Recipe:  Corona Soup

Ingredients: 

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 3 stalks of celery, diced
• 1 sweet potato, diced
• 1 cup lentil
• 3 Roma tomatoes, diced or 1 (14 oz) canned stewed tomatoes
• 1 (14 oz) canned bean (white, black eye, or garbanzo)
• 3 cup kale/ or dark leafy greens

Spices:

• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp pumpkin spices (cinnamon; nutmeg, cloves)
• 1 tsp cumin 
• 1 tsp curry
• ½ tsp turmeric

Instruction

1. In a medium soup pot, heat 2 Tb olive oil under medium-high heat. Add onion to sauté for 5 min or until soft and sweet. Then add carrots and celery to stir for another 2 minutes. Add all spices and sauté for another minute.
2. Add 6 cups of water to the pot to heat until boil.
3. Add rest of the ingredients except greens. Cook under medium heat for 30 minutes or until lentils are soft and tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste. 
4. Lastly, add leafy greens and cook for 2-3 minutes. Serve hot.

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Ground meat is a very common meat used in the group home. Number one, it’s cheaper than whole meat and also number two, it tends to be easier for clients to choose.

Today I would like to show you how we can use ground meat to make different dishes. When we think about ground meat, let’s talk about what are some of the dishes that are made of ground meat.

So for example, Italian. You can think about spaghetti sauce. You can think about meatballs. You can think about lasagna, baked ziti. When you think about Mexican or Latino cooking, what comes to mind is burrito, taco, tostada, enchilada and when we think about Asian cooking, I think about – of course it’s a lettuce wrap, which also utilizes the ground meat.

So when we talk about ground meat and the different kinds of ground meat, I think that turkey and ground beef are like the most common one that the group home uses.

Typically, if you have a house that needs to watch or lose weight, I would recommend turkey because it’s leaner. If you have a mixture of different clients, I would say that you’re having beef, ground beef and also ground turkey. To have that on hand is pretty useful.

When I go shopping to look for ground meat, I typically like to look for leaner ground meat like 80 percent or even 90 or 95 percent. But if you can’t find it, let’s say you can only find 70 or 75 percent, just remember that when you’re cooking it, be sure to drain the oil. The way, you can get rid of the fat.

So today, what I have is, I have ground turkey. I have ground beef and I also have ground pork. So I just want to show you some of the products I made with ground meat.

So with the ground meat, what I have made is that I made it into hamburger patties and like these and like freeze it or I can make meatballs and I can freeze it.

One thing when I make meatballs or hamburger patty, what I like to do is I like to grate some vegetables in the meat so that they look more nutritious. They have more vegetables in there.

So when you add vegetable to your ground meat, you need a binder. OK? That’s why a meatloaf would ask you to add some eggs or ask you to add some breadcrumbs. So just remember every time you want to add vegetable to your ground meat, make sure you have some binder like egg or corn starch or breadcrumb to bind them altogether.

So even with this, you can serve it with bun. Make a hamburger bun or like I said, you can put a sauce, a white sauce, a brown sauce in it. Then it becomes a little Swiss steak or Salisbury steak. OK?

So now, let’s kind of talk about what I’m going to be making today.

I like to maybe take half of it, just half of it. I’m going to use these for turkey sausage patty. OK?

When I see people buy sausage patty from a grocery store, as you know, they tend to be high in sodium and homemade sausage patty actually is very easy to make. All you have to do is you take this and you add sage, which is the key ingredient, sage, and then just some salt and pepper.

If you want some little kick to it, maybe you can add red pepper. So what I have here is about a half pound. Typically when I make patty, I like to just use one pound.

So one pound of turkey, of ground meat, you just add about one teaspoon of sage in it. So I’m just going to – and since this is only half pound, so I’m going to just probably add about half teaspoon of sage to the meat and then I would really just season it with a little bit of salt and pepper. OK?

