Cranberry Chicken Salad Sandwich

I attended a high tea party at a good friend house last week. It was a pot luck party and I prepared some scones, cheesecake bars and mini chicken pot pie (recipe coming up soon). The host prepared a huge Sandwich Platter and it has a few types of sandwiches in it and one of them was chicken salad sandwich. There were really good and I have been craving for it since.

Well, since I have some leftover roast chicken I decided to make some for our lunch. I won’t consider this as the best chicken salad but this is how we like it. I usually make a huge batch and will have as salad or make sandwiches out of it. The great thing about this salad is you can add toasted nuts, grapes, apple, raisins or some crumble cheese to it but for this one I decided to add some dry cranberries. It gives the salad a nice sweetness.

Shrimp with Pomelo and Mango Salad

I love Thai food. There is something about their food that is so addictive. I think it is the taste of sweet, sour, spicy and salty of their dishes and not forgetting all the fresh herbs they used in their cooking. One particular dish that I will order is their salad. It can either be green mango, papaya or their pomelo salad. I’ve visited Thailand countless time and there was once I tasted their green mango and pomelo salad at a buffet restaurant and they were so good. Till today I still think of this particular dish and I am recreating it in my kitchen so I can submit it for the AFF event hosted by Lena of Frozen Wings. This salad with the addition of grill shrimps makes a terrific lunch or even as starter to any Thai or Asian-style meal. You'll find it very unique and refreshing, and so will your guests. ENJOY!

Kerabu Sotong Kering - Kelantan Dish - Dish 5

Like I mentioned previously I have never been to Kelantan but I am very curious about the state and I have been asking my sisters and friends about the state and its food. A friend of mine visited it in mid 1990’s and she was not impressed with it as it wasn’t as well developed as the other states in Malaysia. My family has a housing project there now and my sisters have been flying there once a week. They told me Kelantan is no longer that sorry state. In fact, it has grown so much over the short years that one could hardly recognize certain areas as there was so much development.

My friend Shereen’s been there too and she don’t exactly remember much about the place but the one thing that she can't forget was the delicious lingering smell of smoked squid all over the city. It seemed every street had a hawker fanning charcoal in a makeshift barbeque pit smoking dried squid beside the road. She said once you had the first taste, you’ll be hooked.

I saw this recipe on Betty Saw’s cookbook and I since have some shredded Chinese style dry squid I thought I give this recipe a go. Being so far away from home, I make do with what I can find here but if you are in Malaysia, you can easily find the prepared shredded cuttlefish sold in packets all over Kelantan and Terengganu state. In fact, I am pretty sure that you can even find it in your local supermarket nowadays. I also did not use green mango as I can't find any at the Asian grocery. I've used not quite ripe Mexico mango and I think that it tastes even better from the sweetish and not too sour flesh. Feel free to adapt the recipe to your liking. There is no right or wrong in replicating a recipe as long as you follow the basic.

Baby Heirloom Tomato Salad

Carlos and I eat a lot of tomatoes. Between 2 of us we can eat 2-3 pounds a week. Our most favorite tomatoes are the plum and heirloom. We like heirloom variety as it has intense flavors. We were shopping at Trader Joe’s the other day and we came across these baby heirloom tomatoes. Aren’t they beautiful!!! They are just so colorful and so appealing. I can’t resist and bought a few punnet of it. With tomatoes like these, you don’t need to dress them up much as they are flavorful, juicy and sweet as it is. With just some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and you are good to go. If you like you can add a bit of chopped parsley or basil to it. This salad is great to accompany any meat dishes.

Acar Darat/Acar Rampai Orang Johor

'Acar' is a Malay word for pickle and 'Rampai' means julienne. There are many variations of acar and I must say that this version is one of my favourites as it doesn’t involve a lot of work. It is very simple to make with very common ingredients that you would probably already have in your pantry. I made this acar rampai to serve with my Ayam Kremes and Sambal Dabu-dabu.

