Homemade "pocky" - Butter milk biscuit sticks

This is an easy snack you can make in 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

Cake flour 80 g
Unsalted butter (soften) 40 g
Sweetened condensed milk 40 g
Dry whole milk powder 20 g

This makes about 24 of 5" sticks.
Material cost: approx $1.36 (see post - Economics of home cooking)

Equipment:

Conventional Oven, Mixing Bowl, Baking Sheet, Kitchen Scale, Pastry Board, Pastry Rolling Pin, Knife

Steps:

• Set oven to 350°F. Let it preheat.
• In a small bowl, mix all ingredients. Use fork or spatula. Do not knead too much.

• Roll out to a sheet of about 1/4 inch.cut out strips.

• Lay the strips on a cookie sheet. 
  

• When oven is ready, put in tray to bake for 10 minute.
• Take out and cool down.

My daughter said this is the best thing I ever baked. ****Embarrassing****

Sweet Potato Pumpkin

This is a beautiful appetizer/desert to bring to Halloween party.

Ingredients:

1. Sweet potato - 4 medium size. About 4 cups after steaming
2. Glutinous rice flour （糯米粉） - 2 1/2 cup
3. Rice flour （粘米粉）- 1 3/4 cup
4. Sugar - 3/4 cup
5. Chocolate  (for pumpkin stem) - 2 mini Hershey bars
6. Optional: Kool-aid blue drink powder or blue food color (use to make green leaf.) - 1 pack
7. Optional: Purple-yam or red bean paste filling

This makes about 40-50 pumpkins.

Note the amount of rice flour and Glutinous rice flour varies because the steamed potato may have different moisture. The amount of sugar also depends on how sweet your potato is and your sweet tooth.
Material cost: approx $6.70 (Not include filling) (see post - Economics of home cooking)

Equipment:

Steamer, Measuring cup, Mixing bowl, Pastry board, Pastry Rolling Pin, Dinner knife, Spatula

Steps:

1. Steam the sweet potatoes and peel off the skin. Put in a bowl and mash it until there are no more lumps.

2. Stir in sugar. Add rice flour and glutinous rice flour gradually, all the while mixing. Continue until the dough doesn't stick to your hands.  

3. Separate the dough and roll into balls (approx 1 - 1.5" diameter).

4. Melt the chocolate in microwave. Add some dough to knead it into brown dough for the pumpkin stem. Knead in some more rice flour if it is too sticky. Make small pumpkin stems.

5. Place each sweet potato dough on palm, use back of an dinner knife to impress the pumpkin strips.

6. Take a stem and place in on the ball, use thumb and index finger to push the stem into the ball. That will flat the ball some to make it more like a pumpkin.

7. Make sure the steamer water is boiling, then place the pumpkins in steamer.  Cover the steamer.

8. Steam for 10 minutes and take them out to cool off.  Put the pumpkins in a sealed food container to prevent them from getting dried. 

Options:

1. To add filling, just reduce your pumpkin dough ball in half. Use the same amount filling, wrap the filling in the dough. Follow the same steps above to engrave and steam the pumpkins.

2.  To make green leaf, add the blue food color or blue Kool-Aid drink powder in the sweet potato dough (Yellow+Blue = Green). Roll the dough flat, and use knife to carve out the shape of a leaf. Place it on the pumpkin for decoration. 

Happy Halloween!

My first cookbook

When I was a college student, my favorite restaurant was McDonald (yes, Super Size it!), my common dinner was instant noodle. When I throw in an egg and some vegetable into the noodle, that was called gourmet dinner. On Saturday night, I joined the college worship night because they provided catered dinner. Food and music - that was the treat of the week.

On my 21st birthday, my friend Saurin gave me a cook book as present. It is a beautiful book filled with photographs. My mouth was watering flipping through the pages. As a recent immigrant from China to Canada, my English was limited. I had never seen an oven in China, nor heard of cream of tartar. What is the tsp vs. TBSP anyway? It was fascinating to see how to measure, mix, bake, and decorate cakes and cookies. It was overwhelming. Although I did not get much chance to practice then, I consider that my first introductory to baking. I still have the book on my bookshelf. I should try more of those recipes.