Mixed Nuts

With the holiday entertaining season getting closer with each falling leaf, it’s time to start thinking about those easy, yet still kind of fancy, snack recipes. These sweet, salty, spicy, party nuts are simple to make, and will rival those expensive blends at the local Foodies-R-Us.

I find this technique much easier than the stovetop pan method. You’ll get beautiful, perfectly frosted nuts that are roasted evenly, with no bitter burned spots. Speaking of which, I played it pretty safe with the cooking times, so you may be able to go a few minutes longer for a deeper roast, but, don’t get greedy.

By the way, I always upload these videos to YouTube before I publish the blog post, and I just finished reading the first few comments. Wow, they sure have some wild imaginations over there! They claim the video is loaded with innuendos and lowbrow, double entendre-based humor. How dare they! They’re LOL’ing, ROFL’ing, and LMFAO’ing all over perfectly innocent recipe directions. It’s nuts.

Anyway, I hope you give these delicious, candied mixed nuts a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 4 cups of nuts:

1 cup raw walnut halves

1 cup raw pecan halves

1 cup unsalted, dry roasted almonds

1 cup unsalted, dry roasted cashews

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne

*For the syrup:

1 or 2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

*Heat to a boil, cook one minute, and pour over nuts!

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Celebrate Luna New Year With Tai Sun Nuts and Goodies

With Chinese Luna New Year getting closer, I believe everyone is busying with a list of  "must buy" ingredients, goodies, tidbits and etc in order to prepare and feed the guests who are coming over for new year house visiting.  This year, thanks to Tai Sun and 20twentypr for the early New Year goodies which definitely come in handy for us due to its wide selections of snacks for our guests.

The snacks are packed neatly inside this traditional bamboo basket which resemble those olden day (60s) food carrier or sort of like our modern picnic basket. And this unique basket is sure a keeper for me as my kid already hint for a picnic date with it soon on one of the weekend.

Macadamia Delight @ S$11.80 per jar (300g)
Rolled Pineapple Tarts @ S$10.80 per jar (380g)

Inside the bamboo basket, there are two tubs of Chinese New Year cookies from NOYA (under Tai Sun (Lim Kee) Food Industries too) such as Macadamia Delight and Rolled Pineapple Tarts which you can read more about them at my review post on NOYA products HERE.

Apart from the NOYA Chinese New Year cookies, there are also Roasted Cashew Nuts and Hei Bee Hiam Spring Rolls which are two of the popular snacks among guests.

On top of that, there are also some varieties of broad beans (satay and wasabi flavour) which are a great source of dietary fibre that helps to promote a healthy digestive system. For your information:- 100g of broad beans give you more fibre than eating 4 apples or 10 carrots.

Other than broad beans, Tai Sun also have other nuts products like roasted peanuts, cashew, almond and etc for your to select too. 

But if you are looking for something more towards nature flavour, perhaps Natures Wonders which has a premium range of nuts and dried fruits might suits your preference. Their products comes with good source of dietary fibre as well as rich in protein. Furthermore Natures Wonders products are naturally trans fat free with no added salt which makes it a healthy and high energy snack that helps you on the go!

So for this coming Chinese New Year if you are looking for some nuts or snacks to stock up for your guests perhaps you could take look at Tai Sun, NOYA or Natures Wonders range in leading supermarkets too.

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20 Budget Meal Five Nuts Soup and Steamed Dumplings with Assorted Vegetables

Quick and Easy meal that comes with good and healthy combination of meat and vegetables are always something that busy working adults or parents look for. Here we have a fusion of Asian Steamed Dumpling with array of colourful vegetables such as Pumpkin, Carrots, Peas and Broccoli that will definitely cheers up your Monday Blue evening. These two sets of Steamed Dumpling and Five Nuts Soup meal only cost about S$12.20 which can serves around 2 - 3 persons.

To make a complete meal, I have boiled some five Nuts Soup that consists of 5 different colours of ingredients such as Fresh Fox Nuts, Lotus Seeds, Chinese Barley, Wolfberries and etc. This is a great nutty flavour soup which helps to calm nerves, strengthen Qi and nourish the body. The fresh fox nut can also helps to heal indigestion, diarrhoea and poor bladder control too.

