What makes a muffin, a muffin? The light and fluffy texture? The shape which takes after a cup-shape in the muffin tin?
As we moved towards using less flour and replacing that with rolled oats in these oatmeal cups e.g. Banana Oatmeal Cups, Dragon Fruit Muffins, Pineapple Oatmeal Muffins, these blueberry muffins are your perfect Blueberry Multigrain Cereal Oatmeal Cups - breakfast, snacks, or perhaps anytime you want?
This vegetarian plant-based protein bowl is made with store-bought black beans patty, paired with vegetables - broccoli, Brussel sprouts, spinach, carrots and cooked barley.
With more time on hand, you can always make your own bean patty/cake e.g. Black Bean Potato Patty/Cake.
Small yet mighty, eggs pack in dense nutrition for 70-80 calories. It's a staple in our family. Is it also a basic ingredient/food necessity for your family?
The whites brim with protein, while the yolks deliver Vitamin D, cholin, lutein and zeaxanthin. Vitamin D - essential for bone health, immune function and calcium absorption; Cholin - an essential nutrient to maintain muscle and memory; Lutein and Zeaxanthin - antioxidants to prevent age-related macular degeneration.
Today's Cottage Cheese Veggie Egg Frittata is like any other frittata made before - just tweaked and improved with addition of cottage cheese to boost amount of protein; at the same time making the egg frittata more moist and fluffy.
These Dragon Fruit Muffins are adapted from my Homemade Muffin and Bakes category. The red hue is coming from red dragon fruit puree.
Basically, I used a foundation oat muffins recipe for this Dragon Fruit Muffins. Instead of mashed ripe banana that is usually added as natural sweetener, dragon fruit smoothie pack (100% dragon fruit puree) is used instead.
Happy 2026 and we hope your 2026 has been off to a great start!
The new year starts off with this healthy nutritious vegetarian/meatless bowl meal nicely balanced with a variety of cooked vegetables, roasted chickpeas/garbanzo beans, and black rice.
This is another viral recipe tried (and tested). A savory crispy snack or appetizer Onion Cheese Crisp Chips made using 2 simple ingredients. Onions and cheese.
There is no batter involved. So, for those looking for low-carb "onion rings" alternatives, rejoice!
As there were no plans to stock up store-bought ice-cream this summer, I had to find ways to satisfy cold and chilled cravings on hot summer days. I could have made 1-ingredient Banana Ice-Cream again but let's try something different. First, is to use what is already in the kitchen, pantry or fridge. Greek yogurt came to mind, peanut butter as well. And banana as the natural sweetener.
Here comes Banana Peanut Butter Greek Yogurt Frozen Bites. Perfect.
This is a vegetarian version of Shishito Peppers Protein Bowl, substituting chicken with tofu.
They are many ways to make delicious tofu including Chimichurri Tofu, Korean Spicy Tofu, or Chilled Tofu, Five-Spice Marinated Tofu. Instead of tofu, you can also use Tofu Sheets/Yuba - another great meatless high-protein option. Yuba/Fresh Tofu Sheets Salad is one of my favorite ways to enjoy yuba/fresh tofu sheets
If you going for a simple, no-frills tofu recipe, a little salt, black pepper and garlic powder also goes a long way.
Besides Roasted Eggplant/Brinjal with Garlic and Spicy Chili Eggplant/Brinjal, steamed eggplant/brinjal is also my go-to eggplant/brinjal preparation whenever I want to put together something easy, quick, healthy and delicious.
Today, this Steamed Eggplant with Garlic fits the bill of being easy, quick, healthy and delicious.
Asian eggplant variety such as Chinese eggplant and Japanese eggplant which have thin delicate skin and sweeter flesh are more suitable for steamed eggplant dishes.
Camp broccoli or team cauliflower? It's hard to choose which one because each vegetable shines in its own special way, especially with how it's being prepared. For example, if it's a dish that needs slightly longer cooking time Whole Spiced-Roasted Cauliflower, cauliflower might be a preferred choice as it may withstand extended cooking duration without turning over-sulfurous.
Well, for this side-accompaniment today, both broccoli and cauliflower should be interchangeable. Adapted from Roast Broccoli Steak with Cheese, is this Roast Cauliflower with Cheese.
Skip store-bought breakfast and make your own healthier version. This time, I improved on these breakfast sandwiches with egg frittata as sandwich fillers. These are great make-ahead breakfast sandwiches.
Our family enjoys egg frittata including Onion Egg Frittata, Gouda Cheese Egg Frittata, Pico De Gallo/Salsa Egg Frittata, Frozen Veggies Egg Frittata, Fish & Oats Egg Frittata (made with leftover fish!).
Make a batch, wrap up the extras and warm them up when required.
The idea of make-ahead is to save time especially when the day gets busy. However, you still have to fork out some time about 20 minutes or so, during less hectic days to make this happen; or more accurately, make the egg frittata happen. This is an easy version of entirely-oven-baked egg frittata, all for the sake of us, the busy humans.
Traditionally, florentines are typically made from nuts (most of the times, hazelnuts and almonds) mixed with sugar melted together with butter and honey, then baked in an oven (Best Selling Smart Oven). However, modern day florentines have evolved to be healthier biscuits (or cookies) or more accurately, thin crackers formed from a mixture of nuts, seeds, egg whites, honey.
