Picturesque Food: 2011

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Vegetarian Dishes (2011.03.06)

What else is there to do on a rainy Sunday? It started as an early morning (despite sleeping 9pm, I didn't wake up until 7am, go figure) and the morning started with a breakfast of leftovers. Since I just stocked my fridge of vegggies, I began drawing recipes. I wasn't too inspired, but I had plenty of food and wanted to get some cooking done.

This pictures shows the 8 ingredients used for the 5 dishes just beneath it. (Oil, soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper are not included in the count, clearly.)

From Left to Right, Up/Down:
1) Grilled White Asparagus with a Sliced Strawberry as the garnish
This was my first time eating white asparagus. Um, I don't like it. lol. It might taste a bit better when it is reheated, if not, I'll have to fix it so it tastes better!! It'd doubtful I will purchase it again. (I still have half a bunch in the fridge...) Steamed Asparagus tips are in the tiny container, they're good for being asparagus gum since they're rather stringy...
2) Miso Soup with celery bits
You can't see the celery, but they're in there! The celery was for garnish and I didn't really expect it to stand out much, but I have a ton of celery and just wanted to use it somehow!
3) Garlicky Young Napa
This was my least favorite dish of the 5 (asparagus in a close 4th). It was just boring and wasn't cooked right.
4) Steamed Young Napa Leaves in Soy Sauce and Sesame Oil
My mom seldomly makes this dish as it is very light and she normally prefers to saute vegetables instead. However, when I was at Hmart last night, I tried a dried veggies dish that instantly reminded me of this dish. You can use any green leafy veggies to obtain the same fragrant taste!
5) Tomato, Scrambled Eggs and Fresh Tofu
I've made this dish many times and even posted a version with frozen tofu before. (I still prefer fresh tofu than frozen tofu, texture is the difference between the two.)

A few interesting tidbits about these 5 dishes:
1) The entire prep and cooking time took about an hour. Please note: a good chunk of time was spent trying to find little bowls/containers to put my veggies and waiting for water to boil.
2) Math is in cooking too! (I admit all the items were either on sale or in my fridge)
1 bunch of Young Napa = $.34
1 container of 20 oz tofu = $.99
1/2 bunch of asparagus = $1.00
1 tomato = $.30
2 eggs = $.20
2 strawberries = $.10?
2 cloves of garlic = $.10?
My point is that the 5 dishes cost me about $4-5 in ingredients. Of course, I ate the food with brown rice (trying to cut down, so I only ate about 1/4 cup) but the cost of that is rather irrelevant, as are the spices and oils I used. There is enough food for about 3 meals. Cheap? Yes. Nutritious? Yes. Fun? Heck Yes! lol

And yes, I am eating vegetarian because I don't feel like buying meats. My freezer is cleaned out of meats other than salmon (which really isn't meat)!! Nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables! (And less rice...so sad!)

Monday, February 28, 2011

February 2011 dishes

Steamed Chinese Broccoli - 2011.02.01

Scallion Omelette - 2011.02.01

Carmelized Steak - 2011.02.08

Hakka Stir Fry - 2011.02.11

Radish Tofu Meatball Soup - 2011.02.11

Fried Butterfly Shrimp - 2011.02.12

Stir Fried Seasoned Tofu - 2011.02.12

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Korean food vendor @Lotte Supermarket (2011.02.14)

After taking Mom to the doctor's for a checkup on her arthritis, we stopped to buy groceries and grab brunch. I've no clue what either of these dishes were called, but I'll give a short description of the ingredients.

Shredded Beef with plenty of spring onions and vermicelli in a spicy broth soup.

This dish was recommended by the cashier because the other dish we wanted was out of order. The dish was bland and there was too many spring onions!

Spicy seafood tofu hot pot with a raw egg (in the middle)

The seafood tofu hot pot could not be compared to the tofu hot pots from Vit Goel. This hot pot was similar to the spicy ramen soup we often eat at home.

In Korean grocery stores they typically have a few food vendors, each with their own unique dishes and are fast food versions of Korean food. Although this experience wasn't the most impressive, past experiences at other locations have been much better!

