Tomorrow we’re going back to San Francisco after spending 10 days in my husband’s home in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Grandparents were very happy to see their grandchildren and they were spoiled especially by grandma. Our children enjoyed experiencing different cultural aspects – language, food, busy city lifestyle, traffic, noise, weather… even though we go back to Japan and Taiwan every year, it still surprises me how easily children can adapt to the new environment.
As both of our parents don’t live in the US, it’ was a nice break for me and my husband as well. We went to see a movie (MI4), had a nice long massage twice (I love Chinese massage – painful but works for my tired body!), and had a relaxing time at hair salon. I’ve also shared some pictures on my Facebook fan page if you are interested in checking some of the food I enjoyed in Taiwan.
Before moving forward, I want to thank all my blog sitters for their amazing posts and also thank you my readers for your support and kind messages on their posts. Now I have one last guest post to share. My blog sitter today is Cindy (aka Jeno) of Weeknite Meals.
Unlike other guest bloggers that I’ve met through food blogging, I met Cindy in a different way. I was introduced to her by our mutual friends because they think of us as a “food blogger”. Cindy lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and a daughter so we haven’t actually met in person yet. But we started to talk frequently and discuss food and family life.
Cindy started blogging about her recipes when she started to cook at home more often to save money. What I admire about her is that she has a full time job as a business owner/web & graphics designer during the day, and she still tries hard to cook healthy meals for her family. Her site, Weeknite Meals, features mainly Chinese and other Asian dishes that even full-time working parent can come home and prepare in a short time. Her recipes are fool-proof as she had prepared all the recipes after her work hours. I’m especially happy to introduce her site to all the busy moms/dads who want to feed children good meals. You can also visit her online at Facebook. Please welcome Cindy with her traditional Chinese New Year’s dish. I actually had this dish for the first time in Taiwan this time, and it was so delicious! I am going to make this myself soon.
Welcome Cindy! Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I live in the great State of Texas, where it’s pretty much Summer all year long. I am married to a fun and wonderful husband, we have a sassy little girl, an old sweet dog, and a mischievous bunny. I am a Graphics/Web Designer by trade, Mom/Wife 24/7. Been known as a terrible cook for years, in fact hubby refused to eat my cooking so we resorted to eating out every single night. With the economy down turn, the beginning of 2009 I decided to start cooking at home to save money, with mad online recipe searching skills and determination, the family actually seem to enjoy what I’ve come up with, which encourage me to experiment more with cooking.
Please tell us a little bit about your blog.
I started Weeknite Meals in 2010 to keep track of recipes in case my daughter wants to learn how to cook when she’s older, also to share photos of the food we enjoy. Most of the recipes I cook are Asian, it’s not that we don’t like non-Asian food, it’s because the few times I tried to cook non-Asian, they turned out disastrously. My blog includes recipes that I’ve tried and enjoyed, though after cooking for the past few years, lately I’ve started to modify and come up with recipes of my own, I also started to include tidbits of my life, so Foodie friends can get some insights into my life.
How do you feel about your own food blogging experience so far?
I LOVE food blogging! Well at times when I get stressed out with the design business, I do tend to disappear from the blogsphere. But the food blogging community is a super supportive one, and even when I am not posting, I am always reading.
If you can give one advice to a new food blogger, what would it be?
I am relatively new at blogging, so still learning as I go. I would suggest newbies to set up a “Foodbuzz” account, I met so many lovely people there! Instead of searching blindly on Google, the Food Buzz community has an extensive database of people with similar interests as you, which makes finding and following other bloggers much simpler.
What would you advise to a new cook or someone who wants to start cooking at home more?
Since I started cooking due to the economical downturn, saving money was a big goal. By cooking mostly Asian food, it meant most likely I had the ingredients in my pantry already. If you are starting to cook, try to build up your pantry and maybe stick with recipes from similar regions, it will make your life much easier and wallet much fatter!
