Furry Melon (Mao Gua ) Peanuts Soup 節瓜花生湯

Mao gua is a type of squash that has a long tapered shape with a light green, furry outer skin.  It is good for sautéing, stir frying, or using as an ingredient for soups and stews.  A furry and even size in shape is best to get when selecting mao qua. 

This soup is enriched with vitamins and it will help rejuvenate the skin.  It doesn't require a long time to cook.

Ingredients:

1 Mo Gua
2 Chicken Breasts
5 Shiitake Mushrooms
Some raw peanuts
4 Carrots
2 Dried Scallops

Directions:

1. Soak peanuts, dried scallops and mushrooms in cold water and set aside.
2. Add chicken breasts in cold water and bring to a boil.
3. Add all soaked ingredients into the water and boil for 30 minutes on  medium low heat.
4. Wash and peel mo gua and carrots. Cut into small pieces.
5. Add carrots and mo gua and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

Green Daikon and Carrots Soup

I like to make this soup because it is filling and tasty without adding too much meat in it.  I usually ate more of this during meals if I wanted to reduce the intake of carbohydrate.

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Some of the ingredients I already posted in Pears & Pork soup.  The two ingredients here are also commonly used in soup:

Semen Euryales  - Taste like cooked peanuts after it's cooked.

Chinese Yam - Also called Huai Shan

 Ingredients:

1 lb. Lean pork
1 Green Daikon, peeled and cut into big pieces
3 Carrots, peeled and cut into big pieces
2 Tbsp Semen Eurayles

6 Huai Shan
3 Dried Scallops
2 tbsp North Almonds
1 tsp South Almonds
3 Dates


Directions:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil.
2. Rinse all ingredients and set aside.
3. Add in pork and the rest of ingredients into the boiling water . Bring to another boil on high.
4. Turn heat to simmer and continue to cook for two and half hours.

Note:

*North almonds are actually apricot kernels and are bitter in taste.  Never use too much of them. All of these ingredients can be found in any Chinese store and supermarket.

Healthy Soup - Daikon Seaweed Miso Soup

I have been eating this soup to help me lose some weight. Daikon cleanses the blood, promotes energy circulation and increases the metabolic rate.  Seaweed is very high in alkaline and also help with the cleansing process.  My kids didn't like the smell of the fresh seaweed.  I took extra step just to get rid of the overpowering smell of the seaweed.  I boiled the seaweed in hot water first for about 5 minutes, drained and then proceeded to cook it with the rest in fresh pot of boiling water.  The soup was so delicious that we ate only that for dinner and were still full.

Ingredients:

1 (8 oz.) Daikon radish, cut into bite-size pieces
1 lb. Lean pork
Fresh seaweed, rinsed well with water a couple of times
5 cups water
2 slices of ginger (optional)
Silkien Tofu, diced
1 tbsp of Dashi powder (Japanese soup base mix)
1 1/2 tbsp white miso paste
2 Scallions, chopped

Directions:

1. Place daikon, seaweed  along with 5 cups water into a 2-quart saucepan and place over high heat. 
2. Add tofu and cook for another minute. Turn heat off.
3. Remove 1/4 cup stock from the pot and place in a small bowl.  Using a fork, dissolve the miso paste and add it back into the soup pot. Stir in the dashi powder. Garnish with scallions and serve

Note:

Always add miso and dashi powder before serving.  Heat destroys the nutrition value of the miso,so always remove the soup from heat when adding miso paste and dashi powder.

Soup In A Cup

Puff pastry is useful for a quick dessert or snack. I used puff pastry to make this soup for my kids last week.  It looks elegant but is actually really simple to make.

