Black Rice Pumpkin Fried Rice

For some of you, black rice may not be commonly used in your kitchen. Well, at least it was the case for me; until one of my good friend introduced this wonderful rice to me two years ago. If you want to know the nutritional value of black rice, please read here.

With no dark sauce added, the rice looks purplish-black when cooked.

An additional okra (lady's fingers) side dish added.

Vegetarian Fried Kuey Tiow in Creamy Sauce

Since I have a packet of kuey tiow in the fridge, I decided to try my hand on cooking my favorite fried kuey tiow in creamy sauce for dinner.

Ingredients A
1 tbsp sesame oil
500g kuey tiow
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1/2 tsp dark soya sauce

Ingredients B
1 tbsp oil
some fresh mushrooms
some cut cabbages
some chye sim
a little carrot, sliced

Seasoning
2 tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce
1 tsp vegetarian mushroom seasoning
some pepper
1 tsp sesame oil
600ml water
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch, mixed with 3tbsp water (for thickening)

Method
1. Heat up oil, stir fry the kuey tiow at high heat until fragrant. Add in the light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and stir-fry until well mixed. Dish onto a serving plate (as shown on above photo). (U may use a non-stick pan where oil can be omitted because kuey tiow are always coated with a layer oil to prevent sticking).

2. Heat up oil, add in ingredients B and stir fry until aromatic. Add in the seasoning and bring to boil. Thicken with cornstarch water.

3. Pour the creamy sauce over fried kuey tiow and serve with green chilies.

I like my version of this fried kuey tiow in creamy sauce, which is not too salty nor oily as compared to what we have at Zhu Chow store (^o^)

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.

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<

Stir-Fry Angled Loofah（丝瓜）

This is one of the common dish I used to eat before I got married. However, I simply don't know the exact reason but...this is never in my vegetables shopping list!

When my mum came along with us to our neighbouring city, Johor Bahru for shopping; some fresh looking angled loofahs set at the organic corner caught her eyes. Instantly, my mum took 2 fresh looking ones and handed one to me (her eyes told me that - "they are extremely fresh, you should take one too"). And there goes, my very first simple stir-fry angled loofah...

I love the taste! When cooked, they were very crunchy and turned into pretty jade green colour!

Ingredients

1 large fresh angled loofah
some chopped garlic (or either chopped ginger*)
some oil
some salt

Method

Heat the wok. Stir fry garlic (or ginger) briefly with some oil. Add in loofah and then some salt to taste. Simmer it with work cover for approximately 2 to 3 minutes. Cook till soft and serve.

Nutritional Value **
Angled Loofah is a popular vegetable in the summer. Soft, young loofah is edible and its fluid is a skin moisturiser. The juice treats coughing and clears phlegm. Mature loofah is not edible however, the strong, netted vein can be used as cleansing tool in the bath and kitchen. Angled loofah contains protein, fat, luffein, citrulline, and vitamin B and C (extracted from Cook Easy! Eat Healthy! - Fruit & Vegetables).

Pumpkin Fried Rice

Last weekend, I bought two halves of the pumpkin from supermarket since they were on offer.

I wanted to use half of it to do fried rice and was doing an online search for a good recipe. I was a suprised to learn that pumpkins are used commonly on many types of cookings...but not fried rice!

Instantly, I decided to cook my own Chinese invented fried rice (one-dish-meal) with the existing ingredients found in the fridge.

Ingredients

2 cups of cooked brown mixed red rice
1/2 medium size pumpkin - skinned and diced
1 medium carrot - skinned and diced
some french beans - chopped
8 Chinese mushrooms - pre-soaked and diced
some oil
soy sauce
vegetarian mushrooms seasoning
some pepper

Freshly cooked mixed brown and red rice

Vegetarian Zha Jiang Mian (渣酱面）

I recalled having a small box of left-over stewed mushrooms kept in the freezer, from my previous cooking; thinking to make something different out of it, I decided to create this Zha Jiang Mian!

