Pan Fried Bacon and Potato

中文菜谱：香煎培根黑椒土豆块

This is our weekend go-to brunch dish.  It is super easy and simple to make, but loaded with tons of flavor.  My husband and I love it so much that we had it as breakfast four days straight during Christmas holiday week.  And we still love it.

There is a local farm near us that produces awesome yellow potatoes.  They come to sell potatoes at local farmer’s market every Wednesday and Saturday. I always buy potatoes from them. When the farmer’s market closed up at the end of October, I bought two buckets of potatoes and stored them in the fridge.  I thought they should last the whole winter.  Well, I was wrong.  They are almost gone in less than 2 months. 

Maybe we eat too much potato, or maybe I am a really good cook...  Hahaha…O(∩_∩)O~

Ingredients：

3 slices of thick cut apple wood smoked bacon
6 to 8 small yellow potatoes
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
2 to 3 sprigs of thyme (optional)
freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste

Directions：

Cut the bacon into bite size.  Clean and rinse the potatoes.  No need to peel them.  Crispy potato skin is a big plus in flavor town.

Heat a cast iron skillet (from amazon)over medium heat.  Add bacon.  Cook until it becomes golden and crispy.  Get them out with a thong.

Add potatoes to the skillet with bacon fat. Cook over medium heat.  Add salt, black pepper, minced garlic and thyme.  Cover; cook until potatoes are cooked through and the outsides become gold and crispy too. Discard the thyme.  

It is indeed a simple and tasty dish.  Remember to flip potatoes from time to time.  It will help prevent them sticking to the bottom because potatoes contain high amount of starch.

If you like potatoes as much as I do, I would strongly recommend this dish. O(∩_∩)O~

Lentil Bean Sprouts Salad

中文菜谱：扁豆小芽菜苗沙拉

I don’t really need to tell you bean sprouts are nutritious, healthy, and good for your body, do I?  I love to grow myself lentil bean sprouts at home.  All I need is quart size mason jars.  It is easy and fun to do so.

My sister and brother-in-law introduced black lentil bean sprouts to us when we were visiting them for thanksgiving holiday.  Black lentil bean sprouts taste better than the yellow one.  They are nutty, crunchy and very refreshing.  I love adding them to my salad, flat bread wraps and sandwiches.  They greatly improve the taste, texture and flavor. 

For each quart size mason jar (which you can buy from amazon),  I use 2 tablespoon black lentils. 

Soak them overnight. Drain well. Cover with cheesecloth or anything you have at hand that can let air in and out.

Rinse and drain the lentil beans once or twice per day.

You will see the sprouts in 2 to 3 days. 

In another 2 to 3 days, they grow longer and bigger.  

In about a week, you can harvest your very own lentil bean sprouts. 

I mostly use them in salad.

Ingredients:

1 tomato, sliced
romaine leaves
1 avocado
A handful lentil bean sprouts
dried cranberry
sliced almond

For salad dressing：

2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 and 1/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoon honey
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper

Directions：

Combine balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and black pepper in a bow.  Whisk until well mixed.

Remove avocado’s skin and core, dice avocado and cut or tear romaine leaves into bite size.

In a big plate, layer the tomato, romaine, avocado, lentil bean sprouts, dried cranberry and sliced almond. Sizzle with balsamic vinegar salad dressing.

Enjoy！

Almond Milk

 中文菜谱:  生磨杏仁露

I don’t remember when exactly I became a fan of almond milk.  All I remember is that in college we pretty much ordered almond milk as our drinks every single time when my boyfriend took me out on dates. He now is my husband.  We still enjoy a cup of almond milk from time to time when cuddling on couch. 

Ingredients:

2/3 cup blanched almond (skinless almond would make better looking almond milk.  I am fine with whole one.)
2 toasted or pan roasted sweet rice
2 to 4 tablespoon sugar (or to personal taste)
1rolled oats (optional. It makes silkier, smoother almond milk )
3 cup water

Directions:

Soak almond and sweet rice in water for 20 to 30 minutes. 

Combine almond, sweet rice, sugar, rolled oats and water in vitamix.  

Turn it on, gradually raise speed from 1 to 10, and then grind at high speed for 5 minutes.  

In 5 minutes, you have hot tasty freshly made almond milk!

Enjoy!

Pork Dumplings with Garlic Chives

中文：猪肉韭菜煎饺

Dumplings are so widely popular in China that it becomes comfort food for many Chinese people.  Before the time food processor and stand mixer were introduced our daily lives, making dumplings was a time consuming chore.  My family made them only a couple times a year to celebrate important holidays.  The whole family gathered in the kitchen, kneading, chopping, mixing and wrapping the dumplings all together.  Ahhh, good old times.