Ingredients:

1 Russet Potato, peeled and diced
1/4 Yellow Onion, chopped
1 cup frozen green peas and carrots
1 tbsp of cooking oil
1 small can of cream of mushroom
1 same amount of water as cream of mushroom
Black Peppers

Directions:

1. Thaw one sheet of puff pastry on a foil in at room temperature 30 minutes before baking.
2. Rinse and chop all ingredients.
3. Heat up pan and cooking oil.
4. Stir fry onions until fragrant.
5. Add potatoes and stir fry for 1 minute.
6. Add green peas and carrots and stir fry.
7. Add 1 can of water to the cream of mushroom and mix well.
8. Add pepper and diluted cream of mushroom to the pan and cook with the rest of ingredients.
9. Cover and cook for 5 minutes until potato is cooked.
10. Transfer soup into 4 small cups.
11. Cut thawed puff pastry into 4 equal pieces. Carefully place one piece on top of each cup. 
12. Seal the edge of pastry by brushing some water along the edge.
13. Beat one egg and brush egg wash on top of each pastry for coloring.
14. Put in oven and bake at 390 degree for 10 minutes.
15. Serve when it's hot.

Note:

For an even more quick and simple soup, just open a can of soup and pour it in the cup, then follow steps 11 to 15.

Shark's Fins Soup

This is a soup only served on special occasions.  Here's how I prepared the soup:

 Ingredients:

2 Dried Shark's Fins
2 Scallions
5 slices of ginger
1 pot of boiling water to prepare shark's fins
1 whole chicken
1 6 oz. pork
2 slices of Smoked Virginia Ham
1 pot of cold water to make chicken stock
4 Shiitake Mushrooms
2 Dried scallops
2 Slices of dried abalone
1 Tbsp of cooking wine

Directions:

To prepare the shark fins:

1. Add 2 slices of ginger and 2 scallions to a pot of boiled water.
2. Place the dried shark's fins in and boil for 10 miniutes.
3. Turn the heat off, cover and let it sit until next day.
4. On the next morning, recook for 10 minutes and let it sit until needed.
5. Discard the water and take care not to break the fins when transferred to the chicken stock to cook.

To make chicken stock:

1. Remove the chicken skin and add the chicken into a pot of cold water, bring to a boil to clean out the raw juice from the chicken, then drain and discard the water and refill with fresh pot of clean water.
2. Add in pork, ham, and 2 slices of ginger in the fresh pot of water with chicken.
3. Let the chicken cook for 2 hours, discard the ingredients and preserve the soup and let it cool off  first before putting it in the refrigerator.
4. Skim fat off before using it to cook with the shark's fins.

 To start making the shark fin soup:

1. Bring the chicken stock to a boil.
2. Add in ginger, shiitake mushrooms, dried scallops,wine, abalone and the soaked shark's fins.
3. Turn on high heat to bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low or simmer, cover and cook for 5 hours. 
4. Serve the soup individually in a small bowl with a red vinegar ginger sauce on the side.
5. Salt is not needed as the ham, scallops and abalone were already preserved with salt.

Note:
Shark's fins are delicacies. When handle shark's fins, try not to break up the fins since it's supposed to serve with the fins still intact as much as possible.  People usually add in some red vinegar ginger sauce in the soup before eating.  It was not recommended to add the red vinegar so you could taste the original flavor of the soup.

Vegetable Tortilla Soup

I went on the Caribbean cruise a week ago.  After my trip from the Celebrity cruise, I needed to lose the 6 pounds I gained from eating all the gourmet food on the ship. I didn't want to go get more groceries until I lost the weight.  I still have some tortillas in the fridge and needed more ideas to use them.  As usual I went searching on my favorite website Allrecipes.com for some more tortilla recipes.  I found this vegetable tortilla soup and the reviews were so good that I decided to give it a try. It turned out that the whole family loved the soup.  I changed the recipe to suit whatever I had in my kitchen.

