Milk tea pudding recipe

Yum!



My mom brought us a dessert cookbook from Japan. My fridge was devoid of all sweets when I got home from the hospital after giving birth. So my sister, Reyko got to work making milk tea pudding.

1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2.5 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp tea
1/2 tbsp water
1 tbsp (package) gelatin

Heat milk and cream. Turn off heat before boiling. Add loose black tea leavesand steep for 5 minutes.
I had just run out of tea and as I was digging in my cabinet, found a can of Orange Pekoe (who knows how old that was) so I used that.
Add sugar and add gelatin dissolved in water. Stir.
Prepare ice water and strain into a bowl over ice water. Stir until thickens.
Pour into 4 cups. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Top with whipped cream!

Simple. The gelatin set a little too hard. I would make this again with a little less gelatin. Otherwise yummy and it reminded us of desserts that we've had long ago.

Tragedy in Haiti

I have a lot of time to watch TV at night while I nurse my 11 day old son. I've experienced earthquakes to a certain level by living in Japan for half of my life, though I've never experienced any disaster. The images on the screen are graphic and the emotions are raw. I sense pain and irony, as I hold my baby close in our warm room on our cozy chair, while Haitian moms worry about the well being of their babies on the street. Many babies died. Many babies are injured. And many moms just keep their babies close, like I would, but in despair, without shelter. It hurts to watch this catastrophe, and at the same time, I am thankful for the basics; our home, our food and water, and our healthy kids. Or maybe these are not so basic after all....

Pat works for a large pharmaceutical company, 5 min from our home. He told me last night that on top of donating essential medications to Haiti, they've also made some monetary contributions. What I thought was really great was that they are also doing a 2 to 1 match on donations made by employees to major organizations like Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders with no maximum limit. Pharmaceutical companies have bad reps but its nice that they can help out at much needed time like this.

The Miracle Drug and Labor

My third baby, Aidan Dean Chow was born on January 5. Today, he is 1o days old and we are both doing really well.
This labor was so different from the others in a very pleasant way due to the help of epidural, the miracle drug. When we got to the hospital at 10:30am, I had already been in labor and in a lot of pain for 7 hours. As soon as the nurses took me into the delivery room, I said, "may I have some drugs, please". It took about an hour for the anesthesiologist to give me the necessary ingredient. At one point, the nurse thought it would be better for me to just do without it, in which I said, "noooo, I'd really like it if at all possible...." whine whine.
After he shot me up through my spinal cord, the relief came in second, and I really mean seconds. The contraction immediately after the injection, I felt nothing. Pat, looking at the fetal monitor, said "you're going through a pretty big contraction" to which I said "oh really?"
I stayed in bed like that and Pat and I chatted, and took a nap and let a few hours go by. It was so nice. This was really the first time that the epidural actually worked for me. With Terran, I did get it but it didn't work at all. With Sisi, there was no time. And now, here I was, all comfy and restful when I was suppose to be screaming and cursing. I didn't feel bad at all. I felt like I deserved a cozy for my third child.
There's no escape from pain of delivery at the end. The nurses decreased the amount of miracle drug flowing through me so that I could feel pain and the urge to push. I gradually regained all the sensations and Aidan was born at 3:19pm. He looked a lot like Sisi when she was born. They passed him to me, all bloody and gooey. He was beautiful.


Pat and Aidan immediately after birth!

Thinking about sweet mung bean pudding

A couple of months ago, we were invited to a dinner at Pat's colleague's home. They are Vietnamese and made us amazing spring rolls, pho, and mung bean dessert. We loved and devoured everything.
The holidays are over and I have no left over pastries, desserts, or cakes in the fridge. They all turned into lbs on my body somewhere. I really wanted something sweet and thought of the mung bean pudding from that evening.

