No mangoes to make Mango Tomato Sauce Meatballs, but there is always a pack of frozen vegetables available, so why not? For added fiber and overall nutrition as the more (veggies), the merrier.
That completes today's Meatballs Protein Bowl - steamed vegetables as the base, and portion of pasta to pair with tomato sauce meatballs.
Braised pork trotters is one of the Chinese New Year dishes enjoyed during this festive season as pigs are auspicious animals in Chinese culture and symbolize strength and good fortune.
This dish is prepared using store-bought boneless pork trotters, tossed with noodles symbolizing longevity equivalent to being in good health and paired with "lucky" vegetables combo.
Made similar Sausage and Peas Fried Rice (without peas this time) and freshen the fried rice with lots of shredded lettuce.
Similarly, this Salmon and Egg Pesto Fried Rice or Bell Peppers, Peas and Garlic Fried Rice can also enjoy some shredded lettuce in it. Our family never say "No" when more vegetables can be suitably included in any dish.
Lettuce not only complements fried rice with refreshing moisture and tender vegetable crisp, it also balances the saltiness of sausage in the fried rice.
If you enjoy vegetables in fried rice, you can also try Vegetables and Egg Fried Rice made with broccoli stems and Brussel sprouts leaves (and add some shredded lettuce if you have them in the fridge)
In our family, recipes are typically for referencing, seldom followed to a T. For example, when cooking a small portion of fried rice (serving 2), vs a batch of fried rice (serving 4 or more), the how-to can be tweaked. The reason to adapt, sometimes just because we are limited by size/ type of pan, wok, or pot. You will understand what this means if you cook regularly.
For example, there are several ways how egg can be incorporated into the fried rice when cooking egg fried rice. Sometimes, raw egg is mixed with cold rice (leftover rice that has been chilled in fridge or stored in freezer) to coat the rice grain prior to frying; or other times, eggs can be cooked (scrambled) first, removed and set aside, rice added to same pan and fried, then scrambled eggs added back to the pan, fried with rice. Occasionally, especially when cooking a small portion of fried rice, the egg is added directly to the rice in the pan - create an "empty" center in the rice so the egg hits the surface of the pan/pot to be cooked partially, then mixed/fried together with rice. Ahhhh, so many ways.
The fried rice outcome may be different taste-wise but still delicious in its own way.
This 3C Rice Porridge/Congee cannot be bought with Cash or Credit Card. It is homecooked and worth many carats...or rather, carrots.
A fuss-free 3C - Carrots, Celery, Cod Fish Porridge/Congee recipe that you can easily make at home, this porridge/congee stands alone as one-dish meal consisting of vegetables (carrots, celery), proteins (fish) and carbs (rice/ grains).
The carrots add subtle sweetness and celery, a tender crunch to the savory cod fish porridge/congee.
This assorted vegetables pasta/noodle salad bowl is a great summer option when you want something light yet able to fill in protein, the meatless way. When I use protein-based pasta/noodles (e.g. Explore Cuisine Bean Pasta), I prefer to make the entire dish vegetarian - allowing the plant-based protein to take center-stage.
Today, this Greens and Bean-Pasta Noodle Salad Bowl, is made with greens variety- broccoli, green beans and leafy kale. The vegetables are totally interchangeable, depending on what you have, so feel free to get creative.
Vegetarian option
Other vegetarian meatless recipes made with Explore Cuisine Bean Pasta:
Edamame and Mung Bean Fettuccine Veggie Salad Bowl
Gluten-Free Bean Pasta with (more) Beans and Veggies
Bean Pasta with Vegetarian Tofu Curry
This home-style "Mee Goreng" or Stir-Fry Noodles has been customized to my preferences. It's not glossed in dark sauce and has more vegetables in proportion to noodles. It also does not use the typical yellow noodles usually found in Mee Goreng. More accurately, this should be called Udon Goreng.
That is home-style, and home-cooking at its roots, with the perks to cater for your personal preferences and to be able to create a healthier and more nutritious dish without losing traditional flavors.
In Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia, Mee means noodles, Goreng means Fried. This "Mee Goreng" or Fried Noodles, is a deviation from the authentic hawker classic without the use tomato ketchup and kecap manis (sweet soy sauce).
To create my own quick tomato ketchup, I have used fresh tomatoes, a little sugar and soy sauce. To simulate the flavors of kecap manis, I have also used dark soy sauce and brown sugar.
