No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

The Winter Solstice Festival or 'Dongzhi' falls on  this Sunday, 22nd December.  Again, glutinous rice balls called tong yuen/tangyuen generally  with sweet fillings are eaten today.  For a change, I made them savoury this year, fried with minced meat.  It was well received by family members and I was happy as it was treated as a meal! Recipe for Fried Tang Yuen Ingredients 150 gm minced pork 2 Shitake mushrooms, soaked, stemmed and diced 30 gm dried shrimps, chopped 250 gm tong yuen 2 pips garlic, chopped Spring onions, chopped Sesame oil to drizzle Seasoning for the minced pork 1 tsp each of light soya sauce, cornflour 1/4 tsp each of seasalt, sugar dash of pepper Method Heat up a pan with some oil, saute the chopped garlic till fragrant. Add in the dried shrimps, followed by the mushrooms and the marinated pork.  Sprinkle on some water and stir-fry till cooked. Meanwhile, cook the tong yuen with some boil

 On our last stay in Prague we took a walk to the New Town as we had to look for a very modern building in Prague.  We passed by this  Matylda Boat Hotel, in fact two hotels, anchored alongside the Vltava river.  The newer  Boat Hotel is the Klotylda. The Dancing House is one of the most interesting Prague buildings built at the end of the 20th Century. It represents a man and a woman, named 'Fred and Ginger' dancing together.  It was awarded the Design of the year 1996 award from the American Time magazine.  This extraordinary building is at the corner of Jirasek Square and Rasin Quay alongside the river Vltava.  The Celeste Restaurant and Bar , formerly La Perle de Prague, is a French restaurant housed on the top two floors of the building. We were looking for a place to relax our weary feet and the reviews from Tripadviser convinced us to give this restaurant a try.  All of us weren't disappointed.  Good, clean ambience and very friendly service.

I have no clue what a chocolate bark is until I stumbled upon a chocolate bark recipe from browneyedbaker. Chocolate bark is actually a sheet of chocolate usually studded with nuts, dried fruits and broken up into irregular pieces with no specific pattern which sounds interesting and easy to pick up.  I'm very pleased with my first attempt and hope to try out other variations.  What's more, as X'mas is just round the corner, why not make some, wrap in decorative cellophane bags, adorn with a ribbon and give as a gift.  Homemade treats certainly are great gifts for the holidays and the festive season! Recipe for Pistachio Mixed Fruits White Chocolate Bark (adapted from ' here ' with modifications) Ingredients                                                                       8 oz white chocolate, chopped into small pieces 1 oz light roasted shelled pistachios, coarsely chopped 1.1/2 oz dried cranberries, raisins and golden raisins, coars

These are the steps leading to the Prague Castle (but I took this picture when I was on the way down).  The Castle stands high above the river Vltava and the buildings enclosed by the Castle walls include a palace, three churches and a monastery. Gateway to Court of Honour of Prague Castle ... the gates are crowned by copies of the 18th Century statues of Fighting Giants by Ignaz Platzer.  These were not merely decorative but acted as an integral element of support. The Changing of the Guards takes palce in the first courtyard, every hour but at 12 noon it is the formal handover carried out with a fanfare and banner exchange. ****** Motor show  in the afternoon. St. Vitus's Cathedral -  front view and west side view of the cathedral with its main tower  and golden gate rose windows. Tympanum of the cathedral ~ basically the semi-circular area enclosed by the arch above the lintel of an arched entranceway.  The area is decorated wit

I'm sure many of you Malaysians must have heard of and tasted the acclaimed herbal duck soup noodles from Pun Chun Restaurant in Bidor, Perak.  Recently a friend recommended me a shop also selling the herbal duck soup noodles, wantan noodles, etc right here in Ipoh.  We took the opportunity to pay a visit to Restoran Sin Kooi Yuen @ Taman Rishah,  and tried their signature herbal duck soup noodles.  If you're not a fan of duck meat, you can opt for herbal chicken soup noodles and they also serve siu kow/dumplings, a variety of yong tau fu, fried foo pei, stuffed sengkuang/turnips, curry chicken and BBQ meat noodles and braised chicken feet.  The marvellous thing is that most of them are all homemade by the lady proprietress! You're spoilt for choice looking at what they have to offer! Their signature herbal duck soup served in a ceramic bowl.  Whole drumstick, well marinated and steamed with Chinese herbs, like tong sum, pak kei, red dates, dried longan and