Happy New Year Everyone!!!!

Here at My Panda Paws, we had a wonderful year.  We started this blog, and received many supports from our readers all over the world.  We started our website, which received tremendous responses from our customers, parents, and teachers. We want you to know that we couldn’t have done it without you!

We learned everything and anything including shipping, e-commerce, graphic designs, writing blogs, and much much more.  It has been a beautiful journey.  We are taking all of what we learned, and all the boo boos, and making it better tomorrow.

Happy New Year!!!  Enjoy the rest of your holidays!

P.S.  One major advantage of being Chinese, the holidays are not over until Chinese New Year.  Stay tuned, this year’s Chinese New Year is late, on Feb 14th!

Love,

Debbie and Dotty

My Panda Paws

聖誕快樂 – Merry Christmas – Shèng dàn kuài lè

Happy Holidays to all of you!!!!

The Northeast had a major snow storm this weekend, we had about 11 inches of snow here.  I am not going to talk about the headaches here, including the traffic, canceled flights, shoveling, and slippery roads.  Our family used this snow storm as an excuse to relax a little bit during this busiest time of the year.  I wrapped some presents, but not too motivated.  The boys played in the snow, super cute.  (Am I a bad mom for dreading the marathron winter suit prep session?)  Husband was the busiest of us all, painted a room, and working on putting up molding.  But honestly, it was such a relaxing weekend.  We cancelled all of our parties, and didn’t have to run around like crazy.  It was definitely an unexpected treat during this time of the year.

I was inspired, and found some beautiful snowy pictures, one of them is NYC of this weekend, courtesey of the New York Times, and of course, some of the most famous places in China.  Enjoy!

A Good Fall, is a collection of short stories written by a Chinese author, Ha Jin. Jin left China in 1985 to attend Brandeis Universsity. He is now a professor of English at Boston University. He is a recipient of many awards including the National Book Award.

In this book, Jin writes about the large immigrant community of Flushing, NY: a waitress who has to send her hard earned money back home to her spoiled little sister so she can buy an import car, a lonely composer who grew dependent on his girlfriend’s parakeet; young children decide to change their names so that they might sound more “American,” unaware of how deeply this will hurt their grandparents.

Vick Boughton from People Magazine sums it well. . .” (Jin) writes with warmth and humor about what it means to be a bewidered stranger in a strange land, no matter where one was born.”

Noodles or Pasta, which came first?

If you ask the Chinese, most will say noodles were invented way before pasta, and the other would be true if you ask the Italian. The truth is, I don’t know. However, growing up, I was told that Marco Polo went to China around the 13th century, and saw Chinese people eating noodles with ground pork sauce, also known as 雜醬面 and fell in love with the dish. However, when Marco Polo returned to Italy, he forgot/lack all the necessary ingredients, so instead, used a tomato based sauce, and therefore created Spaghetti Bolognese.

Regardless of the history, I love both noodles and pasta. In fact, my kids often call long pasta (spaghetti, linguine, etc.) 面面 (mian mian) and the short pasta (fusilli, penne, etc) pasta. Anyway, the past couple weeks have been very busy in our household, and I know it’s only going to be busier in the coming weeks with all the holiday stuff. So, I’m going to share a pasta recipe my friend Marieanne taught me, it’s extremely simple and quick (30 min or less from start to finish), and it’s a gourmet meal my kids love!

Pasta Carbonara 

Ingredients:

1lb          Thin Spaghetti (I like Barilla)
1 T          Minced garlic (more if you like)
3 oz        Prosciutto or Pancetta, diced or sliced
2              Egg Yolk
1              Whole Egg
1C           Grated parmesan cheese
2 T          Fresh Italian parsley, chopped
3 T          Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

 Direction:

1. Cook Pasta according to package direction until al dente. (about 7-8 min)
2. Beat egg yolk and egg with a folk, mix in grated parmesan cheese until the mixture resemble a thick paste. Add salt and pepper.
3. Heat about 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a large sauté pan, add garlic, and prosciutto, about a min
4. Pour cooked and drained pasta into the sauté pan, toss lightly so the pasta is coated with the olive oil.
5. Transfer the Pasta into the egg mixture, toss quickly so that the egg doesn’t scramble. Season again with salt and pepper if needed. Add parsley and enjoy!

