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{ Recipe } Cauli-Crust Pizza


Yes, you did not read it wrong! It is a pizza with a cauliflower as a base!! Seriously, I don't know about you but I personally haven't heard that before. When I first read the title of the recipe, I was like does it really work? So, I decided to try it the other night and it was a pleasant surprise! At least, both Mr. Pear and I love to go for another slice :D Com'on it is healthy, why not?

I found this awesome recipe from a new launch magazine -- taste.com.au magazine formerly known as Australian Good Taste magazine. I have bought their first and second issues. I tell you, I love every single recipe that they have in the magazine. Without hesitation, I decided to subscribe for the very first time with their e-magazine for a year :D

I told myself since I have subscribed, I have to make the effort to try at least one recipe from each issue, otherwise, I will just waste the money. I think it can somehow improve my cooking skill too :D

Anyway, get back to the pizza. Though the crust is not as strong as the flour one, it tastes absolutely amazing. Best of all, it is healthier :D The topping is up to your imagination! Why don't you go get something cauliflower and make this for dinner tonight?


   Cauli-Crust Pizza  
{ adapted via taste.com.au magazine issue 1, p.60 }
serves 4 | prep & cook 1 hr | Italian 

[ Ingredients ]

650 g piece caulifwer, trimmed, chopped
1 egg, lightly whisked
50 g (2/3 cup) finely grated parmesan
80 ml tomato paste (original use: passata)
60 g olives, pitted (original: Sicilian green olives, I am trying to clean my fridge, so I use whatever I had)
1 chorizo, sliced
10 fresh thyme sprigs (from my edible garden:D)

[ Method ]

1　Process the cauliflower in a food processor until finely chopped. Place chopped cauliflower in a microwave-safe bowl. Cover and microwave on high for 8-10 mins or until very tender. Drain through a fine sieve, pressing down well with a wooden spoon to remove excess liquid. Combine the cauliflower, egg and half the parmesan in a bowl.

point >> it depends on the power of your microwave, it took me about 20 mins to cook the cauliflower until very tender. Remember to drain as much water as you can, coz you don't want your pizza base too wet.


2　Preheat oven to 230C/ 210C fan forced. Line a 30cm-round pizza tray with baking paper. Press cauliflower mixture firmly into the tray. Bake for 20 mins or until golden.

before
after
3　Spread tomato paste over base and sprinkle with olives, chorizo, thyme and remaining parmesan. Bake for 7 mins or until chorizo is golden.


[ Kitchen Notes ]
  • My base was a bit wet. So next time I could either press harder to drain more water out or bake a bit longer to dry out a bit of the moisture. 
  • Like any other pizza, you can put whatever you like, but I would advise you to precook the ingredients first as the baking time is not very long.


♥  bon appétit :)

{ Recipe } Hairy Melon & Dried Squid Soup 節瓜鱆魚湯


I love soup! I can have soup every day in every single meal and I will never ever get bored nor get sick of it YES, I am obsessed with any kind of soup, doesn't matter if it is Western or Asian, creamy or watery, canned or powder... 

If you ever got someone to ask about my favourite food, you should know the answer by now and it will always be the same -- SOUP! No any other answer but SOUP! If you get it wrong, I will be really upset! :(

As you know, I originally from Hong Kong and most people from this city love to have soup, if not all. That partly explains why I love soup. But then there is another contributor, the major one, to my obsession of soup. That is my mum. We were brought up with mum's yummilicious soup everyday. If there is no soup one night, there must be something wrong. No matter what the reason is we feel like we are missing something for that particular meal. Yes, we are so addicted to mum's soup. 

Since I am away from home, I must learn how to cope with this addiction. Therefore, I started to ask mum and search online to learn how to make my ultimate comfort food. 

You will soon to know I genuinely love soup! There will be lots of soup recipes later on... if you love soup like I do, stay tuned :D

For the time being, enjoy this hairy melon and dried squid soup. You will love it! :D

{ Recipe } Char Siu Pork Belly (BBQ Pork Belly)



Sorry for the lack of posts... Busy? No, I am not. If you didn't know, I have found a job in late June. This was when I kinda stopped posting.

My work is not hard nor busy, but the travelling time to and from work is just killing me. Everyday I go home, I feel exhausted and have no motivation to do anything except sitting on the couch and watching my favourite TV shows. Yes, I am that procrastinating...

I still cook occasionally when I feel like :D Thank God that I have Mr. Pear who loves to cook, otherwise, I could have been as skinny as a stick. Ha! Exaggeratd! Anyway, I am back!

Lianne from Food Made With Love actually encourages me with her "Be Bold" post. It's like a wake up call. If you don't know, I actually started blogging roughly around 1999. I created my own homepage via Geocities (I am very proud of myself, coz I know I can never do it again).

Somehow, I stopped and started again in 2004 with Blogger. Since then on and off for a couple of times and I have started quite a few blogs all these years. I think in life, if you really want to achieve something you should be really consistent and hold on to it.

Giving up half way is now forbidden! haha! Yes, it's time to be tough to myself! I have been too lenient to myself... If I want to do something I like and I enjoy, I should give it 100% and hold nothing back. hehe... sounds so serious!

If you haven't seen me for a while, please drop me a few lines or words to remind me you are still waiting for my posts! :D I will be really encouraged by your kind words.

Ok, back to the post! If you follow my facebook page (if you haven't, I strongly recommend you to like it, as I upload photos quite often on this page, so you won't miss out too much.), you should know I made this char siu some time ago and said I will post the recipe "soon". So here we go! I finally take the time to start writing again and this char siu post is the best to start the journey.

Who doesn't like char siu? To be honest, I haven't heard anyone said he/she doesn't like char siu. Seriously, if you do have a friend doesn't like it, you should make this one for them to try. Sure they will change their mind.

