Saturday, August 28, 2010

The Wok is Willing...

... but the chef is weak. That's what was in my mind during the days when I was not blogging. Being employed and having to prepare meals each day is no simple task, though hubby helps out in the cleaning and washing up after meals (which I appreciated very much). I guess too much of western food may not be a good thing, such as pork chop...
and chicken drumstick sauteed in mushroom sauce...

Hubby seemed to succumbed to a kinda western food withdrawal syndrome (he is after all still very chinese in heart), and so I reverted back to simple soup-based dishes such as mushroom soup with lean pork, dried bean curd and carrot. 
But alas the weather and exposure to air-borned virus in packed public transportation did my hubby in and he was finally down with flu this week. So I had to prepare my meals even more carefully so as not to aggravate his conditions, such as this lightly stir-fried leeks with wolfberries in miso paste gravy...

... and the sliced fish with bitter gourd and tomato in vermicelli soup.

Fortunately hubby recovered well enough with a little tender loving care from his personal chef, and decided to accompany me for a Saturday outing today. And that certainly brightened my day!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Mangolicious Cod

Hubby's favourite fish is cod. I happened to have one juicy cod steak in the freezer. Hubby loves mango too. I'm looking at one now lying on the kitchen top. Now the question is: are they compatible? Well, you never know unless you try, right?
So, I fired up my computer and search for a mango sauce recipe. Found one here. But I decided to substitute vinegar with leftover lemon slices I had in my fridge. That's just me, always finding ways to clear the clutter in my kitchen just to make sure nothing expires and everything stays fresh. The result? Mmmm... mangolicious!
Cod is much easier. I marinated it with dashi shoyu, salt, some ginger slices (my own concoction; not bad for an anyhow attempt), and then baked it in my new Tefal hot convection oven (yes, you heard it right! hubby finally bought me a personal oven to experiment with new dishes... yeah!).
Added some vermicelli (bee hoon) and a couple of blanched broccoli, and what have you got? A wholesome and delicious dinner meal, of course!
Hubby's rather pleased with the way the cod was baked to near perfection, and the mango sauce certainly enhanced the overall taste. I'm sure he's looking forward to more such dishes, baked or roasted by the new member of the kitchen.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Hubby and Chocolate

Seems like hubby has taken a greater liking for chocolate ever since he married me, maybe because I almost always orders hot chocolate whenever we frequent Starbucks or Coffee Beans. He has such a love for good food sometimes he'll include them in our casual conversations...
Tonight as he came in from the front door from work, I extended my arms to welcome him, wanting to take his backpack while he removed his shoes. Instead he misinterpreted my gesture and gave me a hug. Nice. "Wah, how come your backpack so heavy? Got gold bars, is it?" I joked. He walked past me and with a nonchalant voice, remarked, "The probability of finding chocolate bars inside my backpack is higher than gold bars..."
Later, over at the dinner table, I read an article to him from a recent copy of The Eagles' VantagePoint magazine on how a man's theology about women may have either good or bad repercussions on his relationships with the women around him, in particular his wife. He listened thoughtfully, and then asked me, "Do you think I'm chauvinistic?" I replied instantly with a grin, "No, you're not!" He heaved a sigh of relief, and then muttered, "I guess I'm more of a chocolanistic guy..." I broke into laughters.
.
Ps: Are there any good chocolate recipes that my readers can recommend me to pamper my hubby with?

Monday, August 9, 2010

NDP 2010

Today is Singapore's 45th birthday, but we're not going to the National Day Parade (NDP) because we did not have the tickets. Staying home on a holiday wasn't a bad idea anyway.
Hubby wanted to eat Yong Tou Fu so I went to the West Coast market to do some marketing and bought
the ingredients to make this lunch for him.  As I did not have time to pre-soak the soya beans, I simply make the broth using ikan bilis, yellow onions, garlic and ginger and it turned out to be superb!   
                                     
After lunch I went to NTUC to buy a tub of Kings raspberry ice-cream (hubby's favourite brand and flavour) as I suddenly remembered one of my colleague gave me a pack of chocolate flakes which her daughter brought all the way back from London.  It was a nice cool dessert perfect for warm weather.
For dinner, I decided on something simple but nuitritious: Tomato and Loofah soup with black fungus and sliced lean pork. This soup not only strengthens your digestive system, it also reduces heatiness and counters constipation. Suitable especially during hot weather, or when you eat too much heaty stuff or stays up late at night. Took only 10 minutes to prepare.  Maybe I didn't add enough tomatoes and meat, the soup was not so tasty.....  Anyway,  try it!
Here's the link to the recipe.

Friday, August 6, 2010

C-P-F


I'm not referring to the Central Providential Fund (CPF) which every Singaporean employee has to contribute a percentage of his or her salary to. For the past few days, I've been busy preparing some rather tantalising food for my hubby, so did not update my blog.
For dinner, I made the dark sauce mid-section chicken wings, and lady's fingers in chilli with brown rice. Hubby tasted the difference in style; he likened his mum's to lao-po-bing (wife's biscuit, sweet) flavour, while mine is lao-gong-bing (husband's biscuit, salty) flavour. When it comes to food, he really knows how to draw up such analogies!
For breakfast, I made him a burger pattie from minced pork, onions and bread crumbs, sandwiched with butterhead and tomato slices between lightly toasted focaccia bread. I even made him a cup of hot chocolate to go with it. What better way to start a day than a good breakfast?
Recently, I bought some fish fillet from NTUC and decided to bake it with fine bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Side dish was sliced blanched butterhead, tomatoes and cut portobello mushrooms. For starter, we had focaccia bread dipped in extra virgin olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegar (I learnt it from an overseas counterpart during one of my company's business trip. Try it! You'll like it too...)
So what does C-P-F stand for, you're probably asking by now. Simple. It's Chicken-Pork-Fish, the three basic meats I used for the above dishes.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Pearly Barley and Black Beauty


Last Saturday was quite a hot day, so I decided to make dessert to beat the heat outside. I called this dish Pearly Barley Soup with Beancurd Strips, though it's better known as Fu-Zhu-Bai-Guo Tang (Beancurd strips with Ginkgo Nuts Soup). Actually there's a small "incidence" in the past to this dish but I'll tell you at the end of this post. The last I made this dessert was more than a year ago until I saw this recipe from noobcook.com.  Here's the ingredients: Barley, beancurd strips (the soft type suitable for this dish), ginkgo nuts, red dates, and rock sugar.

Today, we had a special dish: Pig's trotters in black vinegar (with old ginger). It wasn't prepared by me, but by one of my hubby's Sunday School students, who brought it to him last evening.

We thought it'll be a good idea to have it with white rice for lunch today. Judging from my hubby's expression, he's simply in seventh heaven now, or was it since last Friday? He finished up two big plates of rice with just this one dish! Now I know the meaning of being blissful when it comes to food...

Here's the story:
Shortly after I was married , I tried makng the pearly barley soup, thinking it's one of the simplest dessert to prepare, and wanting to assure my mother-in-law that I'm quite capable of feeding her son with good and nuitritious food. Unfortunately, the recipe I got at that time didn't specify using the correct type of beancurd strips.  I didn't recall my mum ever make this dessert before.  So I thought I could simply use the only type of beancurd strips that I know - which was meant for cooking not for making dessert, until my mother-in-law remarked after tasting it, "What kind of fu-zhu did you use to make this dessert....there are two types you know?"   Ooops...!  No wonder I had spent a long time boiling my dessert and wondering why it took so long for the beancurd strips to dissolve into smoother strips!  Embarassed......

 

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