Carrot Ginger Soup

This soup comes in many different variations on the internet, and it couldn’t be easier to make this on a busy weeknight for a light and warm dinner.  I have looked through a few recipes online and here is a combination of ingredients and spices that suits my taste.

My Carrot Ginger Soup

Ingredients: 1 can of chickpeas (washed and rinsed), 4 medium to large carrots (dirt scrubbed off and washed), a medium knob of  peeled ginger (size of your thumb), 2 cloves garlic, 1 stalk of celery, 4 cups of vegetable broth ( I used vegetable cubes/about 4 cubes), 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp coriander powder, 1/2 tsp curry powder and 1/2 tsp paparika/chili powder, 1 tbsp of olive oil

Directions: 1) Saute garlic and celery in a stockpot until soft  with olive oil;

2) Add in carrots and sautee for another 5 minutes;

3) Add salt, coriander powder, curry powder and chili powder, mix well;

4) Add vegetable cubes/stock together with about 4 cups of hot water;

5) Cover pot and let is simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes;

6) Add chickpeas and simmer for another 10 minutes,

7) Remove pot from the heat, leave it uncovered for about 10 minutes; 8) Blend the soup in a blender until smooth.

The result is a beautiful brightly colored creamy soup.

Make this today and have a great Sunday! 🙂

Marinated Tofu Salad

Tofu can be the most versatile ingredient, as it takes on whatever flavor that you choose to marinate with.  I made this salad a few nights ago and it came together in a cinch.  The most time consuming part is baking the tofu, which took about 20 minutes, not bad at all for a quick weekday night dinner where I have conference calls to attend in the evening.

Marinated Baked Tofu Salad

Ingredients:

Marinated Tofu: 4 pieces of firm tofu (sliced into small dice sized squares, for marinate: 1 tbsp of rosemary, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp of mustard, 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper

Directions: Pat the tofu dry with a clean tea towel and put it in a bowl, blend all the marinate ingredients together in a blender, pour marinate mix into the bowl of tofu and mix well, let it stand for about 15 minutes while pre-heating the oven to 180 celsius.  Bake tofu for 20 minutes.

For salad: romaine lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, cucumber, carrots, sweet corn and any beans of your choice (chickpeas, kidney beans etc)

Once the tofu is baked, serve it on the bed of salad.

This is a balanced, nutritious, and quick meal which I always go for when crunching for time, the great flavor from the tofu made the salad shine.

Hope you’ll give it a try soon, for family, friends or just for yourself on a solo weeknight dinner and a pup/kitty to cuddle while you eat. 🙂

 

 

Fasta Pasta

Dinner came together very quickly tonight with whole wheat spaghetti and roasted cauliflower and broccoli.

We were rushing to eat dinner so that we could go for coffee with a friend at a Starbucks nearby, although I had a iced venti soy latte, I’m now ready to go to bed!

It’s past midnight here and I need to get up early for a meeting, so adios and I hope to post a recap of my 5k tomorrow.

Good night!

Wrap It

This is going to be a quick one as I have to get back to work!

Lunch was swift and speedy with a veggie tortilla wrap.  I forgot to take a picture so this one is from the archive. 😉

There’s leftover millet patties and sun-dried tomato hummus involved.  I’ll post up the hummus recipe in another post.

Quick, easy and filling.. 🙂

Still chugging along at work and hope to finish in time to go run!

See you later this evening.

Power Smoothie

I was dreaming of walking on dirty floors with no shoes on the entire night…ewww 😥

After a refreshing shower, I stumbled into the kitchen and made a power smoothie for breakfast to be consumed on the way to work.  This smoothie is a classic powerhouse smoothie with all the nutrients packed into a drink.

Morning Power Smoothie

Ingredients: (frozen) strawberries, blueberries, bananas, 1 tsp flaxseed, 1 tsp wheatgrass powder, 1/2 cup of quick cook oats (or rolled oats), 1 tbsp of yogurt, 1 cup of orange juice

Direction: Blend all the ingredients above in a highspeed blender, and drink up! 🙂

The oats (grain), yogurt (protein), flaxseed (healthy fat & oil) and wheatgrass powder are the key ingredients in a power smoothie as fruits alone will raise your blood sugar in the morning and it is an imbalance breakfast with fruits alone.

Off to work I go, and I plan to do a 5k and grocery shop later today.

Have a great day! 🙂

 

 

 

Spicy Okra

The star of the dinner tonight is the spicy okra.  I need to use a huge package of okra up before it gets rotten and I made spicy okra for dinner.

Rice, tofu and chinese cabbage soup, egg and spicy okra on the right.

Spicy Okra – Ingredients:

Okra (chopped into 1 inch pieces), chili paste ( I use a vegetarian bottled chili paste which contains chili, onion, garlic and ginger)

Directions:

Fry chili in a tsp of canola oil until it smells wonderful and nose begins to water. 😉

Then add in chopped okra and sautee for about 15 minutes, constantly stirring to prevent burning at the bottom.  DO NOT add water as this will make the dish soggy, once the okra is nice and soft, remove from pan and serve with hot rice and another veggie of your choice for a yummy and simple meal.

While cooking dinner, the pups were hibernating nearby as the weather was chilly today.

We watched the history of WWII downloaded from youtube while eating dinner; I have always loved history since in school and this is a very interesting documentary that explains how WWII started, a great watch!

Time for bed! A busy day ahead tomorrow full of meetings and conference calls, then a 5k run at the gym, and a grocery shop after work.

I hope you’ve a had a great weekend and are ready to tackle the week ahead. 🙂

Dashing Lunch

Lunch was late and a speedy one this afternoon, I chugged along on my to-do list but still have a lot of work to do, where did the time go?

