Healthy tips for buying and preparing food for Chinese New Year

Gong Xi Fa Cai! It's time to ring in another Chinese New Year! Now that 2009 has passed, it is time to look towards the future to find good fortune that will awaits us in 2010, the year of the Tiger. A new year also encourages us to reflect on the past and to set goals for the future such as eating healthy as well as exercise to maintain a healthy life style.

An important part of the Chinese New Year is spending time with the family, visiting relatives and friends. During this time, we like to entertain friends and family by throwing parties and making festive foods. These festive foods can be high in sugar, salt or fat but low in nutrition values. To jumpstart a healthy lifestyle for the new year, here are some healthy tips for purchasing and preparing food for your Chinese New Year celebration:
· Avoid buying processed and preserved foods instead use fresh and wholesome ingredients.

· When buying pre-packaged food, check for expiration dates and make sure the package are intact. If the product is non-packaged and sold by the pound, pay attention to the hygiene of the store, if the containers are covered and whether the staff use clean utensils to handle foods. If you have doubts about the source of the product, do not buy them.

· Avoid buying traditional snacks that is sugary or fried. Try healthier alternatives snacks such as dried fruits, bake goods, and unsalted nuts.

· Use healthier cooking methods like steaming, grilling and baking. If you must fry, use healthier oils like canola and corn oil.

· Prepare food using less sugar, salt and sauces. Flavor your dish with garlic, onion, shallots and ginger. Add the sauce on the side so you can have control over how much or little you want on your dish.

Happy New 2010! Last meal of 2009....

Sorry, no time to update but I will finish blogging and put the recipe out soon!! The ham was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD! One of the best ham I've ever made! Stay tuned.....

Last Minute Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

My Thanksgiving Dinner 2009:

4 hours of food/supply shopping

5+ hours of cooking

7 dishes

Spending thanksgiving with people I love = Priceless

Our thanksgiving feast:

This Thanksgiving we did everything last minute! I planned what I wanted to make and shopped the night before thanksgiving. I was going crazy running around finding ingredients for each of the dishes. After all the shopping, I was just too tired to start prepping so I told myself I would wake up really early (at 7am) to start everything...I over slept and totally missed my alarm so I woke up around 9. I was panicing because dinner is suppose to start at 2ish. I didn't think I could finish all 6 of the dishes in 5 hours but with the help of my father and sister (Vivian) we managed cook everything we wanted to make. Yay!

So this year I decided to make 7 dishes, 2 of them are my all time favorite potato shrimp salad and corn casserole (I make these every year! My fans, I mean my family members always request them). Five other dishes are new recipes which came out great!

Lumpia Shanghai (Flipinino egg rolls): I love Filipino food so I wanted to attempt my favorite Filipino dish. Special thanks to Maribeth and Joanne for their recipe:

String bean casserole:

Shrimp and prosciutto with alfredo sauce

Crab quiche

Crown Jewel Cake

Let me know if you want any of the recipes, everything was so simple to make!

Memorial Day Celebration-Cooper 35

I meet up with Maribeth aka my gf/bff for Memorial Day. I followed her to run an errand in the afternoon. After that we decided to find a place to pig out. I was craving some cupcakes so we decided to go to near Sugar Sweet Sunshine to find a place to have a drink, eat some snacks then have cupcakes for deserts. We went there but discovered that most places near Essex Street were closed including SSS! For some reason, we always have bad luck going to restaurants on days they are closed. We were disappointed...

We spent ~15 mins on the street brainstorming places where we want to go eat. We decided to go to near St. Marks for some drinks and snack. We ended up at Cooper 35, an Asian fusion restaurant/pub. It was such a great day so we decide to sit at the outdoor garden area. The place was nice and cozy!
Prices for mix drinks and shots are so cheap here! I would usually get these drinks at clubs for $12+ and here it's only $4!! The drinks taste good (I like my drinks fruity) and they aren't cheap on the alcohol either...

1st Round: I had the Bay Breeze and she had the lychee martini. For appetizers, we ordered the fried calamari and salsa&chips (complimentary). The calamari was really good! It was very crispy and the sauce was tangy with a kick of spicy flavor.

2nd Round: I had the Bay Breeze and she had the Sea Breeze. We're still working on our appetizers.....

After two drinks, it was time for some shots!

3rd Round: We ordered the Skittle Boom for both of us. And we also ordered more drinks, I ordered the WooWoo and she ordered the Tequila Sunrise drink. Man, they were really strong... We had to order more food to absorb the alcohol. We ordered a California rolls and a shrimp dish that came with rice. Both of these dish were so so... I don't think I would come here for a sit down dinner.

