Sauteed Bok Choy

I bought this Bok Choy SM Hypermart imported from Taiwan. Just an ordinary sauteed in vegetable oil with chopped garlic and seasoned with salt.

SOOC

Simple Garlic Spinach

I don't actually greens when I was a kid  that's why I was anemic during my high school days. I  don't like the smell and the bitter taste. But I love watching Popeye specially when he's about to eat the spinach. Now that I'm learning to cook, taste and smell can be improved even in a simple way :)

Simply Hummus

For the first time in Traditional Market, I found fresh chickpeas and I immediately bought a kilo. Since I've seen SBD Recipes use a lot of chickpeas. The first recipe I adapted from is Hummus. Since, it's fresh I boiled them first for about 5 minutes.

1 cup chickpeas

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1/4 cup tahini (sesame paste)

1/4 cup chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon ground cumin

salt and pepper to taste

chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Drain the chickpeas, reserving 1/4 cup of the liquid. Combine chickpeas, lime juice, tahini, onion, garlic, oil, cumin, pepper, and salt in a blender. Puree until smooth, adding the chickpeas liquid if needed to thin the puree. Refrigerate to chill at least 3 hours before serving to blend the flavors. Garnish with parsley (optional).

Since I'm the only one eating it, there's more left-over! I made it into pasta sauce, just added parmesan cheese, and roasted garlic.Place on top of any kinds of noodles... garnish it with fresh basil... A meal!

So creamy and yummy!

Another Meatless Monday here...

Chilled Vegetable in Vietnamese Roll

Nice to eat meatless once in while, that's why I decided to make fresh chilled vegetable in Vietnamese Roll, perfect food for summer. It's very light and nutritious, and I added scrambled eggs so I won't feel like I'm eating grass (kidding) ;). This one has no exact recipe.

carrot, stripped

cucumber, stripped

cabbage, chopped

Vietnamese roll sheet (or any spring roll)

2 eggs, scrambled

salt and pepper to taste

extra-virgin olive oil

mayonnaise (or any dressing)

In a pan, saute the carrot, cucumber and cabbage, season with salt and pepper. Cook just for few minutes ( do not overcooked). Let it cool. Steep the Vietnamese roll in a warm water for at least ten seconds. Place vegetable mix and egg on one side spring roll. Fold one side, then fold left and right and roll forward to the mixture. Chill for few minutes before serving. Serve with dressing of your choice.

Note: You can also deep-fry spring rolls.

Almost weekend, Have one friends!

Foodie Friday

Mix of Colorful Peppers and Onion

Colorful Peppers and Onion Mix

My June entry to:

                                                            
A very simple side dish, all you need are:
1/4 green, 1/4 yellow, 1/4 red peppers
1/4 onion

Seasonings:
1 tablespoon olive oil
lime or vinegar
salt
 pepper

Rinse and cut peppers into julienne, blanch them in boiling water, drain.

Chopped onion, mix with peppers. Add seasonings, mix well.

Cabbage Dumplings

Meatless meal for today! I have left over 1/4 head of cabbage and some dumplings wrapper, why not make them into dumplings. Egg can be added too, but I skip that one. I sauteed first the shredded cabbage in a butter, seasoned with salt and pepper. Let it cool, then scoop 1 tablespoon of cabbage filling into the wrapper. Then fold the the dumplings, and sealed. Place in the steamer and steam for about 10 minutes or until the wrappers become transparent.

Broad Beans in Butter

Are they Lima Beans? or Broad Beans? I'm not so sure!

Anyways, what I did here is just boil water first.

After cooked, blanch them in cold water, peel the skin.

Then saute in butter, season with salt and pepper.

Serve for appetizer, snack, or sidedish!

Bitter Gourd and Beef

I used to buy white bitter gourd and it's not bitter at all. This time, I bought the green and I didn't marinate it with salt after slicing, it's really bitter!
1 big bitter gourd
100g beef, sliced
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon water
1 small red pepper
salt and pepper to taste
sesame oil

Marinate the beef with soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, and water for 10 minutes. Wash bitter gourd, cut and shred. Heat 2 tablespoon of oil, stir fry bitter gourd. Add light soy sauce, sprinkle with water, sugar, and salt (optional). Set aside. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil, stir fry beef until cook, add bitter gourd. Keep stir fry, add red pepper, sprinkle water (if it's too thick) and sesame oil. Turn off the heat and serve with rice.

Mix Vegetables without Shrimp Paste

In the Philippines, Mix Vegetables with Shrimp Paste is a dish  known as "Pakbet" or "Pinakbet". It's a mix of local vegetables with fermented fish or small shrimp. Nowadays, Filipinos cook Pakbet with their own way and their own taste. Like me, I didn't add fish paste or shrimp paste and pork. I used shrimp head juice and fish sauce for seasoning that's why I renamed it as Mix Vegetables without Shrimp Paste.

1 small bitter gourd (ampalaya), sliced

1 small small eggplant, sliced

1/4 squash, cut into bite size

6 pieces okra, sliced

6 pieces stringbeans, slice

1 medium tomato, sliced

1 small onion, choppped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 cup shrimp

1/2 cup shrimp head juice

1/4 cup water

fish sauce to taste

In a pan, saute onion, garlic, and tomato until fragrance. Add shrimp and saute until turns pink. Add all the vegetables, pour in shrimp head juice and water. Simmer until ingredients are crisp-tender. Season with fishsauce. Serve with rice.

