Red Bean (Adzuki) Quinoa Muffins

Sometimes I wonder how I've developed a sense of entitlement in various aspects of my life. For example, I think if I work really hard, I deserve rewards or things to go my way. As an educated worker, the privileges which may come with the role seem to overtime turn into something I feel entitled to.

This past Sunday morning, I was brushing my teeth when the lights suddenly turned off and my window-less bathroom turned semi pitch black. As it turned out, there was a power outage in the entire building which caused more inconvenience than I had imagined. Apart from worrying that the food in the fridge may go off, I could not get out of the building as the elevator did not work and the main entrance was stuck (not to mention the cars in the garage too!)

At the end I decided to climb down the fire escape stairs (all 17 levels!) and made my way to the station. Even though I managed to get out in one piece, I was feeling flustered and late for church.  Truth be told, I was annoyed that something like this would happen at my side of town at the most inopportune time, causing me delays. Perhaps because I am a middle-class Australian, at the core of me I feel entitled to never have the power go out on me, to always have enough food and running water and to always have things work out my expected way. 

And then I was humbled when the Lord reminded me that a great number of people in the more disadvantaged side of the world do see the lack of power as their everyday norm. No doubt to have access to any source of power, their heart would be overflowed with thanksgiving.

I do think it can be a 'danger' to have too much of a good thing, be it money, time or other resources. It builds up a false sense of entitlement. So I hope to be always alert enough to notice the things I do take for granted...and be deeply thankful.

Now, as I power-climbed down those flights of stairs, I'm thankful that I had these energy giving muffins on one hand as breakfast. ;)

I made these quinoa red-bean muffins the day before. This is one of my favourite healthy muffin recipes however I normally use mashed bananas instead of the mashed red beans!

Like many desserts on this blog, these muffins don't look pretty or dainty or fine. They are what they are - healthful and wholesome. No doubt delicious too (think soft and moist!)

There was a time in my life I thought the world of desserts/sweets consists of only red beans and mung beans! Those were the days growing up in Taiwan where it was common to have sweetened red bean soup as an after dinner treat rather than ice-cream and cakes and tarts. (Those came into my life much much later!)

Do you know that red beans make for delicious breakfast too? I like to add them to my morning porridge from time to time...yum! 

(You can find more red bean recipes here.)

The flavour of the quinoa flour is quite strong and gives these muffins a delicious nutty taste. Of course, you can adjust the amount of the flour and replace with AP flour if that suits you.

And the same goes with the red beans, if you're not particular keen (please don't fall into this category!) just substitute with fruits and berries...and chocolate. I'm also thinking mashed edamame beans...and salted caramel. Perhaps not together!

Red Bean Quinoa Muffins
Adapted from here
Makes 12 (I halved the recipe)

Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose-flour 
• 1 cup of quinoa flour 
• 3/4 cup sugar 
• 1 tbsp white chia seeds
• 1 rounded teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup of sunflower oil (or other neutral cooking oil)
• 2 eggs 
• 1 1/3 cups of mashed cooked red beans

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Place muffin cups in the muffin tin.
3. In a medium bowl combine the flours, chia seeds, sugar, baking soda.

4. In another bowl whisk the milk, oil and eggs.

5. Pour the milk mix into the dry mix. Add the red beans paste.
6. Stir just until the it's blended. Don't over mix, a lumpy batter will make the best muffins.
7. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups.
8. Place in the oven rack for 20 minutes at 400°F.

Thanks for visiting with me today.

I know I've been kinda slack on updating this space lately.

Been busy but still got to take some time off to smell the roses! ;)

And now...I can almost smell the weekend. Can you?

See you soon!

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Anmitsu - Japanese dessert

Dear bed,

You're so warm and toasty, and I almost wish you weren't this comfy making it so hard for me to get up in the morning.

Dear rain,
Please can you re-think your forecasted long stay this week?

Dear pizza delivery boy,

Please don't deliver anymore pizzas to my place. *burp*

Dear treadmill,

You make me sweaty and my heart beat faster than anything else. And you challenge me like no-one does. That's why I like you. 

