Foodarrific» Vegetarian

Meatless quesadillas

Chili Queen — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:02:59 +0000

One of our favorite things to eat on vegetarian days is homemade meatless quesadilla, my version.

As with most things that I cook, I don’t really have the recipe. This is what you will probably need but feel free to adjust the portions based on what your family likes:

red (tomato) sauce
onion, sliced into rings
tomatoes, sliced into rings
mushrooms
bell pepper
cheese
tortilla

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Spread red sauce on the tortilla as a base. Layer on the onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers and top with cheese. Fold the tortilla in half. Bake for about 20-30 minutes and you’re ready to dig in.

We love quesadillas because they’re both healthy and delicious and so easy you can practically whip it up in an underground storm shelter if you had to.

Vegetarian again!

Chili Queen — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:12:44 +0000

Remember I went on a month-long vegetarian diet at around this time last year? Well, I’m at it again. Gosh, I hate to say this but I’m constantly hungry because my poor tummy has no meat to grind. The vegetables hardly fill me up at all. Clearly I’m not your salad kind of girl. Now even if I don’t go to the gym, I won’t be needing corsets to fit into anything tighter than a potato sack.

crispilicious sweet potato fries

chili queen — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:54:54 +0000

Friday’s has this Southwest Adobo Chicken on their new menu. What’s got us excited are the sweet potato fries it comes with! How cool is that!

But here it is – a healthier, naturally sweeter contender to the French fry we know and love so well. As you can see, this portion of sweet potato fries is way small for something that tastes so good.

So I went home and made a huge batch of it myself the next day. This is a recipe that came straight off the top of my head. I used to have a pretty good tempura batter recipe sitting around somewhere but I wasn’t about to go digging for it. So I improvised and came up with this.

sweet potatoes, cut lengthwise French-fry style
3-4 tablespoons cornflour
1 tablespoon flour
iced water
pinch of salt and pepper, if desired

Combine flours and iced water into a batter. Feel free to add more water to achieve the desired batter consistency. Dredge the sweet potatoes through the batter and drop carefully into a pot of boiling oil on high heat.

Keep the heat on high throughout the process. Fish out the fries when they turn light golden brown. The cooking process will cause the fries to darken a little more after they’re removed from the oil.

It’s so simple, you should try this. Makes a great appetizer or finger food for guests. If you’re too lazy to make this yourself, go try it at Friday’s where baby strollers are welcome and kids get to eat for free if you order a main meal. No, I’m not getting paid to advertise for them.

loaded potato slices

chili queen — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:31:56 +0000

Vegetarian day is frequently a headache for me. The kids are not huge fans of veggie stir-fries which is standard fare for me on vegetarian days. These days, it’s been raining elephants and llamas, so going out to grab a veggie pizza or burger is out of the question.

If we stay home, I have to get creative and this recipe is one I concocted recently. Ta-da! Loaded potato slices.

These are very easy to make. Of course, it’s not as easy as swiping a bag of frozen french fries through a Honeywell Barcode Scanner, but these taste so good that my picky eaters called for an encore and I ended up making a second batch.

Here’s what you need:

4 large potatoes, skinned and sliced 1″ thick lengthwise
1 large tomato, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 stalk cilantro, finely chopped
2-3 teaspoons lime juice
pinch of salt
grated mozzarella cheese

Yes, there’s quite a bit of cutting involved. Combine the tomato, onion, cilantro, lime juice and salt in a bowl. Leave aside for a while, then drain off excess juices. You don’t want that.

First I microwave the potato slices on high for about 2 minutes. Transfer them to a tray and space them out nicely. Spoon the tomato mixture onto each slice and top with grated mozzarella cheese.

Then I just pop the tray into my toaster oven for about 15 minutes or until the cheese and potato edges brown slightly, and they’re ready to serve.

These loaded potato slices make a very yummy, very healthy meal as there’s no oil added and all the ingredients are fresh. With its vibrant colors, it’s also very presentable and you can serve it as an hor d’oeuvre. Try it, I’m sure you’re going to love it as much as we do .

easy-peasy potato salad

chili queen — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:36:28 +0000

One of my favorite things to whip up on a busy day is my easy-peasy potato salad. I just put a pot of water to boil with a pinch of salt as I peel a bunch of potatoes and then cut them into irregular shapes.

I like to overboil my potatoes so that when I stir in the other ingredients later, the texture is something like some of the best eye creams you see in magazine ads. The softness gives it a melt-in-the-mouth effect and is perfect for younger children and older folks too.

After the potatoes are cooked, I scoop them into a big bowl, then add my lightly fried bacon bits, a pinch of salt and pepper, a good sprinkle of dried parsley and enough light mayonnaise to make it all come together. If I have Dijon mustard, I would add some too.

