pasta love

pasta love

woah first off, happy 2011! its been a crazy year of transition, change and in my case personally frustration. I think I can speak for both of us by saying that we welcome some stability and new surroundings this coming year. Its gonna be a big year, and we wish you all well.

Pasta! we bought a pasta maker! and instead of rolling it all out by hand, we've got a nice manual crank to do the job. $20! what a deal! I'm still in love with this thing, and here are some recent creations. We've made ravioli filled with lobster, buttercup squash, mushroom+ricotta as well as linguini. Sure it does take up time, but its a great way to socialize while cooking together with family and friends. And the texture and taste is incomparable!


makign the pasta dough, we've used this recipe. we found semolina (durum) flour at bulk barn, although most large grocery stores should carry it also.


rolling the dough out is a lot harder than you'd think, without a pasta maker.


we made our filling, and portioned it off. having random ravioli shapes adds personality =]


we seal off the edge with the edges of our forks


and voila! mushroom ravioli with a sundried tomato sauce.


and one out-of-focus photo of our ricotta-squash linguine topped with pea shoots and panchetta.

cooking for our family

cooking for our family

well technically its my family, but may pretty much is like family at the Li house. I dont really know why but we decided to cook dinner for the family and it was definately a conscious decision to make it a chinese dinner, since that's my mom's preference, always. she's a lot pickier when it comes to western food, so i'd rather not take a chance.


so we decided to make things we know we can make. no risks, no gambles. if you have a chance to cook in momma Li's kitchen, you cannot take any chances. haha. here we've started to marinate the chicken wings with chopped garlic, green onion, ginger, soya sauce and honey. Following the short marinade, we coat with panko flakes to soak up the flavours and crisp up in the oven.


may is cutting the long string green beans to make her signature dish. pan fried together with ground pork and chili bean sauce, this is a classic dish and hands down, her favourite to make and to eat.


in addition to those two dishes, we had other dishes too of course 1) a crispy shrimp dish with bits of garlic, chili, green onion. 2) a spicy mushroom tofu stirfry 3) classic stewed tomato with scrambled egg.


here's the string bean and pork dish up close


and here's the crispy chicken wings


and arguably the best part, may made some awesome cookies. we've actually made them again this weekend too.. they are sooooo gooooood. recipe here

big baked rice

big baked rice

so in chinese.. it translates out to Portugese style chicken baked rice. Its a classic favourite at Hong Kong style cafe joints and my brother and I gave it a try.





i referenced Sunflower's Food Galore's recipe to get an idea, and i suspect if you have the combination of curry and coconut milk for the sauce you can't go very wrong with this dish. It turned out great! very tasty, not too salty or spicy but still very flavourful and not too rich. We cut up chunks of carrots, tomatoes, potatoes and onion and even added black olives. Chicken and shrimp round out this dish and of course fried rice underneath! This is a classic dish of Macau which is adjacent to Hong Kong in China. Macau was a colony of Portugal, hence the influence in this dish.

And yes, this is on list of things to make with May

eating like royalty

eating like royalty

in terms of chinese food.. buying groceries, eating out. I am completely spoiled in Markham. First of which, my mom's cooking.. you cannot beat. I'll never be able to cook chinese food as good as my mom.. so i dont even bother trying.



I know some might cringe looking at this photo, but seeing fresh crabs and their insides is not a big deal to me. All i see is yummyness. i do take the time to savour and appreciate what i'm eating. A new grocery store opened up (Foody Mart) and they had crazy opening sales so my mom went nuts and bought all kinds of yummy groceries. yes there's crab and lobster. yes we eat like emperors. Always have.. we're extremely lucky like that. also, there are veggies in this meal.. i just cut it out of the photo.. haha



A new grocery store opened up (Foody Mart) and they had crazy sales so my mom went nuts and bought all kinds of yummy groceries. yes we eat like emperors. Always have.. we're extremely lucky like that. also, there are veggies in this meal.. i just cut it out of the photo.. haha



And now we've found a new restaurant to eat at... in PeachTree plaza. 6 dishes for $58 i think.. and wow.. what a deal! the food is top notch.. the portions are huge.. and the important thing for me.. is the "wok hey" which translates in chinese to the "wok's air" basically describing a flavour from the wok, the char, the aroma. Kind of like the element that char gives you on a bbq grill.

May's had many meals with my parents.. and i'm sure this post doesn't suprise her.. and only makes her jealous. but whatever! she's in Rome!