Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year!

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Well, I hope you all had a safe and happy new year's eve. Mine was very quiet, which I felt like I needed, and the best part was sleeping in really late this morning. I love sleeping and I never feel like I get enough during the week! I've been having a nice leisurely morning so far, and made myself a bowl of sweet bean soup for my first breakfast of 2010. This is not a very good photo of it--it's made with mung beans (although usually sold in packages labelled as "green beans" at Chinese groceries), pearl barley, some rock sugar, and a lot of water. Sweet bean soups might be a strange concept to some, but trust me, this is really comfort food! Ordinarily I would have made some little rice dumplings with glutinous rice flour to go in it, but a. I'm lazy and b. I had some tong yuan leftover from the solstice.

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Tong yuan are basically glutinous rice flour dumplings with a sweet filling--common ones are black sesame, red bean, or lotus, but my favorite is peanut! These aren't that hard to make from scratch, but, well, see point a above. Much easier to buy and keep in the freezer.

I still have cookie posts coming; hopefully I will get some of those up before I leave for vacation--but more on that later. Here's to the new year--may it be the best so far!

2 comments:

Deborah said...

sweet bean soup? New to me and I am now very intrigued. Would love to try some.
Happy New Year!

tofugirl said...

It is VERY easy to make, and great for breakfast, dessert, or a snack! You can find mung beans (usually labelled green beans) at any asian grocery...I generally use about 6 ounces each of mung beans and pearl barley in a 4 or 5 quart pot. Add water halfway up the pot and bring to a boil, then simmer until everything is pretty soft (you may need to add water as it cooks). Add rock sugar to taste (or just plain white sugar). I add just a little, because I don't want it super sweet. In the summer, it's really good cold.