Squash and String Beans in Coconut Milk

 I bought this cookbook back home, "Pagkaing Pinoy" (Filipino Food) - The Most Famous Recipes of the Philippines by Christie Lee. From this cookbook, I tried her dish, Squash Cook in Coconut Milk "Ginataang Kalabasa", one of the famous dish in the Philippines. I live alone, so I can't exactly follow the ingredients in the cookbook, otherwise nobody will eat it! Here's what I did:

1/2 small squash (about 300g), cut into bite size
8 string beans stalks, cut into 1-2 inch
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion
1 cup shrimp meat (or cubed pork)
1 cup coconut milk (in can)
salt and pepper to taste
chilly or chilly powder
oil for sauteing

In a pan, heat 2 tablespoon oil, saute garlic until light brown.

Add onion and shrimp (or pork). Mix well

Pour in thin coconut milk. (1/2 cup of coconut milk + 1/2 cup of water.

Add squash and string beans. Season with salt and pepper + chilly powder.

Simmer until vegetables are done but not overcooked.

Pour in thick coconut milk (1/2 cup), then remove from heat.

Spicy Egg Tofu with Brocolli

Be creative with the ingredients so we can come out with new dish. One of the famous dishes of tofu is called Ma Po Dou Fu  (麻婆豆腐), or "Pockmarked-Face Lady's Tofu". The history is about a poor widow, she put up a small restaurant and became famous because of her stewed spicy tofu with minced meat. To remember her name after she died, Ma Po Tofu has been used.

Mapo Tofu is a combination of soft tofu and minced pork or beef in a spicy bean sauce and fermented black bean. In Taiwan, mostly they use minced pork. I made a twist with the original ingredients, removing the minced meat and fermented black bean. I added broccoli, and it's a nice combination because the sauce incorporate with it. I fried the tofu first in 2 tablespoon olive oil.

I think even vegetarian will like this dish!


Ingredients:
1 box egg tofu
1 stalk green onion (also known as spring onion or scallion)
1 red chili pepper
2 small slices of ginger
2 tablespoon light l soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon cooking wine (optional)
1 tablespoon spicy bean paste
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil

Slice the tofu and fried until golden brown.

Cut into slant the green onion, ginger and red chili pepper.

In a low heat add spicy bean paste and ginger, drizzle with wine and

light soy sauce, then add water and let it boil. Season with salt and pepper.

Thicken the gravy with cornstarch mixture; drizzle sesame oil and add

green onion, chili pepper, and broccoli. Simmer and toss for another minute.

Serve mapo tofu with rice

Garlic Eggplant

Sometimes I wonder how Taiwanese prepared simple dish but delicious like this garlic eggplant. Actually, garlic eggplant is easy to prepare, they serve it here as an appetizer or side dish. Just cut the eggplant into bite size and fry them in 2 tablespoon of olive oil. When the eggplant is cook, set in a dish.

Sautee chopped 5 cloves of garlic and 1 chili pepper in a sesame oil (or any oil), add 2 tablespoon thick soy sauce and half teaspoon of sugar. Let it boil and pour on top of the eggplant.

Optional: If you like, no need to sautee the seasoning. Mix garlic, chili pepper, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sugar well. Pour on top of the eggplant and sprinkle chopped coriander.

Serve it with rice and fish, like what I did below!

Vegetarian Spring Roll

After the Palm Sunday Mass, our sisters in the church gave us spring roll wrapper (lumpia wrapper). Since it's Holy Week, It' my choice  not to eat any meat  and seafood the whole week.

 In our language we call that "lumpiang shanghai". There are different ways how to make them. I started to make vegetarian spring roll consist of fresh tofu and beansprout as the main ingredients.I think any vege will do...I didn't use any preservative flavoring, except for salt and pepper. I don't think I need to make sauce either, because it's already tasty! The ingredients are - fresh tofu - beansprout -carrot -celery -onion -garlic -salt and pepper -chili powder (optional) -lumpia wrapper -cooking oil (I used canola). I fried the tofu first, followed by garlic and onion. I added carrots and beansprout., put some seasoning, set aside until it's cool! Spread the spring roll, put at least 2 tablespoon of cooked vegetables, wrapped it... I made 8 pieces. Heat oil again, wait until the oil is hot enough, put the spring roll, roll them to cook evenly. If the wrapper turn brown, then it's cooked! Crunchy!!!

Steamed Radish

The first time I tried this Steamed Radish was here in Taiwan. In the Philippines, as far as I remember we only add radish in sour soup (sinigang). The fresh shredded radish is with Japanese Sashimi. I got the recipe from my cookbook All About Steaming.

It is mentioned in the book, when buying radish, choose one that is smooth, heavy and gives a clear sound when stirked with a finger. Radish is rich in Vitamin C and Zinc, and it helps in strenghtening the body's immune syster.

1 radish
some coriander (optional)
1 cup stock (I used fish stock)
2 tablespoon light soysauce



Rinse radish, then cut vertically into two, place on a place and steam for 15 minutes.

Cut the steamed radish into thick slices, add stock and seasoning and steam for another 15 minutes.

Once the radish has turned transparent, sprinkle with coriander. Serve.