When I came across the term "Alimentary Yakisoba", I was puzzled for a while, not knowing what "Alimentary" meant until I tried to find out later that it meant "relating to nourishment or nutrition". But, is there a reason why "alimentary" is tagged with "yakisoba"? I wonder if there is a special connotation or meaning.
This dish uses "Yakisoba" noodles but you can replace with your favorite noodle variety e.g. Ramen or Udon. As the base-sauce for this noodle stir-fry is developed from simmering five-spice tofu (Hodo brand) and mushrooms, the noodles are infused with the five-spice flavors from the simmered tofu which makes it essentially Five-Spice Stir-Fry Noodles.
There is nothing special about this pot of udon noodles. Though prepared with quite the basic everyday ingredients that you find in a working kitchen, this simple homecooked one-pot noodles is still very flavorful and satisfying that you slurp till the very last strand of noodle.
It does not have to be special. It just have to be pure comfort. A bowl of noodles with tender-cooked vegetables in light fragrant broth is absolutely warm comfort in the chilly months of winter.
With some "help" from advanced meal prep. e.g. dicing the carrots and celery, choosing the "easier" onion i.e. green onions to slice, this pot of noodle can be put together very quickly, start to finish in one same pot!
Explore Cuisine bean-powered pasta is not only great in taste and texture; it also provides a good amount of protein and fiber per serving. Their Organic Edamame Spaghetti and Organic Black Bean Spaghetti contain 24 g of protein per 2 oz serving - almost three times more than regular pasta and twice that of chickpea or lentil.
To enjoy the best of both worlds, I used two different spaghetti - Edamame Spaghetti and Black Bean Spaghetti, to create this dish - Edamame and Black Bean Spaghetti with Steamed Vegetables in Vegetarian Tofu Green Curry
Beans on beans, pulses or more pulses. What do you say? Plant-protein power! Made from organic edamame and mung bean, Explore Cuisine's gluten-free fettuccine* carries the leftover bean "sauce" very well and makes a nice warm veggie pasta lunch on a cool breezy day. Alternatively, make a quick chickpea salad, toss it with pasta and save this pasta salad or Edamame and Mung Bean Fettuccine Veggie Salad Bowl for the hot summer days.
This bean fettuccine* on its own tastes very flavorful, warm or at room temperature (cooked and allowed to cool a few minutes). Personally, I enjoy the natural bean flavor of this pasta as it shines through without any sauce, just like this Edamame and Mung Bean Fettuccine Veggie Salad Bowl.
Made with two gluten-free ingredients - organic edamame and organic mung beans, this vegetarian-friendly protein-rich (24g protein per serving size) pasta alternative boasts high nutritional value. Explore Cuisine bean pastas* are all certified gluten-free, vegan and kosher.
There are some other brands of gluten-free chickpea and lentil pasta in the market that cooks soft and mushy, but this bean pasta from Explore Cuisine* does not. In fact, within 4-5 minutes, this pasta cooks to al-dente which was what I wanted for my noodle salad. The "beany" taste is also a pleasant surprise - in a beany good way! If you have tried fresh yuba (tofu skins) before, this bean pasta tastes similar.
Tomato Fried Eggs 番茄炒蛋 may sound ordinary but this simple classic Chinese home-style dish is nutritious and delicious. Very often, tomato fried eggs is prepared as a side-dish typically paired with steamed rice or rice congee/porridge.
How about turning them into a one-dish pasta meal today, with additional sauteed garlic kale and sweet peppers.
Homey delicious, and homey good.
Pumpkin Noodle, or specially Pumpkin Rice Vermicelli is as familiar as Pumpkin Rice to many of us. However, you may have noticed that I have used pasta, in replacement of rice vermicelli in this recipe; well, not just any pasta but Angel Hair pasta. That is the only pasta, that in my opinion, comes closest to rice vermicelli.
Small globe radishes can be sliced razor-thin, used in salads; but they can also be kept whole while being cooked in a quick curry-stew.
What do you do with the radish-top leaves which often have a sharp, bitter-peppery taste especially when used fresh?
Recently I found a new way to incorporate the leaves - in Indian-style spiced rice. This is the simplest vegetable biryani to cook, over the stove. Conveniently, you can also add freezer-friendly peas and corns, even carrots but here I am just using fresh carrots, and radish tops, that's all.