Again, I wanted to emphasize that I am really a noodle person. I love to try out all sorts of noodles, some were bought and left in the kitchen cabinet for too long that I almost forgotten about them... this pack of organic udon (I think) must have been silently waiting for me for more than six months.

Using the udon with left-over stewed mushrooms, I created a yummy noodles taste... ...and not forgetting with lots of fresh julienned carrots and cucumbers, did some jaw exercise too! ^^

Stewed Five Spice Mixed Mushrooms

After my last round of cooking the stewed mixed mushrooms for the glutinous rice, I decided to cook another portion for the making of my dry noodles. In the end, I have some left over which came in handy to go with our dinner!

Luckily this round, I remembered to take photos during the preparations.... as for the method of cooking it, it can be found on my earlier post.

Mixed mushrooms with spinach and dry-noodles...

another option with organic red brown rice...yummy (~O^.^O~)

Ingredients
Approx.15 medium size Chinese mushrooms (soak till soft and diced)
1 big bundle of enoki mushrooms (lightly wash and cut to the size of 1cm)
4 button mushrooms (diced)
1 small block of vegetarian minced meatless (optional)
2 tbsp vegetarian mushroom sauce
1 tbsp 5 spiced powder
some water
some pepper

Steamed Glutinious Rice With Mixed Mushrooms

This is yet another simple glutinous rice meal which I have not touch on, since I moved to my current place. I used to make this steam glutinous rice with chicken and mushrooms; we called them as "Loh Mai Kai" (糯米鸡), but since I have change my diet, I have switched the ingredients with just using mixed mushrooms... so here's presenting my invention of "Loh Mai Gu" (糯米菇)... ^o*

I would say this is easy to make and it can be taken as a light meal, due to the amount and the used of glutinous rice as the main ingredients. Give it a try... ...

1. Stir-fry diced Chinese mushrooms with sesame oil. After 2 mins. add in enoki mushrooms, vegetarian minced meatless and diced button mushrooms follow by veg. mushroom sauce and five spice powder. Add water just to cover the ingredients and mixed well. Simmer for 3mins. Lastly add some pepper to taste. Set aside to cool when cooked.

2. Get ready the pre-soaked glutinous rice. Assemble the cooked mixed mushrooms ingredients onto small bowls and topped with glutinous rice until 3/4 or just cover the edge of the bowls.

3. Set bowls to stand on a large pot and steam on medium heat.

4. Steam for approx. 1 to 2 hrs or until glutinous rice are soft.

5. Turn bowl over to rest on plate, serve hot.

Ingredients
Approx. 600g of glutinous rice (soak overnight and then drained off the water)
8 medium size Chinese mushrooms (soak till soft and diced)
1 big bundle of enoki mushrooms (lightly wash and cut to the size of 1cm)
4 button mushrooms (diced)
1 small block of vegetarian minced meatless (optional)
2 tbsp vegetarian mushroom sauce
1 tbsp 5 spice powder
some water
some pepper

Remarks: You may add as many type of mushrooms as you prefer. Adjust the level of saltiness as you prefer with a little Chinese light and dark soy sauce.

Mustard Green With Preserved Olive Fried Rice

This is another of my invention using mustard and the Chinese preserved olive; I have also used the organic brow and red rice instead of the regular white rice to stir-fry with it! Husband said this is better than the vegetarian fried rice we used to eat out....*grin* (^o^)

Stir Fried Noodles

Today is my last day of being "Home Alone". I stir-fried this noodles with lots of vegetables which had been left in the fridge from husband stocked-up for my home alone 'food supply'.

A relatively easy fried noodles with lots of beansprouts, cabbage, french beans, carrot and shitake mushrooms.... and a good jaw exercise too! ^^

Seashell Macaroni

I have a packet of seashell macaroni which I kept for quite sometime and was wondering what to do with it! Finally... I decided to use my existing ingredients in the fridge to cook the similar ABC soup base and add in the cooked macaroni!

This time, except that I did not add in the fresh fig, I added some oyster mushrooms instead.... and it taste really good! Yum...yum...