If you are watching your sodium intake, you don’t want to add salt to it. What maybe you can consider is just add garlic powder to it. So I’m going to add a little bit of salt. Not too much. Maybe just a quarter teaspoon just to give a little bit of flavor and then I’m going to add some pepper to it. OK?

And that’s it. That’s your really basic turkey sausage patty. OK? Now, so this is going to – so what I’m going to do is I’m just going to mix them up really, really good. OK? Now what I’m going to do is I’m going to just take a little – like a – maybe just like one ounce and then I’m just going to shape it into a little patty.

With that, what I’m going to do is I’m just going to kind of put it in a – I’m just going to form a little patty like this and then I can just freeze it.

Now what I want to move on and just talk about how – I’m going to make – I’m going to use these ground beef and I’m going to make two dishes. I’m going to save half of it for my spaghetti, like Italian spaghetti sauce and then the half, I’m going to save it to make a chili.

You’re going to begin making the spaghetti sauce and the chili by cooking the ground meat first. I’m going to start taking the onion with the raw ground meat. Let it fully cook and then you can begin to drain the grease.

Now this ground meat has been fully cooked and because it’s kind of greasy, not only I drained the fat. I actually also rinsed it with water just to get rid of more grease.

So with this, this is one pound of ground meat with one whole chopped onion. So now what I’m going to do is I’m going to take half of it. OK? This half of it is going to be used for my spaghetti. OK? And I’m going to use the rest. So half of it, I’m going to be using it for chili.

So now, this is where you’re going to add the spices to make the food taste different. So with spaghetti sauce, what I usually like to do is I like to add a little bit of nutmeg in it. A little bit of nutmeg really makes a difference. So if you have one pound, maybe I will say add about like a half teaspoon.

So here, this is about a half pound. So what I’m going to do, I’m just going to add about a quarter teaspoon. OK. So this is what – it will give it a little bit different flavor. OK? And then I’m also going to – with Italian dish, you always want to add garlic. So here, I have some garlic I’m going to add to it. OK?

So this is about like one clove of garlic. This is your ground meat. Now with the other ground meat, I’m going to make a chili. So when you think about chili, one of the main ingredients obviously is the chili powder.

Now you can definitely buy those McCormick mixture of chili and you just add to it. But if you don’t have that, a very basic chili mixture is your – we call ancho Chili Pepper with cumin. OK? And with oregano and also with garlic powder.

So because it’s a chili, you want to add a lot of chili. So I have about two teaspoons of ancho Chili powder in there. That’s the most mild chili powder and I’m going to add some cumin to it. OK? And I’m also going to add some oregano to it.

Now these different spices really make the food taste different. So now there, I’m going to add the sauce. OK? So we have the spices. I’m going to add the sauce.

OK. So typically, you would buy like a typical spaghetti sauce and you add to the sauce. But spaghetti sauce usually has a lot of sodium in it. So usually what I like to do is I really like to just add half of it. OK? And then I will add either fresh tomato or I put this – these are canned tomato, which is very low in sodium.

So I would add canned tomato or fresh kind of tomato to make it less salty or less sodium. So that’s my spaghetti sauce right there.

So with the chili, what I’m going to do is I’m going to add half of the tomato sauce and I’m going to just add a mixture of bean in there. The bean could be kidney bean, black bean, pinquito bean or garbanzo bean.

So in my pantry, I only have kidney and garbanzo and that’s what I’m going to add today.

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When making a smoothie, there are 5 considerations:

1. Type of Liquid Used
2. Type of Fruit/Vegetable Used
3. Color
4. Taste
5. Safety

Here is a quick video on how to make a smoothie.

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I think taking time to rejuvenate one’s physical and emotional energy is very important. It can be a type of physical activity, a weekend get-away, gardening, knitting,  or simply like me, staying around my kitchen and make myself a cup of tea.  For those who know me, I am a tea person more than a coffee person.  Holding a cup of hot tea in my hand, really rejuvenate my energy and making me feel “rich” inside and out.  Today, I would like to share with you a milk tea shared by my beloved Indian friend.   It is very easy, but somehow when I take a sip, it calms me down immediately.

