Char Kway Teow.. the dish that I used to eat a maximum of once a year, if not once every two years. I remember when I first met Jason, I had quite a culture shock knowing that he had CKT once every two weeks or once a month. Same for Laksa. It has never occurred to me that anyone can eat these so frequently, until the girls and I were discussing this one night at Ru’s place, and then I realised I am the “weird” one. They all felt it is ok to eat Char Kway Teow once every two weeks.

The conclusion that night was: most people have never been morbidly obese (I was 95kg at my peak when I was just 16!), never had to make drastic changes to their diet, and so aren’t that mindful about what goes into their bodies.

That said, Char Kway Teow is a glorious dish. Whenever I do eat Char Kway Teow outside, I make sure I eat it with lots of crispy pork lard. What’s the point right, without lard? When cooking this at home this afternoon, I left out the lard because I didn’t want my family to eat all these unhealthy stuff. Char Kway Teow can still be delicious and “less unhealthy” with less oil and a smaller portion.

This is a picture of the dark soy sauce that I used, available from NTUC. You can also use Hainanese Chicken Rice Dark Soy Sauce.

I made this version without chilli cos the aunt’s stomach is very sensitive to spiciness. You can add some sambal to your liking plus fresh cockles if that’s your thing (clean them thoroughly, soak in some water, drain and add in together with the spring onions). Cook your Char Kway Teow at home.. control how much oil you add, include more greens and it can still be a not-so-sinful meal!

A point to note- this recipe is for 2 servings. If you want to cook for more people, don’t double the ingredients and fry everything together but instead fry in batches of two plates each. Don’t distribute the love, it’s just not the same ;) Concentrate on one batch at a time!

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So my right hand is in a hard plastic splint so I can’t really do all the swishing you would expect of a satisfying stir-fry. But the husband still need to eat right? I decided to make one of the easiest no-effort-needed dishes I can think of: Mui Fan 烩饭.

For a super quick dinner, I gathered all the core ingredients I needed: prawns, leafy vegetables, eggs, mushrooms and carrots.. and in 15 minutes, food is on the table!

You should really add some meat slices in this dish, but since I didn’t have any, I left them out. And although Mui Fan is a delicious, convenient and comforting dish to cook, I don’t actually recommend you cook it too often because of the sodium content. Yes, the gravy is so delicious, you will tend to finish every last spoonful. What kind of blogger am I to discourage you from cooking a recipe I’m posting? I dunno, a conflicted one maybe. And since I’m at it, this dish also has way too much carbs as compared to protein and vegetables, so only cook this in an emergency, like when your hand is in a splint.

You’re welcome to cook this everyday, though, in all sorts of variations, if you just want to eat tasty stuff. The gravy is great for hor fun and ee mee too. I love it! Enjoy!

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Some of you ask me if I still cook as often since I’m now 31 weeks. YES I’m still cooking! Cook as often but not so elaborate la. I still prepare my lunchbox for work and come home to cook dinner for Jason, myself and sometimes Ah-mm and 88.

Mealtimes are simple for me. Sometimes when I’m settling dinner alone I don’t really go for the taste and just blanch some veggies and fill up on some protein. But then again I love the taste of plain boiled vegetables over stir fry. I can eat a whole head (or two!) of plain broccoli. You ask me to add some oyster sauce I might not want to eat.

So today is one of those days where you just want to get dinner over and done with. I decided to flake some airfried salmon and cook sambal fried rice for Jason. And then after that I can quickly lie down and see #ChuaBeeBee do her jelly dance! She is now VERY active and my tummy is constantly vibrating. Sometimes her kicks and crazy wriggles actually feel painful. But move all you want ok CBB. You can do whatever you want as long as you are healthy and keep moving.

I love this recipe because dinner can be ready in 15 minutes. It helps if you have an airfryer, if not, you can pan fry the salmon till 80% done, then flake with a fork – the same you do if you airfry. Jason polished off the whole plate and kept saying it’s delicious. The sambal chilli I used is Taho Sambal Belacan, which I got from the provision store opposite my place. I’ve seen it in wet market stalls and Giant.. it’s one of the best, if not the best bottled sambal belacan available. I love their entire range of chilli.. their extra hot chilli sauce with lemon is powwwwwww!

If time is a constraint for you when it comes to meal-planning, try this! One dish settled with no lack of nutrition.

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You would have known by now that I love eating eggplants. They’re great grilled, baked, deep fried or airfried, in a low-carb lasagna, yong tau foo and stir-fries. I’ve featured it many times in my lunch boxes grilled and topped with tuna and egg, but one of the best ways to eat this is in this dish: Eggplant with garlic minced meat gravy 鱼香茄子.

Restaurants or zi-char stalls cook this by deep frying the eggplant in hot oil to quickly get them soft and melty. You can achieve the same by doing a shallow-fry in your wok, but it is more time-consuming. By nature, eggplant absorbs oil easily, so I turn down the heat and just add about two tablespoons of olive oil for 2 eggplants. Still relatively ‘oily’ by my standards but way better than deep frying.

If I can eat rice freely, I will totally wallop 2-3 bowls of rice with this! The minced meat and garlic gravy matches so well with the soft and melty eggplant! And the sliced chilli and spring onions lift the flavour to another level. I used big red cut chilli for this as the aunt can’t really take spice cos of her gastritis. I would have used chilli padi! If using chilli padi, chop them really fine and fry together with the garlic and ginger.

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I’ve been wanting to own a handheld blender since forever, so I can make soups like this effortlessly! The last time I made a smooth, creamy soup was in 2014, when I cooked my Tomato and Bacon Cream Soup. I didn’t have a handheld blender then, so it was a tedious process of cooking the soup over the stove top, then transferring it in 2-3 batches to my blender/food processor, then returning it to the stove to heat.

I’m SO GLAD this is a thing of the past. Ever since my brother bought me a $39.90 handheld blender (he bought it so I could make him his low carb Cauliflower Shepherd’s Pie), I’ve been thinking of ways to put it to good use. What better dish to cook than an ‘ang moh’ soup?

It’s really easy to make this. Some recipes call for the pumpkin to be roasted till soft (about 50 minutes), then added to a pre-cooked base of onions and stock, before being pureed till smooth. This recipe skips the roasting step but still manages to extract so much flavour from the sweet pumpkins. All I did was sauteed some yellow onions, garlic, celery and carrots in olive oil, then add the chopped pumpkin straight to the pot, followed by a bit of cumin and a litre of chicken stock, before pureeing till smooth. To balance the sweetness of the soup, a pinch of salt is added at the end. Note: I’ve never liked carton chicken stock like Swanson’s because I find it wayyy too salty, so I always either use Woh Hup’s concentrated chicken stock or a bullion cube dissolved in hot water.

To improve the aesthetics of the soup, you could add a drizzle of cooking cream or crème fraîche on top, but it really isn’t necessary. I topped it with roasted pumpkin seeds (waste nothing!) and a dash of coarse black pepper. The entire dish took me about 40 minutes start to finish, including prep time and cleaning up. And with less than 80 calories per serving, you won’t regret making this! Bon Appétit!

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