Post #34

there arent many variables to cooking veg chinese style. most often they are stir fried with garlic, which is nice and simple especially when you have the more flavoursome veg to work with, like gai lan, spinach, chinese mustard green (gai choy).

unlike some stronger flavoured veg, baby bok choy has a v subtle sweet flavour, and unless we have some really fresh and sweet produce (which we dont seem to find in an average asian grocery here), stir frying it with garlic is quite bland so i attempted to cook it with a little twist.


-Baby bok choy with ham in garlic milk broth-

Post #33

beetroot. an ingredient i only really started using recently. my past experience of tasting beetroot has been limited to the pickled canned beetroot that you find in burgers. and i used to have this horrible misconception about beetroot, even before i ever tasted it, and that is its shocking red wine juice would stain your skin forever... as i still have this vivid memory of my year 7 teacher showing up to class with bloody red stains on her fingers. and that was the first time i heard of beetroot.

actually, these earthy looking veg arent exactly unfriendly to work with. yes they do stain your fingers, but the stain normally comes off after a few scrub or a night of dishwashing (which makes me wonder how my year 7 teacher got her stains for so long... must have been LOTS of beetroots that she had to work with the night before...) they last v long in the fridge and apparently are rich in the nutrient betaine, which is important for cardiovascular health (in layman terms, its good for your heart and blood vessels).


-Pan fried lamb cutlets with beetroot, spinach + ricotta in a beetroot + balsamic glaze-

colours a bit shocking, but it was tasty, served with a sprinkle of mixed nuts to give it some crunch :)



if you've been following my posts, a bunch of beetroot (with 4 medium sized roots) was enough to make the veg risoni soup, the beetroot risotto and this lamb cutlets dish.

Post #32

drove back from the "Gong" today. we each had half an apple, half a KFC popcorn chicken snack box and half a happy gaytime krusher. and having had a big box of nachos and cheesy chicken fillets takeaway for dinner last night, we're committed to have some REAL food (and never have mexican food again!!!!!)

by the time we're home, its already past 3pm. and after hubby vaccuumed the house, i cooked a noodle for our afternoon snack~~


-Wonton noodle with radish, pickled veg + chinese celery-

so yum after 2 meals of junk!!

Post #31

sis and i went home together tonight and the plan was to eat the leftovers in the fridge. but we stopped by super to get some stuff for my weekend cooking, and had a complete change of plan when we saw some nice big packs of chicken drumsticks selling for under $5.

the dumbsticks reminded me of a tagine recipe i've seen in the "gourmet traveller" magazine. but all i can remember is that it has lemon and green olives in the recipe so i ended up just grabbing a few other items that appear to be "friends" with lemon and green olives.

great tagine pan (a gift we got for our wedding):


-Chicken and lemon tagine with olives, honey + wholegrain mustard-

served with lemon and shallot couscous:



this dish is surprisingly tasty and so full of flavour!! especially considering that i had no time to marinate the drumsticks. hehe, dinner ended up to be under $10 and we now have more leftover in the fridge.. =.=

Post #30

love chinese bbq shops. tasty soy chickie, roast duckie and porkie, all ready to eat at reasonable prices. but out of all these meaty goodness, my favourite is definitely the roast duckie. great eating it on its own with plum sauce, but i also like using it for cooking - duck san choy bau, peking duck crepe, duck curry...(to confess, i've never actually cooked with raw duck. hehe.)


-Stewed shredded roast duck vermicelli with pickled veg and chinese celery-

to make max use of the roast duckie, i deboned the duck and used the bones to boil a stock and used that stock to cook the vermicelli. also used a mix of rice vermicelli and cellophane noodle. the cellophane noodle takes longer to cook whilst the rice vermicelli cooks v quickly and goes gluey if cooked for too long, so always put the cellophane noodles into the wok first!

also cooked some chinese veg:


-Stir fried pea sprouts with garlic-

Post #29

its time we see lotus roots selling again! these are quite expensive, but i luv eating them, in whatever form - as big chucks in soups, big slices in braised dishes, and as thin crispy chips in salads! sis donated one root to me the other day - woohoo!!! and i used it to make lotus root and pork mince sandwiches =)

sizzling in the pan:


the dish - love the lotus root shape!!

-Pan fried lotus root and pork mince sandwiches-

everything needs to be THIN!! the lotus root needs to be sliced thinly and the layer of pork mince needs to be thin too or it wont cook through!! i mixed some thinly *again* chopped shallots into the pork mince to give it some green colour!!

half way through pan frying, i was thinking... these sandwiches should taste good in hotpot too!! i wonder if they will fall apart tho. hm...will try that next time!!

also, wiki says that lotus roots are rich in dietary fiber, vitamin C, potassium, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, phosphorus, copper, and manganese, while very low in saturated fat!! more reasons to eat them!! :)

Post #28 (Almost) vegetarian dinner

i've been thinking about this combination for a few days now, but didnt know if it would work. but worse come to worse i'll just have a crap dinner, right?!


-Beetroot risotto with ricotta, shaved asparagus and lemon olive oil-

close up - v vibrant colours!!


i've seen combo of beetroot, ricotta and asparagus used in recipes, but mostly in salads, so i wasnt exactly sure if cooking a risotto out of these ingredients would work. but i've always wanted to try cooking beetroot risotto given the v natural sweet flavour of this veg, and a bit like the black squid ink, it would be interesting to eat RED rice! hehe...

oh, did i say that it was pretty yummy too!! :) next time i'll sprinkle some grated lemon peel on top!!

also cooked an onion soup... hehe, we had too many onions at home. hm.. the soup would taste so much better if i didnt use campbxxx beef stock tho....


-French onion soup with swiss cheese crouton-

Post #27

didnt get to do any groceries on saturday and had close to zilch in the fridge... WHAT TO DO?!?!?! only had one zucchini in the fridge and some bacon in the freezer. had a look at the pantry cupboard and i found half a packet of macoroni, a can of creamed corn and a can of corn kernel. good old canned food comes to the rescue~

hehe... this is what i made out of those ingredients. doesnt it look like kid's food?!?!


-Creamed corn macoroni with bacon and zuchinni-

i even found a slice of swiss cheese in the fridge and chucked it in the pan in a (failed) attempt to "adult"-ise it...

hehe... and 3 kiddie's lunchboxes:

Post #26

It got so cold the last few days we had to dig out our warm winter blanket! and whats better than having a big bowl of hot hearty soup in this cold and wet weather?! (err... maybe except for hotpot... I LOVE HOTPOT!!!).

so tonight we stopped by super to grab some bacon and vegies, ready to cook a big pot of vegie soup with risoni :)


-Bacon and veg soup with risoni-

close up:




look all these healthy vegie goodness - tomato, onion, zucchini, carrot, beetroot stems + leaves, corn and cannellinni beans! i recently found that the best way to use beetroot stems and leaves is to cook soup! the stems are v sweet, it's a waste to chuck them! i also read somewhere that you could cook the stems and leaves just like spinach with olive oil and salt. i gave that a try before but it took forever to cook and the stems and leaves were still v tough.

the core of a corn is also v sweet, so after chopping out the kernels, i chucked the cores into the pot as well and scooped them out when the soup is cooked!! :)