Summer is the time to enjoy a cup of iced coffee. My kids’ favourite is Tim Horton’s Iced Capp Supreme. However, I would prefer a McD’s ice coffee simply for the lesser calories. Here is a comparison of nutritional value for a small serving of both of them:

Tim Horton’s Iced Capp Supreme
Calories: 250
Fat: 11g
Saturated fat: 6g
Trans fat: 0.4g
Cholesterol: 45mg
Sodium: 50mg
Sugar: 33g

McDonald’s Iced Coffee
Calories: 110g
Fat: 6g
Saturated fat: 3.5g
Trans fat: 0.2g
Cholesterol: 20mg
Sodium: 35mg
Sugar: 15g

We bought this Kona Mocha Blended Iced Coffee Mix from Costco for about $8. It has become one of Nanzaro’s favourite home made drink in summer.

This is a fairly good iced blended coffee which has the creaminess that resembles Tim Horton’s Iced Capp.

Comparatively, it’s nutritional values is between McD’s Iced Coffee and Tim Horton’s Iced Capp Supreme.  The only thing I’m concerned about this product is the sodium is quite high, not good for people with hyper tension.

Making the Kona Mocha Blended Ice Coffee is simple.  You just need a blender, some ice and milk.

Nanzaro will always volunteer to make it as he always gets a cup for himself and share the other cup with his brother or father and leave the clean up for me :-(.

Here is the finished product, a creamy ice coffee for a hot summer day.  You can make 17 servings of 473ml blender drinks from the tin of 1.36kg (48oz) of Kona Mocha Blended Ice Coffee Mix.  That average to 25cents per cup serving, way much cheaper than Tim Horton’s small Iced Capp ($2.49)or McD’s small Iced Coffee ($1.39).

Polly, WB and I brought our kids to the Steveston Park for a picnic. It is the time of the year where kids get to enjoy the outdoor life. Steveston Park had a new water park installed last year. This is the first time I visited this waterpark.

The water park is very popular with young kids.  Of course there are also moms with very young toddlers.  Nanzaro came with us to the park but he decided to spend time in the library as he is a teenager now.  He hates it when people call him a kid.

Besides the water park, there is also the playground for kids to swing, climb, slide and all.  Kids nowadays are very lucky to have such facilities provided free for them.

Polly also brought along some washable paints for the kids to do some painting.  Well, someone forgot the brushes but hand painting seemed to be more fun.

We brought along some snacks to munch because we intended to go out for lunch later.  Here are some of snacks we had.

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Click on the link below for more photos of the snacks.
continue reading "Snacks"

Polly recommended me this Malaysian traditional Prawn Noodle Paste.  Polly told me that when she tasted it, Nanzaro came to her mind as she remembered Nanzaro enjoys spicy food a lot.

Prepackage mixes and paste makes life easier for those who miss their hometown food.  You don’t have to buy individual spices and herbs to grind or pound them yourself.  But using such paste may have short fall like you can’t control the amount of salt in them.

I find that the amount of salt in this paste is very high.  I would not recommend consuming this too often.

The soup tastes pretty good, very rich in prawn flavour.  I had prawns and fried tofu puff to go with the prawn noodle because originally I intended to make curry laksa.  The traditional prawn noodle should have garnishes like poached chicken meat slices or pork slices, choy sum, bean sprout, hard boiled egg and prawns.

Click on the link below for the instructions.

continue reading "Prawn Noodle Paste"

Ben picked up this ready to serve Sambal Nasi Lemak from Smart & Save to try out.  We simply love spicy food and nasi lemak (rice cooked with coconut milk) is very simple to prepare.

This package costs around $2 plus and it serves 4 to 6 persons as printed on the package.  All you need to do is to heat up the sauce and it’s ready to eat.  This sauce is great as condiment for curry laksa and prawn noodle.

The nutritional value indicates the sodium is on the high side which I’m always on the look out.  Nowadays, processed food  usually has high fat and sodium that one must be aware of.  It’s not only the calories that we have to watch out for.

I usually don’t serve the sambal on itself.  I will cook the sambal with some caramelize onion which add sweetness and nutrition to the sambal.

The basic condiments for nasi lemak are hard boiled eggs, fried anchovies, roasted peanuts and cucumber slices.  You may also serves the nasi lemak with some curry chicken or sambal prawns or squid.

I serve mine with garlic sausage and stir fried cabbage because I’m trying to clear my fridge of any perishable food as my vacation is just a few days away.

This post had been lying on my draft folder for ages.  It must had been 3-4 months already.  I am digging up all these old posts which I neglected to blog earlier because, well, I need to stock up on posts before we leave for our 2 week vacation next week.  I want to make sure you all have something to read everyday … LOL!

It was a spring weekend when we decided to go to the Stanley Park for a morning walk.  It had been ages since we were there.

Of all the urban parks in the world, Stanley Park surely must rank as one of the most beautiful in the world.  All visitors to Vancouver MUST make a visit to this park and take a picture of downtown from here.  I always tell visitors that their visit is not complete if they did not take a picture from here.

We woke up real early and brought along some Chinese buns to eat at the park.  We bought the buns from the Osaka Supermarket the day before.  For sheer variety and freshness, not many places can beat Osaka.  (Osaka is located in the Yaohan Mall along No 3 Road in Richmond).

Their Pineapple Bun is really good.  Known as Bo Lo Bau in Cantonese, this is one of the most popular Cantonese pastry and is available in almost any Cantonese bakery.  Suanne makes it at home but had never quite achieved the same level of quality (or even look!) as those we bought from the stores.  Here is the recipe for those who are interested.

