Steamed lady fingers with chili shrimp sauce

Lady finger (also known as okra) is a powerhouse of valuable nutrients, nearly half of which is soluble fiber in the form of gums and pectins. According to Ms Sylvia W. Zook, Ph.D. (nutritionist), this versatile vegetable has many important health benefits as belows:

1) stabilizes blood sugar level
2) binds cholesterol and bile acid carrying toxins dumped into it by the filtering liver.
3) prevents constipation
4) feeds good bacteria (probiotics) residing in our body.
5) good for those feeling weak, exhausted, and suffering from depression.
6) good for healing ulcers and to keep joints limber
7) treats lung inflammation, sore throat, and irritable bowel.
For further reading, click here.

To retain most of its nutrients and self-digesting enzymes, it should be cooked as little as possible, eg with low heat or lightly steamed. Some even eat it raw. My son and I love consuming lady fingers in a very simple way - steam lady fingers until cooked, cut into bite-sized pieces (for toddlers), toss with fried shallots oil and light soy sauce, and serve immediately. However, I have a big tot (my hubby) who doesn’t like lady fingers as much as we do. He always hinted at me to leave his portion out whenever I cooked lady fingers. Of course, I will never agree with him since this vegetable has so many nutritional values. After giving much consideration to these 2 tots’ personal preference and taste, I concocted the following simple and healthy recipe. To my surprise, my big tot happily ate the dish without complaint!

Instead of slicing the lady fingers, my method called for the lady fingers to be cooked with its entire stem intact. This will prevent them from becoming slimy during the cooking process. The chili shrimp sauce that is served together with it enhances the dish with the much needed tasty flavour to those who dislike the bland taste of cooked lady fingers. And, it goes well with plain white rice too.

I strongly recommend this recipe to those who dislike lady fingers. Besides the common method of either stir-frying or have them cooked and served in curry gravy, this dish makes the lady fingers more appealing to the palate. You may find them coming back for a second serving of rice (if there are still some lady fingers left). It can be finger-lickin' good too!

A) CHILI SHRIMP SAUCE

Ingredients:
30g dried shrimp (minced) – rinse, soak & pat-dry
4 pcs shallots (minced)
1 clove of garlic (minced)
½ -1 red chili (minced)

Seasonings:
2 tsp oyster sauce
½ tbsp sugar
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp water

Methods:
1) Heat up oil in a small non-stick frying pan/ saucepan.
2) Sauté shallots, garlic and dried shrimp with medium heat until fragrant.
3) Add in red chili and seasonings. Stir-fry until mixed well. Bring mixture to cook until boil.
4) Adjust seasoning if necessary. Dish up and set aside.

B) LADY FINGERS (OKRA) - 10 STEMS

Methods:
1) Wash and rinse the lady fingers.
2) Remove the top and tip (optional) of the lady fingers.
3) You can cook your lady fingers by way of steaming or blanching. But I prefer option (a) as it can retain most of its nutrients and self-digesting enzymes.
a) For steaming: Place the lady fingers on a steaming tray and steam until cooked. Discard water if any.
b) For blanching: Add water to a wok and bring it to a boil. Blanch lady fingers until cook. Dish up and arrange on a serving plate.
4) Pour the chili shrimp sauce over the lady fingers and serve immediately.

Note:
1) If your lady fingers turn dry, add some cooked shallot oil.
2) Do not over-cook the lady fingers until it turns soft and yellow in colour.
2) For toddlers, you can cut the cooked lady fingers into bite-sized for easy chewing.
3) When choose lady fingers, look for those that are tender, smaller size and lighter green in colour.
4) If you cannot finish using the sauce, keep it in an air-tighted container. It can be added when stir-frying other vegetables ie cabbage, french beans and long beans.

I am submitting this recipe to Weekend Herb Blogging #176 Hosting, which is housed by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once and hosted this week by Anna of Anna's Cool Finds.

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Rainbow seafood pasta salad

Before posting the photos I shot in Penang, I would like to begin my 2009 posting with a food recipe.

Do you like salad? I never have a chance to made one so far as my Emperor is not supportive enough for this idea. But after all the Christmas and New Year festive celebrations, I desperately need one now. Remember what I mentioned in my last post? It is my 2009 New Year resolution! As we know, another festive celebration is approaching - Chinese New Year. During this period, we will have to attend family reunion dinner and friend and relatives' open house. All the yummilicious stuff are awaiting for us!! If I don’t seriously watch my diet now, then I have to prepare to upgrade my clothing size after CNY. Oh, no! please don't let this happen to me!!!!

