New creation! Romaine, tomato and apple salad with spicy pan seared shrimps

Hallo... We have been quiet for a week... and finally today we have something to share.  not that nothing happened, but we have been busy.  Today we have new creation.  It's our lunch today.

Actually, i don't really remember how i did it... so lets just say you can use the dressing from Caesar Salad.  Cut a bit on the Dijon mustard and garlic.  The star of the salad today is the seared shrimps.  Actually it it's quite easy to do.  Just pan sear the shrimp in a bit of sea salt, garlic and butter, and end it with chili powder. 

Make sure the shrimp is cooled down before top it to the salad.  Finish it with Parmesan cheese powder.  It's yum!!

Rosemary Pork Rib Stew withe Vegetable... yumm!!

This is what my mom called... 迷迭香汤.  It's actually a western stew dish with pork rib slow cooked in vegetable and "powered" with fresh or dry rosemary.  It's really good.  Normally we eat it like a dish with rice or add pasta in it to make it into a pasta soup.

There is a story to this dish.  I actually learned it from a American colleague of mine.  His name is George Shipley.  His original version is "meatier" with premium spare rib and pickled chili pepper.  So, i came home and make a few times.  My family loves it... so my mom learn to make it... and now she is the expert.  She can even go to supermarket to buy her own herbs... that's amazing.



 Talk so much of nonsense... so, how to make?  Here's the recipe:

4 big sticks of celery, cut to long diagonal sections

1 big stick of carrot, cut to big chunks

1 big red bell pepper
4 - 5 big tomato, cut to quater or 1/6 wadge

1 big onion

a few cloves of garlic

1/2kg Pork rib

1 tablespoon dried rosemary

1 liter water

Salt for seasoning

olive oil

heat some olive oil in a think base pot and fried the onion chunks to soften it.  When the onion is translucent, add in the crushed garlic.  Do not brown the onion.  Just soft and translucent will do.   Put in all the vege and stir before add in pork rib and rosemary. 

When everything is mixed well, add in water to simmer the meat and vege for at least 45 minutes.  season the stew with salt and it's done.  no MSG required.  the vegetable and meat make a very sweet soup base. 

if u are doing it in the morning, you can put everything into a slow cooker and set the heat to low.  It will be ready for your for dinner.

for my friend Joe Yung, you can also do this in thermal pot.  just reduce the water and keep the pot in the insulated cover after the stew is boiled for 5 minutes. ... ohhh ... don forget to season first ok.  ... that's what my "consultant", my mom said.  give it a try.  tell me how it turn out.

... bye

Late night "Eco-friendly" kim-bap

Anyonghasaeyo!  it's our kim-bap again.  ... and today featuring the "Eco-friendly" version!

what??  Actually the real story is... tonight there is some left over rice... purple rice (we call it black rice... but really... it's actually black when it is raw, but purple when it is cooked).  So... we pull out a piece of Nori sheet from the fridge, and crab sticks, sausage, carrot, cucumber and egg.  We boiled the carrot sticks and made a omelet and cut to stick strip...

....and we roll, roll, roll ...

it's yummy... and not so sinful since we only have enough rice to make just one roll.  haha

did i mention... the dipping sauce is actually the left over Caesar dressing from last Sunday dinner... amazing huh...

Don't waste your food.  do a "Eco-friendly" kim-bap!

it is Soy...easy

One of the very nice thing i brought back from Dalian last year was this soya bean milk machine i bought there.  It was only about RMB500... approximately $100 a unit.  Ever since then, making soya milk has never been easier.  Just 6 steps, we can get creamy delicious soya milk.

Step 1:  Soak 2 cups of soya bean for 2 to 3 hours.  We can mix with a bit of black soya beans or red beans.  Actually the machine is able even to make with dry beans but i find it taste a bit "raw"  :P
Step 2:  off the bean into the soya bean milk maker's pot and make up the water to 1.5litre.
Step 3:  Close the cover tightly.
Step 4:  Slect the mode of cooking.
Step 5:  Let it cook... until you hear beeb beeb indicating that it is done.  Normally that's about 20minutes.
Step 6:  Pour the hot mixture out into the filtration unit and press the pulp with the tool given... and that's all.  We have got a nice delicious soya milk.

... washing is one part i dislike because there are alot of care required as it has some electrical connection near the wetted parts.  Other that that it is pretty easy.  it taste very nice too.

The soya bean maker is very good as it can make quite a few things including delicious blask sesame paste and green bean paste.

My mom was quite hardworking in making some time ago... but now... only i make for them.

