John Wong Recipes

INGREDIENTS:
– Avocado oil
– Green onions (chopped)
– Garlic (slicked)
– Water for soup (about 6 cups)
– Chinese Mustard Greens (chopped)
– Wood ear fungus (hydrated)
– Mung bean (or sweet potato) noodles
– Dried tofu (hydrated)
– Tofu skin (sliced into thin strips)
– Cornstarch or flour
– Mushroom powder (or salt)
– Chicken (pulled roasted chicken, e.g. Safeway)
– Cilantro (chopped)

DIRECTIONS:
– Heat avocado oil in wok to high temp
– Sear green onions and garlic
– Add water to make soup
– Add chopped Chinese Mustard Greens
– Add wood ear fungus, rice noodles, tofu skin, and dried tofu
– Cover and simmer
– Stir some flour (or cornstarch) to thicken
– Add mushroom powder and/or salt and season to taste
– Take wok off burner, and pour into large serving bowl
– Add shredded chicken
– Sprinkle with chopped cilantro

Courtesy: Papa Liu

INGREDIENTS:
– Kale (1 bunch)
– Seasoning: .5 tsp soy sauce, .5 tsp mushroom powder, .5 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp olive oil

DIRECTIONS:
– Wash and de-stem kale
– Put kale in boiling water, and cook on high heat until right texture (~5 minutes)
– Put kale in pot of cold water to stop cooking, squeeze out kale by hand, forming a ball
– Cut the kale
– Toss in seasoning, to taste

Courtesy: Papa Liu

INGREDIENTS:
– Avocado oil
– Green onions (chopped)
– Garlic (chopped)
– 1/2 lb ground pork (for 4 people)
– Wood ear fungus
– Green beans (sliced)
– Salt
– Light soy sauce
– 13 spice seasoning
– Cornstarch
– Handmade noodles (or rice vermicelli noodles)

DIRECTIONS:
– Heat avocado oil to high temp
– Stir in green onions & garlic
– Stir in ground pork, add water to prevent sticking
– Stir in green beans & wood ear fungus
– Sprinkle in salt
– Sprinkle in light soy sauce
– Sprinkle in 13 spice seasoning
– Cover and simmer 5-10 minutes
– Stir some flour (or cornstarch) into 1/2 cup water, and add to thicken
– Take wok off burner
– Boil water, and add handmade noodles. Cook 4-5 minutes.

Serve stir fry green bean/pork over noodles (or rice)

For a party…

Costco:
Goat cheese soft 2 pack, Kirkland Pesto

PESTO CHEESE BALL

Mix one package of the goat cheese with approx. 4-5 TBl of Kirkland Pesto. You may need a little more or less, add a little at a time to get the flavor you want.
Form into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap for an hour and refrigerate. You can top with extra pesto to serve or not.

This got RAVE reviews tonight. Served with my almond cracker recipe in Files.

My favorite way — we’ll call it the best way — to make iced tea is a cold-brew method. It’s the easiest way to make tea in the world. You don’t even need to know how to boil water.

All you do is throw some tea leaves in a pitcher or jar at bedtime, fill it full of tap water, and throw it in the fridge. Use about 2 tablespoons of tea per half gallon of water. Put the leaves in a strainer or a filter bag. In the morning, voila, you have a whole pitcher full of iced tea.

You never even heat the water. It extracts the flavor over the course of the evening while you’re sleeping, and in the morning you have beautiful iced tea.

An ice-brewed tea will be a little bit softer. It will be a little bit gentler. It comes out so beautifully smooth. It has no edge to it whatsoever.

You can get more of an edge if you like an edge. If you like astringency, brew hot tea. If you like a really strong tea with a little bit of a bite, I would choose a ceylon tea or an Indian tea. Do it with a hot brew method; then cool it down afterward.

But I’ll tell you, the cold brew is what got my wife off of Diet Pepsi every morning as she left for work. She’d just make a pitcher of iced tea at night.

This method works for all teas. Green teas are tough to brew for iced tea with hot water because it’s so easy to turn green teas bitter with water that’s too hot. That’s why they’re perfect for the cold-brew method.

It will keep easily 3 to 4 days.