Looking for a dish that would cheer you up on a cold winter's evening or a rainy day? I have found one of the most satisfying dish that is easy to prepare but indulging to enjoy.
Ingredients: fennel, beetroot, garlic, pine nuts, almonds, shiitake mushrooms, olive oil, salt and pepper
Cut off the stems and a little of the bottom of the fennel. Slice the fennel top side up in half (length wise). Turn it perpendicularly and thinly slice the fennel, still top side up. Slice the beetroots and garlic.
Preheat the oven at 220C.
Transfer the sliced fennel, beetroot and garlic into a baking tray and generously drizzle the olive oil. Add some ground black pepper and salt and toss well. Top with pine nuts, chopped almonds and slice shiitake mushrooms
Roast it in the oven for 45-60mins, or until the fennel is tender.
Aussies are known for their BBQs and they are proud of it. Almost every Australian household owns a BBQ grill. Unfortunately for vegetarians in Asia, when it comes to BBQ, we are often "left out", but fear not, as the Aussies do not deprive their guests as Vegetarian Bacon Style Rashes are one of the many "BBQ-friendly" meat alternative available in all woolworths / coles supermarkets. Priced at $4 for 125g, it comes packed with nutrition as it is fortified with zinc, iron and b12. You would also be pleased to know that its colors are from natural sources - beetroot!
Here's the recipe I'll be sharing with you today: The Aussie Big Breakfast for vegetarians.
Ingredients (serves 4): 100g Button Mushrooms 1 can of Heinz baked beans 6 free range eggs 50g of long beans 1 pack of bacon styled rashes 4 tablespoon of olive oil Freshly Ground Black Pepper Pinch of salt
Method: 1) Beat eggs in a bowl. Add long beans to the egg mixture 2) Thinly slice the mushrooms, cap down on the chopping board. 3) Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan, and pan fry the eggs and long beans. Gently flip the half-cooked frittata and pan fry until golden on both sides 4) The move on to pan frying the mushrooms and heating up the baked beans. 5) Finally pan fry the bacon styled rashes and serve and enjoy while it's still hot!
Ta-da!!!
Sure looks like the real thing doesn't it?
Here's what to look out for when you head into woolworths or coles :)
French is internationally known as 'ze language of Love. Couples who visit Paris would not miss the opportunity to snap pics with the Eiffel Tower, as many believe it symbolizes eternal Love. Even the popular Hong Kong TVB drama No Regrets did not forget to photoshop Miss Nine and Lau Sing with it!
To celebrate Valentine's Day, we prepared two dishes using French beans.
Firstly, purple rice topped with stir-fried with Tumeric and French beans.
The second dish - French Beans stir fried with capers drizzled with fresh lemon juice. Capers works magic with the French Beans. No extra seasoning is required as the preserved capers are naturally sour and salty and compliments the French Beans very well.
It was one of those reflective moments that cranked up my cravings for a tomato based pasta. Memories of Melbourne poured into my mind, intense and sudden, just like Melbourne's unpredictable weather. Immediately, I rushed out of my house to the nearest supermarket for ingredients. Amazing how the stomach is able take full control of the mind, making one think of nothing but food, not just any food, but a specific food for hours or even days!
Ingredients: Leggo's Tomato Puree, San Remo Vermicelli, 2 cloves of garlic
1) Boil a pot of water and add the pasta when tiny bubbles start forming on the side of the pot. Allow the pasta to cook for 10 minutes. 2) Add 4 tablespoons of olive oil to a frying pan to stir fry the finely chopped garlic. Subsequently add the tomato puree, cherry tomatoes, black pepper and a pinch of salt to the pan. 3) When the sauce is cooked, toss the pasta in the pan and serve immediately.
A Jamie Oliver inspired recipe, with a touch of Jamie Lee's cooking. My first frittata, and it turned out as perfectly as I could ever imagine it to be (being a novice cook).
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Ingredients: 8 asparagus sticks 2 eggs (I used only one yolk) 5 tablespoons of soy milk black pepper one small onion 1 tablespoon of Olive oil
Method: 1. Preheat the oven for 5 minutes at 200C. 2. Bake the asparagus sticks at 200C for 15 minutes 3. Beat in the eggs with the soymilk 4. Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and saute the onions 5. Add in the beaten egg mixture followed by the baked asparagus. 6. Allow the egg mixture to fry on a low flame until it does not stick to the pan. 7. When cooked on one side carefully flip the mixture over and continue to fry the other side. 8. Dish out and place on plate with asparagus showing and dash some black pepper on it. 0. Serve immediately and enjoy!
