Today has been a pretty crazy day. We have been cooking up a storm and I was joking with Nate that we should have just put everything we made into the mould and called it a “conical day”. Believe it or not, we made dinner rolls, barbequed pull pork, coleslaw, this eggplant and red pepper terrine with a tomato sauce AND banana cream pie! Yes, we had a party today with over 10 people and now we’re rushing to get this post out.
Category Archives: Vegetables
Basil Pesto Panna Cotta Recipe
Basil Pesto Panna Cotta with Honey Macadamia and Cherry Tomatoes
I was surfing the Saveur magazine site when I came across this recipe for pesto panna cotta. The idea of using basil to create a panna cotta was so intriguing that I immediately bookmarked that page. Normally, I would not consider using basil in a dessert but the recipe looked good and the green color of the panna cotta looked very inviting.
Now, if I could only find some basil here, I would be good to go. Yes, dear readers, it’s really hard to find sweet basil here. Thai basil, on the other hand, is easily found. I was ready to make this and substitute with Thai basil when good fortune smiled on me.
7 Basic Rules of Stir-Frying
We aren’t always about eating meat.
Stir-Fried Green Beans with Savory Tofu
Really, truly! I know that it must seem that way with the many recipes that I post that are always about meat—we have lots of chicken recipes, pork recipes, beef recipes, and not as many vegetable recipes.
The reason for this is simple. Stir fried vegetables seem boring and easy. Surely, most people know how to stir fry some vegetables and don’t need recipes for it?
Right?
Turns out that sometimes, what I take for granted isn’t as instinctive for others. For me, salad isn’t that instinctive. I like eating salads but I don’t think of it as a vegetable dish to make with my meals. For many of you, salad is probably something you find a no-brainer. Well, that’s how it is for me with vegetable stirfries.
Anyway, I decided to let you know readers that we do eat loads of veggies. As a matter of fact, every meal that I make is accompanied by a vegetable side, sometimes two. And they are mostly stirfries. Why? Because it’s fast and easy.
Here are my basic rules for stir-frying:
Recipe for Bubur Cha Cha
No, “bubur cha cha” isn’t a type of dance. It’s a sweet, coconut-based soup that we enjoy quite often here in Malaysia. But the recipe is a bit different from our Honeydew Sago Dessert recipe, our Indonesian Es Teler recipe, or the cendol that we enjoyed back in Penang. Bubur cha cha is a Nyonya dish made with different types of sweet potatoes and yam (or Chinese taro). To the sweet potatoes, you add a little pearl tapioca for a textural counterpoint.
Bubur Cha Cha
In Hawaii, you could find something similar in Vietnamese restaurants except that their versions were more pudding-like with more tapioca pearls than sweet potatoes. And I believe in the Philippines, they add bananas to their version.