An easy and tasty way to eat your vegies

As John describes it, "this pancake kinda grows on ya". This is a vegie cake my mom used to make for us all the time for breakfast. What can I say, we're Chinese; we love vegetables. But with a few variation, Americans may learn to like it as well.

And it's so easy to make I can whip it up in 15 minutes.

Basic ingredients:

3 eggs beaten
1 cup flour
3/4 cup water or chicken broth
1 zucchini grated
3 green onion chopped
1 carrot grated
salt and pepper to taste

Optional:

some lemon juice and zest (This is just for John since he'll eat anything with lemons).
Some black sesame seeds (I always have them handy so I can remember to put some in my food)

Mix everything orderly. Heat the frying pan with a little olive oil on medium heat. Scoop 1/2 cup of batter into the pan. Flatten it so it's thin. Fry each side for a couple minutes when it's golden brown.

Variations:
Add chicken, shrimps, beef, or pork; and add any other vegetables you like.

I usually go with chicken. I slice them into strips and marinate them in soy sauce and oyster sauce for 5 minutes. Add them in the mixture right before I put it in the frying pan.

John likes it when there's meat in it; I'm the opposite. So it works for both of us.

My Healthy Sweet Potato Pancakes

Ever since I saw my baby sucking in the last ultrasound, I've had great motivation to eat healthier. I feel like she's sucking on whatever I'm feeding her :-) I've always been a pretty healthy eater, loving vegies, fruit, not sugar, or fat. Lately I've been paying even more attention to the food I eat to make sure nothing bad goes into my system. I experimented different combinations of stir-fry vegies and even my picky-eater husband liked some of the stuff I experimented.

This morning I decided to experiment with the sweet potatoes and make some pancakes out of them. John ate two of the huge pancakes I made, so that tells you that it's not bad. Here's the recipe.

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup flour (I used all-purpose because I'm out of whole wheat.)
1/4 cup ground flaxseed (you can use wheat gems instead)
1/3 cup chopped toasted nuts of your choice (I used almond; walnut or pecan should do)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup apple juice or white grape juice (I didn't have wither, so I just used milk)
1 cup mashed sweet potatoes (about 1 medium size)
2 tbsp oil (I used olive oil, canola should do)
2 large eggs beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup finely chopped apricots (or raisins, dried cranberries) (optional)

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowel.
2. Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowel.
3. Add the wet mixture into the dry one.
4. Heat up the pan, add a little oil (or spray). Spoon 1/2 cup of batter into the pan, spread it lightly to flatten. (use a 1/4 cup if you ant it to be smaller)
5. Flip the pancake once until golden brown.
6. Drizzle some syrup, top with strawberries or blueberries or anything you like. Enjoy!

22-week old parents :-)

It's a GIRL!!!

There is our little princess! So cute :-)

We just came back from the ultrasound. It's a GIRL!!!!!! We're so excited! Everything is going well. The baby is a little bigger than expected so they moved my due date to August 1st, 3 days ahead.

It was so fun to see her sucking, moving, stretching... Listening to her strong heart beat was also fun! She keeps moving around and it was hard to catch her in a still shot :-)


Me at 20 weeks

My Crochet Fun!

Sister Harding is an expert of crocheting. When we went over for Sunday dinner last month, she agreed to teach me to crochet a baby blanket. Without knowing the gender of the baby, I picked this Ocean yarn from her crochet closet.

It took me a month of my free time to complete this little thing. I'm not good, but I'm fast :-)

My teacher Sister Harding
The uneven length on the bottom shows my inexperience. Oh well the baby won't mind.

I learned to make these flowers and the headband from youtube :-)

I also made this cute pair of baby booties. I had to size it down a lot, but John still thinks it's too big. I really don't know much about a newborn :-)

It's been fun learning new things. The only drawback is I spent too much time on it and John feels neglected :-)