September 30, 2008 at 5:29 am (Favorites, Main Dish, Soups)
Tags: bibimbap, dining out, Korean, Soups
I enjoy dining out with friends – part of my weekly fun schedule now…
Just to show a few pictures from the nice Korean Bibimbap restaurant:
Vegetarian Bibimbap! Irresistible!
How can't you love these Korean appetizers?
Oh, and Souplantation! I had the best lentil soup ever! Hmmmm, yummmmy! And of course, salad, Asian noodles, and the special blackberry acai water!
Best Indian lentil soup ever!
September 24, 2008 at 8:06 am (Favorites, Snacks)
Tags: cashew nut, macadamia nut, nuts, peanut, Snacks, walnut
I’m just starting to become obsessive with these snack bars called “Energy 99″… It has all the goodies in it: Brown rice, husked lotus, pearl barley, buck wheat, oatmeal, pea, small read beans, mung beans, speckled kidney beans, black soy beans, black glutinous rice, corn, egg powder, etc. you name it!
Oh, one other favorite of snacks of mine: homemade Nuts Boxes! I enjoy buying fresh, raw nuts from farmer’s market and putting them into used snack boxes. My current version includes walnuts, raw Spanish peanuts, cashew nuts, and macadamia nuts. I have one for Larry in San Diego, one for dad at home, and one for myself in the office 
AND my version of 5-A-Day: multigrains, fresh veggies, fresh fruits, nuts, and water … it can’t sound healthier than that, right 
September 5, 2008 at 12:30 am (Main Dish, Recipes, Stories)
Tags: Main Dish, mushroom, pine nut, rice, vegetable broth
If my memory serves me right, I discovered rice pilaf about 5 years when I was living with an American lady. She works as a figure skating coach and was always busy. We often share food, so one day on shortage of supplies, I “borrowed” a box of her rice and mixed in a couple handy ingredients. I somehow have only cooked it once or twice after that, but every time I did, it turned out to be a quite quick and tasty meal! So this one absolutely goes with the idea of SEMI-HOMEMADE meals :-p
Ingredients:
How to make it:
Tah-dah! My rice pilaf - hmm yummy!
September 4, 2008 at 11:45 pm (Breakfast)
Tags: apple, banana, blueberry, Breakfast, peach, pine nut, pumkin seeds, strawberry, walnut, yogurt
I’ve only come to know about muesli in a very short period of time. And in order to write this blog post, I also checked on wikipedia:
Interestingly, muesli was developed around 1900 by a Swiss physician called Maximilian Bircher-Benner for his hospital patients and popularized in the 1960s in many Western countries given the increased interest in healthy vegetarian diets.
My understanding of the major ingredients in muesli include: raw oats, fresh fruits, nuts, and some kind of liquid such as milk or juice. The original recipe from Bircher-Benner posted on wiki is as follows:
Everybody has their own way of making fresh muesli. You can probably google or youtube hundreds of nice recipes if you’d like. I don’t really like raw oats, as I usually boil oats to make oat meals or add them into my multigrain congee. I also like chunks of fresh fruits better than grated. Plus, I tend to substitute the liquid with yogurt. So here comes my version:
Major ingredients:
I love it! Oops, I was gonna show a picture, but it was all gone too fast to be caught on camera, haha 
September 3, 2008 at 7:27 am (Main Dish, Recipes, Stories)
Tags: asparagus, carrot, cucumber, Main Dish, nagaimo, Recipes, Stories, sweet corns, tofu, water chestnut
A couple weeks ago, my roommate bought a big bag of fresh water chestnuts. They then sat in the fridge for days being ignored until one day we figured we have to cook them before they’ve gone bad.
So here are two resolutions of a similar kind: a stir-fry of colorful veggies.
#A: Asparagus, Water chestnuts, Carrots, and Sweet corns.
How to prepare it:
1. Trim the hard ends of fresh asparagus, and cut with an angle (easier to absorb the flavors of seasonings)
2. Peel off the skin of water chestnuts, and cut in halves
3. Some thin slices of carrots and a couple spoonful sweet corns for color.
How to make it:
1. In a hot pan put in some canola oil to cover half of the pan; when it’s hot, drop in the water chestnuts
2. Stir for a few seconds, wait for a minute before putting in the asparagus and carrots.
3. Add a bit of salt, freshly ground black pepper, and about two table spoons of the vegetarian oyster sauce. Stir thoroughly. Leave it with cover for a couple minutes.
4. Add sweet corns, stir well, and turn off the stove.
#B: Nagaimo, Tofu, Water Chestnuts, Carrots, Cucumbers, and Sweet Corns
Ingredients:
The key in making this dish is the order in which you put each ingredient in: from the hardest to the softest
So it could have worked out better than the one in this picture if I put water chestnuts in first, then carrot and cucumber cubes, then nagaimo cubes, before the soft tofu. Don’t stir too hard as it would break the tofu too much. Similarly, add the sweet corns at the last minute. Just the combination of tofu and nagaimo would be great, but you need to put in some colorful veggies – otherwise, it looks boring
