When you can’t dine out because dining-in isn’t allowed in restaurants, the options are: take-aways or home-cooked meals, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t dine in style.
Len’s Indian Cuisine Dinner of chicken tandoori, papadam and salad with sweet and sour sauce (using a recipe from simplyrecipes.com, with some modifications) fits the dining-in- style description.
Cecille’s Breakfast Special of wheat bread with hummus spread, poached egg with a dash of paprika and prosciutto ham on top, served with an avocado smoothie, is healthy and stylish!
P’Pad’s carb-less lunch
P’Pew has been busy preparing for a virtual conference on non-communicable Disease, in which she will talk about sodium and renal disease. I am particularly interested in what she has to say about how to enhance low sodium food with herbs and spices. I have been trying to cut down on the use of salt in my cooking, but since salt has always been the main seasoning, it takes some imagination to find a substitute.
Thai cooking uses a lot of fish sauce and Chinese cooking uses a lot of soya sauce. I have been reading up on soya sauce, and learnt that soya sauce was traditionally made by fermenting soya beans and wheat. The less expensive soya sauce are chemically produced. Now I understand why there are so many types of soya sauce and there is such a wide range in the prices for soya sauce. I have been spending more time reading food labels. P’Pew will be proud of me!
P’Pew said that P’Pad (her sister) was tired of rice, so she cooked a burger patty and served it without any carbs, but as usual, lunch was beautifully presented.
Allison’s truffle-ham pizza wrap
Allison made a truffle-ham pizza (with pizza ingredients) using a wrap base. It’s great for the pizza taste, but without having to use an oven. She cooked her pizza-wrap in a pan. “We used truffle ham from an NTUC deli, which made the whole thing taste truffle-flavoured, so that was a pleasant surprise!” Allison.
A simple dish can still have a touch of elegance.
Garlic, egg, tomato and carrot fried rice
In contrast to P’Pad’s no carb lunch, I cooked an all-carb and no meat lunch. Half way through this blog post, I had to have lunch. There was a lot of leftover rice, so I decided to cook my favourite garlic fried rice with eggs. I added carrots and tomatoes. It’s best to use leftover rice, which is a bit hard, for fried rice. Newly cooked rice tends to be too soft for fried rice.
Steps
Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok
Add 2 tablespoons of minced garlic
Stir fry until fragrant
Add tomatoes and shaved strips of carrot, continue to stir fry
Add 1 egg into the wok, break the egg and stir it, then add another egg, repeat the stirring process, and add another egg.
When the egg is cooked, add the rice (about two cups of cooked rice)
Season with one tablespoon of sesame oil and 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce (adjust to taste). Add pepper.
Garnish with spring onion.
You can’t go wrong with fried rice. It’s always a comfort food.
Desserts
Elena’s mango jelly with mango slices and strawberries vs Cecille’s chocolate cheesecake
If you prefer a healthy dessert after a heavy meal, Elena’s fruit and jelly dessert is a good choice, but if you have had a light lunch and look forward to a heavy dessert, Cecille’s chocolate cheesecake might be more tempting.
Food, which is a necessity for life, should be tasty, but it should also look appetizing. Food presentation is an art. HomSkil would like to thank to Len, Cecille, P’Pad, P’Pew, Allison and Elena for sharing their edible works of art with us.
By Chayo, HomSkil Editor 1, 6 June 2021
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