Cantonese–style Wonton Noodle Soup

Giant Cantonese–style wonton noodle soup

I was really really craving wonton noodle soup. This is a comfort food for me when I was very young growing up in HK and it has been ages since I've had homemade ones. Frozen wontons are available in supermaket and Asian stores but I find them incomparable to the homemade ones.

T-Rex helped me wrapped these and some of them are pretty ginormous. heheheh.

I confess, it's been awhile since I wrapped any dumplings and I was never very proficient at it. So I watched a few youtube videos on how to fold them. We experimented on a variety of ways to wrap them. It's really up to you, as long as the filling stay inside, it's all good!

Speaking of filling, it definitely needs to have prawns, chunky bits of prawns, so there's some texture to it and not just dry and meatbally.

Ingredients:

• A package of wonton wrappers
• A dozen frozen prawns
• 500g mince pork
• Minced ginger
• Spring onion
• Coriander
• White pepper
• Chinese cooking wine
• Sesame oil
• Light soya sauce
• Dry thin egg noodles
• Choy Sum or any green veggie
• Wonton soup mix (yeah I know! Being super lazy, but this mix powder gives me the exactly flavour of the soup of my childhood memory)

Directions

• Defrost the frozen prawns and soak them in cold water and then chop each prawn into 3.
• Mix prawns with pork mince, herbs and the other seasoning, keep stirring until the mixture seems gooey (at least 5 mins).
• Now you're ready to wrap, I generally use about 1 tablespoon of filling per wrapper. Fold it up whichever way you prefer. I liked folding them in half in triangles and then folding the ends behind and pressing it in so they look kinda like tortellinis - which I've always thought of as Italian wontons.
• Get your water boiling in a pot and add the wontons, cook until they float - at least 10 minutes.
• At around the 5 minute mark, add in the noodle, veggie and soup mix.
• There you have it, yummy homemade wonton soup. I think I'll add some shitake mushrooms to my filling next time.

Slow-cooker Venture

Jamaican Stewed Peas before cooking

I do love my slow-cooker, especially during Winter. I often just chuck stuff in right before bedtime and wake up to an aromatic house. Honestly I think the smell wakes me up most of the time. LOL

So I've used my slow cooker over 4 times in the past week and a half, because my cooker is so big, I generally make a massive pot enough to feed 6 people - but there's only me. So I get sick of left overs really really fast. My friends and colleagues at work have been dragged into

tasters of my slowcooking venture. So far I have made Chinese Soups, Jamaican Stew and also an Italian dish.

Stewed Peas ah Ready!

Here's the Jamaican Stewed Peas recipe:
Ingredients

• 2 tins of Red Kidney Beans
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1 ham hock
• 1 pack of gravy beef/chuck steak
• 1 onion chopped
• 3 clove garlic chopped
• 1 tspn ginger
• bunch of spring onion
• bunch of thyme
• Chili (I added lots)
• sprinkle of allspice, cloves, cinnamon
• Salt & Pepper to taste

And basically you just chuck everything in the slow cooker and wake up to deliciousness! This is such a comfort food dish for me and always brings a smile to my face. The authentic Jamaican version would have pigs tail instead of hamhock and also spinners (little doughy fingers that I was too lazy with)

Before: Chicken Cacciatorie

And the other thing I made was Italian Chicken Caccaitore, though it was ok for me. I have friends who raved about this dish, but maybe I used too much liquid and it was too soupy. Even though I left the lid off 2 hours before end.

But the slow cooker is great for Chinese soups! OMG why haven't I been doing this before? I looove soups, my family used to nickname me "Tong Wun" aka Soup Bowl because I would just drink bowls and bowls of soup everytime at dinner. I made Ginseng Chicken soup and also Dried veg with pork bones, carrots and shitake mushroom soup and they were great!

Seafood Chowder

So another cold cold night and I saw a pretty picture of this Creamy Seafood Chowder in my cookbook last night so figured I'll give it shot.

Only difference is though, in the cookbook the chowder was served in a hallowed out bread roll, that just seem too fiddly for me.

I'm usually not a big fan of creamy soups, but this one was really really yum. I made a massive pot - as you do with these things. So plenty for lunch tomorrow

Creamy Seafood Chowder

• Garlic
• Onion
• Butter
• Bacon
• Carrots
• Celery
• Potato
• Parsley
• Seafood Mix
• Parmesan Cheese
• Cream
• Milk
• Stock
• Paprika
• Allspice
• Salt & Pepper

- Melt Butter, brown the garlic and onion

- Add the vegetables

- Add stock, simmer until soft and then blend

- Add corn, milk, seafood, cream and seasoning

- Simmer and then top with parsley and Parmesan cheese and serve

Bits and Pieces

Finally finally got my new sandwich press! Uber excited :D

So not satisfied with making just cheesy toast, I decide to put on my favourite Mexican snack, Quesadillas! Which was basically toasted tortillas with melted cheese and whatever toppings you like in the middle. I made it with mushrooms, roasted veg and also some refried beans.

For toppings, I made a guacamole and a pico de gallo. Which is basically just onions, tomato, chili, coriander, lime juice and salt.

May I say... Yummo! So simple and quick! Totally adding it to my weekly favourite snacks list:)

Alongside, I also made some curry fishballs, panfried dumplings and an African sweet potato peanut soup. I think the Africans really liked Peanuts or peanut butter!

For a lot of randomness and lack of consideration of how the various flavours would work together. It wasn't too bad, not too bad at all. But next time. I'll probably give it a bit more thought heh :)