Home cooking

I've started cooking at home recently, after months of keeping a non-oily stove.


Home dinner one night, with store-bought roast pork, which I've grilled in the oven (to a crispy skin).


Beijing cabbage with canned vegetarian 罗汉斋


Bean sprouts with ready-soaked black fungus from the market


Tofu with minced pork


Dinner of wanton soup and sweet peas stir-fried with pacific clams


These ready to eat wanton soup from CP brand is fabulous...one of the best frozen food around.

Pasta dinner tonight:



With grilled spicy pork sausage, fresh brown and white mushrooms, assorted veggies and leftover pacific clams.


While being grilled in the mini oven, the sausages somehow caused a little fire to be ignited in the oven! :-O

The oil dripping must have sparked off the small fire on the aluminium foil! >_<"



Anyway, it was an extra tasty pasta dinner. ;)



And I love my pasta keeper. It has holes that conveniently dispense exactly 100g or 200g of pasta.

Huge straw mushroom

We had dinner with a friend at Sizzler one Friday night, and I was very happy they had tom yam soup! I must have had 3 bowls of it. *Slurp!*

This had to be the biggest straw mushroom I'd ever seen!


Near the end of my meal, I tried to find more of it in the soup pot, but there was no more. In fact, there was hardly any mushroom left by then.

Stir-fry vegies & oden

Some new dishes which I've cooked/prepared recently (for the first time*).

For Monday's dinner - Stir-fried watercress*, with wolfberries


We always eat watercress cooked in soup in our family, and at the in-laws' home too, but now that the new, smaller breed of watercress is available, it isn't too old/fibrous, so can taste quite nice stir-fried.

Plus Japanese Oden*, a popular street food (I gathered)


The soup is too salty and which I don't think we should drink too much of, even though I'd added extra water.

Chilled Oden package - ready for boiling; enough for 2.5 pax




For Tuesday's dinner, I cooked the big bean sprouts*, with shimeji mushrooms and capsicum


This (soya?) bean sprouts is quite fibrous, and the "bean" part remained very crunchy/ slightly hard, even though the fibrous strips were already well-cooked till soft.

This is almost like the only fish we cook at home regularly - grilled salmon, with ground black pepper and lemon


In addition, we had the ready-to-eat fish toufu for dinner as well...so it was a very very full dinner! :P

Saturday lunch

Vegetarian stew.



The colours in the photos look weird, machiam those artificial food displays at Japanese restaurants.



Served over rice, but I think it's better if dipped with crusty bread, like a Delifrance baguette. :)

Kueh Pietee again

I thought I should do the yummy kueh pietee better justice by shooting them with my non-HP camera.

Dinner tonight:








Plus a nice salad with feta cheese, olives and a dribble of Balsamic vinegar.

Of course, I also picked on bits of the SO's box of chye png. The vendor was very generous with the portions of veges...must patronise his stall more often.

Party Kueh Pietee

Cat aunty was right! >_<

We got the kueh piety or pietee on Monday night from Spud's mom. We had it for supper (in addition to the dinner that we already had).

I ate more than the SO because it's not really his favourite food, whereas I like it, whether in the form of pietee or popiah.


Spud's mom also gave us a rather big portion of the stir-fried leek with tau-gua dish (on the left). I found it tasted rather sweet; I think it's cooked that way for the children.

On Tue morning, I had the pietee for breakfast.



On Tuesday evening, I had more of it for dinner... a lot more...

...plus a salad (was in the mood for freshness, remember?)

This evening (Wed), I shall eat the rest of the pietee again, together with the rest of the salad from the bag of European Salad mix...plus maybe something else.

Over-indulgence? Yes, very happily indeed.

;P

First cooking for the year

After feasting on too much rich food, one of our favourite comfort food to tuck into is porridge, eaten with simple dishes that helps to clear the jer-lard-ness from all the fattening, sugary food consumed.

