Chayote, Corns and Tomatoes Soup

Vegetables Curry

We have been craving for curry vegetables....so today we decided to cook a simple curry with limited ingredients found in the fridge; and of course it is for our dinner which goes with baguettes!! Yum...yum...

Ingredients A

1 medium cabbage (cut into pieces)
some long beans (cut into sections)
1 carrot (cut into pieces)
some fried bean curds (tau pok - cut into halves)
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
2 cups of water (or more)

Curry Sauce Ingredients B (Homemade blended ingredients)

lots of dried chilli, pre-soaked
1-2 stalks lemongrass
some small onions
1 small pc of turmeric ginger
few cloves garlic
3 pcs if buah keras

Method

1. Heat wok with some oil, add homemade chilli paste (ingridents B) and stir-fry briefly. Add thin coconut milk. Stir well. Bring to a boil using medium heat.

2. Add in ingredients A and simmer over low heat. Add in some salt, chili powder or more home blended chilli paste to thicken the gravy. Cooked until all ingredients are soft.

Lotus Root And Beans Soup

Before... ...

After...

Making Kway Chap for dinner

Here's our dinner for tonight! Yeah...one of my favourite - 'Kway Chap'! The only thing which is non-vegetarian is the 'egg'. Yes...I admit that I should not be taking egg... however, husband is very cooperative still we started on vegetarian diet. The thing is... he loves egg; so to award him for being 'so cooperative', we decided to have eggs only...but will cut down on in-taking them!

Green Papaya, Snow Fungus With Figs

This is a very clear papaya soup which you is suitable for diabetics patients. Longans promote blood cell formation and calm the nerves. And with job's tears and lily bulbs added; it also whitens the skin! ^^

Ingredients
1 big green papaya
2-3 pcs of snow fungus
4-5 pcs of dried figs
6-8 pcs of dried longans
a handful of job's tears
a handful of lily bulbs
some wolfberries
Method

1. Skin papaya and core. Rinse and cut into large pieces.

2. Soak the snow fungus thoroughly. Scald and rinse.

3. Rinse the rest of the other ingredients, halves the figs before adding.

4. Bring 15-18 bowls of water to boil, when water start bubbling add in the papaya and all other ingredients and bring to the boil (except for snow fungus). Reduce to medium heat and cook for 1 1/2 hours.

5. Add in snow fungus and continue medium heat for another 45 minutes. Season with salt and serve.

Tips: Snow fungus should not be added early with all ingredients, otherwise you'll have a starchy soup base with very soft fungus which will not be as tasty.

Chayote And Papaya Herbal Soup

I love Cantonese soup... I like the way how they are being prepared by cooking them mostly in clay pot for 2 to 3 hours; and at the end of it, you will get a pot of soup full of flavors from all the ingredients added!

Here's a soup which I modified from one of my soup cookbook, which I got back from Hong Kong trip.

Ingredients
1 medium papaya (half-ripen)
1 medium chayote

Chinese Herbs
5-6 pcs of monkey head mushrooms (猴头菇)
5-6 pcs of dried dioscorea (淮山)
some Fragrant Solomonseal Rhizome (玉竹)
some dried lily bulbs （百合）
6 dried longans (龙眼干）
1/4 dried tangerine peel （陈皮）

Method
1. Rinse chayote and papaya separately (both chayote & papaya skin can be skinned or left intact, up to individuals). Cut them into large pieces.

2. Rinse all herbs and soak until soft. Except for monkey head mushrooms, they must be separately soaked and wash several times to get rid of the mouldy smell.

3. Bring 12-15 bowls of water to the boil together with dried tangerine peel.

4. Put in the remaining ingredients and herbs and bring to the boil again. Reduce to low heat and cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Season with a little salt and serve.

Note: Tangerine peels must always be added into the cold water and bring to the boil. They should not be added after water has been boiled; otherwise the soup will turn bitter.

Prima Laksa

Husband and I craved for local food since we returned from Hong Kong. So... the fastest and easy method is to use the Prima pack of Laska.... yummy!! ^^

Hong Kong Trip

Since mum has been complaining about wanted to visit Hong Kong, husband and I decided to bring my parents to Hong Kong on a 5 days 4 night trip. This is also my personal reason to fulfill a thought which I had in years.... all these while, I am only involve with joint-payments of their overseas expenses after I started working. At least in this trip, I could join in and bring them around ... ...

Day 2: We took ferry to Macau
The famous Ruins of St. Paul's

Mum and Dad

Inside the Venetian Casino
Beautiful and grand ceiling's pictures can be seen everywhere from the moment you enter...

Day 3: Lantau Island

We took the cable car up to see The Giant Buddha (天坛大佛)

Vegetarian dishes we had in Po Lin Monastery(宝莲禅寺) near The Giant Buddha

Huge servings of various dishes... yum yum!!

Note: My camera battery went 'dead', silly me did not bring along an extra battery. I will upload more photos at a later date; those taken from dad's camera!

Fried Organic Udon

This organic udon can be used to boil in soup or stir-frying, they are equally good as the texture is not too soft which will break-up easily after cooked!

I stir-fried them with some blended carrot juice so that the noodles are a little wet, and also give some natural sweetness from the carrot! This is not my invention method, I merely copied the idea since I ate once at a Chinese restaurant in town which introduces their fried version. Not a bad idea, I thought!! ^^

Miffy Our Rabbit

It has been 10 months since we brought Miffy home. She is just like a little kid who wants lots of attention. And she is really good at that; especially when husband or myself is sitting at the couch watching television programmes....

All she wanted is lots of cuddles!!! ...

Washing of Gluten

Our vegetarian lesson for today is to learn how to wash gluten out of wheat flour.

TaDa!!.. Here's the fried ball from the gluten that Mdm Chua has thought us ...

and... here's the vegetarian Char Siew...

Yummy! I quite enjoy the taste! (^^)

Vegetarian Fried Indian Noodles - Mee Goreng

We learnt this mee goreng on our today's vegetarian lesson. The only thing that Mdm Chua commented was that; the tomato sauce supplied did not show the ideal colour of her style of Mee Goreng. Despite the colour, I think most of us agreed that the taste was Yummy! ^^

Broccoli With Mushrooms And Self-Made Beancurd Roll

One of our vegetarian lessons thought us how to make use of solidified soy milk bean sheets to make mock chicken. I forgot to take picture of the soy milk bean sheets and what I'm showing here is the one which has marinated and tied in bundles for steaming! Next time when I make this, I will take a photo of its 'original state' to show in my blog!

The soy milk sheets are marinated and wrapped with heat-proof plastic, then with white cloth to secure its shape...

this is how it looked after steaming ...

... here's my broccoli with straw-mushrooms and mock chicken slices...

Mushrooms, Broccoli And Scallops Porridge

Do you have any idea that cooking porridge with new clay pot can patch the 'pores' of the clay pot?? I read it from some articles that it is best to use new clay pot to cook porridge or boil it with substantial amount of rice water derived from washing of the rice! Doing so, not just patches all the 'pores' in the clay pot but also prolong the life span of using it.

So... I decided to cook the porridge in my new clay pot with lots of Chinese mushrooms, broccoli and scallops. This is very healthy and is especially good for those with young children or elderly at home.... yum yum, my favorite! ^^

Strawberry Smoothie

Lotus Root, Kailan Stems with Mixed Vegetables

Mixed vegetables cooked with vegetarian mushroom sauce...

My new Korean clay pot I acquired while shopping for Korean products for my next batch of Kimchi! ^_^