:P

Our favourite - Caesar Salad....our way :P

You probably had noticed that since we revived the blog sometime last week, we have mentioned Caesar Salad several times.  This is because this is indeed one of our favourite... emm emm... so today we will share the recipe... lets call it Caesar Salad our-way.  so it may not be the best Caesar salad in the world, but it's the way we like it.

 a)  Dressing

5 - 6 tablespoon Mayonnaise

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 clove garlic

3 anchovies fillet

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Throw everything in a food processor and give it a good blend.  Dish out into a bowl and ready for use.

b)  Panini bread stick

3 tablespoon butter

1 clove finely chopped garlic

1 piece Panini bread

Mix butter and garlic and stir well.  spread the garlic butter to panini bread and throw it on top of a pan to grill.  when it is brown and crispy, remove it from heat and cut to long stick.

3) Salad

2 hard boiled eggs, cut to nice 1/6 wadges

2 large romaine lettuce, break to large piece

10 cherry tomatoes, half all of them

Parmesan cheese powder

1/2 can tuna chunk in brine

mix the romaine lettuce and cherry tomato in a large salad bowl.  pour dressing over it and mix well.  Gardish and serve with half boil egg, tuna flakes, bread stick and parmesan cheese.

nice!!  simple and quick.  you can give it a try  :P

An Apple a day, keeps the _______ away.

2 days ago, watched a documentary show called "Unwrapped" on FoodNetwork.  The show is basically talking about food....how it was processed in factory etc.  and this particular episode was talking about Apple.  It was an interesting show telling us about different type of apple, and their products like apple pie, soft drinks etc.  One of the segments really caught my attention and leave a deep impression.  It's the part they spoke about sliced apple... how the apple was sliced in apple and how it was treated so that it doesn't turn brown...it was dipped into a FDA approved solution containing calcium and vitamin C.  Then it shows that it;s distributed to schools etc

Now it sound OK to most people i guess, after all it's approved by USFDA.  It should be safe... and actually i have little doubt that it will do much harm in short term.  My question was, why do we need to serve this type of "treated" apple instead of a fresh one?  It's a healthy snack that I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND!!  Out of convenience?  How long does it take to peel and cut a fresh apple and pop it into our kid's lunch box?  How hard is that?

In fact, this type of packed sliced apple is also available in one of the famous fast food chain, and i bought it before when Jane was much younger.  At that time, it really never make me ponder a while before buying it.  Jamie Oliver in his show "Food evolution" woke me up.

So, the hot question is... is the old saying "an apple a day, keeps the doctor away"... is that still valid?



Have you also encountered something similar?  A food that make u ponder.

Sunday Sentosa Picnic ... ala Iron Chef

It was a crazy picnic by the beach on last Sunday morning.  We had went picnic at Sentosa's Palawan beach with my ex-classmates Brian and Natalie, and their 3 lovely lovely kids.  We departed from home at 8:30am, 30minutes later than original plan.  It was a crazy days... party means we need to prepare food.  We have "splitted the job" that we prepare the main meal while Brian & Nat prepare fruits, drinks and steamed corn. 

With quite minimal prep the day before, cooking on that groomy Sunday morning was stressful.  My mom was responsible for her specialty, the famous Kuching kolok mee, while i buzzed the way through preparing the rest of the item.  We have prepared 2 main menu:

1.  Kids meal which was comprises of Corn & Chicken burger and Pineapple & Cocktail Sausage skewer.  I've gotten the idea from one of our favourite website www.freshforkids.com.au. 

...I'm so sorry... we did have time to take a photo on the food because we were rushing as I've overslept that morning.  The pictures above are from fresh for kids website.  Anyway, cutting the nonsense, the recipe are on the website.

2.  Regular adult meal which children seems to enjoy it too.  We made kolok mee, Caesar salad (again!!  cos it's our favourite), kim-bab (Korean Sushi... in our own way just as Frank Sinatra said) and open face egg and tuna mayo sandwiches. 



That's 6 items planned to be done in 2 hours time, but ended up finished in just 1.5 hour with help of my sister washing the delicious romaine lettuce.  phew !!  Isn't that like Iron Chef ... hahaha.  ...don ever wake up late again.

It was tiring, but worth it because i think everyone enjoy the food very much.  Not forgetting the tonnes and tonnes of food and drinks Brian and Nat brought.  few whole whole whole tubs of guava with sng-boi-hoon (drooling), strawberries, grapes, hamimelon, rose apples, plum, and sweet corns... can u imagine?  a small picnic turned into a all-u-can-eat (and probably tapau) buffet  :D

We will share the recipe for Caesar salad (again... our way like Frank Sinatra said... it's not necessarily the authentic or the best taste).  Nat seems to like it...

Well... what is the moral of today's story?  All food can be prepared at home... not necessary to buy from shops or re-heat from factory processed food.  See, we are different.  We do not fried chicken nugget or fish ball.  Remember, we are what we eat... especially important to feed our kids right.  ... oh ya... don forget... if you have party... better not overslept  :D

Well... it was a fun picnic which we should do agian.  The kids enjoy it very much and the adults gets to catch up ...while chasing the kids around.  :D