As your teeth sinks into the mushroom, piping hot juice squirts out onto your palette and as you attain gastronomic orgasm. As your saliva begins to digest your mouth's contents, the flavors of the pot mushroom begins to push your dopamine levels higher, encouraging you to go for another bite, a much bigger bite. The milawa chevre goat's cheese crumbles into smaller pieces as time passes, into bits that seeps into your tongue, converting into neurotic signals to tell your brain that you have reached nirvana. That's my most recent and most pleasurable meal, I'm glad that I've lived to tell the tale, so that you can enjoy it, hopefully more than me.
Ingredients: 6 large Portobello Mushrooms (mine were as big as my palm) 2 cloves of garlic 4 sticks of garlic shoot 4 tablespoons of olive oil A packet of fresh rocket Balsamic vinegar 100 g of goat's cheese (I used Milawa Chevre) Black Pepper
Optional: 2 tablespoon of toasted black sesame seeds (for decoration)
Method: 1. Preheat oven to 200C 2. Heat olive oil on a non-stick frying pan and saute the finely chopped garlic and garlic shoot. 3. Lightly grease the baking tray 4. Place the mushrooms with the stalks facing up and carefully top with sauteed garlic, garlic shoot and cheese. 5. Sprinkle some black pepper and bake for 12 minutes 6. Meanwhile, arrange some fresh rocket leaves on the plate and drizzle some balsamic vinegar over them. 7. Carefully place the cooked mushrooms on the plate and sprinkle some black sesame seeds all over plate. 8. Serve hot and enjoy!
A perfect day to start a cold winter morning is a piece of Lawson's Settler's Grain toast spread with fresh avocado. Though avocados are made up of fat (90% of the calories are from fat), they are said to help lower cholesterol, by raising HDL levels and lowering LDL levels. Avocados are also known to be very rich in antioxidants.I used a non-stick pan to toast my bread as I felt that I can get a more even toast and there will be no burnt ends.
Here is a really simple recipe to make scones. I do not add sugar to my scones as I prefer to eat them with jam, maple syrup or honey with a cup of hot tea. Great for a gathering with friends for afternoon tea. Ingredients: 1 cup of self raising flour 1/2 cup soy milk 1 tablespoon of olive oil
Method: . Mix all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl until you get a lump of dough. 2. Preheat the oven at 200C for 10 minutes 3. Grease a baking tray with some olive oil / butter 4. Roll the dough into 5 cm diameter balls and place them on baking tray 5. Bake at 180C for 10 minutes or until golden brown. 6. Serve warm with ginger marmalade or maple syrup or honey.
I often wake up to a very empty stomach on a cold winter morning and the best way to fill it up is a bowl of piping hot oatmeal topped with chopped walnutes, soy milk and cinnamon. Recently, I added a serving of fat-free homemade scones to complete my breakfast splurge. It is a very good idea to soak the cranberries / raisins in alcohol like tia maria, vodka, rum as they add an extra kick to the scones, which would otherwise be quite plain (though it doesn't matter since you do eat it with other accompaniments)
Ingredients: 1 cup self-raising flour 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup dried cranberries (soaked in 4tbsp of rum / tia maria) 1 small slice of butter / 1 tbsp olive oil
1. Preheat oven at 200C for around 10 minutes. 2. Mix flour, milk and cranberries until you obtain a dough that does not stick to the hands. 3. Grease baking tray with butter / olive oil 4. Divide the dough into 5cm diameter balls. 5. Bake at 180C for a further 10 minutes or until golden brown. 6. Serve with ginger marmalade or your favourite jam / maple syrup.
Option: you can add 2 tablespoon of tia maria / rum into the dough during mixing for extra flavor
Olives are concentrated in monounsaturated fats and a good source of vitamin E. In addition to vitamin E, olives contain avariety of beneficial active phytonutrient compounds including polyphenols and flavonoids, which also appear to have significant anti-inflammatory properties. Vitamin E is the body's primary fat-soluble antioxidant. It goes after and directly neutralizes free radicals in all the fat-rich areas of the body. Free radical damage can lead to numerous ailments. For example, when free radicals cause the oxidation of cholesterol, the oxidized cholesterol damages blood vessels and builds up in arteries, and can eventually lead to heart attack or stroke. So, by preventing the oxidation of cholesterol, the nutrients in olives help to prevent heart disease.