Ingredient:

• 8 oz water
• 4 oz whole milk
• 1 heaping tablespoon of black tea
• Add any ( or all) of the following: 4 Cardamon pods, small piece of cinnamon stick, 1/4″ coin of fresh ginger, pinch of fennel seeds ( about 8-10)

Direction:

1. Bring water and milk to simmer and desired spices in a medium saucepan.  Reduce heat to lowest setting and add tea. Steep until tea takes on a deep, pink-tan color, about 3 minutes.  Stir occasionally. Strain into a cup of stir in sugar to taste.

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The Chinese name for dumplings is “jiaozi,” and in Japanese, it is called “gyoza.” I explain “jiaozi” to my fellow American friends simply as “Chinese ravioli” containing vegetable and meat stuffing wrapped inside a circular dough. I often add that Chinese dumplings resemble golden nuggets, so when you eat plenty of dumplings, this means you are going to get rich quick!

There are many store-bought dumplings out there. I personally like to make them from scratch because I can have control over the quality of ingredients. I always buy high quality ground meat and add plenty of vegetables into the mix. My kids actually prefer eating my homemade dumplings because they are lighter than the greasy store-bought choices.

Most of my cooking consists of chopping and mixing, but when it comes to making dumplings there are some techniques that need further explanation.  Here is how you can make dumplings at home:

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. lean ground meats (turkey, chicken, pork, or beef)

2 Tb. sesame oil

¼ cup chicken broth or water

1 Tb. grated ginger

¼ cup green onion, finely chopped

Optional: ½ cup chives, finely chopped

1 bag (16 oz) frozen chopped spinach, liquid drained

Salt and pepper to taste

Dumpling wrappers  (prefer Hong Kong Gyoza wrappers if available in your local Chinese grocery store)

4 oz cold water , plus 2 Tb. cold water

Optional: Food Coloring

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a medium-size bowl, mix in ground meat with both the sesame oil and broth.

Note: Make sure the oil and broth are thoroughly mixed in with the meat. Mix for about 1 minute or so. I like to wear latex gloves and use my hands to knead the meat + oil + broth together. Using this technique will allow you to keep the meat nice and moist (lean ground meat usually has a very dry texture).  The oil and broth will also help with moisture and tenderness.

Many store bought brands use high fat ground meats and will add more sesame oil than necessary to them. When I cook meat at home, I season the lean meat with sesame oil only. This makes the meat more aromatic and the type of sesame oil I use is better quality for your body.

2. Add ginger and green onion to the mix.  Mix well.

3. Defrost the spinach in the microwave for about 1 ½ minutes.  Squeeze out the water from the spinach (best to use a cheese cloth).  Add spinach to the mixture.

4. If you have chives or cilantro, now it is the time to add them. It gives the mixture more aroma.

5. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.  You want to add salt last because adding the salt too early will pull more water out from the mixture causing separation.

6. Scoop a spoonful of meat filling into the center of the dumpling wrapper (store bought). Dab water around the edges with your finger to tightly seal the dumpling wrap.  Repeat the procedure.

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Growing up as a child, one of my favorite memories was the Lantern Festival. Not only is the Lantern Festival part of the Chinese New Year celebration, but it also symbolizes the first full moon of the new year based on the Chinese calendar. My family and I always celebrate this holiday by watching the full moon together. In honor of this holiday you will find temples, houses and streets decorated with beautifully lit lanterns. On the actual day of the Lantern Festival, children are always having the most fun solving riddles together and visiting the local temples or neighbors homes with a lit paper lantern. This celebration would not be complete without eating freshly made “lantern” balls, which is a dessert made out of glutinous rice.