Our family version of florentines consists of a mix of sliced almonds, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, chia seeds, ground flax seeds, sesame seeds, and in replacement of honey, date syrup (I used Organic Just Date Syrup, 1-Ingredient: 100% Organic Medjool Dates)
These bowl-meals are usually built in a few steps which include preparing the vegetables as the base and portioning the protein.
Protein feature in today's bowl is tempeh, and hard-boiled eggs (discover this Rapid Egg Cooker) paired with vegetable base that includes steamed broccolini, red cabbage, mushrooms (check this multipurpose Stainless Steel Steamer)
This Cheesy Stuffed Shishito Peppers appetizer is easy to make and a flavor bomb even with such simple ingredients - only two ingredients.
This appetizer should also work well with other mild-heat chili peppers such as jalapeno or Korean chili peppers.
What's for breakfast or after-meal dessert (have you tried this One-Ingredient Ice-Cream yet)?
We enjoy breakfast homemade rolled oats muesli (low-sugar muesli/granola option available) with milk (dairy or dairy-free) topped with fresh berries. Feast like a king for breakfast, there is always add-on peanut butter bread paired with coffee.
In the hot summer months (right now!), high fiber breakfast oats gets amped up with bountiful fresh berries and stone fruits. When it gets to cooler months, we comfort ourselves with warm breakfast such as Black Sesame Oatmeal.
I was rather inspired to cook this dish after a lunch session at my friend's place. While chatting, she was also cooking at the same time. I can never "multi-task" when I am cooking. Can you multi-task while you are in the kitchen, cooking? E.g. talk to someone else in person or over the phone, text messages? I seriously can't.
This eggplant tomato dip is delicious (so good that kiddos love it!). The spice is mild but importantly, the tangy tomatoes and sweet onions have actually hidden the often acquired taste of eggplant. Roasting the eggplant prior to making this dish has also drawn out some liquid or moisture from the eggplant, reducing the bitterness.
I did not even know what dish my friend wanted to prepare. She placed a globe eggplant in her oven to roast *we started chatting*, and in the midst of that, went back to the stove and stir-fry another vegetable dish *still chatting*. Not realizing that time has gone past, she then removed the roasted eggplant from the oven. At this time, the flesh of the eggplant has been cooked (charred) and softened. Next, she was removing the flesh from the eggplant and adding it into a simmering pot of pre-fried onions, tomatoes, spice. *still chatting*. At this instance, the dish was coming together as some kind of spiced mashed-eggplant dish.
Egg frittata is my go-to for egg makeovers. Our family still enjoy our routine hard-boiled eggs and occasionally, sunnyside up sheet-pan style. But egg frittata is one of those clever ways to load up the eggs with leftovers, extras, add-ons - in short, "bonuses".
Adding on to this egg frittatas list of Onion Egg Frittata, Chive Egg Frittata, Gouda Cheese Egg Frittata, Frozen Veggie Egg Frittata, Leftover Fish Egg Frittata is this Pico De Gallo/Salsa Egg Frittata using leftover Pico De Gallo, idea inspired from a popular dish Asian-style fry tomato with eggs.
You may want to use salsa if you have leftover salsa but do take note, salsa is a more blended version of tomatoes, onions, jalapeno, so it tends to be more "watery" and liquid than Pico De Gallo (preferred) which is a mixture of fresh chopped tomato, onion, jalapeno, lime, and cilantro.
Recently, I had the opportunity to try one of the most amazing tortilla products* from Rise and Puff. Besides Organic Tortilla and Original Tortilla which I tried, Rise and Puff also has other offerings e.g. Gluten-Free Tortilla and Everything Tortilla.
What makes Rise and Puff unique and stand out among other competitor tortilla products is the simple and clean ingredient list. Just four clean ingredients in this award winning Original Tortilla: Unbleached Wheat Flour, Water, Avocado Oil, Sea Salt.
I am sold!
Chanced upon lovely bunches of chayote shoots (what a rare find!) at the local farmer's market and decided to make Chayote Shoots Salad. In the like of Edible Chrysanthemum Shungiku Salad, Spiced Edible Chrysanthemum Shungiku and Celery Tofu Salad, these vegetables are given a quick blanch, cooled, then served with a simple dressing of extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar mix; or for Asian greens e.g. Edible Chrysanthemum/Shungiku (also known as Tung Hao in Mandarin) a drop (or two) of sesame oil and pinches of ground white pepper occasionally does the trick.
Depending on its consistency, tahini - made from ground sesame seeds, also works well as dressing (e.g. Okra with Tahini Dressing) for almost all kinds of vegetables including Chayote Shoots Salad.
A simple and easy salad is always a refreshing and welcoming treat during the hot summer days.
Today, this Marinated Feta Cheese Salad is the star of the salad. Basically, if you have prepared marinated feta cheese in the fridge, this salad comes together in less than 15 minutes.
The marinated feta cheese perfectly flavors up the entire salad of lettuce, cucumbers and red onions. This salad is very versatile and goes well with everything, almost everything. You can enjoy on it's own, use it to fill wraps or sandwiches, pair with avocado and eggs for breakfast or brunch, serve as side-salad with an entree dish.