Dear friend,

Thank you for your 'surprise'. Now I can watch Ugly Betty and The Mentalist whenever I want!

Dear poodle in cooking with dog,
Your hair is slightly wonky at times but I admire your patience and self control whilst your owner is cooking.

Dear Australian winter,

Your baldness (on trees) is starting to appeal to me. I also like how I can turn up my heater and eat summertime desserts when you're around too. 

Have you seen the youtube cooking videos: cooking with dog? 

I've been a fan for a while now. Not just because I am fascinated by a sleepy poodle who sits by the stove like a rock, but I adore all the mouth-watering Japanese dishes featured on this channel.

So remember how I was sick a few weeks back? I watched the clip for Fruit Cream Anmitsu then and it immediately took me back to my unforgettable Japan trip (where I had anmitsu every single day) and I wanted to recover from the flu faster than anything else. (Talk about the most effective 'medication'!)

Anmitsu is a popular Japanese dessert made of small cubes of agar agar in a brown sugar syrup. It is also served with sweetened red bean paste, pieces of gyuhi (mochi-like sweets) and a scoop of ice-cream. Oh and decorated with seasonal fruits too. Yummo!

Ok, wanna see how it's made?

First you'll need to make some agar agar. Not flavoured or sweetened. Simple as!

Then dice them up into dainty fine cubes...so translucent that it's almost like they're invisible!

To make the kuromitsu (Japanese sugar syrup) to go with the agar agar, you'll need to melt some dark brown or muscovado sugar with corn syrup.

Pour it onto the agar agar...

To make the gyuhi (which is a type of traditional Japanese mochi), get some glutinous rice flour in either powdered form or granules...

...add a bit water to the rice flour and heat it up and eventually you'll get something like this...

To prevent the glutinous rice flour mixture sticking to everything else, you'll need to dust some potato starch all over!

Then you make some anko - sweet red bean paste (just because red beans and green tea ice-cream are a match made in heaven!) If you don't have time, just buy them canned (sweetened) at your local Asian grocery store. Recipe (or rather, another youtube video with the poodle) for anko can be found here.

Then it's just a matter of slicing up the oranges wedges and strawberries...and adding a scoop of the green tea ice-cream! You might want to use an ice-cream scoop for this. Sadly I don't own one. I wonder why? Definitely not because I eat ice-cream out of the box! How unladylike!

If you generally love Japanese desserts and can never get enough of the red bean and matcha (green tea) combination, I think you might totally adore this...even on a cold winter's day :)

Fruit Cream Anmitsu

From Cooking with Dog

Serves 3

• 4g/0.141 oz Agar Powder
• 500ml Water (2.11 us cup)
• 1 tbsp Mizuame - Thick Starch Syrup (I used light corn syrup)
• 100g Kurozato - Muscovado or Unrefined Brown Sugar (3.53 oz)
• 70ml Water (2.37 fl oz)
• 30g Shiratamako - Glutinous Rice Flour (1.06 oz)
• 50g Sugar (1.76 oz)
• 60ml Water
• Potato Starch
• 3 Strawberries
• 3 Navel Orange wedges
• 3 tbsp Anko - Sweet Red Bean Paste (buy canned or recipe here.)
• 3 scoops of Matcha Ice Cream (I bought mine but you can make it using this recipe)
• 20-30 Boiled Aka Endomame - Red Endo Beans (I omitted this).

The simple instructions for the recipe can be found from the linked videos! :)

Watch them! They're kinda...cute?! 

Might also make you want to get a dog to cook with too!

Have a blessed week ahead :)

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Black Sesame Steamed Cupcake

It's one of those weekends you wake up to the sounds of the rain and traffic. You try hard to re-enter the world of dreams but alas, your mind is filled with messy and scrambled thoughts - like a fuzzy TV with bad reception.

So you start making plans for this precious day.

Will it be a day of chores *gasps*? Or a day in the cafe (specifically St. Ali in South Melbourne) with a favourite book? How about taking the new granny trolley out for a test drive at the food market? Or hop on those tourist bus and explore this new city?

No doubt the decision will set the pace for the whole day....