Thank you Cindy! From here I will let Cindy take over and show us what she prepared. Enjoy!
Hi all! This is Jeno from Weeknite Meals. I am so honored to be chosen as one of the Nami’s guest food bloggers while she’s on holiday break. I am honored to share one of my family’s old time favorite Chinese New Year’s dish: Pearl Balls! This is something we only got to eat once a year when families visit, and due to a house filled with guests, we only got to eat a few Pearl Balls at a time. I’ve always imagined it’s a difficult dish to make, this is why a seasoned cook like my Mom would only make it once a year. Come to find out that’s not the case at all! In fact we really had a great time cooking together (Well mostly my Mom did the cooking, while I took photos), my little girl and her cousins devoured so many as their afternoon snack, and still asked for more to take home for the evening. I hope you will give this recipe a try and let me know whether you like them as much as we do!
Enjoy as an appetizer or a side dish!
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Pearl Balls
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups sweet rice/glutinous rice (mochigome) (soak in water overnight, drain and set aside right before you are ready to prepare)
Meatball Mixture
- 1 lbs ground pork (try to buy the ones with a little big more fat content so the pearl balls won't come out too dry)
- 1 Tbsp green onions/scallions (chopped)
- 1 large egg (50 g each w/o shell)
- ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ¼ tsp MSG (optional)
- ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Tbsp usukuchi (light-colored) soy sauce
- 6 water chestnuts (peeled, smashed then minced)
Instructions
The Night Before Cooking Day
- Soak sweet rice in water overnight. Drain and set aside.
To Prepare Meatball
- Except for the sweet rice, mix all other ingredients together in a large bowl. Grab handfuls of the mixture, pat them in your palms to make the mixture stickier. Roll the mixture into a meatball, about 1 inch (2.5 cm) diameter each. Roll the meatballs in sweet rice, make sure all sides are covered. Now the meatballs should resemble beautiful pearls!
To Steam
- Start boiling water to prepare the steamer. Place a cheesecloth on the bottom of the steamer basket. Place the pearl balls into your steamer.
- Steam on high heat for 20 minutes. Enjoy!
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for 2 days.
What a lovely change from my everyday pasta cooking or meat and vegetables. Wishing you safe travel during this hectic travel time and wishing me a winter that is like Texas!
Thank you Claudia! I am sure hubby would welcome a change of Pasta on some nights in our household!
We are experiencing some cool weather at Houston right now, but if you ask me it’s just not quite cold enough to feel “Christmas-y”, Hope you are enjoying the holidays and have a great Christmas!
Welcome, Jeno, and thank you for a very interesting dish. And thank YOU for finding such a great variety of guest bloggers to keep us on our toes while you’re away, Nami.
I believe I’ve seen a similar recipe referred to as porcupine rice balls in my recipe explorations of other cuisines. I’m curious as to the nature of ‘sweet rice’. Is it glutinous rice? I often shop in chinese or vietnamese grocery stores and sometime find a language barrier as I don’t know what I’m asking for in chinese and they don’t understand what I’m saying in english. 🙂 One day I hope to replace my wok and get a steamer that I can use with it so I can try making some of my favourite dim sum dishes.
Never heard of these Pearl balls before, I love chestnuts in any way, they must be delicious! I love the cute and smiling little faces in the last photo!
Thank you Eri! The girls were so excited about the pearl balls, they were willing to pose for photos because they knew snack time was next! I was not a big fan of chestnuts, but in this dish they added the interesting crunchy element which really pulled the whole thing together!
Happy Holidays!
Wonderful guest post and nice to meet you Cindy. That rice on the spoon looks so perfect. Looks totally delicious.
Thank you Suzi for the compliment! Rolling the meatballs onto the rice in a flat dish made them look “perfect”, I am looking forward to making them again for Chinese new year coming up, hope you will give the recipe a try also!
Happy Holidays!
おはようございます
友達の紹介ありがとうございます!
