Today’s Simple Lunch – Lotus Root Soup With Peanuts, Red Dates And Snow Peas & Chinese Sausage

0
Posted by Vedis on January 26, 2010 – 7:08 am
Filed under Chinese Dishes, Chinese Soup Recipes, Today's Simple Lunch

I am finally back to my cooking blog! Surprise, right? It’s not www.MyHobbiesAndPassion.com, it’s www.HealthyChineseMealsRecipes.com for my cooking blog.

It’s a long story why there was such a move from the previous non-keyword domain to this keyword domain. If you are interested to know, hop over to my AKPK free debt management program blog and read the 3 posts that explained who, when, where, what, which and how. ;-)

It’s been more than 5 days since I recorded my daily Chinese meals and recipes. Well, not so long, right? If you go through what I have gone through, you’ll understand why there is no time and mood to record Chinese meals.

What did hubby and I have for lunch just now? Lotus Root Soup with Peanuts, Chicken Drumstick and Red Dates. Plus, snow peas aka Chinese peapods or Pang Pei Dao in Cantonese.

Snow Peas aka Pang Pei Dao
Photo Credit for Snow Peas

Snow peas are flat because they’re harvested while the peas are still underdeveloped.

Ingredients:

1 palm-sized lotus root, washed and skinned. Cut the roots cross-wise so that they look like wheels
1 chicken drumstick, washed and blanched with hot water
200g raw peanuts
Handful of snow peas
15 red dates
1000ml water
Salt/oyster sauce to taste

Directions:

1. Place the water, lotus roots, raw peanuts and red dates into rice cooker. Bring to boil.

2. Pour the boiling soup into the slow cooker. Add in chicken and snow peas.

3. Put on high and cook for 2 to 3 hours or until well cooked.

Besides the soup, we had Chinese sausage aka Lap Cheong. Again? What to do? Upon hubby’s request. ;-)

Of course, we didn’t eat so much like we did last time. I only steamed two rolls of Lap Cheong for today’s lunch and dinner.

While having his lunch just now, hubby said he really loved unpolished brown rice. Normally after eating white rice, he will feel bloated. But with brown rice, he doesn’t feel it at all.

Today’s Simple Drink – Barley Water With Lime Or Lemon

0
Posted by Vedis on January 21, 2010 – 11:51 am
Filed under Drink Recipes, Today's Simple Drink

Last night, hubby woke up at 8.30 p.m. after his short nap. From 5 p.m. to 8.30 p.m., short nap? He didn’t eat instant noodle as I suggested. Instead he finished the half bowl of cooked barley.

Today I am cooking the other half packet of the barley. It’s been hot these few days and I don’t have appetite today due to my mild headache.

It’s cooling and soothing to drink more barley water on hot days or on days when you are under the weather.

There are two ways of cooking barley: pre-soaking the barley overnight or simply cooking barley without any advanced preparation.

For my convenience, of course I opt for the latter. ;-)

Ingredients:

1 cup pearl barley
2 knotted ‘pandan leaves’
1/2 cup preserved winter melon sticks
A few lime/lemon slices
1 liter water

Instructions:

1. Rinse the pearl barley like how you normally wash your rice prior to cooking.

2. Pour the water, barley and preserved winter melon sticks into a rice cooker. Bring to boil.

3. Add in the knotted ‘pandan leaves’ and simmer for another 15 minutes.

4. Each time you pour yourself a glass of barley water, squeeze some lime/lemon juice into it. You’ll love the sweet and sour taste of barley water!

I used to dislike drinking barley water; it’s a drink that I only consumed when I was sick. Maybe it’s too ‘plain’.

Barley Water with Lime
Photo Credit for Barley Drink

But then one day, I heard a woman sitting at the next table order, ‘Barley Water with Lime’. It’s something that I hadn’t tried before, so I ordered one too. Since then, I have loved barley juice.

I think today’s dinner is going to be the cooked barley and preserved winter melon sticks. Why just drink the barley water when the high-fiber barley and winter melon sticks can speed up your bowel movement the next day?