I wrapped myself up in a blanket and head out to the kitchen to put some water in the kettle. From the window, the wet concrete road seems to be to drying up. It was this moment I caught myself with a selfish thought - I wanted it to pour outside. I want a downpour to be precise. I would like to be stuck at home with a reason like that - and to cook hot chocolate over the stovetop and to make ginger snaps with molasses and watch black and white movies.

But I have no molasses nor ginger!

So I get out a bowl and started whisking together the flour, egg, milk...and ground black sesame powder. I miss this steamed cupcake recipe that I used to make.

I also found some left over sweet red-beans in the fridge and decided that perhaps, they'd make a good match with the black sesame. And they did!

Within 20 minutes, I had several steamed goodies in front of me. Right this moment, everything seems to be falling into place. The piping hot steamed cakes were soft like bread, full of strong black sesame flavours and just plain simple. And sometimes, isn't it usually the simple things in our daily lives that cause us to pause - and feel content and grateful for the moment?

All of a sudden -  I didn't want it to rain anymore. No hot chocolate, thank you.

Quickly pulled my favourite jumper over my head. Rain or shine, Melbourne - here I come!

Steamed Black Sesame Cupcakes
Makes 6 cupcakes

• 1 large egg
• 30g sugar (I used brown)
• 1/4 cup of milk (or yoghurt)
• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil (can use other oil like canola or olive)
• 60g flour
• 50g cooked/sweetened red beans (optional)
• 20g black sesame powder (you can get it from most Asian grocery stores)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

1. In a bowl, beat the egg lightly then add the sugar and mix well.

2. Then add the milk into the mixture as well as the grapeseed oil. Beat well.

3. Sieve the flour, and baking powder then combine with the black sesame powder. Incorporate into the egg mixture and mix well.

4. Finally incorporate the red-bean into batter and mix gently (or you can keep the red bean separate from the batter and ladle it in between the batter as I did)

5. Ladle the batter into 6 separate cupcake/panna cotta containers which are lined with cupcake liners/muffin cups.

6. In a large pot (or cast iron casseroles), fill it with enough boiling hot water such that when you put the cupcakes in, the water comes about half way on the mould. Steam for around 13-15 minutes with the lid on. I prefer to wrap a cloth/towel on the lid to prevent water droplets dropping onto the cupcakes.

7. Carefully remove from pot as they cupcakes will be steaming hot!

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Steamed chocolate and adzuki (red bean) cupcakes

I don't mean to bore you with another steamed cupcake recipe, but I enjoyed this cupcake so much that I do want to document it for future reference :)

When I think back on the past few years, certain things have been tough. In fact, very tough.

There were days when I felt completely defeated. You know, those days where you just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel? But usually sometime during the day, I'd get a text message saying,

'Meet you at the gym at 6:45pm?' from my friend Miss P.

Despite my exhaustion, I did look forward to those gym sessions...because, truth be told, those weren't really gym sessions. I did jog (ok, I mainly strolled) on a treadmill with my fancy and shiny sneakers, but for the next half hour or so, I would pour out all my days frustrations and minute details to this dear friend (poor girl!) and she'd walk alongside with me and listen.

And eventually I'd feel calmer and inevitably, I'd start talking about food...

...and when I'm talking about food - I am laughing and I am rejuvenated and relaxed. The treadmill would then read 30 minutes and it's time to call it the end of a tough workout session.

So one thing I am missing now that I have moved away is an exercise buddy. Actually it's more than that. I'm missing a good friend who sometimes has to sample some of my baked goods gone wrong and who, like me, believes that ice-cream should be part of your everyday diet ;) I cannot recall how many times we've visited Coles just to stroll through their ice-cream section!

So obviously this post is dedicated to this dear friend. Not only is she truly a genuine and beautiful friend, she's the type of person who really prays for you and is always conscious of the things going on in your life.

Having friends like these are such blessings huh?

Thank you for the friendship and the encouragements. Gym sessions will never be the same again without you!

