Banana bread is a sweet, cake-like quick bread which normally uses baking soda as the leavening agent instead of yeast. This banana bread is very moist and delicious with awesome banana and Nutella flavors!

1. Preheat the oven to 175C/350F. Butter and flour a loaf pan. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl.
   
   
2. Stir the softened butter and sugar until they are well mixed. Add in bananas, eggs, vanilla extract and vanilla yogurt. Mix well. Sift in the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated and free of lumps. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
   
3. Warm up the nutella with a bowl of hot water until it reaches the runny consistency. Swirl the Nutella with the batter to create the marble effect.
   
4. Peel and slice the banana. Place them on the center of the batter, sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar and bake in center of the preheated oven for 45 minutes.

Shrimp features prominently in Cantonese cuisine, which is famous for her seafood dishes. Minced shrimp (it's called Bai Hua/百花 in Cantonese cuisine) are often used to fill the mushrooms, bell peppers, tofu, crab shells and ect etc.

1. Remove the shell of the shrimps. Devine and rub them briefly with salt. Rinse and pat the shrimps dry with the kitchen paper. Finely chop the shrimps. Place them in a bowl together with ginger paste, salt and pepper, sugar and egg white. Stir in one direction until the mixture is blended, smooth and elastic.
2. Shape the shrimp paste into 8 balls and lightly coat with cornstarch. Squeeze half lemon into juice, and decorate the edge of a serving plate with the remaining half lemon slices. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl.
   
3. Heat some oil in a pan on high heat until very hot. Carefully lower the shrimp balls into the pan and fry until they are lightly golden. Remove and drain with kitchen paper. Leave a bit of oil in the pan and add in prepared sauce. Cook until the mixture thickens, return the shrimp balls to the pan. Once the shrimp balls are evenly coated with the sauce, transfer them to a serving dish. Garnish as desired.

A nutritious pancake loading with the flavours and texture that every pancake fan craves for. This recipe can be used to create many fruit pancakes, such as strawberry, raspberry, black currant, or black berry.
These fruit pancakes are inspired by Christina Kim @ Deglaze Me

1. Rinse and dry the berries and currants. Whisk together the spelt flour, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Add in whey, vanilla yogurt, egg yolks and vanilla extract. Stir until all the ingredients blended.
   
2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the yolk batter until well incorporated. Leave the pancake batter in the fridge for an hour before using. Heat a small amount of butter in a frying pan until it almost starts to smoke.
   
3. Scoop 2 -3 tablespoons of batter into the pan. Drop on a few of berries or currants and cook until it reaches a light golden brown colour, and the bubbles start to appear on the top surfaces of the pancakes , turn over. Cook until lightly browned. Repeat with remaining batter, brushing the pan with melted butter between batches. Drizzle the pancakes with sugar beet syrup and dust with icing sugar if desired. Serve immediately.

If you use fresh spinach, poach them in lightly salted water for 2-3 minutes. Chop them finely before using.

1. Beat eggs and sugar until light and doubled in volume. Add in spinach puree and olive oil. Mix well.
   
2. Sift the flour, starch baking powder and baking soda into the liquid mixture. Finally add in 100 grams of corn kernels and mix.
   
3. Scoop the batter evenly into 11-12 muffin cups, then sprinkle each on the top a few corn kernels. Bake in a preheated 175C/350F oven for about 18-20 minutes.

Nori, the Japanese name for various edible seaweed species, is commonly used as a wrap for sushi and onigiri. It is also a common garnish or flavoring in noodle preparations and soups. Nori is a source of iron, calcium, vitamin A, B, C1, iodine, protein fiber, and carotene.
I want to thank Aloyallyanders@Passionbaker for sharing the Kreativ Blogger Award and Elin@Elinluv's Corner, passing her Best Blog Award to me. As I said before, a blog without friends, like a soup without salt, would be dull and blank. Thank you once again my dear friends.

