Vegetarian Wonton Soup

This is our first International Food Challenge and this month we are exploring Cantonese Cuisine, which comes from Guangdong Province in Southern China and it is one among the 8 great traditions of Chinese cuisine.

The basic cooking techniques of Cantonese cuisine includes roasting, stir-frying, sauteing, deep frying, stewing and steaming. Steaming and stir-frying are most commonly used to preserve the natural flavors of the ingredients. The most characteristic cooking methods of this cuisine are cooking in salt, cooking in wine, baking in a pan.

Saras @ Sara's Yummy Bites and Shobana @ Kitchen Secrets and Snippets selected 4 Cantonese recipes to try. I picked 2 dishes that I have always wanted to try -- Vegetarian Wonton Soup & Scallion Pancakes.

Wonton soup involves quite a few steps; making the filling, cooking the noodles and assembling. But the end result is very hearty and worth every minute of the time spent. I followed the recipe given to us to the 'T' and it came out yummy!! 

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Scallion Pancakes

This is the second dish that I made for the International Food Challenge. Scallion pancakes have been on my to-make list for a long time and when I saw them on the list of Cantonese dishes to try, I knew I had to make these. I found a recipe using whole wheat pastry flour in Whole Grains Baking by King Arthur flour and made them. They turned out great.

The dough for these pancakes is very sticky and that is how it is supposed to be to get nice and chewy pancakes. Recipe also requires quite a bit of oil, so don't attempt this recipe if you are on a low-fat diet or watching your calorie intake. But you need the oil to make the pancakes less sticky and easy to work with. 

I halved the recipe and made 3 pancakes. They are so addictive, that me and my husband ate them all in one sitting. The best part of the whole recipe is the dipping sauce; salty, sour, spicy and sweet.

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Indian Style Cappuccino

Blogging Marathon# 31: Week 4/ Day 3
Theme: Cooking BM# 31 Themes - Member's Choice/ Coffee Variations
Dish: Indian Style Cappuccino

I didn't plan to make Cappuccino for today's post. I'm not a big fan of coffee, even though I enjoy  an occasional latte or mocha from Starbucks. I don't like the bitterness that is associated with coffee and I end up adding whole lot of sugar. To avoid the unnecessary sugar intake, I pass on coffee and only indulge in it once in a while. 

I attended 'Vegan Donut' making class in ICE, New York yesterday and it was so much fun to working with the dough and making different flavored cake & raised donuts. Our instructor was Adam Sobel of the famous Vegan & Organic food truck Cinnamon Snail. He was informative, funny and very enthusiastic to teach the techniques and tips of vegan donut making. I came back home with a box full of goodies.

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Glowing Green Smoothie

Blogging Marathon# 31: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Moderator's Choice/ Healthy Smoothie
Dish: Green Glowing Smoothie

Day 2 of BM# 31 under 'Moderator's Choice' theme, I picked 'Healthy Smoothie'. We recently bought a new blender and I have been making smoothies quite often. They have come to our rescue when afternoon hunger pangs occurred.

Today's smoothie is super healthy. It is one of Dr.Oz's 5 beautifying smoothies. If you read the article, you will know that this smoothie has more 'gorgeous goods' than any other smoothie. That's because of the chock full of carotenoids found in Kale. Ingesting carotenoids (like the ones found in Kale) was associated with healthy looking skin and helps our tissues from oxidative stress and wrinkles.

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