Last month, I celebrated the Lantern Festival with my two boys and many other Chinese families in the City of El Monte. The City of El Monte and the La Jaja Kids Foundation hosted a half-day family event filled with games, lantern design contests, food trucks, live performances and fireworks. I am also an active Board Member for the La Jaja Kids Foundation and recently co-hosted a food event called “Making Your Own Lantern Balls,” teaching children how to create lantern balls from scratch. To make this experience more appealing for children I asked them to create their own “edible” lanterns. The best part about combining arts & crafts with food is that you get to eat your creation afterwards — the kids absolutely loved this part!!! Below is the recipe on how you can make your very own lantern ball desserts at home. I hope you enjoy them!

INGREDIENTS:

1 bag  (16 oz) Glutinous rice flour

8 oz hot water

4 oz cold water , plus 2 Tb. cold water

Optional: Food Coloring

DIRECTIONS:

1.In a medium-size pan, mix in flour with hot water. Stir until water is well mixed with flour.

2. Add 4 oz cold water to the pan and knead by hand until dough becomes soft and moist. If needed, add another 2 Tb. of water to help make the dough even more moist.

*Note: If you want to add food coloring to the dough now is a good time. Add about 3-4 drops of the food coloring to the water, and not directly into the dough.

3. Cut the dough into four pieces, and roll each piece into two long strips. Tear the strip into tiny pieces, about 1 teaspoon each, and roll them into balls.

4. Heat a pot of water, throw the balls into boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes.  Season with honey to taste. If you have dry osmanthus flower, you can add this to the dish for a flowery aromatic flavor.

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INGREDIENTS:

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 Tb. grated ginger

1 can (14 oz) chicken broth (or vegetable broth)

5 cups water

1 cup uncooked rice

⅔ cup cabbage, finely chopped

⅔ cup mushroom, finely chopped

½ cup bean curd, finely chopped

½ cup carrots, grated

½ cup green onion, chopped

½ cup spinach, finely chopped

Juice from 1 lemon

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tb. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1 Tb. Parmesan cheese (for garnish)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large pan heat 2 Tb. oil over medium-low heat.  Add onions and stir for about 5 minutes.

2. Add ginger, chicken broth, water and rice; cook until boiling. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes (until rice is thick and fully cooked).

3. Add cabbage, mushrooms and bean curd; cook for another 10 minutes.

4. Stir in green onions and spinach.

5. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

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When it comes to my Asian roots, I eat most vegetables sautéed with either garlic or ginger. Today, I would like to share an Asian fusion dish with you:  Sautéed Chinese Broccoli with garlic, lemon, and Parmesan cheese.

INGREDIENTS:

1 bunch of Chinese broccoli

Juice from 1 lemon

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tb. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1 Tb. Parmesan cheese (for garnish)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large pan, heat oil over medium-low heat.  Add garlic and stir for about a 3 minutes.

2. Add pieces of Chinese broccoli and cook for 3 minutes.  Add lemon juice and stir.

3. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.

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The combination of roasted bell peppers and tomatoes make a great bowl of soup. You can use fresh peppers and tomatoes and roast them on your own at 450˚F for 10 minutes. Or to save time, you can purchase already roasted peppers from Trader Joe’s and canned tomatoes.

INGREDIENTS:

2 tsp. olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 roma tomatoes, diced

2 cups roasted bell peppers (from Trader Joe’s)

14 ½ oz. reduced sodium chicken broth

Salt & pepper to taste

Optional:

2 Tb. creamer or half & half

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium-low heat.  Add onions and stir until soft and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and stir for about a few minutes.  Add diced tomatoes and cook until soft.  Add roasted bell peppers and stir.

2. Add broth and 6 cups of water and some herbs of choice. Bring to boil.  Season with salt and pepper.

3. Puree in small batches and briefly reheat if needed.

4. For a richer flavor, add some creamer or half & half.

Optional: garnish with fresh chopped basil and enjoy with a slice of your favorite bread.

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