Tuesday, February 21, 2012

chinese radish with pork bone soup

I've been browsing thru a lot of recipes and most of the recipes that look and sounds delicious
takes up 1-2 hrs of cooking time.

You see, I waste a lot time on the road. By the time I reach back home, it would be between 7.20pm (earliest) - 7.55pm (latest). I would be in a hungry mode by then and I don't want to waste another
1-2 hrs to braise or stew anything.

So I've been stir frying or sautéing veggies and meat.
(I intend to stew a dish or 2 during the weekend and keep it in the freezer for our weekday meals)

Stir fried veg with clams by melmok
photo by melmok


Being chinese, soup is a part of our daily food intake.
To cook a good soup, you need at least 3-4 hrs of cooking time. (which i do not have)
So I went to the oldest trick that I've known since young, cook it in the slow cooker.
What I did was, I dumped all the ingredients to the slow cooker before heading off to work.

Lucky me, I get off work a little bit early on Wednesdays and the 'Mr.", he gets off work super early on Fridays. Yay!!... warm yummy soup with 1 or 2 stir fried dishes depending on the time that we have and our level of 'hungry mode'.


Made our first soup with slow cooker....
White Chinese Radish with Pork Bone and Dried Oyster.
chinese radish with pork bone soup by melmok
photo by melmok on Flickr.


2 1/2 big bowl of water
1 large white chinese radish (cut to chucks)
5-6 dry oyster
1 large pork bone


I should blanch the pork bone before dumping it in the slow cooker to get a clearer soup, but because of the 'lack of time'. I skipped that process.
Because of that,.... the top layer was covers with pork fat and dark lumps of 'stuffs'
(which is the blood from what I found out).
Anyway, I don't think it's a big deal. All I had to do was just skimmed the top part away.

By the time I reach home, only 1-2 inch of the water level has evaporated. I was expecting the level of water to be reduce to half!...

So ever since the first successful attempt, I've been using the same amount of water for the other soup.

more soup to come...

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Thursday, February 16, 2012

lala

I love clams... I love mussels.... I love sea shells..

If only the hypermarkets around my area sells fresh clams.... I would buy and eat it everyday... (well..almost everyday)...

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

spicyness

I'm craving for something spicy!! Darn this cough and I can't stop thinking bout the Tom Yam noodles....

The last time I had my Tom Yam fix was a month ago and I loved it. A huge improvement from the previous batch.

Friday, February 10, 2012

dumplings + lost holiday

I hate being sick, especially during a long holiday.
chills, body ache, headache, fever, sore throat, cough... the whole package.

Just when I think I'm feeling better, I feel 'sickly' again...

Anyway during the long holiday, I was sick of feeling 'sickly'.
So I tried to mentally psycho myself by making some dumplings.
I can't remember where I got the recipe from, but most of the dumpling recipe is more or less the same.
After looking throu, I remembered that I got the recipe from Jennifer Yu. Love the way she writes and her photos are really inspiring.

IMG_0455__ by melmok
photo by melmok

IMG_0459__ by melmok
photo by melmok

IMG_0460__ by melmok
photo by melmok

IMG_0461__ by melmok
photo by melmok

IMG_0464__ by melmok
photo by melmok

IMG_0469__ by melmok
photo by melmok


I particularly enjoyed making the dumpling wrapper/skin in the beginning but as I was half way filling it up with the meat, my mental psycho power ran out and I was feeling all 'sickly' again.

At that point in time, I just wanted to finish wrapping it so I could eat my lunch and get back to bed to rest....

IMG_0473__ by melmok
photo by melmok

After boiling it.
IMG_0474__ by melmok
photo by melmok


It's been more then week now, and i'm still having the whole sick package.
It still doesn't want to go awayyyy...!!
Well, the bright side is that I haven't been coughing green phlegm since yesterday, it's just dry cough now..
*cough * cough * cough *

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