We hanged out at Cooper 35 for about 4-5 hours. The waiters and waitress didn't bother us at all for staying so long. They just left us alone and came when we needed them. Towards the end of the night the place started to get packed. The garden area was full and the inside area was already 1/2 packed. We couldn't drink anymore so we left and roamed around St. Marks where Maribeth ordered more food to take home. She ordered korean style chicken from BBQ Chicken, fries from Pomme Frits and sushi from somewhere. Yea, this girl can eat! All I ate was a corn dog from BBQ and it was a corn dog that's made from olive oil...

I had such a blast catching up with my gf. What a perfect way to spend a great afternoon with great company, good drinks and yummi snacks. But I gotta say those drink really kicked my ass... Happy Memorial Day!

--------------------------------------
35 Cooper Sq
New York, NY 10079
(212) 375-919

Chinese and Irish Fusion: Corned Beef and Cabbage

Right now I'm enjoying my left over St. Patrick's day dinner for lunch! My dad made a traditional Irish dish but in a non-traditional way. He made his own version by adding taro and turnip. It became a Chinese and Irish fusion corn beef and cabbage stew. He cooked it in a pressure cooker but cooked it for too long so the meat was too soft and it fell apart.


He used purple cabbage, potato, carrots, taro and turnip. It was interesting...I never had purple cabbage before and thought it tasted bitter then the regular cabbages. The taro actually made the stew thicker, I not sure if I liked that...

and to make it more Chinese, we ate it with rice....

Yesterday I asked my dad a few stupid questions:

Me: What's corned beef?
Dad: it's beef
Me: ohhh.... but why is it red like that?
Dad: they put stuff on it to make it red...
Me: how do you know when it's fully cooked? if it's red, people might think it's raw...
Dad: it doesn't take long for it to be fully cooked, you'll just know....
Me: easy for you to say because you are a chef...
Dad: well of course, that's because I'm good
Me: *rolled eyes*

I found out that corned beef is red because they use saltpeter (potassium nitrate) to prepare it. They add saltpeter to the pickling brine to cured the beef. The nitrate forms a stable red colored complex with hemoglobin, without the saltpeter the meat would be brown.

-Recipe for Corned Beef and Cabbage

-History about the dish

Valentines Day Surprise!

For this vday, I'm going to be all alone. :sigh: I think this is the first time I'll be alone for vday in my 8 year relationship with my boyfriend. He went to HK and will be there for a month. It's going to be a very long month. I miss him soo much! We actually talk almost everyday. Thank goodness, phone cards are so cheap these days. One phone card is $8 and has 500 mins.

Just an hour ago, I was working at my desk and my phone rang. I saw it was a unfamiliar phone number and I picked it up. This is how the conversation went:

dude: I'm downstairs, can you come pick it up?
me: excuse me...who's this?
dude: I'm from sugar sweet sunshine, I'm downstairs your building
me: :shock face: okay, I'll be there.

I went downstairs and didn't see anyone. I called the dude back and asked him where he was. He was at another CBW building. I told him the correct address and he came. I felt bad so I gave him more tip. He gave me a white bag, it looked like it had alot of box in it and on top of the box there was a card w/ andy's childish handwriting on it. In the bag, there were 3 boxes = 3 dozen cupcakes!!!!! There were all different types of favor. There was more of the pistachio, one of my favorite favors.

I opened all the box and shared it w/ my coworkers. They loved it! It was so funny that my coworker Brenda, was going out for a meeting and walked out w/ a chocolate cupcake; she called a few mins later just to tell Isabel how good it was. So funny!

I guess I'll be eating and getting fat this vday! I think I'm just going to bake and spend time with my parents. My gf Maribeth might chill with me this weekend so I'm excited.

If you guys planning on spending a low key vday, you may want to go for the Papa John's heart shape pizza. A nice romantic movie, pizza and cuddling sounds really nice....

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Tell someone you love how special they are to you...

What the heck is a Turducken?

It's snowing! Christmas is almost here...oh shoot, it's next week! Gotta shop, gotta think of what to make for Christmas eve dinner, gotta plan my sister date before she leaves, gotta clean the house, *pulling hair** I think I'm getting sick.....*faints*

So much to do but so little time....

I saw this in Pathmark, a cute Christmas tree butter sculpture:

Preparing for the big day.....I ordered a turducken a few days ago for our Christmas eve dinner. I can't wait to try it! I even had dreams about it! haha...yea, I'm a foodie dork!

