C for carrot for #AtoZChallenge: carrot sweet potato peanut pear soup meal recipe

Why do rabbits love carrots? There must be plenty of good things in carrots that we can enjoy too by eating carrots.

Perhaps it is the bunny teeth of rabbits that make us imagine that rabbits easily bite raw carrots off. However, if you happen to have lovely rabbits as your pet, you would know that rabbits actually eat mostly hay and green leaves (including those growing on top of carrots).



The humble root vegetables are represented by their orange sticks. The orange color is due to β-carotene, which our bodies convert to vitamin A. That's why carrots are good for our eyes.


Baby Ren loves biting thoroughly washed and peeled carrots to ease his teething gum. Be careful not to over feed carrots to babies, because it may cause carotenosis - a benign condition in which the skin turns orange.




Once, we had enjoyed purple carrots, thanks to Fairprice Finest.


For #AtoZChallenge on 2014 April 03 Thu, I lovingly present a recipe of carrot sweet potato peanut pear soup meal by ServicefromHeart. 



Servings: 2
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
♥ 1 carrot (1红萝卜), peeled & cut into bite chunks
♥ 2 sweet potatoes (番薯), peeled & cut into bite chunks
♥ 1 snow pear (雪梨), peeled & quartered
♥ 1/2 cup peanuts (花生), soaked overnight
♥ 2 pork ribs (排骨)
♥ 8 dried scallops (干贝)
♥ 8 red dates (红枣)
♥ 1 honey date (蜜枣)
♥ 1 tbsp wolfberries (枸杞子)

Directions:
1. Blanch pork ribs in boiling water for ~5 minutes. Drain and wash.
2. Bring all ingredients to boil in a pot using low heat.

For variations, substitute sweet potato with pasta or noodles to enjoy this delicious soup meal.



♥♥♥

Preparing peanuts for our meal reminds me on an American comic strip: Peanuts. Charlie Brown and Linus van Pelt appear to be kind children to me and their friendship is cherishable. Who are your favorite comic characters?



Peanuts are a good source of niacin (vitamin B3 / nicotinic acid) - good four our brain health and blood flow.

My grandmother's adviced me to drink bowls and bowls of peanut trotter soups to increase breast milk production during confinement. Subsequently, I just prepare peanut soups with visually-less-carnivorous-looking meat.

For other faster-to-prepare recipes, check also our #5minutemeal recipes. 

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140403

easy ginger milk agar pudding with pistachio nuts

Perhaps our simple humble kitchen can be nicknamed as midnight kitchen, because I often use it around midnight hours.

Last night, I prepared a surprise dessert for Candida, who loves ginger a lot.



A mini jar of ginger milk agar pudding with pistachio nuts (姜撞奶布丁配开心果) makes a lovely heart warming dessert for an afternoon tea break.



Pistachio ... always brings back a happy memory of savoring delicious pistachio-flavored gelato in Italy! 



Servings: 12
Preparation & cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
♥ 10g agar / seaweed powder*
♥ 1 large knob (2 oz) ginger (姜), chopped
♥ 110g (4 oz) sugar (糖 )
♥ 500ml water, filtered if possible
♥ 500ml fresh milk (鲜奶)
♥ 4 tbsp pistachio nuts (开心果), chopped
♥ 2 tbsp peanuts (花生), chopped

* I bought Swallow Globe brand agar.

Directions:
1. Boil ginger & sugar with water. Strain to remove ginger remnants.
2. In a pot, add agar powder to milk & bring to boil. Add ginger water & stir gently until each ingredient dissolves evenly.
3. While hot, immediately pour ginger milk agar mixture into container(s) of choice. You can use jars, mugs, bowls, or lovely-shaped molds.
4. Garnish with nuts. If you want the nuts to stay on the top surface only, wait for 5 minutes before gently dropping the nuts. Alternatively, to create bilayers of nuts wrapping the milk agar pudding, you can pre-garnish the bottom part of jars with nuts.
5. Once the temperature drops to room temperature, keep in fridge. Serve chilled.



Tips:
♥ Buy non-colored agar powder. If you want to color it, use natural ingredients such as beetroot (red/pink) or spinach (green).
♥ If you prefer softer texture, may I suggest ginger milk curd with egg white?

Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.

Bonus! a ministory

It is fun to imagine the bilayers of nuts like the phospholipid bilayers that form membranes in our cells.

The nuts are like the hydrophilic phosphate heads that point out to the exterior on either side of the bilayer; the ginger milk agar pudding is like the hydrophobic tails that point in to the core of the bilayer.

A difference between nutty ginger milk agar pudding and phospholipid bilayers is that the former is static once it solidifies, whereas the latter is dynamic and dancing continuously in our cells.  

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140327

Almost thick satay sauce for bread spread recipe

Good morning lovely people! Let us enjoy bread spread inspired by satay sauce, that tastes wonderful accompanying toasted bread. 

This recipe is easy and fast to prepare, hence ideal for a quick breakfast in the morning.

Traditional satay sauce takes more efforts and time to prepare. Its ingredients include roasted peanuts, sweet soy sauce (kecap manis), sugar, salt, oil, tamarind, red chilli, garlic, shallot, lemon grass, galangal / ginger, coriander / cilantro.

To prepare almost thick satay sauce for bread spread, we can use mainly peanut butter with red onion. 

Originated from the the Aztecs who ground roasted peanuts into a paste, peanut butter is a good source of proteins. It has been used as an ingredient to fight malnutrition in famine stricken countries.



Picky eaters - who are not allergic to peanut - can enjoy bread and cookies with peanut butter too.  Decorate with raisins to create crawling ants in a row. If your little ones love Teddy Bear (so does baby Ren!), create a face of Bear using banana slices and blueberries on top of peanut butter-spreaded wheat bread.

Since we are currently living in Singapore, I use locally made Spread Talk Creamy Peanut Butter produced by Sing Kee Kaya, that I bought from NTUC Fairprice. The ingredients include roasted peanuts, vegetable oil, sugar & salt. Thus, I no need to add any other ingredients to give salty flavor*. The label also indicates
♥ No cholesterol
♥ No preservatives
♥ No trans fat

Sometimes, I also add 1/2 slice of cheese to each bread. The cheese will give an additional salty taste.

Servings: 2
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
♥ 4 slices 5-grain bread (五谷面包)
♥ 1 tsp peanut butter (花生酱)
♥ 1 tsp honey (蜜糖)
♥ 1 red onion, finely chopped (红洋葱)

Directions:
1. Pan-toast* bread slices over low heat. Cover the pan with a lid.
2. Mix peanut butter, honey, red onion.
3. Spread on bread.
4. Keep bread on the pan until ready to eat.

You can also use bread toaster. I prefer our bread to be not too brown yet slightly crispy at the edges.

Tips:
♥ I prefer to use red onion / purple onion to white onion for the high flavonoids content of the former. Studies reveal that flavonoids have potential anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. (PMID: 19381780)
♥ While we love this almost thick satay sauce paste for our bread, we try to consume it moderately, perhaps at most once a week. We enjoy eating diversely, as the saying goes, "diversity spices up life!"

Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140317