Good Salad Dressing for Comfort Salad

I received an email the other day, asking me to try this new series of salad dressings, I said: Why not? Hence Agusta, the director of this newly set up company which imports mustard salad dressing from Perth Australia, sent me a few samples to try out.

Yesterday, I tried this Classic Red Dressing on Rocket Salad and it was fantastic! A balance of sweet and tangy offering some kicks! I like it very much! Thanks Agusta, for introducing me this salad dressing and even let me to try out. I won't mind to buy for him next time. I hope to see it in the market soon. :)

You can go to its website to find out more: www.vrescano.com.sg or contact them:

10 Pari Dedap Walk #11-15Singapore 486062
Tel/Fax: (65) 6241 5998
Email: agusta@vrescano.com.sg
After dressed:

Inspiring speech by a Teacher - Sir Ken Robinson

As you have known by now, I am a Chinese teacher. I am very much influenced by this clip and would like to share this entertaining and inspiring clip with my readers here. ;)

Hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

Good Looking Fried Noodle - A Disaster

Is this appetizing? Yes, it is (from the picture) but unfortunately it turns out to be a mistake. I made this in the morning, hoping to make a scrumptious breakfast. The noodle I used here is actually a CNY gift and it’s organic and freaking expensive (I suppose all ‘organic’ sounds expensive to me). I had this brainwave out of nowhere and sprang out of bed to start my kitchen engine in the early morning. Happily frying onions and garlic, I stared at the dry noodle, wondering how to soften it. Since I was thinking of frying it later, water should not be added in the cooking process. So I guess it must be the same as cooking bee hoon (Chinese Rice vermicelli). At that point it only made sense if I soaked it into cold water to soften it. How naïve I was.

Later on, after my harvesting in Farmville (10 minutes or so), I turned back into the kitchen. To my horror, it was TOTALLY softened…to the extent that I could make amorphous paste out of it. What am I going to do with it? I thought myself, throwing it away? No, it’s such a waste. No way. So I guess I have to cook it anyway. Hence, this as a result, may be good looking but not really tasty.

I am not going to share this recipe here as my mistake is not going to help you in your kitchen. But I would like to share with you my mistake so as you do not repeat the same mistake: Soak dry noodle in water.

Now, some of you might be wondering why I sound differently overnight?? I am going to start some waffling(talking nonsense) for a while, because I am fed up reading those words used by these so-called academics who try so hard to sound intellectually that I might as well making use of some of those words here so as to ‘apply’ them. I am just half way through my master and nothing can better describe my view or thought after reading those purely academically-inclined papers or journals than this: It is full of smoke, in Singaporean sense at least. (With a heave of sigh) Nonetheless, I still enjoy being a student for the time being.

Tomato Soup - Best serve with Bread

As promised, this is super simple and comfort food, nothing too fancy. Best serve with bread especially if you are rushing for time.

I got a NEW blender from Philip! See? We are making the best out of it lately. So we got this blended soup and will try out more recipes making use of it.

I am so ... happy to get this. Now, no more complaints. I think I will get prettier if I drink more juices as a result. Haha! Just dreaming ~

Serve 4

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 big onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stick, chopped
500g of fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 can of vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
some herbs such as 1 bay leave and fresh parsley


Directions
Heat oil over medium-high heat. Saute onion and garlic until onion is translucent, about 3 mins. Add carrot and celery; fry a bit, stirring frequently. Stir in tomatoes, broth, parsley, and pepper. Cover and cook in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes. When done, season with salt if need be. Let it cool and then blend everything in a blender. Garnish with fresh parsley.

Best serve with focacia bread.

Stir-fry Shitake Mushroom with Napa Cabbage

We are more toward healthy and low-carb food nowadays. So we cook less meat but more vegetables. Quite recently, we bought a blender so that we can eat more fruits and vegetables. I can now blend papaya juice, mango juice, make tomatoes soup or things like that. I can still recall my encounter in Japan , when a chunky tuna was being sliced right in front of me served as sa~ shi~mi~. It's absolutely eerie and yucky! Who on earth will eat something like this being sliced right in front? Not ME.

