Cranberry Biscuit

Ingredients:

4 tbsp Cranberry

2 cup Self-raising flour

1 tsp Baking powder

2 oz Unsalted butter

1 1/2 tbsp Sugar

Some Salt

2/3 cup Milk

1 Egg york

Directions:

1. Sift together the self-raising flour, baking powder, cranberry, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl

2. Diced the butter into the dry ingredients

3. Rub all the ingredients in the bowl until it resembles powder grain

4. Pour in milk gradually, knead the powder grain into dough

5. Press the dough into 1 inch thick, leave for 30 minutes

6. Cut the dough in round shape with 6cm cookie cutter (or with a glass cup)

7. Brush the tops with the beaten egg

8. Place rack in center of oven, preheat oven to 400°F

9. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the biscuit comes out clean

10. Remove from oven

11. Serve warm with butter or jam

Kahlua Cake

This is a recipe we learned from Jing-Kuan's sister from Bay Area. It is super easy so it is my type of dessert. Because of the pudding mix, it is softer and tastes like a sponge cake (海綿蛋糕）

I used a 10 inch round cake pan with a hole in the middle. But I failed to dump it out without breaking it apart. So, this picture is taken from "the other side".

Ingredients

1. 1 package of yellow cake mix
2. 1 package of chocolate pudding mix (5oz)
3. 1/2 cup butter or oil
3. 3/4 cup of water
4. 3 eggs
5. 1/4 cup Kahlua
6. 1/4 cup Vodka

Steps

1. Preheat over to 350 degree

2. Melt butter and mix all the ingredients well (you can use a electronic mixer)

3. Grease a 10 inch round baking tray, sprinkle some flour. Pour the batter into the

pan

4. Bake for 35 minutes. Note if I use a baking pan without a hole, it will take much longer to cook, probably over one hour. You have to use a toothpick to test it. If it does not stick to the toothpick, it is done. If I use the one with a hole, the cake will raise up over the rim of the tray. So it wont be flat when you flip it over. So, sometimes, I will only pour 3/4 of the batter into the tray, and make a smaller one using the remaining batter.

5. Cool it for 10-15 minutes, flip it over, then sprinkle some powder sugar for decoration. (I tried to flip it this time, but the buttom stuck to the pan and it looked ugly, so the picture is the upside when it was baked.

Napa Cabbage Gratin (烤白菜)

Ingredients:
2 lb Napa cabbage
1 box (8 oz) Freeh mushroom
1 can (10 ¾ oz) cream of mushroom
2 pieces Dried scallop (or cooked crabmeat or dried shrimp)
Cheese, American or Swiss or Mozzarella. Some to broil.
3 tablespoon oil

Seasoning:
¼ teaspoon salt
Black pepper

Steps:
1. Cut cabbage into small pieces.
2. Put dried scallop into warm water to soften it and then stem it with wine and ginger for 30 minutes. Tear into slices. If you use dried shrimp, put them into warm water for 10 minutes to soften them.
3. Sauté cabbage with oil till softened. Add fresh mushroom and continue sauté for 5 more minutes to make mushroom soft. Drain the water.
4. Pour cabbage and mushroom into a baking pot. Add scallop slices, cream of mushroom.
5. Season with about ¼ teaspoon of salt (might run without salt. Taste after mixed with cream of mushroom) and black Pepper. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. Top with cheeses.
6. Put into oven preheated to 400 °F for 30 minutes till top becomes golden.

Chinese Style Russian Soup (羅宋湯)

Ingredients:
¾ lb stewing beef (牛腱 shank or short ribs)
2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 carrot, peeled, cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 potato, peeled, cubed
1 small cabbage, cored and cut into wedges
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions
1 tbsp chili powder
2 or 3 tbsp ketchup
Thumb-size root ginger
Wine

Seasoning:
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Sugar

Directions:
1. Cut the beef into pieces and parboil for about 2 minutes
2. Throw away the water, wash the beef cubes
3. Place the beef, green onion and ginger in a pot, add water (cover the ingredients to about 50% higher than the surface of the ingredients) and wine. Cover, bring to boil, lower heat and simmer 1 hour, or until meat is tender. Remove green onion and ginger
4. Sauté garlic, onion, carrot and tomato
5. Add #4 and the cabbage to #3, add water if needed
6. Add the remaining ingredients except potato. Bring to boil, cook for about 1 hour
7. Add potato, cook another ½ hour or until potato is soft
8. Season with salt, pepper and sugar (adjust the amount of seasoning according to your preference)