Sauteed Pan Fried Tofu

You can never have too many tofu recipes! Tofu is made from soy beans which contain plenty of protein making it a perfect meat substitute. Due to it's delicate texture, tofu can be limiting when it is eaten often. If it's not deep fried, it's in some kind of soup. An alternative is to freeze the tofu which will give it s sponge-like texture but it become more "durable" and flavorful! Here, instead of deep frying, this is a lightly pan fried tofu

(Serves 4-6)

6 pieces of Tofu, cut into 4 slices

1 stalk of Spring Onions cut into 2" lengths

1 bunch of Cilantro

Plenty of Hot Peppers

6 tsp of Soy Sauce

White Pepper

Oil

1) Lightly fry each side of the tofu until each side is brown. When done, remove the tofu from the oil. In a high heat, heat the oil and add the springs onions and hot peppers. When 80% cooked, add the tofu, cilantro and soy sauce. Lightly mix everything.

2) Your final dish will look something like this.

Note: You can adjust the amount of sauce since your tofu will be a bit bland with less sauce. Just keep in mind that tofu contains alot of water and releases water as it sits. You may want to make your sauce saltier than other dishes as the tofu will dilute the sauce.

Steamed Egg "Tofu"

This is a dish that is very light but flavorful. It provides a soft, soupy texture that is very simple to make and requires only 5 ingredients!

2 Eggs

2 cloves Minced Garlic

White and Black Pepper

1 tsp Soy Sauce

1 cup Hot Water

1) Mix the eggs in a large bowl. Add all the ingredients except the hot water.

2) Mix well. There will be plenty of bubbles.

3) Add the hot water slowly while beating the egg mixture. As you mix, plenty of bubble will form. (This is very much like beating egg whites for Angel Food Cake). Mix for at least 2 minutes, longer will making the "tofu" more successful!

4) A side view of the "diluted" egg mixture. Cover the bowl with saran wrap and place in the microwave. The first couple times making this will require monitoring because every microwave is different.

5) After 1 minute, the egg mixture is about 70% done.

6) Another 30 seconds and voila! Steamed Egg Tofu, very fragrant, very soft and a fun way to make eggs.

Note: Soy sauce is used for coloring purposes, you can lessen or add more depending on the darkness of your Soy Sauce and your preference.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Lighthouse Tofu - Vit Goel (2011.02.05)

I like simple menus. Light House Tofu definitely fits the bill for that! As pictured below, they only have 17 dishes, with a few varieties of Korean Pancake on the other side of the menu.

It was our (my siblings and I) first time eating here and we wanted to get a taste of their famous tofu hot pots. As with all Korean food, several plates of pickled veggies were served along with 2 raw eggs and 3 bowls of mysterious cold "soup" (bottom left corner). (Not really sure if we were supposed to drink that or mix it with food or what, they were left untouched for the most part
)

Korean Pickled Veggies

Seafood Pancake (small order)

Seafood Beef Tofu Hot Pot and Steak Bulgolgi - 2011.02.05

(Beef & Pork Tofu Hot Pot was not pictured)

If you notice the top of the menu, there's a "Spicy" listing from "White" to "Spicy Spicy" - we chose "Spicy" for all our dishes but none of them even compared to the some of the Pickled Veggies in terms of spicy-ness. We decided we would get "Spicy Spicy Spicy" if we ever came back!

The Tofu Hot Pots are great for a cold rainy day and they warm you to your core. It was very good but I would never venture here on a sunny 90 degree day. The Bulgolgi was not very special and more watery than it should be. The hot plate made it look interesting but I wasn't impressed. I've had tofu hot pot at other places and there was nothing special about this one, except for the raw egg you put in and watched it cook itself. It's a fun touch for Americans but I wasn't too impressed.

The food was fresh and they replenished the Preserved Veggies as we ate (unlike most places that just give you one round) and their method of giving us rice was interesting. It came in a hot pot and the server scooped it out into 3 small bowls. Then she poured enough wheat tea into the hotpot to soak the remaining rice that was stuck on the hot pot. She didn't explain the point for doing so but we assumed it was so it would be easier to get the remaining rice. There wasn't a whole lot left but we ended up finishing it off so it wouldn't go to waste.

