Chicken Stirfry with Eggplant and Bell Pepper

Here is another stirfry dish that should be included in our meal options available. I use the green bell pepper, but any kind of sweet bell pepper or other kind of vegetable will work for this recipe. This recipe is another way to clean up some of the leftover vegetables that remain in our refrigerator.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast, sliced
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp cooking wine, dry sherry
1/4 tsp salt
Vegetable ingredients:
1/2 large eggplant, cut into bite-size pieces
1 green bell pepper, sliced
1/2 cup white onion
2 green onions
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp fresh ginger
Sauce ingredients:
1 cup chicken broth
1 tbs cooking wine
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Thickening ingredient:
2 tsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbs water

Directions:
In a mixing bowl, combine and mix well the sliced chicken breast, cornstarch, cooking wine, salt, and pepper. Allow chicken to marinate for one hour.
Combine the sauce ingredients and set aside.
Heat wok with 2 tbs peanut oil until oil is hot. Add marinated chicken and cook until chicken is no longer pink (about 5 minutes). Remove from wok.
Clean wok and add 1 tbs oil. Heat oil until almost smoking. Stir in white onions, ginger, and garlic. Stir constantly until fragrant (about 2 minutes). Add eggplant and cook until the eggplant is soft(add 1/4 cup of the broth to cook eggplant). Add chicken back to wok. Add the rest of sauce and bring to boil. Add bell pepper. Stir to mix. Add thickening and green onion. Cook for another minute or until sauce has thickened. Serve.

Spicy Baked Salmon

I come up with this recipe for a rainy day in the Northwest. A little kick of Korean spicy paste will warm up the tastebuds. It is a simple but healthy delicious meal.

Ingredients:
Two 6 oz. salmon fillets
Sauce ingredients:
1 tbs Korean spicy paste
1/2 tsp miso paste
1 tbs soy sauce
1/2 tsp honey
1 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbs peanut oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp fresh ginger
Other ingredients:
Steamed vegetables, your choice
Chopped green onion and cilantro

Directions;
Brush baking dish with oil and place salmon on each baking dish
Mix the sauce ingredients well. Divide sauce and pour over the fish. Marinate fish for a few hours.
Bake fish in preheated oven set to 375° for 20 minutes.

Serve with steamed vegetables and rice.

Vegetarian Ragou

During holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, we tend to eat more than usual because of all the parties at work and family get-togethers. Therefore, keeping a balanced diet during the holidays is very important. The recipe I am introducing today is perfect for a quick and easy dish, but with all the fibers and protein needed. This dish is served almost daily for Buddhist monks. As is the Buddhist tradition, we have so many dishes made without meat, but this dish is very tasty and quick to prepare. The root vegetables are most of the vegetables that remain after a big Thanksgiving or Christmas dish. Providing sufficient vegetables for the body is the one thing that we should always pay attention to regardless of how busy our lives are. A simple meal is something that I always want to be featured regularly in this blog

Ingredients:
8 oz. firm tofu, cut into cubes
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 large eggplant, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 Kabocha squash, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
1 carrot, peeled and cut into thick slices
1 piece daikon (about 1 cup)
1 cup button mushrooms, quartered
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 white onions, sliced
1/4 cup peanut oil
Sauce ingredients:
2 cups vegetable stock or water
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp honey
2 tsp powdered yeast (optional)

Directions:
In a large stew pot, add about 1/4 cup of oil and heat until hot. Add tofu and fry until brown.

Remove the fried tofu and add sweet potato. Fry the potato until brown.

Pour some of the oil and keep about 3 tablespoons of oil. Add garlic and white onion, turn the heat down, and cook for a two minutes or until fragrant.

Add sweet potato, tofu, Kabocha squash, daikon, and carrot.

 Add the sauce ingredients and bring to boil.

 

 Simmer for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Add eggplant and mushrooms. Mix well.

Bring back to boil. Cook until eggplant and mushrooms are soft (about anther 15 minutes).
Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and serve with rice.