Any other time of year, we can always buy dumplings from street food vendors or neighborhood dinners.   You can eat them as breakfast, lunch or dinner.  If you are served with dumplings when visiting a Chinese family, congratulations, you are highly welcomed in their home. 

With the help from meat grinder, stand mixer and pasta roller set, making fresh dumplings from scratch becomes easy and fun.   This time, I make traditional pork dumplings with garlic chives and then pan fry them.

For dumpling filling:

2/3 cup freshly ground pork
2 eggs
a handful fresh garlic chives
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/3 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon oyster sauce
1/4  teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2  to 1 teaspoon rice cooking wine
a few drops sesame oil
salt to taste
2 to 3 tablespoon oil

For dumpling wraps:

1 cup bread flour
1/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon oil

For pan frying dumplings:
3 to 4 tablespoon oil
1/2  to 3/4cup water
shopped green onion (optional)
white sesame (optional)

Directions:

Combine flour, water, salt and oil in a medium bowl.  Knead until a smooth dough ball forms.  It takes about 5 to 6 minutes.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap.  Let it rest for a couple hours.  If you are in a hurry, make sure the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. 

Add a pinch salt to eggs, make scrambled eggs over medium heat.  

Rinse the garlic chives thoroughly, pat dry and then chop them up.

Mix ground pork, soy sauce, ground white pepper, sugar, rice cooking wine, oyster sauce and sesame oil together.  Whisk with a pair chopsticks until all ingredients are well mixed. Add scrambled eggs and chopped chives, mix together. 

Add salt to taste. 

Feed the dough through pasta roller attachment to stand mixer at setting no. 1.  Repeat the folding and rolling on this setting for 5 to 6 times or until it reaches desired smoothness.  

Now roll the dough thinner at a narrower setting at 5。

With a round shape cookie cutter, cut dumpling wraps.

Roll and fold the left over again to make more dumpling wraps.  The more times you roll it, the more elastic it gets.  I change the thickness setting to 6. 

Put a couple tablespoons pork filling to the center of dumpling wrap, lift from one end and then folding on both sides. 

I make 28 dumplings.  That is about 3 to 4 servings.

Heat a big flat nonstick pan over medium high heat.  Add oil, and then place dumplings one next to each other in the pan.  Fry or 1 minute, add water and cover.  Cook until water is almost gone, add green onion and white sesame, cover again and reduce to low heat.  

Cook until the dumpling bottoms are golden brown.  It is kind of tricky to get perfect crust on the bottom.  Too much heat, they burn; undercooked, they look pale instead of golden brown. 

So, my advice is to watch it closely at the end of cooking.

Time to enjoy！ O(∩_∩)O~

I like to pair pan fried dumplings with garlic chili sauce, which of course is home made too. I posted the recipe  before too:

http://www.yankitchen.com/blog/2k1o27b6fzy82wn0sphsah9oqd3hbo  (An English version recipe is coming soon.)

Take a bite。

Love it

Oven roasted chestnut

中文菜谱: 烤栗子

When the fall came to the end, chestnut, one of my favorite nuts, appeared on local Saturday farmer’s market.  I have to buy several quarts of them whenever I see these cute brown color sweet nuts.  Right, that is how much I love them.

I was approached more than once by some curious American fellows asking me what they are and what they taste like.  Well, when toasted, chestnut tastes very much like butternut squash, but sweeter with firmer texture.  According to my standard, they are a hundred times better than butternut squash. 

When I was growing up, dried chestnut was a winter staple in my grandma’s pantry.  They are used in chicken soup, pork stew, even in porridge.  There are a thousand ways to cook chestnut and each single one of them is awsome.  

As for me, I always enjoy the freshly roasted ones the best.

It is a very simple and non-effort way.  Chestnuts are the only ingredient here.  We will also need a pair of sharp scissors and a toaster oven. 

Wash and drain the chestnuts.  Cut across the tops and be careful not to hurt yourself or cut the chestnuts into halves.  We just need a shallow cut so that they won’t explode when roasted in the oven.

Preheat the toaster oven to 350F. (Preheat to 375F if using a normal sized oven).

Spread out the chestnuts onto a cookie pan. Pop them in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. (Bake another 5 minutes if using a normal sized oven). 

These chestnuts I got from local farmer’s market are quite small.  Large size chestnuts might require additional 8 to 10 minutes baking time. 

Serve immediately right out of oven.  The cuts on chestnut tops will help to release the nuts from their shells. 

I’d rather have a bucket of these instead of popcorn when watching a movie and cozying up with my husband on the couch.  They taste so much better!