Red Bean Soup with chunky Sweet Potatoes

There was this miserable packet of organic red bean tucked away in my larder for quite sometime. I still have 3 purple japanese sweet potatoes left in the basket which were shrinking at an incredible speed and so I thought it would be great to cook the red bean together with little chunks of the sweet potatoes. That way, I could get rid of both items at the same time. So I soaked the beans the night before and the following day, I came back home during lunch hour to put the red bean into the slow cooker so that I could have it for dinner. Of course I didn't deliberately come back just for that sole purpose. I just didn't want to have lunch in office, in my pathetic cubicle, facing the computer and having people swinging by my desk and asking me about work related matters or worse, passing the phone calls to me when I'm having my mouth full of food. Hey, it's my lunch hour. I need to get away from office and the only place I can find sanctuary in that 1 hour is my humble abode. Somehow, I had this profound need to rest and 'restore' myself. So off home I went.

The red bean was only ready to be served at half past nine. We had it as a dessert, as part of our dinner. I was only using the following ingredients to cook this lovely sweet dessert  :

• Organic red bean
• 6 pieces of pandan leaves
• 1 big piece of dried tangerine skin
• 10 dried longans
• 2 japanese sweet potatoes (because 1 had shrivelled beyond recognition) - cut into some chunks
• Rock sugar honey

I shared this with a few of my colleagues the following day coz Cousin Soo was too busy to pop over for collection. Not fated this time but I'm sure there'll be another time (soon).

Glutinuous Rice Ball (Tang Yuan)

I totally forgot all about this dessert which we made on the 15th day of chinese new year. Mom said if we were to really follow the chinese tradition, we best make this simple dessert and everyone just need to take one or two of the tang yuan (if you dislike the dessert). And with that, hubby just took 1 miserable pathetic piece of ball to show his cooperation. It's good I have red coloring in my baking box and thus we were able to have at least an auspicious color for the occasion. Bascially, the dessert requires just water, ginger (we threw in lots), sugar (we used molasses, thus the dark color), pandan leaves and the glutinuous rice ball.

Method :
1. Boil water with ginger and pandan leaves for at least 20 mins.
2. Turn fire to medium heat and add in the glutinuous rice balls.
3. When the balls surface up in the water, it means they are cooked. Then add in the sugar/molasses. Stir well and it's ready to be served.


My cooking tips : To make the rice ball, you knead the rice flour with water and roll into balls. Before you cook in the water, chill the balls in the fridge for about half an hour. This will prevent the balls from cracking too much in the boiling water.

Onde-onde (Ondeh-ondeh) Recipe

The last time I made this was during my varsity days. I was in my final year, sharing a room in the hostel with another roomate. I had a lot of time on my hands then because there were only 2 papers I was taking. The hostel has a strict rule of forbidding any form of cooking in the vincinity. With a rice cooker hidden in my cupboard, I secretly tried my hands on onde onde. Well.. that was donkey years ago. This is one of my favourite malay kuih but it is difficult to come across one that has a generous amount of melted gula melaka wrap in a soft pandan dough made of either rice flour or sweet potato. With my dad and mom around, I found an incredible good excuse to make this dessert. It was indeed satisfying to pop one after another of this kuih inside my mouth but I couldn't help wishing there were more gula melaka in it.  Apparently, I had difficulty stuffing the filling in the dough.

Ingredients:
250 g Glutinous Rice Flour
200 ml Pandan Juice
150 g Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar), finely chopped
100 g Grated Coconut
A Pinch Of Sea Salt

Method:
To make the pandan juice, blend 10 pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) with 220 ml water.


In a large bowl, combine the glutinous rice flour with Pandan juice and knead lightly. Pinch a small piece of the dough (about 40 g) and drop it into boiling water. When the dough rises up the surface, remove it with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water. Mix it back into the main dough and knead well to form smooth dough. Cover the dough and set aside for about 15 minutes.

Mix the grated coconut with a pinch of salt. Set aside.
Bring a pot of water to boil. Pinch a small piece of dough (about 15 g each) and flatten lightly. Fill the center of the dough with palm sugar. Roll them in your palm to form a smooth ball and cook the glutinous rice balls in the boiling water. When the rice balls float to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water.

Coat the rice balls with grated coconut and serve immediately.

My cooking tips : when you mix the 40g of hot ball dough (which you have boiled and cooked in the water) with the rest of the main dough, make sure you knead it well and knead it fast before it cools off. This will ensure the dough mixes and blend well with the rest of the dough.

Homemade Soya Bean Drink

Till today, I'm still enamored with my i-chef cook set. In case you're wondering which one, I'm referring to my i-chef bean paste maker. As I said earlier, hubby was appalled with the money I spent on this piece of drink maker but he commented that as long as I use it often, it will justify. He was betting his last dollar that I would cease using it in a month's time. Well, he of course,  lost the bet. The first and foremost reason why I bought this in the first place is because I want to make my own soya drink. I want to be able to control the amount of sugar I add in, the cleanliness in preparing it and also the type of soya bean to use. I've been making soya bean drink for countless time since day 1. To make this simple drink, I use the following :

• organic soya bean (you don't use much and it doesn't cost much)
• 4 small pandan leaves
• a little rice (optional)
• a little molasses or oligo fructose (liquid)

I used to just make it as a beverage for me to bring to office. In the recent days, I've begun to add in glutinuous rice balls since I'm a huge fan of this sweet dessert. Hubby on the other hand shun the 'balls'. He prefers the drink itself. Looks like I'm never gonna get  bored drinking this homemade soya bean simply because it just taste heavenly.

Black Glutinous Rice & Black Sesame Paste

I guess I didn't tell you about the bean paste maker I bought from i-chef. Yea.. bought that one day earlier than the steamer pot. I had wanted to make my own soya bean drink for a long long time and while looking for a steamer pot, I was introduced to this bean paste maker which is able to make soya bean and paste dessert. The best part is this maker not only blends the ingredients in it, it helps to boil them as well. The whole idea of this machine is to make one's life easier. So with this recipe, I soaked all the ingredients a day earlier : black glutionous rice, black sesame, a little white sesame and buckwheat. The following morning, I strained all the ingredients, poured them into the machine, fill up the water to the indicated level and pushed the start button. While the machine was doing its job of boiling, blending and cooking, I showered, brushed my teeth, did my face and changed to my working clothes. When I came down about 25 mins later, hey presto, the paste was done and that was my breakfast in office. Marvellous.