Fruity Roasted Beet Salad

I know some of you are not a fan of beet but I just love it. I can have it in my juice or salad anytime. I will have it fresh in my juice and for the salad I will usually roast it up. Roasted beets are delightful, sweet but very earthy and aromatic. I planted some beets this year but it didn’t grow very well. I think the soil is too hard so next season I need to buy some extra soil to top it up. Anyway, I took them all out last week as I won’t have the time to water them as often as we will be travelling again soon. I just roast them with some olive oil, salt and pepper and eat it with some salad. This beet salad is full of bright colors, refreshing and sweet earthy flavors.

Ginger Miso Glazed Salmon with Mango Salsa

I am able to get very fresh salmon from Ranch 99 here in CA and I will serve it for dinner at least once a week. Carlos loves this fish and I usually serve it with some light salad and savory rice. With a few minutes under the broiler the miso gives the salmon a nice browning but remains juicy and succulent beneath. Miso is a fermented soybean product and you can read more about it here .

Ingredients:

2 pieces of salmon fillet – about 6 ounces each

Marinate:

2 tbsp light miso
1 tsp grated ginger
1 1/2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp rice vinegar

Pomelo and Mango Salad

Pomelo is one of my favorite citrus fruits. Winter is pomelo season and you can see them everywhere. The pomelo here is not as big as the one back in Malaysia. It is a little bit larger than the size of a grapefruits. I will normally buy 3-4 fruits at one go, peel it and keep it in a container and snack on it. There are days I like to add it to my salad. Since mango is also in season I added some of it to the salad. This salad is so refreshing and it will be great to serve it during summer or on hot weather.

Mixed Fruits in Honey Ginger Dressing

We are at the peak of our moves and I am just too tired to prepare anything elaborate. So it will be very simple meal like sandwiches or take out meal for us this week as all the pots, pans and kitchen utensils are all packed away in boxes. It finally sinks in when I see all the boxes everywhere that we are leaving this place we called home for 6 years. It is sad to leave our very dear niece Diana and friends. All our dear friends who had become our family over here, the stories that we share, and the good times that we have together will be forever in our heart. I hope all of you will come and visit us soon

Enough of my rambling and now back to this mixed fruit salad. I prepared this mixed fruits salad for our lunch over the weekend using whatever fruits that is left in the fridge. You can use any fresh fruits you have in hand.

Edamame Orzo Salad with Grilled Shrimps

After indulging in all the rich food from our short vacation recently, it is time to have something fresh, healthy, light spring foods. I made this salad using the leftover orzo from my previous Cheesy Orzo Frittata. Orzo is pasta that is similar to rice in shape, but a little thicker and larger. I like making pasta salads and soup with it. This salad is simple and fresh. I loved the crunchy edamame and tender sweet grape tomatoes. I added some fresh parsley from my garden to it too.

Ingredients:

1 cup orzo
1 cup frozen shelled edamame
1/2 pound medium size shrimps – shelled and deveined
1 pint of grape or cherry tomatoes - halved
1 small bunch fresh parsley - chopped

Yee Sang and CNY Dinner 2011

This year CNY falls on a weekday so it is just like any other working day here in the US. Diana can’t be home until Friday so we decided to have our dinner only on Saturday, the 3rd day of CNY. I prepared the usual CNY dishes like Yee Sang (Asian Salad), Ngor hiang (5 spice meat rolls), Siew Yoke (roast pork) Hong Bak (siew pork in black soy sauce), sweet and sour chicken, Butter prawns and a mix vegetable dish. It took me nearly the whole just to prepared and cook these dishes. By the time it was done I was dead tired ha ha... but most important we enjoyed the meal and so was our guest.

This is the first time I prepared Yee Sang and it turn out really well. I even made this dish for our Malaysian get together the very next day and it was well received by everyone. I am happy with that.

Pomegranate Wild And Brown Rice Salad

We are slowly switching from white rice to brown rice. Carlos is actually not a huge fan of brown rice so for now I will mix the white and brown rice and he is slowly getting use to it. Beside brown rice I like wild rice too. I love the hearty and nutty flavor of the wild rice. For this particular salad I used Goose Valley Brown and Wild Rice Fusion. It is a combination for Brown rice, wild rice, heirloom red rice and sweet brown rice. If you like to make this salad you can use any type rice combination to suit your taste.