The one above is good.  Osaka called it Cake Roll with Dried Pork.  It is a fluffy cake with cream and pork floss.  It gives a very delicate balance of sweetness from the cream and a tinge of saltiness from the pork floss.

I still have not quite figured out why white people can’t stand the thought of eating pork floss.  LOL!  It is one of the best topping and fillings that one can use on almost anything (rice, noodles, pastry, sandwiches or even eaten by itself).  One theory is that it looks like fur, while others says that the name, pork floss, is absolutely gross.

Suanne made it once at home … it was a very laborious process.  Here is the recipe if you want to know how it is made.  We normally buy pork floss from the stores.

Tim Horton’s coffee is our favourite.  We like it over Starbucks anytime.  We always had the same … “double double”.  For those who are not familiar with Tim Hortons, double-double is Timmy Ho speak for two sugar and two cream.

We had a good walk around the park and covered 14 kilometers the whole morning.  Enjoy the rest of the pictures we took below.

I bought this Gourmantra Indian meal kit from Costco for $9.89.  Ben and my kids love Indian food.  The gravy goes well with steamed rice.  Ben likes it more spicy though while Arkensen prefers a milder curry.  How can I add more heat to the curry other than adding chili flakes to it as I usually do?  Will adding green chilies like those on the box makes the dish more spicy hot?

It consists of 3 individual meal kit, 2 butter chicken and 1 chicken korma.  In Save On Foods, each individual meal kit costs $4.99.

All you need is one of the Gourmantra Indian meal kit, some butter, 500g of boneless chicken breast or thigh (I prefer the dark meat) and 200ml of half and half or yogurt, depend on which kit you are using.

The Gourmantra meal kit comes with basmati rice, garlic and ginger puree, tomato puree and some spices blend..  All you need to do is to cook the rice as per the instruction on the box.  As for the chicken dish, the general procedure is:

• melt the butter,
• saute the ginger and garlic puree until fragrant,
• add the chicken and cook for few minutes until no longer pink,
• add the tomato puree and some water and cook for few more minutes,
• stir in the spice blend and cream and simmer on low heat for another few minutes,
• and lastly, remove from heat to stand for few minutes for the gravy to thicken.

Here you are, a scrumptious Indian meal for your family.  I usually serve it with some Chinese green stir-fry.

Karen brought a couple of her vinegar and oil for us to taste as she did not have to prepare much for the community meal the next day. Basically, she’ll made the Chili in Indian Sauce for the community meal entree and salad for the sides. We helped Karen to wash and chop two big boxes of greens to be used for salad the next day. The food bank also donated two large platters of cookies for the community meal and that takes care of the dessert.

Karen brought a couple of oil and vinegar for us to taste and she also shared a few vinagrette dressing recipes with us. Here are what we tasted:

A sherry vinegar which has quite a strong sour taste. A lemon infused olive oil which has a very nice lemon flavour. A balsamic vinegar which is mellow and smooth, not too sour. The grape seed oil does not have any flavour in it which is very good for cooking because of its neutral taste.

We also compares the oil with an ordinary olive. We did the tasting with some bread. Bing a typical Chinese who do not serve salad at home, I have very little knowledge of vinegar and oil. When I walk into a gourmet store with racks of vinegar and oil, I’m just lost. Anyway, it is a good experience to taste some of these vinegar and oil which I have never used before. So, what is your favourite vinegar and oil?

continue reading "Vinegar and Oil Tasting"

Vincent gave me this pack of Chinese Herbal Soup to try. He recommended this to me as he said that it’s a simple soup to make and it tastes quite nice.

All you need is to add 3 liters (6 bowls) of water and a whole chicken, cut into four pieces. Bring the water to a boil and add the chicken and the contents of the soup pack and simmer on low heat for 2 to 2.5 hours.

The soup has slight hint of abalone and chinese herbs flavour. Its just the kind of soup we like, clear and mild in flavour. Vincent, thank you for recommending this soup to us.

I picked up this pack of Go Cha Dried Thin Noodle from Smart and Save in Lansdowne Mall. The noodle, Min Sin (in Cantonese) reminds me of my childhood days. Whenever I’m sick, my late grandma or my late mom will make me “Min Sin”. It is a very soft noodle and I believe its gentle to your digestive system. That’s why it’s given to sick people.

I cant recall exactly how much this pack of noodle cost but its around $3. This pack of noodle is enough to serve my family of four.

Inside the package, you’ll find a pack of dried thin noodle, a pack of tapioca starch, a spice pack and a hot chili pack.

The instructions to make the noodle is very simple. Bring 2000 cc of water to a boil and add in the noodle, the spice pack and the hot chili oil and boil for 3 minutes.

Dissolve the tapioca starch with some cold water and add into the boiling noodles to thicken the sauce. You may also add some cooked oysters or any other cooked meat of your preference at this point.

I served the noodle with some thinly sliced omelette and garnished with some cilantro. This is certainly a simple comfort food.

I had heard a long time about this snack which is very popular in Australia. I came across this at the Real Canadian Superstore some weeks ago. I would have missed seeing this if not because the Superstore placed a big signage of it at the end-cap.

Tim Tam is basically a chocolate biscuit. It is made of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filing and coated with a layer of chocolate.

It’s amazing how a simple chocolate biscuit became such a popular snack in Australia. I think it largely because of the way Tim Tams are supposed to be eaten. I had been told that the right way to eat Tim Tam is to bite off two corners of the biscuit and then use it like a drinking straw to suck up hot chocolates.

You got to suck it really hard and fast as the insides does melt away really fast and makes the biscuit collapse. My boys always have a hot chocolate before they sleep and they love Tim Tams.

Any Aussie reader on this blog? Any tips on how best to eat Tim Tam? I am sure there are ways to prevent this biscuit from falling apart so fast.