koko's corner

Topped with an air fryer  chicken thigh.

I know that's not traditional but that turned the pancake into dinner for me. 

To make your own pancake you'll need 2 1/2 to 3 cups of vegetables. Whatever you have in your fridge will do. 
I had zucchini, celery, carrot, onion, sweet potato, and scallions. The recipe calls for jalapeño pepper, I didn't have one but I most always have flame roasted green chiles on hand so I used some of that. You'll also need some flour and water. 

You are going to be doing a lot of slicing, so while you're at it, you might as well make the dipping sauce. 

For the dipping sauce, you'll need soy sauce, white vinegar, red pepper flakes, and sesame seeds. 

Mix all the sliced vegetables and equal amounts of flour and water. Heat a non-stick pan with a bit of oil. 

Add the batter to the skillet and spread it out evenly. Cook until the bottom is crunchy and golden brown. Turn or flip the pancake over and cook until crunchy and golden brown on the other side.  Oh! I wish you could have seen my flipping skills, I did great! 

Not only is this a delicious way to use up the odds and ends of vegetables, but it's also a lot of fun to make. 

And that's that!

Tomato Beef, one of my all-time favorite Chinese dishes. 
To quote the Cookbook:
"Thick wedges of tomato cook with oyster flavored sauce and beef that has been stir-fried with ginger to make a flavorful and delicious sauce to serve over rice. Oddly enough, this is amazingly good even when tomatoes are not in season.

Just add some rice, a salad and a nice glass of red and you'll be happy. 

Gather up some soy sauce, sesame oil, rice cooking wine, cornstarch, baking soda, ginger, onion, tomatoes and beef. 
If you don't have access to rice cooking wine, dry sherry or dry white wine are good substitutes. 


I had a top sirloin steak so I used that, cut it into slices, then into strips. Add the strips to a bowl and sprinkle with the baking soda. 
Then, mix up the soy sauce, sesame oil, cooking wine, and corn starch, and add it to the meat. 


While the meat is marinating, time to make the stir-fry sauce. You'll need the ginger you sliced and some oyster sauce. 
The recipe doesn't call for onion other than the scallions added at the end, but I always add about 1/4 - 1/2 an onion, thinly sliced, and stir-fry that with the slices of ginger. Add the meat, searing well then remove the meat mixture and set aside. 


In the same skillet add the tomatoes, I only had cherry tomatoes so I used them, and cook until they begin to soften. I don't add the sugar the recipe calls for. Add the oyster sauce and water, cover, and cook for a couple of minutes or until the tomatoes are limp. 
Add the beef and any juices that have accumulated back to the skillet, and the scallions and stir-fry for about 1 more minute. 

I've also been known to add veggies to this, but honestly, I prefer it just as it is. 

Enjoy!

And that's that!

I bought the cookbook Retro Recipes from the ’50s and ’60s. My nieces Laurie, Ge and I decided to throw a 50’s themed dinner party. 
We got together to choose which recipes we wanted to make, that in itself was a lot of fun. My niece Laurie chose to make Salisbury steak and green bean casserole, Ge chose chicken and wild rice, and rice crispy treats. I chose to make rumaki, meatballs in grape jelly and strawberry pretzel salad.

The dish in the foreground is the Salisbury steak, then the chicken with rice Ge made, she's becoming quite the cook.  They were both so good. They are on my "I want to make this" list and I'm sure I will soon. 
,
I quickly remembered why I don't make rumaki very often. They are a pain in the neck to make, they are slippery little devils. 
To the right of the rumaki is the pretzel strawberry salad, it was delicious, how can you go wrong with salty, sweet and crunchy. 

No '50s party is complete without the obligatory green bean casserole and meatballs in grape jelly. Laurie was thoughtful enough to use almond milk in the recipe knowing my "issues" with dairy, she even used fresh green beans, what a gal. 

I don’t even want to talk about the meatballs. The recipe in the cookbook didn’t look right to me, I thought the last time I made the meatballs in grape jelly sauce (a hundred or so years ago) it was made with the grape jelly and chili sauce, this recipe called for the jelly and BBQ sauce.
I didn’t do my due diligence and search for what I thought was right but followed the recipe. All you could taste was the BBQ sauce, the jelly was totally lost in there, so I added more jelly, at least it toned down the BBQ sauce a little. They were still very good, but not what they are supposed to be. I’ll post the “real” recipe not the one from the cookbook.

I'm sure they had lumpia in the Philippines in the '50s. We are a multi-cultural family ya' know. 

Served buffet style, then we dined Al fresco on the patio. 

No one could start eating until we all took pictures of the food. 
That's Tom, when his daughter saw him dancing she laughed so hard I thought she was going to wet her pants. We all did a lot of dancing, not as well as we did years ago, but fun anyway. 

Here are the recipes. 
Print No peek chicken and wild rice
Print Salisbury steak
Print Rumaki
Print Strawberry Pretzel Salad
The real Meatballs in grape jelly sauce
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/chili-and-jelly-meatballs/

And that's that!

Dang, does this look wonderful or what. It has a really nice level of spice and the ratio of the soy sauce and sesame oil is perfect, one doesn't overtake the other. 
Don't overcook the zucchini, keep it a bit on the al-dente side because the recipe doesn't have a crunchy element.  If you want to add one I think bamboo shoots or celery would be a great crunchy addition. 

First I want to tell you about one of my kitchen staples. It resides on the top shelf of the refrigerator door, within easy reach. This one happens to be the Ginger Garlic Paste, I also have a smaller jar of just garlic paste. I prefer to use fresh garlic in most cases but the paste is my go-to for stir-frys and curries. 

 I think it's one of the best spicy sauces I've used in a long time. Of course, you can kick it up a notch or tame it down according to your spice tolerance. 
The recipe calls one tablespoon of grated ginger, I substituted an equal amount of the ginger-garlic paste. 

After you stir-fry the pork, then the zucchini separately throw them back together and douse with the sauce. 
I like more sauce than the recipes call for, so I normally double the recipe. In this case, you definitely should, even doubling it there was "just enough".

The sauce would be perfect over any Asian noodle you could think of. I'm using it to make a cold spicy noodle salad to go with dinner tonight, Mmmmm

And that's that!