ライスボール、、とっても美味しそうです
アジア系の料理って、ほんとに手が込んでて、味も素晴らしいですよね
アジア人で良かったといつも実感します
Hi ちびか! I went to Google translate to “read” your comments. If I am not mistaken, you mentioned the dish can be tricky. I totally thought the same, but after practicing with my Mom, I’ve realized other than soaking the sweet rice in water the night before, and peeling the water chestnuts, the recipe is actually quite simple. The end result is totally worth it! Happy Holidays!
These look too cute, and you know what – I’ve never seen a water chestnut in it’s shell before 😀 I never knew they looked… like *that*. Sounds dumb maybe 😀 Beautiful dish, and a great guest post – thanks for sharing the recipe Cindy 🙂
Have a safe trip Nami!
Thank you Charles for your kind words! It’s not dumb at all to have not seen chestnuts in all their glory, I am learning so much about food on a daily basis just by reading blogs, amazing what interesting food items are available out there in the world!
Happy Holidays!
So nice to meet Cindy and discover a new blog…I love your pearl balls! They sound delicious!!!! Welcome home, Nami! xo
Nice meeting you Liz! All this talk of pearl balls and revisiting the photo is making me crave them! Thank you for visiting and Happy Holidays!
Have a good trip back Nami and family. This is a pretty recipe and I adore water chestnuts so it grabbed my attention. That first pic is so 1950s lol
Hahahahah Evelyne, I love what you said about the photo looking 1950s! My Mom pulled out her pretty apron that’s not been used (that she bought from San Fran from a trip years ago) and we snapped away…
The water chestnuts added a wonderful crunch to the finished pearl balls, I hope you will give the recipe a try and let me know how you like it. Happy Holidays!
Love these! Sweet rice is so good. Impressive – from no cooking to wizardry!
Hi Belinda! Thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate it! Though I am really not at the wizard level quite yet, maybe in another couple of years! 🙂
Happy Holidays!
Another great guest post! Happy to hear you’ve had a fun vacation, welcome back.
Thank you Sandra! I can’t wait for Nami to come back also, start to miss Japanese cooking very much!
Merry Christmas!
The recipe looks interesting…will try this one soon.Thanks for this recipe.The pictures are really good.
Hello Sandra! Thank you for the compliment! My Mom and I collaborated on the recipe, though she was having to do most of the work while I snapped away. I hope you will enjoy the pearl balls as much as we did! Happy Holidays!
These little rice-covered balls look beautiful and tasty, Jeno! 🙂
Nami, I hope you’re not too stressed with all the holiday preparation, and have time to enjoy just happiness with your family!
Hi Kath! Thank you for the compliment! They really are tasty and I can’t wait to make them again! Just need to replenish my sweet rice in the pantry!
Thank you for introducing me to a new talented blogger Nami
I just love the picture of the girls..so cute
wishing you a safe trip home
Hello Sawsan! Thank you for the comment, the girls were eager to dig in when I snapped the photos and they were happy with the yummy snack!
that looks a real tasty treat, and the happy little girls just too divine! welcome home Nami, we’ve had fun while you’ve been away!
Hi Jenny, thank you for the comment! We really do enjoy the pearl balls and they are usually the first dish to get eaten up. Just revisiting those photos is making my mouth water!
Have a good day!
Ciao Nami, I hope that you are safely home now 🙂 and I look forward to your travel posts! And even if I don’t eat meat this is a lovely guest post!
I am in transit too now, after a few days in Singapore we are now in Germany waiting to board for Venice, and then drive up to the Dolomites. From tropical heat to snow… what a change!!
And if you have time come and have a look at my ‘fish spa’ post!
http://alessandrazecchini.blogspot.com/2011/12/fish-spa-in-singapore.html
Ciao
Alessandra
Alessandra, your Singapore trip looks awesome! I am too chicken to try the fish tank foot spa even though there is a place at Houston that provides the same service, sounds like the kids had a blast!
Your books look amazing, I will visit your site more in depth very soon!