I still eat meat but lesser now and I enjoy sashimi but may be not in Japan, opps! Sorry! Having said that, I look forward to join my old friend for lunch and shopping next wednesday, and I am proposing going to Sushi Tei (because I own a VIP membership with that chain hence 10% off, also because of the good food there). Yeap, so I still enjoy meat but may be more when dining out.

So from now on, I will introduce more vegetable recipes. Bravo to healthier body, mind and soul!! (sounds like some beauty salon spa's slogan) Hmm...Well, I guess it's about time for us to get healthier, no? Eating healthier food does not mean being deprived of yummy food. I can promise you good food with good nutritional values in it. *cross my heart*

For today's menu, we had stir-fry Shitake Mushroom with Napa Cabbage. It's kind of sweet and slightly crunchy, with shitake mushroom gives a bit of meaty taste, goes well with porridge.

Ingredients:

1. Soaked shitake mushroom, sliced
2. Napa cabbage, sliced
3. 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
4. Seasoning : 1 tsp of sugar, a dash of salt, half a cube of chicken stock, 1/2 cup of water

Method:

1. Heat oil, fry garlic till fragrant
2. Add in shitake mushroom, stir-fry a bit, abt 1 min
3. Add Napa cabbage, stir-fry a bit to get wok hei then add seasoning
4. Cover with lid, cook for about 8 mins. Occasionally open to turn around cabbage so that it cooks evenly.
5. Done.

Best serve with rice or porridge. In my case, we serve with oat porridge (cook oat with plain water for 5 mins, taste like porridge).

Tomatoes & White Button Mushroom Pasta

This is something different. You cannot find it elsewhere, especially in restaurants, because it’s super simple and yummy! More importantly, we made this due to limited resources. Well, nothing can convince you unless you try to make it yourself. We tried this recipe out of the blue and its good, means good. Taste doesn’t cheat, right? So make yourself one. You won’t regret it.

Ingredients:
6 low-sodium tomatoes, we got it from Giant @ $7.90 but very tasty!
1 whole garlic, sliced
Fresh basil, chopped
1 can of Anchovies, use its oil only
White button mushrooms, sliced
2 tbs of olive oil
Grated parmesan cheese
Wholemeal pasta

Method:
1. With salt in water, boil and cook pasta until al-dente
2. Sweat mushrooms by cooking them with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, fry until soft, about 3 mins
3. With Anchovies’ oil, fry garlic till fragrant, about 1 min
4. Divide basil into 2 parts, fry 1 part with mushroom now
5. When it’s done, put all pasta into the pan to fry together, add some pasta water if it's too dry to stir around.
6. Add tomatoes into hot pasta water to poach them for about 1 min
7. Put tomatoes into the pasta mixture
8. Season with pepper, no salt needed as the anchovies’ oil contains salt
9. Garnish with 1 part of chopped basil and parmesan cheese, Serve hot.

Yum yum~~

New Year Food in Bangkok

This is a delayed post for Chinese New Year in Bangkok. I had a relatively 'quiet' Chinese new year compared to last year's. We spent our new year watching DVDs indoor and more DVDs afterwards. There was really nothing much to see on the street as we had already seen. Since we only had 3 days to spend there, we decided to have some good REST. On the other hand, we did have some good food and visited temples during New Year's eve so no regrets.

One thing that worth mentioning during this trip is my father-in-law brought us to a temple to donate coffins to people died without one. Compared to enjoying myself, helping others is a better way to start my new year.

After that, we went to Siam Paragon to have dinner. The decoration was impressive! I managed to take some photos but forgot to take the outside ones! There were some lion dance and performances but we missed it. Anyway, I managed to take some photos of the food in Fuji Restaurant located in the basement of Siam Paragon, we usually go there for good food at reasonable prices.