Recipe: Cabbage Soup to warm the body and cleanse the heat

I have just discovered that cabbage has huge recovery properties in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) context.

The benefits include:

1. Moisten the intestines and prevent constipation
2. Improve circulation and alleviate joint pain
3. Clear toxins and good for skin

I decided to cook this for family dinner:

Ingredients

• 1 head of chinese cabbage (some also call nappa cabbage) - torn to bite size pieces
• 1 chicken bones
• 1 head of dried cuttlefish
• 1-2 thumb of ginger, smashed
• Red dates, stoned
• 1 grasp of wolfberries (goji berries)

1. I prefer to tear the vege instead of cutting as tearing will maintain higher moisture content of the vegetables
2. Cover the chicken bones and cuttlefish with water and put to boil
3. Put in the red dates, ginger and cabbage
4. Once the soup came to boil, lower the temperature to let it simmer until the water reduce by 1/3
5. Switch to fire to high, put in salt to taste and wolfberries (If you put wolberries too early, it will turn sour)

The kids finished 2 big bowls full of vegetables. 

Satisfied

My share of sustainable living

I am not much of a health freak, but I do believe in sustainable living. What is sustainable living? It is a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual's carbon footprint on the earth. Carbon footprint?? That means limiting use of resources and thus reducing waste.
Commercial farming leave behind much chemical substances that not only destroy the environment, but our own health. I think the best prevention of illness is maintenance of good health.
Therefore, I believe that such efforts like organic farming should be supported in order to support the idea of sustainable living. That brings us to Terra Farm vegetables.

I came across this delivery system through this blog =>> Terra Farm

I ordered mine through one of the drop-off point representative. Being my first time, the rep was kind enough to teach me how to keep the vegetables fresh in the fridge.

Do you know:

1. The vegetables should be kept separated in sealed bag or wrapped in newspapers

2. As these are organic vegetables, you will find ample of snails and caterpillars. Remove them before storing them in the fridge as the snails will remain active, even in the fridge (amazing)

My box came with 5 snails like the one above.

I bought the smallest box of 2 kg weigh of vegetables.

The first layer on top looks like this

The 2nd layer at the bottom looks like this

These vegetables are ready for storage after I have repackaged them

FRIED BOK CHOY WITH SEAFOOD

Ingredients:

4 heads of bok choy / siew pak choy

200gm / 1 packet of mixed seafood (sold in frozen food section)

1 thumb of ginger (shredded)

1 tsp of japanese soy sauce (why because it has mirin in it - good to counter the fishy smell)

Steps:

1. Heat oil and fry ginger till fragrant

2. Throw in the seafood, followed by bok choy

3. Stir till the vege soften 

4. Add in the japanese soy sauce at the side of wok so the fragrance is evaporated into the mixture.

DONE!

STIR FRIED TLS (TUBERS, LEAF & SQUASH)

Ingredients:

A thumb of ginger or 3 cloves of garlic (minced)

Either oyster sauce or fish sauce

Vegetables as you see below

Steps:

1. Heat oil and fry ginger/garlic till fragrant

2. Dump in carrots, aubergine and bok choy stem. Fry for 30 sec

3. Throw in the rest. stir stir stir...

4. Circle the sauce around the wok and stir some more.

DONE!

btw: If you like your aubergine soft instead of juicy-chewy, boil before you fry.

Recipe: 2 Dishes 1 Soup (2D1S)

Sometimes I do not have enough time in the morning to prepare for double-boiled or stewed soup. So I have to come up with variety of quick soups. This is one of those..

Easy Chinese Spinach Soup

Ingredients:

• A bunch of chinese spinach
• A grasp of dried anchovies
• A thumb of ginger, smashed
• A carrot
• 1-2 tofu
• A grasp of wolfberries

1. Put anchovies, ginger and carrot in 1 litre of water and bring to boil
2. Put in tofu
3. Once the carrot has soften, put in the vegetables stem first, followed by the leaves (so the leaves wont be too mushy)
4. Finally, put in the wolfberries and salt to taste 

Easy Peasy Steamed Minced Pork with Salted Egg

• Minced pork 150 gram or about 3/4 cup
• 1 salted egg

1. Mixed the meat and the egg
2. Steam on top of cooking rice

Easy Stir-fry Chives with Prawns

• A bunch of chives, dice/julienne (cut into small sizes like the picture)
• 10 prawns (as you like)
• A thumb of sliced ginger

1. Marinate the prawn with sugar and placed in fridge for half hour to make it crunchy.You can ignore this step if it is real fresh.
2. Fry ginger in minimum oil, dump in the prawn and the chives. Stir, stir, stir... Done!