Butternut Squash Soup

I was curious to cook this soup because I had an amazing butternut squash soup on our valentine's dinner in "Second Umpire" Restaurant in NC.
I have never made anything with butternut squash before so this was my first experiment. It turned out yummy.
I used recipe from Food Network but I modified a bit.

Ingredients:

• 1 butternut squash - halved (doesn't need to be peeled)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion
• 1 cup of celery
• 2 cubes of chicken bouillon
• 5 cups of water
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 tsp cinammon
• 2 tbs unsalted butter

Directions:

1. Halved the butternut squash and seeded.
2. Preheat oven in 425 F. Coat the cut side with olive oil, salt and pepper and put the cut side on the bottom of baking pan. Bake for 35 minutes until it is tender.
3. In a stockpot, sautee garlic, onion and celery with olive oil and butter.
4. Add in chicken bouillon and 2 cups water.
5. Scooped the baked squash and put in the pot. Stir everything together. Bring to simmer until everything is tender
6. Add in the rest of the water and milk.
7. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, cinnamon.
8. Use immersion blender to blend it all together. Make sure turn off the stove before you do this. We don't want the hot liquid to splatter everywhere.
9. Sprinkle with green onion as garnish
10. Serve

Enjoy!! :)))

Chicken Pot Pie

This is my first time making a chicken pot pie. We have to do grocery this weekend so I wanted to finish all the veggies and meats in the fridge. Luckily, I still had 1 pack of chicken and frozen veggies. This is really easy to do. At least, I was doing it the easy way with the help of frozen pie crust and a can of creamy chicken. :)

Ingredients:
1 can of creamy chicken
2/3 cup of milk
celery
salt
pepper
poultry seasoning
1/2 bag of frozen veggies
1 pack of chicken thigh (about 6 small thighs)
1 cup of chicken broth
1 package of frozen pie crust

Directions:

• I always boil my chicken so it's easier to cut the meat into small sizes. Boil the chicken until it's cooked. Add a bit of saltSave the broth.
• Cut the celery into small cubes. Boil with the chicken.
• In the meantime, thaw the pie crust. Wash the veggies and thaw it.
• Once the chicken and celery is cooked, cut the chicken into small sizes. Set it aside in different bowl. Save 1 cup of the broth for later use.
• Stir fry the veggies with a bit of olive oil until it is half cooked. Add in the chicken and celery.
• Add 1 can of cream of chicken, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning and milk. Pour the chicken broth that we saved last time.
• Stir until its evenly mixed.
• Once everything is cooked, let it sit for about 50 minutes to let it cool.
• Put the pie crust on the pie pan (if you have one). I don't have pie pan so I use the pyrex bowl that I used for my steamed egg.
• Make sure the chicken and veggies are in room temperature, otherwise, it will tear the pie crust.
• Fill the pie and seal with top pie crust. Cut 4 slits on the top crust.
• Optional: sprinkle with cheddar cheese before seal with top crust. I did it and it was yummy.
• Bake in 425 F for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. I let mine sit too long in the oven (lesson learned: don't play video games while baking something). My crust is slightly burn but I saved it right on time. No bitter taste...horrayyy!!
• :)))

When the weather outside is frightful...time for Bakuteh!

This is one of my favorite dishes when the weather is cold and rainy. A Bakuteh soup!
Since I am not savy enough to make the spices for this soup (it takes quite amount of spices), I opted to use this awesome instant spices that I bought from Grand Asia supermarket. I am sure you can find this spices in any asian supermarket. Here is a bit information about the dish from Wikipedia

Bak kut teh (Chinese: 肉骨茶; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: bah-kut-tê) is a Chinese soup popularly served in Malaysia, Singapore, China, Taiwan and the Indonesian island of Riau (where there is a predominant Hoklo and Teochew community) and also, cities of neighbouring countries likeBatam of Indonesia and Hat Yai of Thailand. The name literally translates as "meat bone tea", and, at its simplest, consists of meatypork ribs simmered in a complex broth of herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds and garlic) for hours.^[1] 

Ingredients:
1 pack of pork ribs
1 small bowl of chinese dried mushroom
1 pack of Bakuteh spices
Soy Sauce
Oyster Sauce
4 cloves of Garlic

Direction:

1. Soak the dried mushroom in hot water for 15 minutes. Sliced into halves.
2. Follow the instruction at the back of the spices package. It is very simple (You just need garlic, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and oyster sauce)
3. Boil water and add in the spices. Let it boil for 30 minutes.
4. Add the meat, garlic and the sauces.
5. Let it cook for another 30 - 45 minutes.
6. Ready for serving!..

Enjoy :)

Mickey Sugar Cookie

I bought Mickey cookie cutter from our honeymoon in Disney World. So, today I decided to make use of those cute cookie cutters.
I wished it turned out perfect, but it was hard to use the mickey mouse face cookie stamp. But this is my first try :D

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Direction:

• In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda Set aside.
• In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 minutes). Add the beaten egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have a smooth dough.
• Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about one hour (or overnight) or until firm enough to roll.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in the center of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 
• Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch (.6 cm). (Keep turning the dough as you roll, making sure the dough does not stick to the counter.)
• Cut out shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to the prepared baking sheet. Place the baking sheets with the unbaked cookies in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes to chill the dough which prevents the cookies from spreading and losing their shape while baking.
• Bake cookies for about 8-10 minutes (depending on size) or until they are just beginning to brown around the edges. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling

Source: http://www.joyofbaking.com/ValentinesSugarCookie.html

Wedding Ceremony Pictures, October 17 2010 @ Fearrington Village

This is long overdue. But, finally I was able to put up the pictures. Yay!Special Thank you to Simple Moment Photograpy (Amy Terrell). :))

Wedding Reception Pictures, October 17 2010 @ Fearrington Village

Disney Honeymoon 2010

I got an email from Shutterfly with a code to get a free 8x8 photobook. So I spent the last 2 days creating Our Honeymoon book. Thought I'd share this with everyone. Why I put it in my kitchen blog? Because I included few of Disney awesome food! :D
Enjoy :)

Click here to view this photo book larger