I heated up some veggie couscous which I made the other night, together with some microwaved beans.

I overcoked the beans a little too long in the microwave and must remember to set it to 10 instead of 15 minutes.

Speedy Microwaved Beans

2 cups beans (chopped into 1 inch long), 1 tsp oil, 2 tsp of soy sauce and I had some olive veggies in the fridge, so I mixed in about a tbsp, but this is optional, and garlic nugget (basically fried crunchy garlic)

Mix everything together and microwave for 10 minutes, eat.

I did about 40 minutes of yoga following this great video and I’m feeling so good right now with all my back and leg muscles stretched and worked on.  This is a great morning workout to ease you into your work day.

I was feeling the munchies after yoga and had a handful of Kettle chips and a small bowl of ice cream to last me until dinner.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Howling Sunday

The morning started off with the pup jumping onto my stomach and Poppie howling outside the window demanding to come in.  A great day ahead is determined by a good breakfast.

Multigrain toast with PB and 1/2 a sliced banana, and small glass of OJ.  This is a small breakfast as it is almost noon and I didn’t want to ruin my lunch hour.

The sky is turning grey and gloomy as I type this, but there’s a house to clean and dogs to bath!  We might be going for dinner this evening, so I have grand plans to accomplish as much as possible by later afternoon.

Have a wonderful Sunday morning!

 

 

Summer Quinoa Salad

This makes for a quick refreshing work lunch and it can be prepared the night before, keep is sealed in the fridge and let the flavors do it’s magic overnight.  The tomatoes add a burst of flavor, the cucumber gives this salad a cool and refreshing crunch, and the beans provide satiety and complements the quinoa really well.  You can use any beans you have on hand, be it chickpeas, black beans or kidney beans.  I added sweet kernel corn on the next day and it was absolutely delicious, make sure you use either fresh or canned sweet kernel corn, and not of the frozen variety, or else it will result in rubbery tasteless yellow corn, like bird food.

So gather your ingredients and make this salad today, it’s quick, delicious and easy, keep sealed in a container in the fridge for up to 2 days.

1 cup uncooked quinoa (this amount serves 4), 1 cup grape/cherry tomatoes, 2 medium sized cucumbers, 1 medium sweet onion,  1 can of drained kidney beans (or any beans of your choice), 1/2 cup of good extra virgin olive oil, 2 crushed garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the quinoa in a pot, use the same technique as cooking rice, water is 1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water ratio.  it takes about 10-15 minutes to cook, fluff up the quinoa with a fork towards the end of cooking.  set aside.

Diced tomatoes and cucumbers in a bowl together with the drained kidney beans, add in quinoa.

Dressing: In a jar, Add in olive oil, crushed garlic, salt and pepper, shake well.

Pour dressing into the bowl of quinoa, veggies and beans.  Mix it well, you can also add in chopped parley for a little extra flavor.

Refrigerate for an 1 hour and eat.

I topped mine with some feta cheese, extra black pepper and sweet corn and lettuce on the second day.

This salad fills you up too, due to the high protein quinoa.  This also works well for picnics and other gatherings in the summer.

Sun Kissed Orange Cake

Happy Saturday to all!

I caught the baking bug today and went all out with first an orange cake and then a peach clafoutis (recipe to come) for dessert tonight.  Talk about indulgence and extravagance!  My oven was begging for some love and I’m obliged to give it some.

I have always loved orange flavored desserts,  and when I was 5-6 years old, I always got treated to orange sponge cakes bought from those old fashioned Chinese bakeries in the 80’s, the cake is always as light as a sponge, infused with orange syrup, now at a very ripe age, it is definitely time that I make my own.  Truth be told, this is actually my 3rd attempt for the orange cake as the first two has been a total failure, I used self raising flour and the first cake was over-cooked on the outside and raw on the inside, and as for the second, well…let’s just say it’s a disaster that I hope no amateur bakers like me have to go through.

As for the 3rd attempt, it’s almost perfect,  with the slight exception that I might reduce the baking powder from 1 1/4 teaspoon to 1 tsp.

This is a very versatile cake as you can add any fruit you wish, it is basically a basic butter cake recipe dressed up with the fruit of your choice, I’m sure this will work very well with lemons, blueberries, apples, cranberries and more.

Wet Ingredients: 1 cup butter (@ room temp), 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 eggs ( @ room temp), 1/2 cup yogurt, 1 tsp pure vanilla extract, 2 tbsp orange zest, juice of 2 oranges

Dry Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 1/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven in 200 Celsius, in a mixing bowl, combine butter and sugar, beat until light and well combined.  This is a very important step as this will determine the texture of your cake, under-mixing the butter and sugar will result in a very dense cake.  Next, add in eggs and vanilla, keep mixing until you get a smooth batter.  Then add in salt, yogurt, orange zest and juice.

Now we come to the dry ingredients, sift the 2 cups flour over the batter, and add in baking power.  Mix batter until well combined but not for too long, stirring for too long will result in a dense cake as well.  Pour batter into a bread loaf pan or a cake pan, and bake for about 50 minutes or until a fork inserted into cake and come out clean.  Cool the cake on a rack before cutting; If you’re feeling adventurous, you could sprinkle orange icing sugar on top by combining 1/2 cup icing sugar with orange zest.

This cake has got a crusty exterior from the result of the brown crystal sugar that I use with a soft lightly tinted orange flavor on the interior.  Goes well with a cup of tea, can be served plain or with a side of marmalade.

It has been a relaxing weekend so far, I hope you’re soaking in the sun and having fun wherever you are!