Life consumed me until this Thosai was found...

finally a picture of that pesto...I'm not saying more....

Why I can never be a vegetarian.

Vegetable soup is one of my favourite things to have hanging about readily in the fridge, waiting to be heated up after a late night ride, or tiring class. Tasty and nutritious. I make mine like a minestrone, but I daren't call it a minestrone for fear of purists. I just put whatever vegetables or beans I have on hand. Some garlic, extra virgin olive oil, and lovely dark red italian tomato paste.

Today I made a giant pot to clear out the wilted and semi frozen vegetables I found lurking in my fridge. I do my marketing but my eyes are too big for my stomach, since I buy enough vegetables for 5 when there are only two of us. And then there are the busy days where I'm just too lazy to use the vegetables sitting right there. So vegetable soup ensures nothing gets wasted.

Use whatever you like. In a large pot, warm some olive oil and chopped garlic, fry the mushrooms to develop the flavour. Then toss in all the long cooking vegetables The soaked beans and cauliflower and things like.. chopped raw chestnuts go in at this time. Add boiling water and bring up the heat. When its beginning to boil again, add the next lot of vegetables. Zucchini, pumpkin, celery, carrot, tomato and everything else, leaving only the quick cooking greens. Those go in at the very end. Now stir in as much tomato paste as you like to get a nice red hue and some goood tomatoey flavour. Salt it now, so the vegetables get tender and have good flavour.

Simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally to ensure nothing is burning at the bottom. It will bubble away happily.

Once it all smells good, the tomatoes have melted and the zucchini can hardly be found, add in the greens and stir well and simmer for another fifteen minutes. If you like, add in some pasta twists or shells at this point. Just a little to add texture to it when you're eating later. Season with more salt to taste, black pepper and more extra virgin olive oil. (I always end up adding more tomato paste at the end too... )

Then call your neighbours and ask them to help themselves :D

Leftovers freeze well. Refrigerator also works for up to a week as long as you let it cool completely before refrigerating. (If there are any leftovers. Might be better if you set aside some at first.)


Update: The soup turned out delicious, but somehow lacking something.. It was really sweet, but had none of the robustness I'm used to finding in my soup. I finally deduced it was the lack of meat in it. Usually it's made with chicken stock, but this time I just used water and the soup suffered for it.. Just now I decided to do something about it.. I added some mince beef (pan fried with garlic and some potatoes) Ahhhhhhh.... much better. Now it's the soup I know... See the beefy bits in the picture?? ;)

Pratilla

I wonder if this means something vulgar in spanish.

What happens when you crave a quesadilla but have no tortilla? You use frozen PRATA :D
What happens when you have no meaty thing to put inside? You use more cheese.
What if there is no lettucy veggie thingy? You use grated carrot and beetroot salad.

Ahh.. wonder.. maybe I should go get myself some now..

what I have been up to recently

No I'm not dead... yet.... I'm just busy with my new toy. Too many things to do, too little time..

Backdated post - Vietnam Part 4

Steetside vendors are a colourful affair in Vietnam. No one seems bothered by the amount of exhaust smoke being sprayed across their produce. Perhaps its much more practical, since their clientele can stop right in front, get what they want, pay money and then leave, all without getting off their scooters.. It's the 'Drive-up' mentality I'd say..


After gallivanting about all day, and having went so far we did not have a proper lunch, I had to return to one of these roadside shellfish places for dinner. The razor clams were fried with sweet basil and lots of garlic. H loved them, but they were a tad sweet for me.


These clams however, were the best things I'd ever had.. big, juicy and succulent. Steamed quickly, they still had milky clam juice in the shells. Didn't even need a dipping salt. I'm still fantasizing about them right now, months after the deed...



The damage... around I cannot remember now.. but it wasn't that expensive.


Iced green tea to wash it all down


Talk about sheer variety...

Backdated post - Vietnam Part 3

This has been a post long time coming, but being very busy with work and other aspects of my life, I never had the chance to do it till now, and I definitely need to apologise to all my readers. But since it is my blog and I'm back to putting it up I'm not going to use the magic words.

The first night in Ho Chi Minh City consisted of a trip to eat with some guys we met in the bus crossing the border. No pictures, but a beautiful bowl of noodle soup with chunks of duck and blood cakes. Those things were some of my favourite food when I was growing up. the dark purplish brown cakes in a hot soup... heaven.. Of course, all my compatriots did not appreciate it at all.. Ah well.. more for me!

The next morning it was imperative to have our first cups of vietnamese iced coffee. We followed our noses for breakfast. The wonderful scent of grilled meat filled the air. Asides from the ubiquitous pho breakfast, it seems that sweet marinated grilled pork chops with rice is another very popular breakfast. We followed our noses along the street until we came upon a genial looking old man who was grilling the said meat on an outside charcoal grill. His wife was decidedly less genial looking and ran the other part of the shop.



