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!)

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

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.

Recipe for Tomato, Scrambled Eggs and Frozen Tofu Soup - 2010.01.18

Per TkN's request, here's a general recipe...quantities can be adjusted per preference!

Ingredient preparation (quantities for 2-3 meals):

Frozen tofu (1-2)- Freeze fresh tofu for 1 day. (We usually buy the bucket of 10 pieces and end up freezing half or it so it doesn't go bad and to prevent from having tofu dishes everyday...) Defrost the tofu in the morning (if you're making dinner). If you need it defrosted quickly you can put it in a bowl and microwave it. You want to do this so you can squeeze the water out of the tofu. Frozen tofu is sponge-like. You can use fresh tofu or fried tofu instead of frozen tofu. Dice your tofu so they are the similar size as your tomatoes.

Tomatoes (2-3) - Any kind of tomatoes will do (though I've never tried it with cherry tomatoes). Dice or slice the tomatoes. I don't like eating cooked pieces of tomatoes so I dice mine really small. My parents like larger slices so you can taste the tomatoes...

Scrambled eggs (2-3) - Piece of cake, right?

Green onion (1 stalk) - Cut the white part of the green onion. Split the onion length-wise in half to thirds. Then cut the onion so they're about 1-2cms in length. It's very hard to describer the cutting method, but you just need to cut it so you don't have round pieces of onions running around. With the remainder of the green, just dice and put to the side.

2 cups of boiling water - don't burn the water!

Cooking directions:

1) Make all the food preparations first, including the scrambled eggs!
2) Half a teaspoon of oil and saute the white part of the onions. Put in a pinch of salt. When you smell yummy onions, put your tomatoes in.
3) Mix your tomatoes until they are cooked and there's tomato juice. Add in the boiling water - don't use cold water!
4) Add your scrambled eggs and tofu to the tomato stock. Put the remaining green onion and simmer for a few minutes - if your pan has a lid, cover it and turn the heat down a bit.
5) Taste the soup, add additional salt as needed and some white pepper.
6) Take a picture! (After it stops steaming!)

Note: You don't have to add water to the dish if you don't want soup. It makes a nice dish to eat with rice as well.

Random meals I cooked in January...

Sauteed Gourd - 2010.01.11

Tomato, Scrambled Eggs and Frozen Tofu soup - 2010.01.18

Tuna Fish Burger Over Steamed Broccoli - 2010.01.25

Egg Drop Soup with Jalapeno Leaves - 2010.01.25
Note: This is how Egg Drop Soup is supposed to look (without the leaves), not the funky yellow stuff you see in carry outs. The Jalapeno leaves are from the jalapeno tree that I have, I picked the leaves that didn't look to old and threw them in the soup for coloring. Jalapeno leaves are used for medicinal purposes and do not have a strong taste.
Sauteed Napa with Chinese Sausage - 2010.01.26

Note: I have too much eggs int he fridge, hence so many dishes with eggs...this is not helping my cholesterol, I know, but I'm not about to let them go to waste!

If you want to know how to cook something, please ask me, I'm too lazy to type it all out, they're all really simple, I promise!!

Blizzard Weekeend Meals (2009.12.19)

Some of this was cooked Friday night. I knew I would be home all weekend with the blizzard coming so I began defrosting and planning my meals for the next couple of days. If I write the order of how I cooked everything it would take forever, so I'll just introduce the dishes.

Cabbage Shrimp

Bitter Squash with Shitake Mushroom Soup

Roasted Napa and Tofu with Chicken Innards

Baked Crispy Chicken Breasts

Roasted Chicken Thigh (no picture yet)

Did I mention I have alot of chicken in the fridge? Well, not anymore... =) Everything went very well with rice.

Corn Cake a la Jiffy (2009.12.16)

I wanted to eat corn cakes, bascially pancakes make out of corn stuff. I had 2 boxes of Jiffy corn meal and it magically had a corn cake recipe on the side.

Here's the batter:

And the stack of corn cakes. A tad sweet for me (that's the batter itself) but not as dry as corn muffin which I made about a month ago. I wish it weren't so sweet, next time I think I will add real corn to it. =)

Homecooked Dinner (2009.03.18)

I came home too late from my meeting and there was no dinner left. Ho hum. I made something very simple, Tomato Egg Drop Soup. It has some scallions, tomatoes and eggs in soup. I added rice so it was filling and that was my dinner! Cheap, easy and quick!

Two Fried Eggs

So...they're eating steak. Well, I can't. This is a simple lunch that is filling, well, because there's rice involved. It's actually a bit more complicated than fried rice, in my opinion, in terms of the time cooking and the process of cooking. The prep time is alot less than the prep time for fried rice though.

Is there any value in explaining how I made fried eggs? They're over a bed of rice and I already put soy sauce on it for flavoring. And yes, I eat out of a metal bowl...it hasn't been smashed into pieces since I've used it the last 15 years or so. Can't say much about the previous ones I've had though. =P

Cuisine of China

So, I cook at a restaurant occasionally. Today being one of the days. I took some pictures of the foods I cooked, none of your boring fried rice and lo mein, but other stuff you may not normally see or eat.

I just like how well my camera takes pictures. This is just the onions and frozen peas and carrots before it became the Curry Chicken it was below.


Spicy Curry Chicken. A bit of garlic, salt, curry powder, sugar, hot peppers, and soy sauce. Some corn starch mixture to make the sauce thick, and voila!


Beef and Broccoli with napa in a brown sauce.


Yu-Shaing Pork with water chestnuts in a sweet, sour and spicy garlicky sauce. Not exactly my favorite dish to eat, but I like making it.



Orange Chicken. I think this was the 3rd or 4th one I made today...I decided I should take a picture since I was making so many. Ha.

Homecooked Lunch & Dinner (2009.02.21)

So, since I was 'home' all day today, I did some cooking. This first dish was lunch (part of it) and is just sauteed napa. The red stuff was peppers to make it spicy. Good stuff, I like my veggies. ^_^


This was dinner, Sauteed ham with leek and bean curd skin. Also a bit spicy. I like my foods spicy. This goes really well with white rice of course, and for some strange reason can always make you go for that 2nd or 3rd bowl of rice. =)


This is Egg Drop Tomato Soup with Snow Peas. It's a light soup that tastes really good and is a piece of cake to make! I personally don't like cooked tomatoes or cooked fruits of any kind, but the soup is good. It's not quite like tomato soup that American's eat and not the Egg Drop Soup you get at carryout. This is more Authentic Asian soup, not the goopy stuff you get at chinese restaurants. (The goopy stuff was made so Americans would eat it, since practically all the soups Americans eat are goopy...) This is good stuff. I could eat this for breakfast with rice. Well, I can eat any soup with rice for breakfast, practically any soup.