Cold Vegetable Soup (Gazpacho)

Summer time! It would be nice if the soup like Gazpacho is cold. Adapted  from the South Beach Diet Recipe, my first time to make and taste my way of making gazpacho. I have less ingredients, maybe it would taste better if I completed the ingredients being asked. I didn't add tomato or vegetable juice, i just added more ripe tomatoes, and no parsley, vinegar (I used lime), and worcestershire sauce. In the recipe, the procedure is just mix everything and refrigerate. I cook everything first, I don't think I can drink it raw. Then I blended it, before I refrigerate.

2 cups finely chopped fresh tomatoes

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

1/2 cup finely chopped cucumber

1/2 cup finely chopped green bell pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped green onion

3 tablespoon fresh lime juice

2 tablespoon extra-vrigin olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

In a pot, combine all the ingredients and just let it boil. Place in a blender, blended it until smooth. Let it cool, cover and refrigerate overnight. Serve cold.

Peas and Potato Cream Soup

100g potato ( 1 small)
30g green peas (1/2 cup)
10g celery (1 stalk)
40g fresh milk (I used 1cup law fat)
salt and pepper
bread bowl (optional)

Dice potato and celery. Steam all the potato, green peas and celery until cook. Put potato, celery, green peas and fresh milk in a blender. Blend with slow speed, season with salt and pepper. Serve in a bowl or bread bowl.

Chicken Wanton Soup

Living in Taiwan is really hard to find Wanton Soup without pork, as I've mentioned in my previous Spicy Shrimp Wonton Dumpling. I made this dish today without any pork at all.

For the Stuffing:
2 breast fillet chicken, chopped
2 stalks spring onion, chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, chopped
1 tablespoon water
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
wonton wrapper

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients well until sticky form. Put stuffing in the middle of wonton wrapper, foll the 4 corner sides together and press gently in the middle. Set aside.
For the Soup:
2 cups of water (or chicken broth if any)
1/2 small onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup milk
1 stalk green onion, sliced (optional)
1 stalk celery, sliced
1/2 small carrot, sliced
salt (or fish sauce) to taste
oil for sauteeing

Saute garlic and onion in saucepan until fragrance. Add vegetables and season with fish sauce (salt) to taste. Pour in water (broth) and allow to boil. Add wonton dumpling and boil again. Stir in milk and sprinkle ground pepper. Remove from heat. Garnish with green onions before serving.

Fish in Miso Soup

Another trial and error, I love miso soup but I have no idea how to make it from scratch. Anyways, here what I did...
I prepared the following ingredients...
- 2 slice of fillet fish (cut into bite size)
- 1/2 box of tofu (bean curd)
- 50 g of miso paste (original flavor)
- 1 stem of scallion
- salt and pepper to taste
- few green vege










As I mentioned, I cut the fish and tofu into small pieces. Dissolved miso well, and I chopped the scallion. I boiled 2 cups of water, the I put the fish, tofu, miso, and seasoning. I added the green vege, and simmer for few minutes. Sprinkle some scallion, I also squeezed lemon. It's good!

Cabbage Soup and Sweet Potato Soup

Another discovery cabbage soup for today. If you've noticed the difference between my two previous cabbage soup and today's cabbage are quiet different. Just because today, I bought the organic. It's more chewy and dry. I know it's more healthy, but I think I like Taiwanese Cabbage better.
What I did today: I boiled water, added the sweet potato first, then onion and garlic, salt and pepper + chili powder. When the sweet potato is ready, I followed the celery and cabbage. Let it simmer until it boiled.
This time I didn't add any oil! It has the sweetness of sweet potato, not bad!

Note: Taiwanese sweet potato is just like pumpkin....

Cabbage and Potato Soup

As mentioned in previous blog (Cabbage Soup 1), i took out the beef Tuesday night to thaw, put it back again since I don't meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. Here's the story, last night I thaw it and today I cooked Beef Soup ( Nilagang Baka) today. When I'm about to finish cooking, whew! Today is Friday!!! :(

I've forgotten!!! Anyways, I just added lots of water, seasoning (salt + fish sauce and pepper), more vegetables-cabbage, green beans, and potato. The beef is just the flavor (sort of stock), that's the reason why my Beef Soup suddenly switched to Cabbage Soup 2!

Note: I'm not into cabbage soup diet, it so happen that I bought this big cabbage and the weather is cold. Thanks!

Cabbage and Tomato Soup

I bought 1 head of cabbage last night, deciding to saute it with beef. I took out the beef out of the freezer to thaw, then I realized today is Wednesday (no meat for me). I put it back in the freezer, just thought of making soup out of what I have. Here's the outcome, I used half of the cabbabe, 1 small carrot, 1 big tomato, celery, onion, garlic, fresh basil, dried dill, chili sauce, salt, and pepper to taste.

I have no broth ( I avoid using commercial broth), I boiled water, add few chopped shrimp just for flavoring. Put in the chopped onion, garlic, tomato, few drops of oil to boil. Followed by carrots and celery until soften. Add seasoning, then the cabbage and few fresh basil! Ready to serve...

Note: I'm not into cabbage soup diet!

Instant Shabu-Shabu

Today I was craving for shabu-shabu but my friend was busy so we can't go out on our usual weekend plan. I decided to make one myself. Here's the outcome.

Luckily, in Taiwan we can buy freshly cook ingredients like tofu, taro, and even fresh instant noodles.

What I did was boil some water, then add all the ingredients. Let it boil again, then just drop some vege (any greens) that's it! It's good for 2 persons and it's economical too!

Here's the ingredients:

Tofu and Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

tofu

few shrimps

any vegetables

ginger

salt and pepper to taste


Procedure:

Saute' ginger then shrimp or prawns, then fofu

Add salt and pepper to taste, then add water

After boiling, add rest of the vegetables

Cover and simmer for few minutes.

Bottlegourd with Shrimp

Ingredients:
1 small upo (bottle gourd or white squash)
100 g shrimp - shelled and deveined
1small tomato
1small onion
3 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1T olive oil

Boil shrimp head in 1 1/2 cups of water. Save the stock.
Heat 1T oil, Saute garlic and onion, then add tomato.
Add shrimp and cook until pink.
Add upo and shrimp stock.
Simmer it for 4-5 minutes.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Let it boil until the upo is cooked.

Serve on top of rice! Enjoy!

Chicken Patola with Misua

Ingredients:
1 medium patola (sponge gourd)
200 g chicken
3 slices ginger (optional - nilagyan ko lang)
3 cloves garlic
4 cups of water
50g misua
1T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste (I use patis)

Heat 1T oil, saute garlic and ginger.
Add the chicken, cook until turns white.
Add 4 cups of water, salt and pepper.
Let it boil, add patola and simmer for 3 minutes.
Finally, add misua and bring to a boil until cooked.
Enjoy!