Today I would like to share with you a light, simple and healthy recipe I found from my favourite cookbook - “Children’s healthy & fun cookbook”. Although this was my 1st attempt in making salad, to my surprise, my son could accept raw vegetables such as baby butterhead. He loved eating it so much. I guess it was because most of the ingredients used in this salad were his favourite (ie tomato, corns, raisin and prawns) and the thousand island dressing provides extra flavour to the salad.

This salad is very versatile. You can mix and match any ingredients using your own creativity. Below is my own modified version that is enough to serve both my son and me for today’s lunch.

Ingredients:
60g pasta shells – cooked and drained well
4 large prawns – cooked and peeled, cut each prawn into 4 portions
1 medium size tomatoes - removed seeds and chopped into cubes
½ ear of large sweet corn – steamed or boiled, kernel removed from cob
1 small Japanese cucumber – removed seeds and chopped into cubes
Handful of black raisins and sunflower seeds
A few leaves of baby butterhead (cut into strips)

Other ingredients you may consider:
- small tomatoes (ie cherry or roma tomatoes), carrot, avocado, lettuce leaves, cooked egg, pine nuts, chicken (instead of prawn), tofu (instead of prawn for vegetarian)

Dressing (thousand islands sauce):
4 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tsp lemon juice (start with 1 tsp)
2 drops of Tabasco sauce (optional)
Dash of pepper
Sugar or salt (if necessary)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (for mixing later)

Methods:
1) Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Add the pasta and follow the cooking instructions on the packet. Drain well and leave to cool.
2) Prepare the dressing, cover with cling wrap and keep in the fridge.
3) Prepare all the ingredients.
4) Put all the ingredients into a salad bowl and mix well with the dressing. Alternatively, you can divide the ingredients between the serving bowls and then drizzle over the dressing. Serve and enjoy!

I am submitting this pasta salad to Presto Pasta Night, founded by Ruth of Once Upon A Feast, and hosted by Ivy of Kopiaste this week.

Other recommended colourful dishes:
- special egg rolls with rice, salmon and spinach
- millet porridge
- stir-fried capsicums & cucumber with stewed vegetarian mutton

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Broccoli - How to blanch

“What is your favourite vegetable?” “BROCCOLI!!”
That’s the immediate response I always get from my son. The strange thing is he enjoys eating broccoli using his fingers. Maybe it is really a “finger lickin’ good” vegetable!

When I first started to make my own baby food, I read about broccoli is one of the high-nitrate vegetables (besides beets, cabbage, carrots, celery, spinach etc) which should not be fed to babies in large quantities. The naturally occurring nitrates in these vegetables can change to nitrites, which bind iron in the blood and make it difficult to carry oxygen. This can make breathing become difficult and the skin to turn blue. As a health freak mommy, I prefer to boil/ blanch broccoli to remove this potentially harmful nitrates. Since then, it has become a personal preference in my cooking. Besides broccoli, I also boil/ blanch other green leafy vegetables because it is the simplest, easiest, fastest, healthiest and tastiest way as compared to other cooking methods. As long as my family doesn’t file a “complain”, I will try to keep my cooking as simple as possible.

Ingredient:
Broccoli (I prefer Australian broccoli)
Oil (I use extra light olive oil)
Salt & sugar (optional – I will skip it if I use Australian broccoli)
Light soya sauce/ oyster sauce (I prefer Lee Kum Kee superior light SS because it is less salty)
Fried shallot oil
Fried shallot (I will do another posting on how to make my "perfect" fried shallot. Stay-tuned!)

Method
1) Cut broccoli into small florets. If the floret is too big, cut into half. Wash thoroughly, rinse and soak for 10-20 mins
2) Bring water to boil in a cooking pot.
3) When the water is boiling, add some oil, salt and sugar. Put the broccoli and let it boil in the pot without lid until fork-tendered.
4) Drain the broccoli with a strainer or colander immediately to avoid the broccoli from turning colour.
5) Toss with fried shallot oil and light soya sauce/oyster sauce. Garnish with fried shallot.

Tips:
1) To retain the bright hue in broccoli after blanching, you can use "shocking method" - It is done by noobcook in her stir-fry broccoli dish and further illustrated at Allrecipes.
2) I noticed that the water used to cook pasta/ noodles can also produce the same results as step (1). Has anyone tried it before?