Red Globes Radishes and their greens are excellent sources of vitamin C. Radish leaves contain almost 6x the vitamin C content of their roots and far more calcium and protein than the roots. Red Radish is a very good source of the trace mineral molybdenum, potassium and folic acid. Radishes provide a very good source of potassium and copper. Fresh radish roots contain more vitamin C than cooked radish roots. Many enjoy fresh radish in salad e.g. Arugula, Grapefruit, Radish Salad, while I use the fresh roots in smoothies.
The wrappers ran out before the filling! With the remaining kimchi fillings from making kimchi wontons (boiled dumplings), I made meatballs (mini ones!) and they are such a flavorful addition to this noodle dish which otherwise would have been a vegetarian combination of carrots, mushrooms, mung bean sprouts and spinach.
Did you forget that these are actually kimchi meatballs? Not only can kimchi be used as a condiment or pickle paired with steamed rice or noodles for a meal or complement grilled meat, it is also an (flavoring) ingredient that can be used for cooking - kimchi wonton, kimchi jigae, kimchi fried rice, kimchi pancake.
I usually like to stir-fry the baby spinach first, set it aside, then add them later (last) when a stir-fry is just about to be done. This way, I can use more spinach, and shrink down its volume first. In addition, in a stir-fry which often needs quick-fry, and in which time and speed of frying action is important, frying vegetables separately would allow better control during the stir-fry itself.
It might be hard for you to imagine how tasty this noodle dish is as you cannot smell and taste the deep seafood flavors, just by looking at this plate. Trust me, as it is absolutely delicious and scrumptious. Simply think Singapore-style Fried Hokkien Noodles, Prawn Noodles or Penang Prawn Noodle Soup; in order to make the passable grade - all MUST be cooked and simmered in prawn stock.
Freshly made prawn stock is just one criteria. Sometimes, pork ribs and other ingredients are also added to the stock especially in the soup version to make it tastier with layered depths of flavors.
As I did not have enough shrimp heads leftovers to make a deeply-flavored seafood stock, I borrowed the umami essence from another formidable seafood ingredient - scallops. The result is amazing as the noodles is simmered in the shrimps-scallop essence.
I recalled my first likeable and impressionable encounter with udon noodles in a Chinese restaurant. You have heard me right - a Chinese eatery, not Japanese. That Stir-Fry Udon Noodles in Black Pepper Sauce was absolutely delicious.
This is not Stir-Fry Udon Noodles in Black Pepper Sauce. However, that taste of chewy al-dente udon noodles in a savory meat sauce was equally satisfying.
Of the fall/autumn squashes, kabocha squash is my favorite. When cooked, this Japanese pumpkin with deep green skin and vibrant orange flesh taste more like sweet potato and is less buttery than the other edible pumpkin varieties. Like most fall/winter squash, kabocha squash can be roasted, steamed, stir-fried, pureed as soup, cooked in stews or curries, or even cooked with rice or rice congee.
A quick and delicious recipe is Stir-Fry Kabocha Squash, with garlic, and green onions - a dish with moist and fluffy squash, its sweetness well-complimented with fragrant sauteed garlic. If you are looking for a bowl of warm winter comfort, this Kabocha Squash Rice Congee/Porridge will soothe you on a chilly evening.
I came up with this simple and basic squash-and-rice recipe when rice was running low in the pantry, so the squash cubes can bulk up as the "carbs"; at the same time, skin-on squash constitutes more fiber, and offers Vitamin A (nutrition and health) and flavor (taste) to the otherwise plain (boring) rice.
Once in a while, I buy pre-made rice-rolls from 99 Ranch Asian supermarket and use them as "noodles" for stir-frying turning it to savory breakfast, or topping the steamed rice-rolls with bolognese sauce transforming it to "pasta".
The Cantonese rice-rolls (Cheong Fun, in Cantonese) served in dim-sum restaurants and eateries might be mainstream with shrimp-filled rice-rolls, BBQ-pork rice-rolls and dough-fritters rice-rolls widely seen and served.
However, I sometimes miss the Singapore hawker version: steamed plain rice-rolls drizzled with a sweet-savory-spicy sauce, then sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.
Following my taste experience with Korean red pepper paste - gochujang, using it to make Healthy Bibimbap, Steamed Eggplant, and Steamed Okra, I managed to replicate the hawker sweet-savory-spicy combo. into one very delicious homemade sauce. It was quite successful in terms of replicating the taste of hawker-stall Chee Cheong Fun.