Total Price: $50 (includes tax and tip)

Lunar New Year - Hakka Dinner

As half-promised, here are the dishes from the New Year celebration with the Hakka Association. We gathered at the New Fortune Restaurant and sat in tables of 10. Each table was served the following dishes on the round table and we each got a serving of each. In the order of appearance/occurence:

Cold Appetizer (From Outside-In) - Sliced Cuttlefish, Pickled Cucumber, Beef, Pork, Jelly Fish, Pickled Cabbage and Carrots, Garnished with Chinese Parsley

Fried Shrimp Ball

Seafood Soup

Stir Fried Lobster

Roasted Crispy Chicken (not pictured because I wasn't there when it was served)

Roasted Pork over Chinese Broccoli

Sauteed Pork with Squid and Celery (aka Hakka Stir Fry)

Steamed Snow Fish (aka Cod)

Food art (aka I was bored in between dishes)

Sauteed Pork over Fried Egg Noodles

Sliced Oranges and Fried Nian Gao with Green Bean filling

Most dishes were authentic enough, some of the flavors could have been a bit better. This year most foods weren't too salty but rice still would've been a nice add-on. We have the same dishes each year just modified slightly. The dishes I wouldn't mind having again (and recommend) are the Cold Appetizer, Fried Shrimp Ball, Sauteed Lobster (without the shells!!), Roasted Pork over Chinese Broccoli and the Fried Nian Gao with Green Beans. At $25 a person, it's a pretty good deal to have such a wide variety of dishes!

Note: All pictures were taken on my Droid because I forgot to bring my camera!

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Lunar New Year - Family Dinner

As a family, we always celebrate Lunar New Year. In the past, because of school, we always chose the weekend with the least amount of school activities/projects. Therefore, even though New Year isn't until the 3rd of February, we had our dinner last night. The Chorus Dinner is on the 5th so we chose an earlier week so we wouldn't be eating so much food in one weekend.

There is a tradition that for New Year's dinner you always cook alot more dishes than normal. You're supposed to eat a little bit of everything but never finish any dish. Leftovers are must because it means you will have leftovers the remainder of the year. There's always a fish, a meat, a soup and many fried foods and desserts. And of course, you can't forget red envelopes!!! We didn't cook as many dishes as we normally do in previous years. This year, everyone except me is sick on some level so we didn't prepare as many dishes. We typically have 2-3 more dishes, a shrimp dish, and exotic dish and another random dish. LOL.

From Left to Right: Radish Sticky Rice, Yucca Sticky Rice, Fried Yam, Red Bean Sticky Rice (Banana flavored) - I fried and arranged everything. ;)

Drunken Chicken Soup - this is a very different soup than our normal soup. Usually it's a mustard green soup but Mom wanted to change it up a bit this year.

Top Left: Mixed Vegetables with Fried Dough

Bottom Left: Chinese Broccoli in Oyster Sauce - this is a popular Cantonese dish

Middle: Steamed Flounder with Black Beans

Right: Sauteed Bamboo Shoots with Roasted Pork

Hakka Stir Fry - this was the last dish so it is taken by itself instead of with the dishes above.

And red envelopes! Ooh, there are extras!!! This year, every one received a "normal" New Year red envelope but also a "bonus" red envelope because I recently got a promotion and want to share it with my family. =)

If I take enough pictures next week, there maybe be another post for next week's dishes! =)

Thursday, January 27, 2011

January 2011 dishes

I realize that January is not quite over but these are the dishes for the month of January, all but the first were made by me (though I know how to cook the first dish too).

Szechuan Fried Butterfly Shrimp - 2011.01.01

Salmon Fried Rice - 2011.01.03

Black Bean Pepper Salmon - 2011.01.05

Dried Shrimp with Vermicelli Soup - 2011.01.11

Spam Spaghetti - 2011.01.19

Black Bean Pepper Chicken - 2011.01.31

The food that was 2010...

Since my last post was in February of 2010, this shows all the food for the rest of the year, get ready to be hungry!!! lol. I made about half of the dishes but obviously ate all the food...lol

Chicken Lo Mein - 2010.02.07
What else is there to do when there's 30+" of snow and it's AJ's bday? Of course, she never got to eat this since I didn't bring it with me when I went to see her that day. lol