This is my entry for Weekend Wokking (secret ingredient for this month: BROCCOLI), hosted by Wiffy of Noobcook. The dealine is 30 Nov but she is still accepting entries until she publishes the round up on 3 Dec. So do hurry and join the fun. For more info and rules, check it out here.

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Tuna pasta

I haven’t posted any new pasta recipe for quite some time. This doesn’t mean we have stopped eating pasta. Pasta is always our family "all-time favourite " especially for my son. He eats a variety of pasta – spaghetti, angel hair, shell, macaroni, fusilli (spiral), penne, linguine & alphabet.

Good news to all the busy mommies and career women!

I am going to share a very simple pasta dish that takes only minutes to prepare. This recipe is adapted from Children’s Healthy & Fun Cookbook. I had slightly modified the recipe by adding extra vegetables to make it a wholesome meal. This is also my usual “fridge-cleaning” exercise. Killing 2 birds with 1 stone??. Hahaha!



The key ingredients for this recipe are tomatoes and tuna, the rest is up to your own creation (either add more vegetables or follow strictly the original recipe). Below are both my version and the original version for your comparison:

(My version)
Ingredients:
85 tinned tuna in olive oil (drained and broken up into chunks) – approx ½ tin
277g tomatoes (I didn’t have enough tinned tomatoes so I topped up with some fresh ones #)
80g shape pasta - I used fusilli (organic durum wheat semolina pasta)
100g red capsicum*
43g carrot*
* - other vegetables: celery, cauliflower, sweetcorns, beans and chickpeas.
1 clove garlic (crushed)
½ red onion (chopped finely)
4 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp olive oil
Dash of dried oregano & basil
½ tsp sugar (to taste)
salt and pepper
cooked broccoli (for garnishing) – Note: Vitamin C in the tomato sauce will help you to absorb the iron in the broccoli.

(Original version)
Ingredients:
200g tinned tuna in olive oil (drained and broken up into chunks)
800g tinned chopped tomatoes
275g pasta bows
2 large cloves garlic (crushed)
2 tsp tomato paste
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano (optional)
½ tsp sugar (optional)
salt and pepper

# Tip on how to peel off tomato skin
– cut a “x” at the bottom of the tomato, put inside the boiling water for 1 min. Drain and let it cool off. Then peel off the skin with a knife .

Methods:
1) Cook pasta according to the packet instructions, until the pasta is tender but not too soft.
2) Heat oil in a large saucepan, over a medium heat. Fry garlic for 1 min. Stir in oregano & basil (if any), vegetables (if any), chopped tomatoes and tomato puree/ paste.
3) Bring the sauce to the boil and reduce the heat. Half cover the pan and simmer for 15 mins or until the sauce has reduced by a third and thickened.
4) Stir the tuna into the sauce. Half-cover the pan and heat through for 2 mins, stirring occasionally. Add some sugar to the sauce if necessary and season.
5) Drain the pasta but save 2 tbsp of the water. Return the pasta to the saucepan. Add the water and stir in the sauce until the pasta is coated.
6) Serve with grated cheese and cooked broccoli.

I am submitting this simple pasta dish to Presto Pasta Nights, founded by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast, and hosted by Inge of Vanielje Kitchen this week.

Other pasta recipes that you may like to try:
Pesto pasta
Italian pasta soup
Spaghetti bolognese

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Beetroot soup

Beetroot (甜菜根) is a new vegetable to me. I only started eating beetroot 2 years ago after my good friend, Alice from Bits of Taste n Life introduced it to me. I didn’t know that there are so many great benefits eating beetroot until I read about it from here and here. The benefits of beetroot are:
a) it is a rich source of carbohydrates, a good source of protein, and has high levels of important vitamins, minerals and micronutrients.
b) it is an excellent source of folic acid and is therefore recommended to women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant.
c) Betalins, obtained from the roots, are a type of antioxidant found in beetroot in fairly large quantities. You don’t need to eat much beetroot to take in a beneficial amount of betalin. Betalins are used industrially as red food colourants, e.g. to improve the colour of tomato paste, sauces, desserts, jams and jellies, ice cream, sweets and breakfast cereals.
d) it is a good source of potassium and magnesium.
e) it contains soluble fibre, which can help reduce blood cholesterol.
f) it also contains ‘carotenoids’ and ‘flavonoids’, which help prevent LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol from being oxidised and deposited in the arteries.
g) cooked beetroot is a great source of folate that can protect you against high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s and dementia. It is also crucial to the development of a baby’s spinal cord during the first three months of pregnancy, so a good intake of folate is important to prevent spinal cord defects such as spina bifida.
h) it is virtually fat free and low in calories. Although it has a ‘medium’ GI (Glycaemic Index) of 64, it has an extremely low GL (Glycaemic Load) of 2.9 which means it’s converted into sugars very slowly and therefore helps to keep blood sugar levels stable – which is good for the blood.