Everyone's been asking me what the heck is a turducken? I've been telling people it's a mutated turkey that's big enough to eat a duck and a chicken, hence the name tur(key)-duck-(chick)hen. I love the name!

A turducken is a "novelty" dish that is basically a deboned turkey stuffed with a deboned duck which itself is stuffed with a deboned chicken. In between the meat there's stuffing, people usually use cornbread or sausage or whatever you fancy. The turducken I order is a 15lb stuffed with cornbread and pork rice dressing. It has a little bit of Cajun flavor! yum!

• I found an awesome video of how to make a turducken:

Most likely I will never attempt to make this! Props to my cousin Angela who made a miniature turducken by using just breast meat of the 3 meats. I wish I could've tasted it but by looking at the pictures it looked gorgeous and delicious! *drooling* so I told myself I had to order a turducken for Christmas!

• Step by Step instructions on how to make a turducken.

• Pics and food review by a blogger.

I'm kind of nervous about how this whole dish gonna come out. Since my oven isn't working my big sister offered to cook it (she lives in NJ) and bring it over to the house (Brooklyn).

My concerns:

1) I'm afraid the turducken won't arrive on time. I read some reviews of ruined holiday dinners because it didn't come on time. I pray that won't happen to us.
2) I'm afraid my sister won't remember to take pics of the whole process of preparing the turducken, you guys know what a food porn freak I am-okay that didn't sound right at all! ahha but you know what I mean....I don't want to spend all this money and not take pics of it! yea, I'm crazy...
3) I'm afraid the turducken may be under or over cooked....

under= salmonella

over= dry meat

4) I'm afraid when transporting the turducken from NJ--> BK (a 1 1/2 or 2+ hours drive) the turducken will get cold and the meat may turn rubbery, yucky.....

So check back and see if my Christmas eve dinner was a successful one or not *crossing fingers**....stay warm!

Mel's Thanksgiving '08: Part 3: The Tong's Thanksgiving Dinner

I usually like to plan my Thanksgiving diner menu a few weeks before hand, looking at recipes, trying to think of ways to change up my classic Thanksgiving dishes, grocery shopping for days (this year I went to supermarket 4 times just for this one dinner-I’m getting old I keep forgetting things), slaving over the oven and chopping all day and night. I love it! The best part is spending time w/ my family, eating food that we love and giving thanks...

Check out some of the food:

Let see the prepping of the dinner....

The 13lb turkey untouched and after marinating it. It's put into an oven bag to bake so it'll be very moist.

check out what ingredients we put on our turkey, this year we used mustard!

Cutting the potato into cubes for the potato salad:

Miki was up all night w/ me eating all the veggies! Miki likes healthy food!

Cutting three types of mushrooms: Shiitake, portobella, button mushroom for my mushroom pastry puff that I learned from Lilly's cooking session.

draining the can fruits and coconut gel over night for my jello dessert, i had to cut the jello in cubes (not shown here), it stained my hands!

cutting up the bread to make homemade stuffing from scratch! we stuffed it into the turket, it came out great!

Here's the finish products:

The turkey w/ stuffing! The skin got stuck onto the bag so it peeled off a bit when we were trying to open the bag. Stupid me I put honey on the skin in the beginning when I should've done that when the turkey was also done...

the stuffing inside, yummi...so much turkey flavor

More stuffing my big sister made, we had a stuffing throwdown ahhaha...

Shepard's pie by big sister:

Oxtail soup by my big bro

My mushroom pastry puff...I didn't leave it in the oven long enough to get the crust golden brown, next time...

My saute string beans and squash:

My potato and shrimp salad, the shrimp came out perfect, secret is shock them in cold water right after boiling:

Mash yams w/ marsmellows by big sis:

Stuff mushrooms by big bro, these were so good! So far, it's one of the best stuff mushrooms I've ever had! I have to get this recipe.

Pasta w/ sausage by big bro:

My butternut squash w/ thyme and sage-It taste great but I hate cutting them, I think this will be the last time I cook butternut squash!

My corn casserole:

Andy's Ribs:

Dessert wine I brought from the chocolate show:

My neice's cheese cake. It was creamy and tasted like the ones from cheesecake factory. I must get this recipe!

My version of the Flipino fruit salad:

We ate alot that night, after my dinner I had to go to Andy's family dinner but I couldn't eat anything. Now time to plan for my Christmas dinner....What should I make? Any recommendation?