It was made like a pudding - mung beans were pureed smooth, cooled in the fridge, and we ate it with some coconut milk. Yum. Here's the quick version that I found repeatedly online. I have no patience now for it to cool so it's a warm version and it was delicious. Best of all, I can make it while I clean the kitchen and it's done when I'm ready for dessert!

Warm sweet mung bean pudding - 3 servings:

2 cups of water
1/2 cup of split mung beans (they are small yellow beans)
1 cup of water
1/4 cup of tapioca starch
1/4 cup of sugar

to pour on top:
1/3 cup of coconut milk
pinch of salt.

Boil mung beans in 2 cups of water for about 20 minutes or until tender. Start with high heat and lower - otherwise the water will evaporate before 20 minutes. Dissolve tapioca starch in 1 cup of water and add to the beans in low heat; stir constantly. Add sugar. The consistency should be like gravy. Add more water to thin or add more starch to make it thicker.

Put cocnut milk and salt in another bowl and microwave for 10 seconds- just enough to warm it up. Pour warm coconut milk on the beans and enjoy.

This is also really cheap to make:
A bag of mung beans $0.99
A bag of tapioca starch $0.99
A can of coconut milk $1.19
plus sugar, salt and water from my kitchen.

Happy New Year 2010: potato and leek frittata/ pasta with ham and peas

Happy New Year! I can't believe it's 2010 already.

Pat and I spent the past week, mostly at home, taking care of 2 sick and moody children, while awaiting the arrival of our baby. I've been exhausted and sleepy this week. And my protruding belly is becoming rather large.

We've also been hit with snow and temperature and windchill in the teens and the 20s. So it's been keeping us inside the house with TV.

To kick off the new year, I made food to clean up left overs from the holiday season of 2009: Potato and leek frittata and pasta with bacon and peas


Pasta with bacon and peas adapted from steamykitchen.com:


Usually, I make pasta with ham and peas. I just dice the ham, and heat it up with store bought alfredo sauce. And the add frozen peas. Everyone likes this and it's easy. But not having gone to the grocery store in awhile due to bad whether and groggy children, I didn't have ham or alfredo sauce. But I did have bacon! We love bacon! I thought this recipe was delicious.

- cook pasta in salted water
- whisk together (this is the sauce)
2 egg yolks
3 tbsp grated Parmesan
3 tbsp half and half
1/2 lemon zest
- chop up 4 slices of bacons to 1/2" pieces and cook- retain bacon oil
- in the pan with bacon oil cook 1/2 onion chopped and 3 cloves of garlic for 4 minutes
- lower heat and add yolk mixture, then quickly add pasta, bacon, and some frozen peas. mix for about 3 minutes and also add salt and pepper.
- done

This was really good. I loved the lemon in it. I think I messed up a bit when adding the yolk mixture because the eggs scrambled. I don't think it was suppose to do that. Next time, I am just going to make my original with ham and peas with store bought alfredo sauce -except, I will add lemon zest to it.

Potato and leek frittata:

Frittata is good for getting rid of things in the fridge. Just like fried rice is good for getting rid of things in the fridge. I had potatoes left over from making mashed potatoes, and leek from making lobster bisque. So here it is.

2 potatoes - slice and cook in boiling water
2 leek - slice white and slight green part and cook in butter
7 eggs
half and half (or milk or heavy cream)
salt and pepper
1.5 cups of shredded cheese (I used a combo of cheddar and Parmesan)

Preheat oven 400 degrees.
Add cooked potatoes with cooked leek in an iron skillet and mix them around with salt and pepper. In a bowl, combine eggs, splash of half and half, salt, pepper and cheese. Pour over the vegetables and mix everything around for awhile over medium heat. Let the egg at the bottom settle. Add extra cheese on top and stick it in the oven for about 10 minutes until done.

Pat liked the frittata. Next time, I want more eggs, more cheese, and less vegetables. Maybe I will just make a cheese frittata.

Did I already write somewhere that I gained 5lbs this holiday week? I've got to get my eating under control!