Eating spree

For the last three weeks since my sis-in-law is home on her vacation, we have been thinking of what sort of food she may have most missed & would like to help her satisfy that craving. Personally, as a good food lover, I can really sense how she feels, after not having eaten the things which she most hope to eat but are not available or are available but not authentic.

We really have too many local dishes here & is quite a task to finish every one of them in a short period of three weeks; and not to mention if we have to actually go for the authentic ones. I know there are at least two items in her wish list. Wanton noodle with chilli mixed not comprising any sambal. If anyone has tried the wanton noodle prepared by the old uncle from the coffee shop store along Lorong 39 in Geylang (in the 70s)will understand what I mean. Another item is the Vegetarian beehoon sold at a store in the Pek Kio Food Market. The beehoon was done in the right flavour & not dark in colour. The store owner did not add any corn & green peas in her beehoon. Her chilli is the best. It blended very well with the flavour of her beehoon when eaten with the vegetarian side items all mixed together.

Tomorrow night, she will be flying off. I know, surely we have not fully satify that craving in her but I am quite sure, it has somehow toned down the urge.

Re-dressing my garden

Healthy Food -for a break

Cannot let our tummies work too hard all the time. To let the digestive systems take a break, I will usually prepare a variety of fruits & root plants as our dinners for a few days; after having pampered ourselves continuously with too much rich food. For the children, I will include some slices of tuna sandwiches.
Alternatively, I will sometimes dish out this Korean salad.
I use the thick transparent vermicelli (boil & run with iced water), capsicum (any colour - short stripe),cherry tomatoes (half), Japanese cucumbers (slice) & yellow soya beansprout (light boil to get rid of the raw taste). Since I grow basil in my garden, I will also add some leaves into my salad (not a must but I find it enhances the flavour of my salad. Mix all the ingredients well with Korean fish sauce (portion according to taste) & sesame oil (sufficient but not too oily). When ready mixed, leave it in the fridge to chill till ready to be served. This goes very well with the fruits.
The main theme of this special diet is to eat lots of fresh fruits & vegetables. Unless need to be boiled, such as sweet potatoes & yellow soya beansprout, if not, the corns can also be eaten fresh without steaming or boiling them. They are presently sweet & crispy when chewed on.

Gifts from my sis-in-law

Many friends call me a chilli queen. To kill my curiosity, my sis-in-law brought back for me the Habanero Chile & Poblano Peppers from the States during her home visit recently. They are originated from Mexico. I will be saving the seeds for drying & plant them when they are ready.

Don't you think the tiny ones are very cute when put next to the big ones! Habanero Chile are the tiny ones & the big ones are Poblano Peppers. They are chilli pepper plants which also belong to the capsicum family.

The fruits contain capsaicin which is the “ingredient” in a pepper that tends to burn your mouth. It is technically a chemical that effects the nerve endings in our skin as well as our mucus membranes & that is why if you have a stuffy nose, eating something spicy often opens your sinus right up!

To know how hot or the 'heat' of a chilli pepper, we can use the scoville scale. The Scoville scale works by determining the amount of capsaicin that is present in a pepper and gives it a number of Scoville heat units which renders the rating. If, there is a rating of from 1 to 20, Habanero will be ranked no: 15. Thai chilli which is the capsicum pepper most people familiar with is only ranked no: 13. Poblanco only rank no 5. Either my taste bud is superb or has gone haywire, I can still handle the Habanero. I just cut up one into big pieces & ate them fresh together with my dishes. I like the crispy texture & the fresh 'heat'.