my hands-on experience!

~ New Product Review Blog

Just a quick advertisement for my new blog on the products that I have bought =) Aw, how I wish I can have my blog posts pay me $$ instead of paying $$ to put up posts.

~ Instant Noodles with Mushrooms, Xiao Bai Cai and Egg

This is all too familiar - Mum didn't wish to cook, I wasn't hungry but I had to eat, instant noodles whetted my appetite, convenience ruled. =) By the way, the broth was green.

~ Instant Noodles with Mushrooms

This was my first dinner of 2011 (yes I know, this is paa-pathetic..), and I hope it wouldn't be my frequent dinner though the instantaneity of making this entices a lazy person so much. And I shall not use this post as an avenue to rant about my life. Well.. at least not for today, not the first day of 2011 =p

As depicted clearly above, there were button mushrooms, corn, icebery lettuce, and egg simmered in (chicken) broth for my noodles. I like to top my noodles with a soft-boiled yolk that adorns the dish with its bright happy colour and simply begs to be savoured. The sensation of warm and creamy liquid yolk bursting out of its slightly cooked golden film over one's sensory (taste) organ sends one to heaven =) I would always have my yolk first, "to save the best for the last" is not applicable when it comes to my soft-boiled gems. And just a reminder, it's the liver that makes most the cholesterol in one's blood, not due too much to the consumption of egg yolks.

Having mushrooms and lettuce proved to be a wise move in an attempt to "bulk-up" the dish. They gave texture and taste variations to the palate, and do not have much calories. I had jubilantly poured in a whole large can of mushrooms into my noodles after noticing that that can of mushrooms had less calories than an average apple. Now, how much cooler can that get? 

Recently, I have had some trouble in the toilet too, so this dish  was somewhat a salvage therapy for me with all fibre that it contained. Fortunately, I didn't pass too much gas. Somehow, when I take higher fibre intake, my body seems to adapt to it and wouldn't make me embarrass myself in public with bouts of flammable and unappealing gas as much as it did before. Good.

Aw I just had to rant - I don't care if today's the first day of 2011, it's in my blood to complain! You see, I couldn't come up with interesting, eye-catching, mind-blogging names for the variations of instant noodles that I cooked! Anything that sounds convincing and true to the picture will be it alright! Looking forward to instant inspirations in naming my future noodles!