Cabbage & Straw Mushroom Stir Fry

Very often, I try to make sure we have some vegetables in our meal. Sometimes, it's incorporated in the meat dish, other times it's a simple vegetable stir fry. 

Here's a recipe for a easy cabbage stir fry. If you are not a big fan of mushrooms, feel free to omit it. 

CABBAGE & STRAW MUSHROOM STIR FRY RECIPE
*Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• 1/2 Small Cabbage (About 9 Oz), Shredded
• 4 Oz Canned Straw Mushrooms, Quartered
• 1 Clove Garlic, Minced
• 1 Shallot, Minced
• 2 Tsp Oyster Sauce
• 2 Tsp Oil
• 2 Tbsp Water

Method

In a wok, heat oil over medium high heat. Stir fry garlic and shallot until slightly brown. Add mushroom and stir fry for about 30 seconds. Add cabbage and oyster sauce. Stir fry for about 1 minute, add water and let cabbage cook until tender. Serve immediately with warm rice.

Enjoy!

Simply June 

Sweet Crust Pastry - A Paula Deen Recipe

I recently found an easy sweet crust pastry as a base for fruit tarts. This awesome recipe by Paula Deen is super easy and delicious! With only 3 ingredients and less than 30 minutes, I was able to make delicious pastry crust. All I needed to do after that is fill it with pastry cream, or in my case instant jello pudding and some fruits. 

The crust recipe is for a 12" tart pan. If you're using smaller/different tart pans like I did, you will have some leftovers dough for perhaps individual tart pans.

Let your imagination and your creativity run wild. Adorn the tart with your favorite fruits or seasonal fruit. I like the look of berries on the fruit, and the slight tartness from the berries compliment well with the sweet vanilla pudding. Here's the recipe for the sweet crust pastry only. I'll include a complete recipe for a fresh fruit tart in another post. Paula Deen's original fruit tart recipe (where I abstracted the crust recipe from) can be found HERE.

PAULA DEEN'S SWEET CRUST RECIPE

*For a 12" inch tart pan

Ingredients

• 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
• 1-1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 1-1/2 Sticks Unsalted Butter, Softened & Sliced

Method

Preheat oven to 350F.  In a food processor, combine powdered sugar, flour and butter and process until the mixture forms a ball. With your fingers, press the dough into a 12" tart pan with a removable bottom, taking care to push the crust into the indentations in the sides. Pat until the crust is even. Bake for 15-20 minutes until slightly browned. Set aside to cool and fill with your choice of cream and fruits.

June's Notes: Alternatively, you can just use your hands to mix the powdered sugar, flour and butter. That's what I did since my food processor wasn't big enough to process the dough. It works perfectly, and I've already used the recipe 2 separate times and have gotten rave reviews on them =)

Simply June 

Trader Joe's Mushroom and Herb Risotto

I'm super happy that there's a Trader Joe's very near me. I'm a fan of Trader Joe's prepared food and produce and found that the items are not quite reasonably priced. In fact some items at Trader Joe's are cheaper than the other grocery store I frequent. So, I buy few things that I know is cheap (or delicious) at TJ, and others at the other place.  I love their selection of international cuisine some pretty good, and some just ok.

Anyway, being a sucker for Italian food and mushrooms, I had to get this box of Mushroom & Herb Risotto I saw at TJ @ $1.99. Everything is prepackaged (rice and seasoning) and all I needed to do is add the oil and water. I had expected the rice to be par boiled for shorter cooking time, but it's not. So, the cooking time took a bit longer than I expected for this risotto. There were good amount of dried mushrooms, but of course like all pre-packaged food... the picture on the box is always better than the end result! And in this case, it's quite true... even though there were lots of dried mushrooms, the picture on the box looked more tempting.

I cooked the risotto per the instruction on the box but added a splash of wine and some chicken broth to cook the risotto. I forgot, but I think I might have to add a little more water than instructed to get the risotto in the consistency I wanted. And I couldn't help but finish it off with a drizzle of truffle oil. The taste of the risotto before my addition of truffle oil was pretty good; not too salty and had good amount of seasoning for a $2 product. At least this TJ product was better than my recent mushroom & herb risotto purchase which cost me about $3 and tasted very odd. I think I would get this again in the future....it's the perfect serving for 2 people!

PS: This is my personal review and I'm not affiliated with Trader Joe's for this product review.

Simply June 

MIL's Garlic & Goji Chicken

When my MIL was here, she cooked up this delicious chinese style braised chicken with spices, garlic and goji berries. I've never had this before and thought it was really good and the big plus; very easy to cook. I don't have her exact recipe but I knew what went into that pot of braised chicken.  So, a couple weeks after the inlaws flew back home, I decided to replicate her dish.

In this recipe, I added a little more goji berries (wolf berries) than my MIL did...since the Chinese believe that Goji Berries are good for you. I found a link here that gives you the benefits of these red berries. Here's the recipe to this very simple Garlic & Goji Chicken dish.

GARLIC & GOJI BERRY CHICKEN RECIPE
*Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• 4 Chicken Thighs, Cut into 3-4 pieces
• 1-1/2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
• 1 Tbsp Rice Wine
• 2 Tbsp (dried) Goji Berries/Wolfberries
• 8 Cloves Garlic, Skin on & smashed
• 2-3 Inch Cinnamon Stick
• 4 Star Anise
• 2 Cups Water
• 1 Tbsp Oil

Method

In a medium pot, heat 1 tbsp of oil over medium heat. Add garlic, star anise and cinnamon stick and stir fry until fragrant. Add chicken, turn heat to medium high and stir fry for 1-2 minutes. Add soy sauce, rice wine, goji berries and water. Reduce heat to medium. Cover the chicken and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove the "white scum" and as much oil layer as possible. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and continue cooking for another 20-25 minutes. The chicken will be very tender by then.

Serve immediately with some steamed white rice.

Simply June