Vegetable Tortilla Soup

adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 (1 pound) package frozen pepper and onion stir fry mix *
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 (14 ounce) can organic diced tomatoes
• 1 (6 oz.) can Contadina organic tomato paste
• 1 (4 ounce) cans chopped green chile peppers, drained*
• 2 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth
• 2 cups of water 
• 3/4 cup black beans, presoaked for 20 minutes to cut down the cooking time
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 package frozen roasted kernel corn*
• Some salsa hot sauce
• Home made tortilla chips
• 1 cup reduced fat Mexican four cheese blend
• 1 organic avocado - peeled, pitted and diced*
• Some cilantro, chopped

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the pepper and onion stir fry mix, garlic, and cumin, and cook 5 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Mix in the roasted kernel corn, cook for 2 minutes. 
2. Add in diced tomatoes, tomato paste and green chile peppers. Pour in the broth, black bean and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 30 minutes.
3. Serve in bowls over equal amounts of tortilla chips. Top with cheese and avocado.  Garnish with cilantro. 
4. Add some hot sauce if you like spicy hot food. 

Note:

*All these can be found at Trader Joe's.

1.  I only used 1 can of green chile peppers because I thought it would be too hot to use 3 cans as mentioned in the original recipe.  It wasn't hot at all and I had to add some salsa hot sauce to spice it up. 
2. I baked the tortilla chips and preferred to eat them with avocado and have soup at the same time. 
3. I do not have vegetable broth at home,so I used chicken broth. I added the black bean for protein and also because I wanted it to taste like chili soup. Either way, this is a very healthy and delicious soup.

Beef Noodle Soup

I made the family's favorite noodle soup last night for dinner. My friend, who taught me how to make this dish, used to own a restaurant just selling noodles.  This is her recipe:

Ingredients:

2 packages Beef Neck Bone or Oxtail
2 packages Beef balls
2 Cinnamon stick
3 Pickled Garlic
1 Bunch of Cilantro, separate roots and leaves
2 stalks of Celery
Noodles (Rice Stick Noodles)

Sauce：

1 tbsp Brown Sugar
Salt
Fish sauce
Dark soy sauce
Light soy sauce

Garnish mix:

Cilantro leaves, chopped
Green onion,chopped
Crushed peanuts
Dried chilie flakes

Steps:

1. Put the oxtails into boiling of water first, let cook for one minute, then drain the water.
2. Add a fresh pot of water into the pot with all the rest of the ingredients (Add cilantro root only)
3. Turn on high heat until it's boiling, then turn to low heat to cook for 2 hours.
4. Cook noodles according to the package instruction. I used rice stick noodles with this soup.
5. Scoop the soup and meats over a bowl of noodle.
6. Serve with bean sprouts,spinach or any vegetable.
7. Add garnish on top and mix well.
Note:
Adjust the soy sauces to preferred taste. Chili sauce goes well with it.

Tasty Vegetable Soup - 健康消脂湯 (Help indigestion and lose fat)

想必大家都在感恩节都吃了豐富的大餐，相信大家都想煮點帮助消減脂肪的湯來喝，这湯是我在看電視的時候學的，據說是可以帮助消減脂肪，降低胆固醇，降高血壓，最適合在過完節煮來喝.
(This soup is supposed to help indigestion after big meals, lower cholesterol and blood pressure).健康消脂湯 (Healthy Vegetable Soup)
Ingredients:

2 白囖蔔 (Daikon)
2 囖蔔葉 (Daikon leaves)
2 紅囖蔔 (Carrots)
2 牛蒡 (Burdock)
以上各一條，削皮切塊，( Peel and cut to pieces)
五，六個冬菇-( 5 to 6 Shitaki mushroom)

 Optional: ( it's more tasty when you add these)
半個蓮藕 ( half lotus root, sliced )
倆個合掌瓜  (2  Chayote - peel and cut to pieces)
三，四粒密棗 (3, 4 Dried prune)
一把生的花生 (Some raw peanuts)
倆片果皮 ( 2 dried orange peels)
一把核桃 ( some walnuts)

與一鍋水小火同煮一個半小時，加鹽即可上桌。
(Add all ingredients in full pot of water, turn heat on high until boiling, turn to simmer  for 1 hour and a half, Salt to taste when ready to serve.)

註： 這湯很清甜，但可能不適合寒底的人，如果喝了覺得不舒服就不要再喝了.
(If you do not feel well after drinking this soup, stop taking it. The vegetable soup might be too strong for you).