On Sat (3rd day of CNY), I cooked 2 vegetable dishes, which are a bit too much, but I had to use them up before they wilt and waste away in the fridge. :P



Stir-fried Beijing cabbage with carrots and fresh Shitake mushrooms




Ti Hwang Miao (帝皇苗 or 帝王苗?) stir fried with Taiwanese vegetarian (mushroom) oyster sauce



Instead of being simple, the meal was made slightly "complex" with the addition of CP brand Pepper Kicks (black pepper chicken)...coz we are greedy. :P



The CP brand of ready-to-eat foodstuff is quite excellent; the other superb frozen product being the CP wanton soup with crunchy prawn wanton....yum!



In the end, what was meant to be a simple meal to clear our system ended up as too much and too filling!!

>_<

Japanese curry & cabbage

I was on leave today, and decided to prepare some lunch. Since we'll be going over to a friend's place for a gathering and dinner later, there won't be a chance to cook dinner, so I thought I'll cook the Japanese curry which I'd been planning to cook, before the potatoes decide to sprout!

I've had tubers sprouting at home, right on the food shelf, until they look like alien things, like the "alienated" sweet potato.



Anyhow, I cooked the Japanese curry using S&B brand of Medium Hot curry paste, as the SO is not quite into spicy food, but it didn't taste a teeny bit hot at all - even the SO said so. I think even if they come out with a Extra Hot version, it would still barely taste a little hot for our Asian palettes.

Here's the chicken curry with the "disappearing" Hokkaido potatoes. I've added some ground coriander and chicken stock to add more flavour.




The market stall had these Hokkaido potatoes on sale, so I bought a couple of big, round tubers to try. When raw, they had the texture of crispy apples!

During the process of cooking, they've somehow disappeared, leaving me with barely half the quantity of potatoes in odd, tiny shapes. I thought I'd scoop them up into a separate bowl before there was nothing left!




The lunch, served with steamed rice.



The Beijing cabbage at this time of year tastes extremely sweet and crunchy in texture. Stir-fried simply with garlic, fresh young ginger and a bit of chicken stock, it tastes so fresh and sedap!

" Tortoise beans "

Dear ksn, this is "Tortoise beans" aka 乌龟豆 in Hokkien lor.

According to Wiki, they are called green beans....so I understand. :P




I read in a Chinese cookbook that says these beans must be properly cooked, or they may be toxic or contain undesirable substance (or something to that effect), and definitely not to be eaten raw.

By the way, there is now a slimmer version of these beans which are more crunchy and faster to cook...very nice to eat.

Deepavali lunch

An egg dish and a mixed vegetables dish, served with rice




Egg with tomatos and onions




Stir-fried baby kai lan with carrots, fresh shitake mushrooms & leftover wong bok




Pre-lunch snack of Japanese buckwheat noodles (Cha Soba)

Sunday lunch

We had:

- Stir-fried fresh mushrooms,

- Toufu with minced pork, and

- Stir-fried kang kong with vegetarian XO sauce/paste.

Eaten with rice porridge.

Cauliflower dish & grilled pork chops

This is a simple yet very satisfying dinner that is easy and a time-saver. Just remember to marinate the pork loin the night before.

Grilled pork chops and vegetable dish of leftovers

Just use whatever's available in the fridge - cauliflower, carrots and leftover cabbage

Served with rice, the vegetables shown are enough to serve 2.5 to 3 persons, but are gobbled up by the two of us.

:P

Sausage & vegetables

This is an easy to cook dish, and fast to cook too, if the potatoes are boiled beforehand (to 1/2 to 2/3 done-ness, to allow for further braising).

The basic ingredients are:
- sausages (any kind)
- diced onions, potatoes & carrots (optionals: celery, button mushrooms, etc.)
- chicken or vegetable stock
- herbs (thyme, oregano, and rosemary)
- salt & pepper (according to taste)

Corn starch solution may be added to achieve the desired consistency. Chopped coriander may be added before serving.

I've served this at a potluck party using jumbo sausages and it was popular with both kids and adults.

Party food repeated

Since I didn't get to eat much of the chicken stew and fried bee hoon which I'd cooked for the small party a couple of weeks back, I decided to cook them for dinner today. This time, I remembered to take photos of the results!

Chicken Stew

This time, I added garlic and a bit of oregano.


Fried Bee Hoon (vegetarian)

Dinner


Bee hoon topped with crispy sweet tau kee