Having had a whiff of it, it's not hard to understand why it was an essential breakfast. What better way to start the day than with some tasty protein and carbohydrates?.. even my not-very-much-meat-eating travel partner (she usually does not even eat pork unless its been chopped into unidentifiable bits) insisted on having the full pork chop! Coffee came from across the street from a smiley lady in the standard floral print pyjama style matching day clothes most vietnamese women seem to sport.


For some reason however, I didn't feel like being suckered into such an easy meal. For some reason I expected more work in finding my first proper vietnamese meal.. thus I had some coffee while H had her pork chop. Then we wandered around the boroughs until I saw a stall with lots of people sitting by on a low tables slurping noodles. Braised beef noodles, the gravy sweet with carrots and thickened from the natural gelatin and collagen of braised beef bones and tendons. The chunks of tendon were not too big to be unmanageble and melted in your mouth. The vegetables balanced out the heady flavours. Really amazing and cherished to the last drop...After breakfast we walked around the Ben Thanh market and saw many many hawkers and vendors selling amazingly yummy looking things, but we were too full from breakfast. I got shooed away for taking some of these pictures. The Vietnamese are definitely not as friendly as the Cambodians.

Quick meals - Coriander Pesto

My first encounter with Pesto was many years ago, and one of confusion, not really sure what I was tasting or experiencing. It was a truly Italian pesto, with basil, pine nuts olive oil and the like. It was not too bad, but not something I'd volunteer to eat on a regular basis, more of an acquired taste. Recently however, I've been making a pesto that falls into the comfort food category.

Coriander pesto is something I first heard of while watching food programmes on TV. It has all the enticing prospects of regular pesto, except its much lighter and to be honest, cheaper to make in Singapore. I found a random recipe online that had fulfilled my criteria (that I already had all the ingredients). I don't know which one it is anymore, but just to let everyone know, I did get the initial recipe from somewhere, and it was never my idea solely.

Just some points to note - I use the big australian limes because they are big and fragrant and do not have the flowery scent of the calamansi, just a straightforward citrusy pucker-up flavour. These can be found at any regular wet market, not sure about the supermarket. Fresh coriander should be much cheaper at the wet market too, about 1 sgd for a fist sized bunch. Macadamias are the splurge, but that was because I had some at hand. Pine nuts would do if you have them, but macadamias can be bought from the snack section of most supermarkets. I used the plain salted ones. too many additives on the other flavours.

Coriander pesto

big bunch of fresh coriander, roots cut off, rinsed carefully and shake as dry as possible.
1/4 cup salted macadamias
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 clove garlic, peeled
juice of 1 large lime

blend together in a large blender, add extra oil if necessary.

Makes a tangy yummy pesto, perfect on hot pasta with some peeled blanched shrimp and thinly sliced celery, or as it is.

Quick meals - Soba with ham and tomatoes

It's been a long time since I've last posted and I hope I'll be forgiven. I've been so busy lately I hardly have time to surf the net. Is that even possible? But I'm just sitting here 5 minutes before going to bed, relaxing with a nice, light but comforting meal in my belly. I figure I should start a 'series' on easy meals (I know i still have not finished my traveling posts yet. I will I promise!)

I bring lunches to school everyday, and my colleagues often ask me where i find the time to prepare my meals. I tell them the night before, but what I don't tell them is that I sometimes prepare meals weeks ahead. I don't tell them that because for some very strange reason, people are squeamish about food-keeping. The freezer is not one of my best friends for nothing, and another best friend are the foods that improve with flavor when kept in the fridge.

One trick I've used for many years is cooking starchy staples in reasonable quantities and freezing them in little HDPE bags. HDPE are better than ziplock because they're much thinner and smaller and this I'd say more environmentally friendly. It also helps that they're cheap as anything.. 2.30 for a bag of couple hundred. how to beat that?

Back to the starchy staples.

Rice (brown and white), spaghetti and other pasta shapes and soba (japanese buckwheat noodles) are excellent candidates. They don't change texture from the freezing, and since they do take reasonably longer to cook than instant noodles and are hard to cook in small quantities. Brown rice and soba also tends to keep me feeling full longer, so I don't eat as much and become hungry too quickly, excellent for long busy days at school, and also for the weight conscious. Another trick is to put sweetcorn kernels in the brown rice. very yummy, and I'm absolutely sweetcorn mad.

Ok, so freezing starchy staple in little packets in the fridge means quick quick meals.

here's meal idea number 1

Soba with ham and tomatoes.

1/2 cup cooked soba (frozen better)
several vine tomatoes (tastes better) if not regular will do. (about 1/2 cup worth) sliced.
Half a shallot, thinly sliced and rinsed(removes the extra pungency)

microwave these on high in a bowl for 2 mins

1 slice ham torn up
2 tblsp Soba Senka (soba sauce)

add these to bowl and stir up, then EAT!

super easy, super good, better than instant noodles.


I'm happy, so I'll go to bed happy now. Sweet Dreams!