*--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Miss P treated me to delicious meals and gave me a most thoughtful present just before I left..so I baked (no, I steamed!) those incredible cupcakes for her just to say, thanks! They're super soft, moist and rather healthy! I used whole adzuki beans (as opposed to red bean paste) to add texture to the cupcakes. Red beans on it own are rather flavourless. But when mixed with chocolate, you can just smell the faint aroma of the beans but they hardly overpower or clash with the rich chocolate in anyway. 

If you're a fan of red beans like me, give this a go - I think you'll like it! 

Steamed chocolate and adzuki cupcakes
Makes 6 cupcakes

Ingredients (updates in RED)

• 2 large eggs
• 30g sugar (I used brown - you may want to up on this to say 50g as I tend to prefer my food not too sweet)
• 1/4 cup of milk (or yoghurt)
• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil (can use other oil like canola or olive)
• 40g all purpose flour
• 20g cocoa powder (I used dutch processed)
• ~50g cooked adzuki beans (whole)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

1. In a bowl, beat the eggs lightly then add the sugar and mix well.

2.  Then add the milk (or yoghurt) into the mixture as well as the grapeseed oil. Beat well.

3. Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and incorporate into the egg mixture and mix until the batter does not have white parts from the flour.

4. Finally incorporate the adzuki beans into batter and mix gently.

5. Ladle the batter into 6 separate cupcake/panna cotta containers which are lined with cupcake liners/muffin cups. I used jelly moulds! Please refer to my previous 

6. In a large pot (I used cast iron casseroles), fill it with enough boiling hot water such that when you put the cupcakes in, the water comes about half way on the mould. Refer to the photo in my previous post.

7. Steam for around 13-15 minutes with the lid on on low-medium heat. I prefer to wrap a cloth/towel on the lid to prevent water droplets dropping onto the cupcakes. Don't steam over-time as the cake will become 'soggy'.

8. Carefully remove from pot as the cupcakes will be steaming hot!

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Japanese style Tofu glutinous rice balls + Packing

I am attempting to pack up my life into 20kg this week.

The last time I packed like this, it was 5 years ago when I had to move to Illinois to study. I learnt back then, that living on 20kg for a year is doable ;)

This time, I am making the transition into the next chapter of my career in a different industry...and a different city - Melbourne! Lots of changes for sure. Definitely exciting and very scary.

So it's a jam-packed week for me this week as I am trying to do a gazillion last-minute things and catch up with my Sydney friends. It is times like these you need quick and easy recipes for snacks (snacks are essential when you pack...really!).

I normally don't make rice balls but the only reason I made these was because the recipe uses tofu! I was curious. I was intrigued. I also look for every opportunity to health-ify and experiment with my food as you may know! While I couldn't taste the tofu at all, they did make the rice balls softer...nom nom nom.

I flavoured a third of the dough into green-tea (matcha) and also dipped the rice balls in 3 different 'dressings' - freshly grinded black sesame, soy bean powder (this stuff is amazing) and lastly the left-over sweetened red bean from the fridge.

This recipe is inspired by Masa, a Japanese foodblogger living in Taiwan. I bought his cookbook when I was in Taiwan few weeks back. Go and check his other recipes if you can read Chinese :)

Anyways, here's the recipe below and I hope you do make this and enjoy it as much as I have.

Oh, and I hope you smile today too :)

Japanese style glutinous tofu rice balls 
Adapted from MASA
Serves 4

• 100g silken tofu (do not use firm tofu)
• 100g glutinous rice flour (I recommend the Japanese version which are in flakes)
• 1/2 tsp matcha (green-tea) powder
• 1/4 cup ground black sesame (I blasted my sesame in a food processor)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened soy bean powder (can be purpose from Asian stores)
• 1/4 cup sweetened red-bean (may use cans but I boiled mine and added sugar)
• ~4 tbsp sugar

1. Combine the tofu and the glutinous rice flour in a bowl. Break up the tofu as much as you can with your hands and knead until a dough that is not too sticky is formed. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour as required. If the dough is too dry, add more tofu.

2. Take 1/3 of the dough and knead it again with green-tea powder until combined.

3. Roll out the each of the dough (one plain, one green) on a clean surface and stretch into long strips. Divide into however many rice balls you want and roll each part into a small ball with your palms.

