One of the dishes we regularly have to go with rice is stirfried kailan. With ginger and fish slices, of course. I haven’t cooked this in a while which is why I’m kinda bringing it up now, as a sort of reminder to myself to cook this delicious dish soon .

What you need are:

• 2 fish fillets, diced into fairly big chunks
• 5 stalks kailan, or kale - cut the stems to 2-inch lengths and the leaves to 1-inch lengths
• 1-2 knobs ginger, sliced thinly
• siew heng zhao, or Chinese cooking wine
• 2-3 Tsp oyster sauce
• salt and pepper to taste

I typically heat up a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil in my wok, then throw in the ginger slices. In Chinese cooking, you need to use high heat and be quick to the stirfy. So I swish the ginger around for maybe 30 seconds and then add the fish fillet followed by oyster sauce. The ginger gets rid of the fishy taste.

I keep frying to let the fish soak up all that flavor before adding the stems. Stems take longer to cook so that’s why they go in first. At this  point, I add a good splash of water as I like it with lots of gravy. It’s up to you. I cover the wok for about 2 minutes so that as the water boils, it cooks through the stems.

Then in go the kailan leaves. Give everything a good mix. You should see the kailan leaves soften. After that, give it a good drizzle of siew heng zhao, or Chinese cooking wine all round. Add salt and pepper to taste. Give it another good stir and it’s ready to serve.

What I really love about this dish is the aroma of the wine and that it’s healthy too, certainly not one that will send you scrambling around for a fat burner review after you eat it. So give it a try.

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The Dumpling Festival came and went during the days when I was on my vegetarian diet. So I didn’t get to join my family sitting around on the outdoor chaise lounges at my Dad’s house to savor these goodies.

Luckily for me though, my dear neighbor slipped me some of her homemade bachang, or rice dumplings across the fence. I kept them frozen till recently when I took them out, resteamed them and mmmm, words can’t describe.

There’s 3 different types here - spicy sambal bachang (top left), rice dumpling with wobbly pork chunks, chestnuts and dried shrimp (top right) and the pea version of the rice dumpling (bottom).

Dang, these dumplings are so tasty I wish I knew how to make them myself. The filling takes quite a bit of work to make. As for the banana leaf wrapping, I admit I’ve just never mastered the art of getting the filling to stay inside the banana leaf while I’m trying to get the string secured.

The ones I make are not foolproof. I can never be sure when my painstakingly wrapped dumplings will pop open and come loose in the pot. It’s like they’re wearing a swimsuit that’s a size too big and wo-oosh, the swimsuit slips right off in the water ! OMG, how awful when I have to go fishing in that pot for those naked bachangs, hahaha!

During the days of my vegetarian diet, I cooked green pea soup several times. It was a great way to fulfill those hunger pangs I was experiencing. And it’s a sweet dessert that can be enjoyed by the whole family.

Green pea soup is a tong sui, or dessert soup, that is commonly eaten for its cooling properties which help reduce heatiness that causes fevers, sore throats, acne breakouts, etc  during hot spells. I cooked this again today because the weather’s been unbearably hot lately.

In the days when I was working on of those exhausting jobs in IT, I never had the luxury of tending over soups like this. But it’s really simple to make, just that you have to watch the fire.

I don’t use exact measurements so these are just estimates. To make a big pot, I just throw two cups of dried green peas (they’re sold in small packets) into a pot with 6 cups of water.

When the water comes to a boil, turn it down to medium/low and simmer for 2 hours till soft. Add 1 cup sugar or enough sugar to taste. Again the time here is just an estimate depending on how soft you want to peas to end up. I like the peas to be really soft, almost of porridge texture, so I let the soup bubble on for a while longer, checking every now and then. So it’s completely up to you.

Well, here I am, at the beginning of the last week of my 30-day vegetarian diet. It’s a great experience and I’m doing great! I work out, I eat, just avoiding meat, seafood and eggs and …

… well, just about the only thing about being vegetarian is that I’m always hungry and need to eat all the time . So like every one or two hours, you’ll find me raiding the kitchen and munching on milk and Oreos (man, these are the best!), guacamole and chips, biscuits and whatever else I can get my hands on.

I’m not a snacker by any means so it’s really hard figuring out what to eat all the time. With everything I’m eating, you probably expect that my new best friend would be the fitness equipment at the gym . But most times, I just end up drinking lots and lots of tea and water to fill me up.

One day, I made ambrosia, sheer heaven!! A couple of times, I made huge pots of tongsui, or dessert soups - lotus seed soup with gingko nuts, three-bean soup, black glutinous rice porridge - and survived on those for a whole day.

The week before I started my vegetarian diet, I came across this prepacked frozen roti paratha, or Indian flatbread, at the grocery store. Roti paratha is also known as roti canai and is usually served with curry on a banana leaf at Indian restaurants. But instead of doing that, I decided to turn it into a wrap with spicy beef filling.

I used

• 250 grams of ground Australian beef
• 2 onions, finely diced
• 2 tomatoes, finely diced
• 2 green chillies, finely diced (feel free to vary based on your heat preference, I used birds’ eye chillies but you can use jalapeno or whatever you like)
• 3 tablespoons barbecue sauce
• 1 lettuce, shredded
• 1 pack of frozen roti paratha (about 5 or 6)

To prepare the filling, I simply drizzle some olive oil into my non-stick pan on medium heat. I chuck in the onions and tomatoes followed shortly by the chillies, beef and barbecue sauce and saute for 3-4 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and sugar to taste. When beef is cooked through, I scoop into a bowl and leave aside.

In another saucepan, I heat up a piece of roti paratha first on one side, then flip over to the other side. When heated through, lay the bread flat on a plate and layer on the fresh lettuce followed by the filling.

It’s really this simple and it makes a really fulfilling meal. This recipe is entirely my own concoction. I decided to give the old roti canai in curry a breath of fresh air and this is it. I like that this is so different yet tastes so good *gives self pat on back* :smile:, enjoy!