Beetroot can be eaten in many ways either raw (juice, sandwich or salad) or cooked (steamed, boiled). If your urine turns pink after consuming a lot of beetroot, don't panic. It’s harmless and you’ll soon return to normal when your intake falls.

Today, I share with you my own version of beetroot soup. You can also find another beetroot soup recipe from Bits of Taste n Life .

Ingredients:
2 small size beetroots (about 320g) – slice each beetroot into 4 portions
1 carrot (about 150g) – cut into chunks
1 large sweetcorn (about 300g) – cut into chunks
1 big onion – chopped coarsely
12-15 red dates - remove seeds
200g pork loin – cut into chunks
1500ml water

Seasonings:
Salt and pepper to taste - optional

Methods:
1. Blanch pork loin in boiling water for a short while. Dish and set aside.
2. Bring water to a boiling point. Add in all the ingredients and re-boil the soup . Then simmer for 2 hours.
3. Add seasonings accordingly and serve.

Other reading references:
http://www.lovebeetroot.co.uk/healthy_info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beet
http://newbeingnutrition.com/wordpress/beetroot-benefits/
http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/radio5/elderlycooking/20081020.html

If you have other wonderful beetroot recipes, please share with me.




I am submitting this recipe to Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB#157), which is now being housed by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once and hosted this week by Wiffy of Noob Cook.

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Zucchini cakes - revisit

As mentioned in my early post, when I first made zucchini cakes, I didn't have a large zucchini so it didn't turn out close to the original recipe I followed. This round, with a large zucchini on hand and adding 1 extra egg, I made a revisit to this recipe. For recipe, please refer to here.

If you have a picky eater who refuses to eat vegetables, give it a try. But remember to control the amount of salt you add as the cheese is quite salty.

When I am writing this post, I wonder whether Japanese cucumber can be used to replace zucchini. Has anyone tried it before and like to share it with me?

Which one do you like, the 1st attempt or the one below?

I am submitting this recipe to Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipe Carnival hosted by Fun and Food Cafe. Thanks to Mansi for her invitation.

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Homemade snack bars

This homemade version snack bar is a MUST TRY for everyone including people who have never cooked in their lifetime. It makes an excellent start to the day especially with yogurt and fresh fruit ie strawberries, bananas etc. It can also be a healthy snack during teatime. It is also cheaper as compared to those healthy bars sold in the supermarket.

All you need to prepare is: the ingredients, non-stick pan, wooden spoon, baking tin (or any rectangular-shape container), greaseproof paper and presser.

I had adapted and combined 2 recipes from Children’s Healthy & Fun Cookbook to derive at this simplified version.

Ingredients:
40g rolled oats
40g sunflower seeds
40g pumpkin seeds
Handful of black and white sesame seeds
3-4 tbsp clear running honey (I used no water added honey)

Methods:
1) Heat up the pan.
2) Put the black and white sesame seeds in a non-stick and dry fry (without oil) with a wooden spoon over a medium-low heat until they are fragrant. Set aside.
3) Put the oats and dry fry for 3 mins. Turn the oats occasionally to make sure they cook evenly.
4) Add the sunflower and pumpkin seeds and dry fry for another 2 minutes or until light golden. Take care – the pumpkin seeds may pop a little!
5) Return the roasted black and white sesame seeds to the pan and dry fry for ½ min.
6) Take the pan off the heat. Stir in the honey – it will sizzle at first but keep stirring until the oats and seeds are coated. Allow to cool slightly.
7) Line a 20cm x 10cm baking tin with greaseproof paper.
8) Spread the mixture evenly on the paper and line another one on top of the mixture.
9) Use a presser (or chopping board) to apply pressure to the mixture.
10) Chill for at least 1 hour, or until solid. Turn it out of the tin and peel off the greaseproof paper. If you have problem to peel off the paper, leave it at room temperature for 1 min and try again. Cut into bars.
11) Keep it in an air-tight container and store in the fridge. Best to be consumed within a week.

Note: The combination of oats and seeds is subject to personal preference.

I am submitting this recipe to Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipe Carnival hosted by Fun and Food Cafe.

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