FIVE NUTS SOUP

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 4)
300g Pork Ribs (排骨)
1 Packet of Fresh Foxnuts(茨实)
20g Chinese Barley (中国薏米)
20g Lotus Seeds (莲子)
10g Wolfberries (枸杞子)
5 Big Red Dates (红枣)
1.8 Litres of Water

Method:-

1. Blanched Pork Ribs in boiling water for 2 - 3 minutes, remove and rinse with tap water. Set aside.

2. Soak lotus seeds (unwashed) in a bowl of warm water for about 5 minutes. Remove the green pith in it to avoid bitterness. Rinse and set aside.

3. Rinse Chinese barley 2 - 3 times in a big bowl, remove any decay seeds and dirt.

4. Bring 1.8 litres of water to boil in a soup pot. Add in all the ingredients except wolfberries and when the mixture comes to boil again, lower the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes till lotus seeds and barley are soften.

5. Add in wolfberries and season with salt to taste according to own preference.


Total cost for this dish is about S$6.00 with breakdown shown below:-
Cost of Ingredients:
~ Pork Ribs = S$3.00
~ Fresh Foxnuts = S$1.50
~ Lotus Seeds, Red Dates, Wolfberries, Barley = S$1.50

Making of these dumplings can be hassle free by using the “Gyoza Mold(shown below)” which comes in handy by just placing a gyoza or wonton wrapper on top of the press (mold), add in fillings, close and press tight to form a perfect sealed gyoza or dumpling.

STEAMED DUMPLINGS WITH ASSORTED VEGETABLES

Ingredients: (serves 2, makes 12 dumplings)

125g Broccoli, cut into florets
70g Snow Peas, trimmed
120g Butternut Pumpkin, cut into 1" cubes
Half Medium Size Carrot, cut into 0.5" thick sticks
12 Round Wonton Wrappers
3 - 4 leaves of iceberg lettuce, optional

Dumplings:
150g Minced Pork
100g Medium Prawns, shelled, removed vein and cut into chunks
4 Water chestnuts, chopped
1/2 Teaspoon ginger juice
1/2 Teaspoon Cooking Wine
1 Teaspoon Sesame Oil
1 Teaspoon Cornflour
1/2 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
Dash of Ground Pepper
Some Chopped Spring Onion

*Note:-

~ You can replace Wonton Wrapper with Gyoza Wrapper too.

Method:-

1. Mix all the dumpling ingredients in a bowl, stir till well combine and set aside marinate in the refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

2. Place a piece of dumpling wrapper on the dumpling(gyoza) mold, scoop 1/2 tablespoon of the mince mixture on the wrapper and fold and press the edge of the mold to enclose the fillings. Repeat with the remaining mince mixture.

3. Line two bamboo steamers with iceberg lettuce/baking paper. Divide broccoli, carrot and pumpkin and wrapped dumplings equally into each steamer, drizzle with some sesame/olive oil.

4. Stack the steamers, covered and place it into a big steamer pot or over a pan of simmering water.

5. Steam for 3 minutes on medium high heat, swap the bottom layer of the steamer with the top and continue to steam for another 2 minutes before adding in the snow peas and steam for another 1 minute or till tender.

6. When done, remove from heat. Drizzle evenly with 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce mixture (50ml hot water, 1/2 teaspoon light soy sauce and dash of sesame oil) and serve immediately with steamed rice or on its own.


Total cost for this dish is about S$6.20 with breakdown shown below:-
Cost of Ingredients:
~ Pork Minced = S$1.00
~ Prawn = S$1.50
~ Wonton Wrapper = S$0.50
~ Broccoli, Pumpkin and Water Chestnut = S$2.00
~ Carrot and Sweet Peas = S$1.20

GIVEAWAY plus more NEW DUMPLING RECIPES

For those who is interested in trying out some dumpling recipes, do stay tune on the next upcoming post on “3 Ways of Eating Wonton/Dumpling” and plus a chance to WIN a set of this "Gyoza Mold" shown above. Have fun!!!

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