Simple though it may sound, this potato salad makes a very delicious accompaniment to any meat dish or lightly fried Bratwurst sausages which is what I usually pair this with. Of course, if you’re cooking this potato salad for very young kids or as a vegetarian dish, you can always leave out the bacon bits.

green pea soup (tongsui)

chili queen — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:15:56 +0000

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.

all done with my vegetarian diet

chili queen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:59:42 +0000

Yep, today is a brand new day, the day I’m officially done with my 30-day vegetarian diet which started early last month. And this is what I had for breakfast this morning, my first meal … ta da, yummy, huh?

Nasi lemak (coconut rice with various condiments), ironically minus the chicken because it’s too heavy a breakfast for me otherwise. But I’ll get to eating chicken eventually… er, soon, at lunch today probably .

Eating healthy is a great feeling. I continued my gym workouts as usual during my vegetarian month. Not eating meat didn’t make me feel any less energetic. In fact, I revved up my workouts incorporating push-ups for the first time. It’s hard work but it left me happily tired.

I have a crazy metabolic rate even when I’m not vegetarian, so you can imagine how hungry I was this whole month not having anything substantial meat for my tummy to grind. I was hungry all the time and always looking for food .

Remember I did this for religious reasons, not to lose weight but I couldn’t help wondering what the effect would be of abstaining from meat completely, working out regularly and stuffing myself with carbs and snacks every two hours. Well, guess what? I lost a total of 1 kg (2.2 lbs) in the process. Nothing significant about that really.

The thing I missed most was eating out with my kids. I’d just sit and watch them eat, or pick at their fries and hijack a few gulps of soda. Most restaurants don’t have a vegetarian menu, and most vegetarian restaurants are crazy expensive. Maybe if we’d been on vacation at a Westgate resort, there might’ve been more meal options for me to choose from, eh? But hey, no complaints, it was a fantastic experience!

fried angel hair pasta

chili queen — Sun, 31 May 2009 08:12:02 +0000

I have half a pack of angel hair pasta left over from yesterday’s lunch. We’ve eaten every other type of pasta so I thought it was time we tried angel hair. But the kids don’t quite care for it so I have to find a way to finish it up somehow.

Now if you notice, angel hair pasta looks a lot like the thin Chinese egg noodle, and I’m guessing it won’t taste far different. So I decided to do a Fusion stirfry… just for the heck of it.

Here’s what I used:

0.5 packet of angel hair pasta
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
a handful of choy sum (mustard green), cut into 2-inch lengths
1 stick of celery, thickly sliced
a few pieces of mock char siew (vegetarian barbecue pork), sliced
3-4 tablespoons vegetarian oyster sauce
spring onion and Chinese parsley, finely chopped
sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste

The preparation of the angel hair pasta is the same as if you were actually using it for a regular pasta. Just boil till al dente.

Into my wok on high heat, I drizzle some oil and lightly saute the garlic. Then I quickly add the mock char siew followed by vegetarian oyster sauce, choy sum and celery. Add some water and allow to simmer for a few minutes to let the vegetables cook through.

Then add the angel hair pasta and stir well with the rest of the ingredients. Add a good drizzle of sesame oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped spring onion and Chinese parsley. Serve hot with a small plate of fresh bird’s eye chilly in soy sauce.

Heaven! I’m really proud of this creation of mine. You really must try it. You’ll truly be surprised how good this Fusion angel hair pasta tastes, wierd though it may sound . Best of all, it’s meatless, healthy and trust me, you can banish all thoughts of weight loss products when you’re eating this.

last week of being vegetarian

chili queen — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:26:35 +0000

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.

hak lor mai chook, or black glutinous rice porridge

chili queen — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:53:23 +0000

I made a huge pot of hak lor mai chook, or black glutinous rice porridge as a treat to myself last weekend since I’m on a 30-day vegetarian diet and can’t eat meat. Quite a mouthful to say but it’s such a luscious dessert. Actually I eat a couple of bowls of it and it serves as my lunch .

The ingredients are simple.

* 2 cups black glutinous rice
* 4 cups water
* 1 cup of sugar, or to taste
* 1 cup thick coconut milk, to be kept in fridge till ready to serve

Place black glutinous rice and water in a large pot on medium heat and leave to boil for about an hour, or until the grains soften and open up. Add sugar to taste. Serve warm.

Add a pinch of salt to the coconut milk and mix well. Keep the coconut milk in the fridge until the black glutinous rice porridge is ready to serve. Drizzle about a dessertspoon of coconut milk onto each bowl of porridge and dessert is ready!