Green Tea Ice Cream

When I told my sister that I made green tea ice cream, she was excited. "How did you make ice cream? Do you have ice cream maker?" she asked. "Nope, I bought Vanilla ice cream and green tea powder." I replied. Hoho yeah that was a cheat. As a matter of fact, there are many Japanese restaurants that do them this way as well. The secret is to get good quality of green tea powder.


It is easy to make.
1. Soften vanilla ice cream
2. Add some green tea powder and mix it. I bought 350ml tub and I put 5 teaspoons of green tea powder.
3. Put back into ice cream tub and freeze it.


Green tea ice cream with red bean and shiratama.

Ichigo Daifuku

One of my favorite Japanese dessert is Ichigo Daifuku. Daifuku is sweet Japanese glutinious rice cake/ mochi. Ichigo means strawberry. Ichigo Daifuku contains strawberry wrapped in red bean paste.


Red bean paste is a common daifuku filling, however mashed red bean is fine too. The thing about red bean paste is that you have to find the right kind, Japanese vs Chinese. Make sure to get Japanese red bean paste as the canned chinese red bean paste is a little too wet and not suitable for the daifuku filling.


How to make the filling:


1. Place a piece of lint-free cloth and put a spoonful of red bean paste.
2. Flatten the paste with the same piece of cloth.
3. Add a strawberry (stem removed) on top.
4. Using the cloth, wrap the paste around strawberry.
Paste can be wrapped by hand too. But by using a piece of cloth, it can remove excessive water from the paste.

The dough recipe can be found here Kyoto Cooking Circle

Halloween

Halloween is a big event in US, celebrated by both adults and kids. Children go trick or treats, knocking on neighbours' doors collecting candies. Adults celebrate by having costume parties.

Treat bags. I packed 1 pumpkin marshmallow and 1 M&M packet/2 mini chocolates in a treat bag.


Children went from door to door, and also from one store to another store collecting candies while parents waited outside the store.


I went to NYC's Village Halloween Parade, which is the largest Halloween celebration in the US. The parade streched more than a mile, presented the night of every October 31st in NYC. It was reported that 2 million people gathered for the event. Unreal.

It was so crowded, it took us 10 minutes to get out of subway station. 20 minutes to find a good spot for 4 people.


The crowd


Some interesting costumes.


The parade. More photos of the parade here


This is hubby, it was scary.


There was a man dressed like this as if he was headless, took away his head from the neck.

Below are my some houses in the neighbourhood.

Scrambled eggs

Jon liked this breakfast on the roadtrip. He liked the idea of the baked bean in a seperate small bowl. He does not like the food to get "contaminated" with other food Duh.. less the eggs of course.. (messy eater).


This is my version of baked bean in seperate bowl :)


I made scrambled eggs for the first time. I did exactly what Gordon Ramsay did.

But mine seemed a bit funny. Anyway Jon said it was good, maybe he just wanted to please me.

Bea's Cafe

Bea's is a small cafe that serves homestyle breakfast (in New Hampshire). Great breakfast to start the day.

Egg and ham croissant with homemade fries.


Sunnyside up eggs. Underneath was homemade fries topped with bacon and cheese. Served with toast.

Bea's Cafe
Conway Marketplace
50 White Mountain Highway
Conway, NH 03818-4208
Tel: (603) 447-4900

My trip to New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. One of its 4 nicknames is "Switzerland of America" for its beautiful mountain scenery.

Having told that most of the trip will be in car, I didn't expect to enjoy it. I prepared a lot of sweets and mints to reduce the chance of getting motion sickness.


We went for mountail trail, walking along pathway that carpetted with colourful leaves and foliage. It was so cold near 2°C but everyone enjoyed it.


I love the colorful leaves.


This is the first time I enjoyed travelling in a car. Throughout the whole roadtrip, the drive was spectacular. View was always so beautiful as if we were driving through a canvas painting. We made a lot of stops, took loads of pictures and enjoyed the breathtaking views. Below are some of my favorite shots.




The only thing I didn't enjoy was the scenic train ride up to the mountain. It was a steam locomotive that produced large amount of smoke. The train consists of a coal burning locomotive pushing a single passenger car up the mountain, and descending the mountain by going backwards. The railway is 3 miles (4.8km) long. Each 3-mile ride burns one ton of coal and consumes 1,000 gallons(3800l) of water.


It was so jerky, way worst then the subway rides in NYC only slower. I did not enjoy as much as I would have liked to as I tend to feel dizzy from the "rocking" seat. So most of the time I sat straight and looked straight in front.

It snowed up in the mountain, the view was great, something I have never seen before.

Ate too much

We were invited by Jon's colleague for lunch over at his house. It was simply fantastic! They served way too many dishes for 4 heads. Growing up in a multi cultural environment, both Jon and I were familiar with a couple of the dishes, but to be honest, this was the first time we actually had an authentic traditional indian cuisine plus indian desserts!!

We were so full, it was so impossible to have dinner.


When it was dinner time, we decided to go to Chili's for some desserts. We had a look at the menu, and we saw RIBS!! Although still very full, but we could not resist ordering baby back ribs.


And of course we ordered dessert. Molten Chocolate Cake, warm chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling, topped with vanilla ice cream and crunchy chocolate shell. We both went home with unrecognised tummies which almost exploded.

Red Bean Daifuku

I saw nice 'Chinese version' of a red bean daifuku/ mochi in an Asian bakery. It was so pretty and very delicious-looking. I could not resist buying it. There were some pink powder scattered on top which made it looked like a juicy peach.


The way to make Daifuku skin is to flatten daifuku dough into a circle, wrap around prepared red bean ball and then gently pinch the edges to seal. I have seen daifuku made so perfectly whereby one cannot see the seal mark.

Back to the daifuku I bought, I flipped it, and was suprised to see how they wrap it.

Basically they flattened the dough into a square, and wrap the red bean like the way Japanese wraps bento box. This is a good idea to make daifuku. ~Easy Peazy~

Chocolate Cupcakes

I bought Lindt chocolates for baking cakes. But as the days go by, one by one.. they disappeared. Hubby would say "Can I have one please?" And the next day again, and again. I'd better start baking before they were all gone.


Cakes dough and lindt chocolate on top. The purpose of the chocolate is to create lava, melting chocolate in the centre of the cake.


Chocolate cupcakes. No icing because I am too lazy and it tastes so good without icing.


Look at the melting chocolate inside.

First Bento

I packed lunch for Jon and decided to decorate a bit and ended up making bento.

Food I used:
Egg omelette = blanket
Smoked Ham = top of blanket, flowers on blanket, pillow and cheek
Fish Ball = Heads and hands
Nori = Eyes and mouth


It looks a bit plain so I decided to add some hair.