1. Marinade the ground beef with salt and baking soda for 30 minutes. Stir until the ground meat has become elastic. Add in the water in 3 portions. While adding water, keep stirring until the beef has completely absorbed the water.
   
2. Add in the chicken bouillon, cornstarch and mix well, then stir in the oils. At last you add the peas and mix all the ingredients until the mixture is well-combined.
   
3. Divide the beef mixture onto two seaweed sheets, leaving an inch uncovered at border, and roll each up. Steam the rolls over the high heat for about 8 minutes. Slice and pan-fry until lightly brown.

I was pleased and honoured when Natasha, author of 5 Star Foodie, one of the most popular and well-respected food blogs, invited me to contribute a guest post on her blog while she is on a vacation. Natasha is a professional web developer from Northern Virginia, with a passion for fine food. She has always enjoyed the creative process of inventing something new and different in the kitchen. More recently, 5 Star Foodie aka Natasha has begun an adventure, exploring the cuisine available in some of the best restaurants in the United States and around the world. The more innovative the food, the more Natasha is inspired to innovate at home for her two most appreciative "customers" - her husband and her daughter. Check out her restaurant reviews and recipes at 5 Star Foodie.

Whey is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. Whey is quite simple to make. Fill a bowl or wide-mouthed jar with fresh, unpasteurized milk. Cover tightly and let sit at room temperature until it curdles and separates. This may take 3-4 days. Strain through cheesecloth, catching the liquid in a bowl. This is whey-- it is a by-product of the manufacture of cheese. It will keep in the fridge for up to six months. For a quicker whey, whip Fromage frais or Quark into unpasteurized milk and leave them overnight to sour.

1. Whisk together the quark and milk in a medium bowl. Set aside in a counter at room temperature overnight. The following day, gently warm the sour milk so that curds form. Strain the sour milk for a few of hours through a sieve lined with cheese cloth set over a pot. The strained curds can either be seasoned with sugar (salt if preferred) and used as a spread, or to make a cheesecake.
   
   
2. To make a dough, whisk the yeast with whey and honey. Stir in half flour and salt to make a yeast batter. Leave the batter, covered, in a warm place for 30 minutes. Rub the butter into the remaining half flour, until it is evenly incorporated and the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
   
   
3. Stir the yeast batter into the butter-flour mixture. Combine together until a soft dough forms. Cover the bowl and leave for 10 minutes. Rub the work-surface with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and knead the dough for 10 seconds, ending with the dough in a smooth, round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and rub with 1 teaspoon of olive oil, return the dough to it, cover and leave for 10 minutes. Repeat the light kneading twice more, at 10-minute intervals, then leave the dough for 30 minutes until it has become soft and elastic.
   
   
4. Shape the dough into a baton (or a ball)place it smooth-side down into a flour-dusted cloth. Leave it for about 1 hour at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 210C/410F. Upturn the dough on to a flour-dusted baking tray. Make a few of slashes over the top and bake the bread in the center of the oven for about 40 minutes or until the loaf is a good brown colour. Cool on a wire rack.

Beansprouts are a distinctively oriental vegetable, they don't have a long shelf life and usually consumed within a couple of days after cultivation or of purchase. To clean bean sprouts, drop into a basin of clear water, lift handful of bean sprouts out of the water and place in a colander, leaving behind the bean cases and broken off roots. Do not soak bean sprouts because they will exude water when cooked.

1. Wash and drain bean sprouts. Rinse the goji berries, drain and set aside. Thinly slice the chicken breast. Add in cornstarch and egg white. Mix well.
   
   
2. Heat some oil over high heat. When it begins to bubble, drop in shredded chicken and stir to separate. Remove when they turn white. Leave 1 tablespoon of oil in the pan and remove the rest.
   
3. Add in bean sprouts and goji berries, stirring briefly, add salt, vinegar chicken bouillon and shredded spring onion, stir for a couple of minutes. Return the shredded chicken to the pan, stir to mix well. Drizzle in the sesame oil, stirring briefly, and transfer to a serving plate.