Ingredients: 1 medium size aubergine (cut into long strips) 10 pcs pickled olives (sliced) 1 big onion A little olive oil Method: 1. Fry onions in a little oil 2. Add in aubergine and fry for 2 minutes 3. Lastly add in sliced olives and a little salt
It was a great honor to be invited to Uncle Silvio's house for a genuine Italian pizza feast. The pizzas we ate were made from scratch and we are tremendously lucky to be able to witness the pizza making process. The wait was quite long though, as the preparation of the ingredients was quite time consuming, but the end product was definitely worth the wait. The cheese was able to stretch until the "ceiling" exactly like the pizza hut ads (though it's never the case when we visit pizza hut). Thanks for the wonderful experience Uncle Silvio and Aunty Mei.
Ingredients: Dough: Plain Flour Salt Yeast Warm water
Steps: 1. mix a packet of instant yeast with warm water 2. add to dough mixture in a mixer 3. mix until even, adding flour bit by bit until the texture below is obtained. Leave to rise. 4. saute the pizza toppings (until cooked) 5. Pat the dough flat on a pizza platter. 6. Remember to poke little holes in the dough with a fork. 7. Add the toppings! (tip: add tomato paste first, followed by mozzarella cheese, then the toppings)
Until today, I never knew how easy it is to make tiramisu. Never again I will eat the ones sold outside as the tiramisu I made was perfect and exactly how I liked it. Not too sweet, bursting full of good quality coffee and generous amount of tia maria. Perfect way to end your day with a "BANG".
Cooks: Nicole, Michelle & Jamie
Ingredients: 300g Mascapone Cheese 150g Heavy Whipping Cream 6 cups of Coffee 3 capfuls of Tia Maria 10 Sponge Fingers a tablespoon of cocoa powder
Method: 1. Add mascapone cheese and whipping cream to a mixing bowl. Mix well with hand-mixer 2. Add two capfuls of Tia Maria and continue mixing. 3. Meanwhile boil 6 cups worth of coffee 4. Add 1 capful of Tia Maria to coffee when boiled. 5. Soak the sponge fingers in the coffee until semi-soft and transfer immediately to a baking tray / anything you wish to serve the tiramisu in 6. Layer the bottom layer of the cake with sponge fingers followed by a layer of the mixed cheese and cream, and repeat with sponge fingers ending with mixed cheese and cream. 7. Chill in the refrigerator overnight. 8. Dust with cocoa powder before serving.
Ingredients: 1 bowl of Red rice 1 big red onion 2 large Capsicums (One Red, One Green) Some "seafood balls"
Method: 1. Cook the red rice the regular way. 2. Slice the top of the capsicums away and remove the seeds. (Do not throw away the top of the capsicum) 3. pre heat oven to 220C 4. stir fry the onions with the red rice and seafood balls. 5. stuff the capsicums. 6. Replace the top of the capsicums. 7. place in oven until the capsicums have cooked (it took about 10 minutes for mine to cook) 8. Enjoy hot!
Option: You can add replace the onions with garlic or some herbs like basil. If you are more of a noodle fan, I'd imagine this combination would go pretty well with some spaghetti and tomato sauce. You can even add some sliced capsicums to the stuffing.
Ingredients: 1 small bowl of Frozen Berries (I opted for the one with blueberries, strawberries, cherries and raspberries) 1 small bottle of Vodka Soda (5% alcohol) (flavour of your choice, I used raspberry flavour)
Method: 1. Fill a small bowl with frozen berries. 2. Add some Vodka Soda. 3. Serve cold & enjoy!
Two avid vegetarians are here to share some insights to the world of vegetarianism.
Hopefully, through this site, the lives of some animals can be spared. Always remember, animals have feelings too, they are our friends not our meal.
For my valentine.
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I used a non-stick pan to toast my bread as I felt that I can get a more even toast and there will be no burnt ends.
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Vegetarian Party
Pot Luck Party