Roasted Tomatillos Salsa

A tomatillo looks like a small green tomato with its acidity and lasts even after cooking. I like tomatillo salsa more than the other salsas because of this natural acidity and also because the simplicity of making it. I have many Mexican friends and co-workers, and they have their own recipes to create this wonderful salsa. It is so much better to make salsa at home than the store-bought kind even with a brand name. The salsa can be prepared with very little time and effort. All that is needed is a good food processor. For my taste, I love the taste of tomatillo salsa after it is baked, because with this salsa I can turn it into a few more dishes, such as baked fish with salsa on top or simple grilled chicken served with this salsa on the side. The creations are endless. This salsa is easily put together for a busy women and is an excellent snack. Serving a good meal is to bring joy and happiness for each member of the family after a tiring day.

Ingredients:
1 lb. tomatillos
1 lb. plum tomatoes
3 or fewer jalapenos
15 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 white onion
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
Sauce ingredients:
All the juice from baking the above tomatoes
1/3 cup Italian dressing
1/4 cup olive oil
Other ingredients:
1 cup cilantro leaves, chopped
3 green onions, chopped
Juice of one lemon

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Remove the husks from the tomatillos and wash. Wash the plum tomatoes as well.
On a baking tray, place tomatillos, plum tomatoes, garlic, jalapenos, and white onion. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and olive oil.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes and turn to broil for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.

When cool enough to handle, place the garlic, onion, and jalapeno in a food processor and pulse a few times.

 Then put the rest of the tomatillos and plum tomatoes into the food processor and process until chopped (I like chunky salsa, although some like it chopped very fine).

Pour into a mixing bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. 

Re-season salsa with more salt and pepper, if needed and also a little sugar can be added if it tastes sour to you.

Place salsa into a jar with lid and refrigerate for a few hours.  

The Coffin

Coffins - One life, all have died

There is a famous morality monk named Vuong thu Trung, the abbot of the temple in Suzhou. He exhibited a small coffin on the reading table.
This coffin lid opened and closed again, about 3 inches long.
The questions asked by his brethren: - What does this coffin mean?

The monk explained:

- People have lived and all of them have died or will die. After we die, we will lie in coffins like this one. I am surprised to see why people spend a  lifetime worrying and strenuously chasing after  wealth, fame, tastes, and talent, but no one tries to know what death is. When things are not like what I want, I immediately look at the coffins. Immediately, my mind is calm, and all anxiety and sorrow quickly vanish.
This coffin provides a valuable lesson about morality.

- When you are suffering from a lack of money, and experience business losses, try to imitate the monk, Viên Thủ Trung, looking at the coffin. The Word of God from 2,000 years ago still echoes somewhere: "Source Oh! If I this night catch your soul, shall the wealth piled up there, whom you'll leave it for?" (Lk. 12, 20-21).

- Whenever you feel bored and disappointed because of the treacherous coast, the coffin reminds us that people will be in there and no one will again be lovelorn or abandoned. 

- When you are intoxicated with the power of winning, or vice versa, or upset by the loss of power or the loss of function, the coffin will remind you that all the kings and governors on the earth must surrender and lie quietly just like the poorest people in the society.
- Whenever you see  unfair, hateful, jealous, or injustice in circles your life imagine yourself becoming a person who lies in the coffin, where there are no longer trumpets, nor scrambling and humiliating one another. These excellent lessons of the casket are for the rich, the poor, and the suffering in the world,  as well as for those who cannot and do not. Death is a symbol of equality and a sign of peace. Look down at the ground in the cemetery. Everyone there, regardless of wealth or civil division, is located in a straight line path, evenly and quietly, so that the body penetrates and dissolves the dirt.

MS Truong Van Sang.
Go to Coi Nguon to read the Vietnamese version
 

A Story of a Streak of Tigers

This story is about a woman fleeing a streak (group) of tigers. She ran and ran forever, but the tigers were closing in on her. When she reached the edge of a cliff, she saw some vines, so she climbed down and clung to them tightly. Looking down, she saw a few other tigers waiting below. At the same time, she found a mouse was gnawing the vines to which she was clinging. At that moment, she saw a small cluster of beautiful fresh strawberries so close. The fresh strawberries emerged from a clump of grass. The woman looked up, then looked down, and looked at the mouse. Then she broke off a strawberry and put it in her mouth and slowly enjoyed the strawberry flavor even though there were tigers below and above her, and her clinging vine was in danger of being broken.
This was the toughest situation of life and death that any of us may ever face. Maybe this might be the only remaining moments of our lives. It might be the only strawberry that we can enjoy. We can choose to despair in that situation, or we suddenly awaken to enjoy the fun and feel the preciousness of every moment that we are alive. Please cherish and enjoy every second of your life.