Char siu is one of the most popular dishes in many families in Hong Kong. I remember when I was young, mum always bought char siu when she did not know what to cook for dinner. I like mum to have a lazy night as I love char siu especially the charred one with the crunchy touch and a little bit of fat...ummm... YUM!

We still can buy char siu here in Brisbane, but it's so much different from those in Hong Kong. Plus here, char siu is luxury good = very expensive, thus I seldom buy for dinner even I don't feel like cooking! haha...

The other day when I was waiting for my flight to Sydney, I found this recipe in Feast by chance. That issue also introduced our famous unofficial Chinatown in Sunnybank. Love to see magazine talking about things around me, feel so familiar and close :)

So when I came back from Sydney, I decided to make this one night and Mr. Pear was so impressed and complained I did not make enough! Guest what I did? I gave him the magazine and told him to cook for himself if he wants more.... hehe, I am just me being me :PP

Anyway, you should give it a go, coz it is not hard to make at all! Have fun! :D

{ Recipe } Sunomono 酢の物 (Japanese Cucumber and Seaweed Salad)


Mr. Pear and I love cucumber very much. The freshness and juiciness feeling make the dish taste extra delicious. This is one of the reasons that we planted the cucumber in our garden. Since we planted the seeds in February till now, we have got more than 15 cucumbers and there are more coming soon.

Now we have supply of cucumbers in our garden, of course, we will make very good use of this fresh produce. While Mr. Pear's signature cucumber salad is my all time favourite, today I made this Japanese cucumber salad from Just One Cookbook and it tasted absolutely fantastic.

Just One Cookbook and Just Hungry are my Japanese cuisine rescuer. There got lots of Japanese cuisine recipes and they are easy to follow. Good for weeknight dinner if you are always busy!

{ Recipe } Spicy Kale Chips


Some time ago I bought a voucher from Living Social for a fruit and veggie store which I can buy things up to A$40 for only A$20. Yesterday was the day I shopped for all the beautiful and fresh fruits and veggies :D

Then I came across a brunch of kale while I was walking down the aisle. I remembered I saw kale many places... Pinterest, blog and website... It is a super food and a hardy food for winter :) Since there are so many people talking about kale, I wanted to know more about this super food, so I took one in my grocery basket. And here we go to explore this special vegetable.

When I got home, I looked at it... I was like, ummm... How should I cook this? Stir fry? Cook in soup? Or what? Then, Lianne's blog came into my mind. I remembered I read about the kale chips post from her blog, so I quickly went there to see if I have the ingredients to make it.

Surprisingly, this kale chips was super easy to make. I did not have the exact ingredients that the recipe called for, but I followed most of the steps from the post :))) and it was a great success, it was crunchy and it was super additive as Lianne warns us in her blog!!! :D

{ Recipe } Green Tea Chess Cookies


I want to make this little cookies for long. Just purely because they look really pretty. Read through the recipe, I was surprised that it is actually easy to make than I thought. It just need to take more steps to make the pattern.

There are quite a few thing I can definitely do better next time when I make it again. First, I should not do it in a rush. I remember on the day Mr. Pear and I had to go to his parents place. So I was like running around the kitchen and tried to make this happen. Second, all because of the first reason, I did not harden the dough enough which made it too soft to cut it straight and nice. Therefore, some of the cookies still had the gap in the middle.

Overall, despite the shape doesn't look what it supposed to look like and a little bit bitter, but it was close enough and the taste not too sweet too.

{ Recipe } Pork and Vegetable Dumplings with Garlic Vinegar


Dumplings, something like pizza. I know it is a bit weird to use pizza as an example, but seriously, you can have many different fillings, just like pizza has different toppings, right?

Another variation you can do with dumplings is how you cook them. You can pan fry, you can steam, you can deep fry or even boil them, depends on your personal preference. This time I chose to boil the dumpling and dipped with garlic vinegar.

This time I chose to use mince pork and Asian green (I used bok choy) as the main ingredients. I also put some dried shitake mushroom.

As for wrapping the dumpling, you can pick a method from my last post. The one I used is a bit complicated to explain but it is not too hard to make once you practise a few time. :D

Now i Know >> How to wrap dumplings



I never know there are so many ways to wrap dumplings. However, the one I usually use is not here, but it is quite close to the last one from above. So, I guess there are at least 8 ways to wrap this little yummy things.

[ source: Pinterest ]

♥  bon appétit  :)

HomeGrown: Cucumber



I always want to grow some veggies and herbs in our garden, as I love to cook with fresh fruits and vegetables. However, one thing stops me from getting started... which I just thought I might not have the patient and consistency to watering the plants.

Early February, Mr. Pear and I bought some seeds from Bunnings. I remembered after we planted the cucumber seeds the next day we got the pouring rain which caused many places in Brissy under water. Our backyard has the history of water overthrowing... Of course, there was no exception for this time. So, both Mr. Pear and I were like... the seeds must have died as they were soaked in the water for such a long time. Amazingly, few weeks later, we started to see the cucumber seeds were blooming everywhere (thanks to the rain and the little flood that washed the seeds everywhere =__=). Since then, I am so excited about it and I started to take more care to help it grow better.

The cucumber plants do have a lot of flowers, but not every flower can bear fruit. So far, I can only see three to four are developing to become cucumbers :D It is very interesting to see it to develop from flower to cucumber. If I have not grown it, I would never know the cucumber actually develop from the end of the flower, unlike tomato which the fruit develop in the flower.

 

Hope we can have more cucumbers soon, as I can't wait to make the cucumber salad with this homegrown little gorgeous! :D

♥  bon appétit  :)
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