4. Fill up a saucepan with water to the top and bring it to boil. Place the balls into boiling water and immediately stir the water to make sure each ball doesn't stick to the bottom. Cook until the balls float onto the surface of water. Drain them and place into a bowl of ice cold water. (I forgot to boil the water first - catastrophe! The photo below is a big no-no as the water wasn't boiled and not enough!)

5. Once cooled down, add 3 rice balls to each skewer (you may have to twist the skewer or you might end up squashing the rice balls!)

6. This step is optional, but I like to grill my skewers of rice balls lightly. It makes the surface less sticky and the rice balls softer. You can wrap the ends of the skewers with foil as I have done.

7. Prepare the 'dressings'. In a bowl, mix the black sesame with ~2 tbsp of sugar (I used dark brown) and in another bowl, mix the soy bean powder with ~2 tbsp of dark brown sugar depending on how sweet you prefer the powders. 

8. Sprinkle or dip the skewers into the powders or sweetened red-bean paste.

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Coconut, Red bean and Matcha Agar Agar

Let's talk healthy (or heathier) today.

So you've just had dinner...and it is now time of the night when you scour the kitchen for desserts. So what do you find? Ice-cream, chocolate (with sea-salt!), or cakes? No? C'mon, I can't be the only one!

Ever since my recent over-indulgence in Japan, I've been thinking a lot about low fat desserts. Is that even possible?!

Then I magically found agar agar (kanten in Japanese) in my pantry.

You know what's so lovely about this stuff?

It is made of approximately 80% fibre and as you digest, it increases in volume in your stomach by absorbing the water...which means, you'll be fuller quicker than ever!

Oh and you know what else I love about it? Unlike your usual gelatin, it is all-vegetable (extracted from seaweed) and completely odourless! Thank goodness. Is it just me or does gelatin smell really bad when you boil it?

Many sites I have came across boast that agar agar is completely fat-free, has 0 calories and 0 sugar and carbs. While I don't know how accurate these sources are, I'd say it has been a great replacement to my usual ice-cream lately!

I have tested with one of my favourite food combinations...

Matcha and red beans with coconut....in 2 different versions.

Oy, isn't variety the spice of life?

This is probably the easiest dessert recipe you'll ever find. All you need to know is...

...for every 1 cup of liquid, add 1/2 tsp of agar powder. Really. That's all. The rest, taste as you go along.

Coconut, Red bean and Matcha Agar Agar - Version #1

Coconut layer

• I tbsp demerara sugar (depending on how you like it)
• 1 cup low-fat coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp agar agar

Red Bean layer

• 1 tblsp demerara sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup (or more depending on preference) cooked red bean (boil in water for 45 mins)
• 1 tsp agar agar powder

Matcha layer

• 1-2 tsp matcha powder
• 2 tblsp condensed milk (ok, this isn't healthy stuff I know)
• 1/2 tsp agar agar powder
• 1 cup low-fat milk

1. Pour the coconut milk and water into a saucepan and add the agar agar powder. Let rest for 10 minutes.

2. Add in the sugar and bring the liquid to boil.

3. Once sugar has dissolved, pour the liquid into your preferred container. It should set within 20 minutes.

4. Pour on another layes once the previous layer is about to set. Then refrigerate for 2 hours.

Follow the above methods for the other layers...

Note: with the red bean layer, before you pour the red bean onto the coconut layer, maybe sure you pour a small layer of the liquid first then wait for a few minutes before placing the beans and pouring the rest of the liquid over it. This will ensure that the layers stick together better.

Coconut, Red bean and Matcha Agar Agar - Version #2

This version uses exactly the same ingredients as the above step minus the 2 cups of water with the red beans. I just combined the coconut water with the red beans and omitted one layer.

I also used a different type of green tea (you can obviously see the beautiful vibrant green in this second version. Make sure you use fresh and good quality green tea (matcha) powder. It makes a whole lot of difference. The one I used in the first version was about to expire!


I've now a list of other flavour combinations that I can't wait to try.

Imagine lycee with rasperberries... rosewater with pomegranates...

Go on, give agar agar a chance....

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