Black-Eyed Peas Mixed Vegetable Curry

I recalled the last time I posted black-eyed peas was quite some times ago, and that was of a Chinese soup which I duplicated after I came back from my Hong Kong trip.

Last night, I decided to try soaking some black-eyed peas for an Indian style curry which I came across on a magazine, a couple of months ago. Though I can only recalled that they uses cumin and turmeric powder; I decided to do a hands-on trial on my own version since I have some spices left in the fridge!

I tried to make use of most of my vegetables found in my fridge... in the end, I have created a pot of very delicious and nutritious black-eyed mixed vegetables curry!

This version of curry is non-spicy which is suitable for kids who love curry with spices. If you love spicy curry, I would suggest adding some fresh cut green chilies or either chili powder into it! ^^


Prep time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 30 mins (approx.)
Soaking time: 8 hrs or overnight

Ingredients

1 cup of black-eyed peas - pre-soaked 8hrs or overnight(drained)
2 cup of water for boiling the peas
2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp raw mustard seeds
1 tsp Masterfood wholegrain mustard seeds
1 tbsp of cooking oil
salt - as per own preference
1/2 cup water
some chopped french beans
some chopped broccoli
some cut celery

Method
Soak black-eyed peas overnight or minimum eight hours. Wash them and cook with two cups of water and a pinch of salt for 20mins. Drain and keep aside.

In a separate pot, heat oil and add cumin and raw mustard seeds. Let it fry for a min. Fry till the some mustard seeds start popping.

Add the hard stems of broccoli, follow by chopped tomatoes, french beans, celery and cook for 5 mins. Add the cooked black eyes peas and stir well till as the ingredients are mixed well.

Add turmeric powder and wholegrain mustard seeds. Add in half cup water and let it simmer on low flame for 5 minutes. Finally, add in the chopped broccoli and continue to simmer till all flavors blend well. Add salt to taste.

Garnish with some Chinese parsley and serve with rice or any bread.

Stir-Fry Rice Vermicelli With Side Dishes

Whenever husband and I go to the Giant Hypermarket at Tampines, we bound to reserve "a corner" of our stomach for the vegetarian stir-fry beehoon (rice vermicelli) with some side dishes.

I like the taste of their white version of vegetarian beehoon, which has some julienned cabbage and carrots in it. However, they are not very generous with their servings; it will not be sufficient to feed a hungry person even with the order of two/three side dishes of your choice.

So for this afternoon lunch, I decided to duplicate the idea of stir-frying my own version of beehoon with cabbage and carrots; together with my selection of two side dishes I cooked separately! ^^

Yummy okra(again!!) with chili broad bean paste and stir-fry bean sprouts.

Here's...Fried Beehoon with two side dishes and homemade green chilies.

And..the third side dish is my left-over five-spiced dark soy sauce tau pok (puffed tofu) with Chinese mushrooms.

Okra With Chili Broad Beans Paste

I love Okra - a vegetable with a mild flavor but somewhat unusual texture! Okra releases a sticky substance when cut; which is why I love to add them into vegetable curry where these sticky substance can thicken the gravy! If you want to minimize the sliminess, keeping the pods whole helps.

One of my best and easiest method of cooking them is to steam them after washed and drizzle with a little Chinese salted soybeans and lots of sesame seeds...

This afternoon, I cooked my the other method by slicing them diagonally and cooked them with salted broad beans chili paste. No oil was added during the process of this cooking, as I uses only the oil which comes with the salted chili beans paste!

After simmering them in less than 2 minutes, you get a plate of yummy and still crunchy okra with chili bean paste. Simply delicious when serve hot with cooked mixed rice ^o*

Ingredients

400g Okra - wash and sliced into thin diagonal

1 1/2 tbsp of broad beans paste with chili

1 tsp of sugar (i used brown sugar)

a little water

Method

Heat a non-stick pan with broad beans chili paste, add in sugar to dissolve together. Pour in all sliced okra and mix well. Add in a little water if it is too dry. Simmer for 1-2mins with cover. Serve with warm cooked rice. (*broad beans chili paste are rather salty, so adjust the taste with more sugar, according to your preference)

East Meets West Fried Rice

You must be wondering why I have named this fried rice as the East Meets West fried Rice??!! Well... it is due to the usage of Asian black olives and the western olives, as additional flavours to this fried rice which I cooked yesterday.

I had specially fried the rice with mustard green so that husband could bring a box for my father-in-law who loves mustard green.

This mustard green with olives fried rice has a slight different taste of what I have cooked here, due to the mixture of the western olives which carried a sourish taste.

I specially took a picture of the black seedless olives (above), which I am sure some of the Teochew are familiar with; something which belongs to the "old-world" and are not often being seen these days! For me, it is also a childhood memory of what our grandparents or great-grandparents used to eat with the Teochew porridge - something which is so close to the heart ^o^

Some might say that these preserved black olives are bad for health...well I know! It is just something I wanted to add in for more flavours once in a blue moon; or rather something which just for the old times' sakes! >o<

Mixed Rice Sushi

Last weekend I bought the Japanese daikon pickles from Medi-ya. Since I have many other vegetables in the fridge, I decided to try using mixed rice to make some sushi!

I used mixed red rice, quinoa, buckwheat and Japanese short grains.

Here are my many colours mixed rice sushi... yum..yum...

Tempeh Vegetarian Curry

In fact this is rather back-dated, I cooked this more than two weeks ago! Just another simple vegetables curry which I had mixed with tempeh!

Last year, I talked to a close friend of making full use of the soy beans paste which derived after making of my soy milk. She suggested if we can add into the curry. Therefore, I decided to give a try when I cooked my vegetables curry and surprisingly, the soy paste added a thick and rich texture to the curry gravy!

Since then, my soy beans paste became a replacement of coconut milk when I needed to cook curry at home.

As usual, I have used the brand 'Baba' vegetable curry powder with additional turmeric powder.

Mixed them in ration of 4:1, with water to form a thick curry paste.

This is the look of fresh soy bean from the making of my soy milk.

I usually store the extra boxes in the freezer for backup, if the fresh ones are not available.

Lightly pan-fry the strips of tempeh before adding them into the curry.

A pot of nutritious vegetables tempeh curry, ready to be served ^o^

Miffy Updates

Here are some of Miffy recent and old photographs which I have sorted... some of her very funny laying positions, which will happen every corners of the house... (^o^)

One of her ideal corners... squeezing in between of narrow gaps... ^^