Life can be filled with great splendor, but it can also be more miserable and unhappy. Feel the beauty and grandeur of gratitude to support and encourage our life and to open for us a wide landscape that is more beautiful filled with but more energy for us to live happily. We should feel inclusive, but if we feel smug and are filled with self-esteem and hold contempt for others, we will feel that we are the center of the universe and want to be like that forever. Then the splendid will be gone and be mixed with craving and addiction. On the other hand, the suffering aspects of our lives will make us more humble, as well as softer.
Knowing and feeling pain is an important factor to be able to be present for someone else. When you are feeling sorrow, you can look straight into the eyes of people because you have nothing to lose - you are just being there. Suffering makes us humble and gentle, but if we only feel bad, we will collapse from a stroke. We will be desperate, depressed, and sad. Therefore, we will not even have strength to bite into a strawberry. Beauty, splendor, misfortune, and misery are adjacent to each other. One aspect was inspired to raise us up, the other was to make us suffer and be softer, both of them are aspects of life in parallel.

Source from the Internet

 

Vegetarian Fried Spring Rolls (Chả Giò Chay)

I previously wrote about these vegetarian fried spring rolls or sometimes called egg rolls, but this time I wanted to change a few ingredients in this recipe. Indeed, egg rolls, whether vegetarian or meaty, are a very easy snack to make that please guests in every party. Vietnamese egg rolls always occupy a special place on the list of the famous dishes of Asian cuisines. My vegetarian egg rolls are always a favorite dish at the start of the party. Also, the ingredients that I carefully chose are used to make these special egg rolls. Even though this is a dish of fried food, I too want to enjoy occasionally its crispy taste and the sweetness of root vegetables that is interspersed throughout to form these unique Vietnamese egg rolls.
 
Ingredients:
2 oz thin rice vermicelli, soaked and chopped
8 oz medium firm tofu , thickly slice 

1 small acorn squash, peeled and steamed
1 large Japanese yam, peeled and steamed
1 cup cooked mung beans
1 cup sweet corn
2 carrots, finely chopped
1 small sweet onion, minced
5 cups mixed fresh mushrooms, sliced

2 cups shredded cabbage
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 shallots, minced
Salt, pepper, sugar, and soy sauce, to taste
2 eggs
Assembling and frying
1 to 2 package egg roll wrappers (about 30 pieces)
Peanut oil for frying
Directions:
To prepare the filling:
In a food processor, Add  sweet corn , then pulse a few times. Place this mixture into a large mixing bowl. Use potato masher to mash steam Japanese yam and steam squash and put into a bowl with corn,

In a large nonstick pan add 1/4 cup of peanut oil and pan fry tofu both side until golden brown, Slice fried tofu into a match stick and add to the corn mixture

 

 

 

In a large nonstick pan, add 2 tbs oil. Add garlic and shallots and cook until fragrant. Add mushrooms and cook until wilted.

Combine the mushrooms with the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Season with salt, sugar, soy sauce and black pepper.

Use the 2 egg yolks add to the filling and the egg white for sealing the egg rolls.

To assemble the rolls:
Peel and separate the egg roll wrappers piece by piece and set aside.

Place one wrapper sheet flat on the countertop.

Put 1 tbs of filling on the center of the wrapper.

 Fold both sides of the wrapper into the center to cover the filling.

 Press and fold the bottom of the wrapper over the center of the folded portion to form a compact rectangle.

Roll tightly from the bottom to the top to completely enclose the filling. Continue until all of the mixture is used.

To fry the rolls:
Pour 2 inches of peanut oil into a fry skillet. Heat the oil to 350°. Work in small batches, and do not crowd or let rolls touch each other.

 Fry over moderate heat for 10 to 12 minutes or until the rolls are golden brown.

Remove the rolls with tongs and place onto paper towels to absorb oil. If intending to serve soon, then keep fried rolls warm in a low temperature oven. 
Traditionally spring rolls are served with a plate of Vietnamese salad and sweet soy dipping sauce.