Mango Salad With Squid

My grandmother used to have a huge mango tree in front of her house. We just love the juicy sweet mango and some of the mango can weight up to 2 pound each. Because of the heavy weight some of the mango will fall to the ground when it is still green. We will either pickle it or make it into green mango salad. This is one of our favorite recipes to make. It's simple yet really refreshing to eat especially in this hot and humid weather.

Ingredients :
2 unripe mango - peel and shredded thinly
1 squid - clean, cut and boil for 2 min (optional)
2 kafir lime leaves - slice thinly (optional)
few spring of cilantro - roughly chopped
3 bird eyes chilies - slice thinly
4 tbsp of roasted peanuts - crushed
2 tsp of toasted sesame seeds

Dressing :
2 tbsp of fish sauce
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp of palm sugar or sugar
Juice of 2 lime
salt to taste

1) In a large bowl combined mango, squid, kafir lime leaves, cilantro, chilies, peanuts and sesame seeds. Set aside.
2) Combined all dressing ingredients. Mix well and pour into the mango. Toss everything.
3) Transfer to a plate and garnish with some extra peanuts and sesame seeds.

Note : You can add some dried shrimp or fresh grill shrimp to this salad.

Tofu Salad With Peanut Sauce

I just love tofu cook in anyway but not Carlos. He still can't understand why I would eat something so tasteless and soft :) Since tofu is tasteless I will always find ways to jazz it up with bright and bold flavor. This is a simple salad with a touch of spiciness and it's really good for anyone who is a vegetarian or you can even serves this as an appetizer.

Ingredients :

2 pcs of firm tofu
1 cup of jicama - julienned
1 cup of cucumber - julienned
1 cup of carrot - julienned
1 cup of beansprout

Peanut sauce :

3 tbsp of crunchy peanut butter
2 tbsp of sambal Oelek (more or less)
1 clove of garlic - chopped
2 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar
3/4 cup of water (more or less)
2 tbsp of sugar (more or less)
salt and pepper to taste

1) Dry the tofu in a paper towel and fry it in hot oil until crispy and golden brown. Drain the oil on paper towel.
2) In a small saucepan, heat up a tablespoon of oil and stir fry the garlic until lightly brown. Add in sambal Oelek and cook for a few second.
3) Add in lemon juice, water and then peanut butter. Stir well until the sauce thicken and boil. Add in sugar, salt and pepper to taste and set aside.
4) Cut tofu into bite size pieces and mixed it with all the vegetables and drizzle peanut sauce on top and serve.

Note : If the sauce it too thick for your liking you can add more water to it.

Asian Salad with Grilled Shrimps

I made this very simple salad with grilled shrimp for dinner last week. I marinated 1/2 pound medium sized shrimp with salt and pepper, Cajun seasoning and some olive oil and then grill with my George Foreman grill.

As for the salad I used Jicama, carrot, cucumber, green grapes, some pomelo and red pepper. The dressing is very simple. I whisked together some sesame oil, olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, a bit of sugar and pepper.

Tossed the greens together with the dressing and top it with shrimps and sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds, ground peanuts and garnish it with some cilantro. Lastly drizzle some extra dressing on top.

Simple Meal

There are days when I am just too lazy to cook. Since I have so many tomatoes from my little garden I decided to prepared something simple for dinner. Lucky Carlos is not a picky eater so he is fine with it. We just had tomatoes salad, bruschetta and cheese and crackers.

Some chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, grated cheese, balsamic vinegar, oilive oil, salt and pepper

Some cut tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper

Roasted Beet Salad

I like beets be it pickle, roasted or juice. I usually roast it whole in aluminium foil with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Do be careful with the stain when handling them. I will wear gloves when peeling off the skin. This is a very simple and easy salad for a hot summer day.

4 roasted beets - cut into wedges
2 hard boil eggs- halve
2 oranges - peel & cut into wedges
1/4 cup of roasted walnuts
a handful of lettuce

Dressing :

juice of half lemon
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
1 tsp of honey
4 tbsp of olive oil

Mix the dressing and pour over the salad.