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Homemade Wheat Bread Roll

Home Made Bread Bun

I was on a soup and sandwich for a little while, and all I needed was 2 fresh rolls for lunch! So, I’ve made a little recipe to make either 2 “longer” rolls, or 4 buns.

Ingredients (Serving size 2-4 rolls):
1 package of yeast
1 cup Wheat flour
1/2 cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

First, I activate the yeast by mixing the yeast into the warm water with some sugar. After about 10 minutes, it should become frothy – if it doesn’t, start this step again as the yeast didn’t activate.

I then prepare all the other ingredients for the bread in another large mixing bowl. If you’d like it all white bread, swap it out for whatever flour you would like! Add a pinch of salt into the flour when all the flour is mixed together.

Afterwards, incorporate the yeast mixture into the flour mixture and roll make it into a ball. If it’s too stiff, add some more warm water, and if it’s too sticky, add some more flour (of whichever kind you like). Knead the dough for a few minutes and shape into a ball and let it rise!

Once the dough has doubled in size, proof the dough (deflate the dough) and knead again for a little bit.

Then, form into rolls the shape and approximate serving size you’d like, and leave alone to rise a second time. Once it’s doubled in size again, just pop them into a pre-heated oven at 450F for 20 minutes

I cut a few slits on the top of my rolls before popping them into the oven for decoration. You can choose to do this step or not, or sprinkle poppy seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds or whatever you like!

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Now, I got my roll to make a delicious sandwich for lunch! Was it worth it? I think so! 🙂 I got some delicious cheese and deli meat to complete this fantastic lunch. Making plain bread opens the doors for many ideas for sandwich making!

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Homemade Sweet Green (Mung) Bean Soup – 绿豆沙

Home Made Lu Dou Sha – Chinese Dessert

I was thinking about a refreshing dessert that is simple to make and refreshing would be the Chinese Mung Bean Soup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup dried green bean
1/4 cup rock sugar
4 cup of water

First thing you have to do is clean and soak the green beans. Keep in mind that the green beans swells up and doubles in size after soaking.

Once you finished soaking the beans – I did mine overnight, but a good rule is to soak at least 4 hours.

Boil the soaked green beans with rock sugar in water. Once the water boils, turn down the heat to a simmer. The green beans will become soft and swell up.

Once the beans started swelling up, basically you’re boiling out the water to the consistency that you like the dessert to be.

We like our dessert to be more on the thicker side, but I must admit – I’ve over done it on mine! I didn’t feel like adding more water to it since the sweetness was perfect, and it wasn’t bad having it thicker either!

This is a dessert where you can enjoy it hot or cold, and it tastes great both ways as well! I found once chilled, it becomes a little bit thicker as well, and less sweet. It’s a refreshing dessert!

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Nong Shim – Tako Chips Octopus Flavored

I really love snacks – as you can tell from this wonderful blog! Nong Shim is one of my favourite manufactures of snacks which is Korean! This time, I found a bag of Tako Chips which are octopus flavoured.

No, these snacks don’t actually taste like octopus, but they do have a very interesting taste to them! Instead of a cute octopus shaped chip, these are more “fish shaped” chips that is quite light and crunchy! I found this bag at the Asian grocery store in Toronto, as I haven’t seen it here in Calgary yet!

Overall, I like it as a snack/chip but not for the octopus flavor as there wasn’t much of it. The texture was great and the snack is very flavourful too! It’s not fishy in any way and it just a great munchable munchie!

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Homemade Dou Fu Hua – 豆腐花

Home Made Dau Fu Fa with Gelatin – Soybean Pudding

This chilled dessert isn’t the traditional style, but this recipe is simple and is great for serving it cold with a simple ginger syrup.

Ingredients:
3 cups Unsweetened Soy Milk
1 package (1 tbsp) Gelatin
1/4 cup water

This simple recipe takes no time to make, but takes a lot of time to set. First, you boil the soy milk slowly as soy milk boils over really quickly. You do not need it at a full boil either to prevent the soy film.

Once the soy milk boils, prepare the gelatin mixture by dissolving the gelatin with the water. Mix thoroughly and then pour it into the soy milk.

I like to have my dou fu hua in little individual bowl, so I pour the solution into little bowls and place into the fridge for it to set for at least a few hours.

In the mean time while the bowls are setting up in the fridge, I like to make the ginger syrup so I can refrigerate the solution as well.

If you want, you can make this dessert the “traditional” way which can be served hot or cold! Here’s the Dau Fu Fa recipe!

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Swiss Chalet – Calgary, Alberta

Over the weekend, we wanted to eat out but didn’t know where to go. I remembered that someone gave me some gift cards to Swiss Chalet, so we decided to stop by the one on 130th Ave SE. We went in during the late afternoon, and oddly, no one was around to greet us or seat us. We were a little confused, but that’s alright!

We started our lunch with Seasoned Dry Ribs and it came with 9 pieces of ribs for about $5.99 which wasn’t the best deal, but still within reason when you eat appetizers out. These lightly seasoned ribs was exploding with flavour and tasted great on it’s own. The pieces weren’t too big, but it was tender and juicy. The sweet chili dipping sauce was really good and tasted good – and just as it was described you get the sweetness and then a nice kick of heat followed!

With our meal, we also ordered a Chalet Chicken Soup which tasted like a regular chicken noodle soup. The consistency was thick and it was really hearty. It appears that the soup is made with their white chicken meat, simmered with vegetables and noodles in a savoury chicken broth.

I ordered their new menu item of Hickory Rotisserie Chicken Flatbread Rotisserie Chicken served hot with Hickory Mesquite BBQ sauce, Monterey Jack cheese, crispy bacon and mayo folded in a Panini grilled flatbread. I ordered this with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy. The smokey barbeque sauce was delicious and the main flavour of the flatbread. This was delicious and the cheese was perfectly melted. The mashed potatoes was gritty and cold, but I didn’t need to eat it since we had some delicious starters, I didn’t need to fill up on that!

Then, from their signature menu, we ordered a Classic Hot Chicken Sandwich – hot Rotisserie Chicken smothered in home-style gravy. This arrived and we looked confused because the actually sandwich was drenched in gravy! It was interesting as nothing could taste bad with gravy all over, however, the chicken meat was cold, and the gravy was really salty. The best thing on the plate was actually the medley of fresh vegetables… even the fries was cold and soggy. It was quite a disappointment as it was what they called a signature dish!

Overall, this was a fantastic lunch – of course not considering the signature dish of classic hot chicken sandwich. I’m really tempted to return to try their actual rotisserie chicken meals as well as their chicken is quite delicious!

Swiss Chalet

4916 130 Ave SE, Unit 300
Calgary, AB T2Z0B2
(403) 216-2557