Category: Salads and Vegetables

Salads and Vegetables

Meslun Salad with Feta

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I am very happy because I can get relatively cheaper meslun salad at the market now. 🙂 For a salad this light, it does not need a dressing. I simply crumbled some feta cheese, added in cherry tomatoes and drizzled a very light olive oil over. Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice. Sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper. So deliciously light and healthy.

Salads and Vegetables

Hummus

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I’ve been having a craving for hummus since like forever. But you can’t make hummus without a tahini- a sesame seed paste only available at Mustafa. Of course, there is a brand of hummus sold in NTUC and Cold Storage under their health food section, but they cost a bomb. Luckily for me, a few days ago, The Hubby brought me to Mustafa 🙂

I decided to follow The Australian Women’s Weekly version of hummus. Unfortunately, they use whole cumin and thinking that cumin could be blended perfectly with the other ingredients in the food processor, against my better judgement, I added them in whole. How wrong I was. Although my hummus tasted fine, the whole cumin was a spoiler. I kept biting into them with every mouthful. Upon closer inspection of the picture featured in the Australian Women’s magazine, I noticed that some hummus did have black spots in them. Darn the Aussies.

This is how I made my hummus.

In olive oil, sweat onions and garlic. Add in cumins. Next time, I'll just use powdered cumin.

 

In the food processor, add two cans of chickpeas, tahini, juice from two lemons, paprika and the fried onion mixture. Oh, and salt.

 

Serve with olive oil and paprika. Garnish with mint leaves.

 

Traditionally eaten with pita bread or any Arabic flatbread. Since being on a diet, I ate this with cucumber strips.

 

Today, I cooked lunch for my family and they said the hummus was good. Next post, the recipes I made for today’s lunch. 🙂

Salads and Vegetables, Sides

Baked Portobello Mushrooms

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A few weeks ago, I saw some portobello mushrooms which were on sale in NTUC. I love mushrooms and I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like mushrooms. It’s a pity we can’t get any of the Western wild mushrooms like chanterelle and such. Portobello is the closest I can find that could be labelled as ‘field flat mushrooms’ and I used these to make one of Jamie Oliver’s mushroom recipes.

Marinade shrooms in olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, salt, lemon juice and top with a knob of butter

 

Bake in the oven and serve as a side.

 

The mushrooms will be juicy and flavourful and of course, best eaten warm. Remember this recipe when you next see a packet of portobello sitting patiently to be picked up. 😀

Indian, Salads and Vegetables, Snack

Fried Indian Bitter Melon (Bitter Gourd)

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As a kid, I used to loathe bitter gourd. I only developed the taste of the vegetable, ironically, when I got pregnant. I started developing the taste of it not because I suddenly found out how tasty the bitter vegetable is but rather because of the fact that I kept forcing myself to eat the vegetable because of its purported health benefits. Bitter gourd supposedly lowers down the blood sugar level and when I was pregnant, I ate bitter gourd almost on a daily basis.

The recipe today is of the Indian variety of bitter melon. It’s small and has small bumps. A colleague once told of a famed Indian bitter melon recipe that her relative ate a long time ago in some restaurant. She described briefly but I’ve forgotten now. What I do remember is after that story, whenever we went to Little India for our Indian food fixes, we’d look at the mounds of small, bumpy emerald green gourds and think of ways to cook it. Always. Without fail.

This is one recipe that my ex-RO used. And it’s also the most palatable for most people since it’s fried. Even so, don’t be fooled because the bitterness of the Indian bitter melon will numb your tastebuds and you’ll be soon reaching for that glass of cold water soon after.

Such a beautiful rich vibrant green. Love it.

This is how it looks like when sliced thinly. Some seeds are white and some reddish, depending on the ripeness.

Marinade the bitter melon in turmeric, salt, chilli powder.

Fry till crisp.

Serve hot with rice and a chutney. Bottled in my case. If you’re feeling adventurous, try eating bitter melon. I’m sure your complexion will improve in time. :p

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The recipe

1. Wash bitter melon and cut into thin slices. Sprinkle salt over.

2. Leave to stand for 30 min after which drain the water that would come from the bitter melons.

3. Marinade in turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt.

4. Fry till really crisp.

Salads and Vegetables

Home made Sweet Potato Chips

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I got a food processor for my birthday and am so happy with it that last weekend, I decided to use it. I didn’t have many ingredients but I saw I had one sweet potato, or kumara, 😉 and a potato. I decided to try out the blade that is supposed to ‘slice food very thinly’ like a mandoline.

After twenty minutes (because I am slow like that) of trying to figure out how the parts connect, I finally managed to use the device properly. And I was ecstatic! The potatoes were super thin! I fried them in olive oil and sprinkled salt over and had them for breakfast. I’m going to buy more potatoes this weekend and experiment.

My Birthday Gift 😀

 

Look at how thin the slices are!

 

Fried in extra virgin olive oil

 

A sprinkling of salt and black pepper over and it makes for a tasty supper