Not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but my father-in-law used to own restaurants in China Town.  He is now retired, but his cooking is still VERY good, to say the least.  My sons are spoiled rotten by his food.  For example, he would make this seafood chow mein (noodle), and I can eat that for days.  The shrimps are never tough, the sauce is always perfect, and the noodle is always crunchy.

As he gets older, we get more worried about not being able to duplicate his cooking.  So my husband declairs that he is starting a family cook book to store our favorite recipes.  Well, when my husband decides to do something, that usually involves my help.  I told him that he really should start a blog, and make it private for now, and start adding recipes as we collect the tips and tricks from his father, mother, and my side of the family as well.  He seems to like this idea a lot, so I now need to start working on it. 

I am super excited about this project.  Not only does it serve my tummy well, but I think it will be great to do as a family.  I think this will help make our relationship tighter with our parents, and they will appreciate the fact that we want to keep their cooking alive.  It will be great for our kids to observe, so hopefully they will want to learn all about it too.

Please, any idea will be welcome.  Please write to me if you have any favorite dish too!

How about adding a little Chinese to your Chirstmas tree?  This beautiful ornament is available at Red Fermata for only $12.50.  This ornament is part of a series of vintage photos from around the world with the phrase “Merry Christmas” in their respective languages. Perfect for a lover of culture or travel.  This ornament says “Merry Christmas” in Chinese, and shows a vintage photo of the Great wall.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Birthday – 生日 – shēng rì

Sunday is little Dumpling’s birthday, my little baby is going to be 3!  I can’t believe it!  He was just a little baby, and what happened?

Anyway, my father called on Thursday and told me that it was his Chinese birthday according to the Lunar calendar, so we snuck in a little Chinese tradition in his dinner on Thursday.  I grew up eating chicken on my birthday, my mom would always get a nice, fresh chicken for me.  I never really understand why, it’s just the way it is.  Chicken is a traditional dish that Chinese use to celebrate the honored people, or for special occasion.  Anyway, I didn’t have time to prepare for a whole, fresh, steam chicken, so I supplemented by making baked chicken drumsticks.  He likes them, and I felt that I did my Chinese part, yeah!

Happy Birthday to my not-so-little baby.

This holiday, we present you with our best sellers to help select the perfect gifts for the children.  We’ve had so much positive feedbacks about these 10 products that we pick for you, hurry before they run out!

1.  Chinese Cookbook kit by Handstand Kids. 

2.  Monkey: The Classic Chinese Adventure Tale

3.  Ruby’s Wish

4.  Dora DVD Gift Set

5.  The Horse Race

6.  Chinese Fables Remembered

7.  The Best Christmas Ever

8.  The Story of the Chinese Zodiac

9.  Elmer

10.  Disney Classic Cartoon

As promised from my previous posting, here is the very popular Baked Nian Gao Recipe. This version is made with coconut milk, which isn’t conventional and adapted for some of my Western friends. You can use this basic recipe and add cooked red beans or red bean paste. Just make sure to use only regular milk instead of the coconut milk.

Ingredients:

• 1 Bag (16oz) Glutinous rice flour (available in Asian supermarkets, currently in a clear plastic bag with green ink
• 1/2 C to 3/4 C  Vegetable Oil
• 3 Large eggs
• 1 can of coconut milk + regular milk to make a total of 2 1/2 C of liquid
• 1 1/2 C to 1 3/4 C of granulated sugar (personal taste)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 C of coconut flakes, lightly toasted (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Prepare a 9×12 pan by spraying with non stick cooking oil
3. In a separate bowl, pour all ingredients together
4. Use an electric mixer, beat everything on medium speed so not to splatter the rice flour, once everything is incorporated, continue to beat on high speed for about 2 minutes or until all the lumps are out.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan
6. Bake in the 350 oven for about 40 minutes or until the chopstick insert comes out clean
7. Cool for about 5-10 minutes and invert the rice cake onto a plate
8. Sprinkle toasted coconut on top, slice, and enjoy warm.

For a nicer presentation, cut into 1 inch cubes and place in cupcake liners.