very easy clear apple beetroot carrot (ABC) soup (vegetarian)

This soup has been inspired from the apple beetroot carrot juice which has been promoted in relation to the "treatment of lung cancer and several other diseases."



While it is best to consult experts (e.g. medical practitioners, doctors, specialists), we can also do our parts by improving our diets to stay healthy and get better in our health.

Since I am going to serve the delicious apple, beetroot and carrot to baby Ren, I prefer to cook them so that the water content inside these inexpensive vegetables and fruit is boiled (to kill any germ).

For Dear and myself, I alternate between raw juices and soups.

♥ ♥ ♥

Serving an apple a day to the apple of our eyes - our little one(s) is as magical as the classic story of Snow White and a ministory about it.




♥ ♥ ♥

Beetroot is known to help in the treatment of anemia. I love th imagine how our mother nature endows us with beetroot that 'bleeds' its natural bloody red liquid when we peel and cut it.

Please do not worry if you have a slight pinkish urine after consuming beetroot.

Beetroot can reduce blood pressure (PMID: 23596162), so it is good for people with high blood pressure. If you have low blood pressure like me, please consume beetroot moderately. I try not to eat more than one beetroot weekly. There are so many other delicious vegetables to savor, thankfully!

Since beetroot releases slight salty taste, I do not add any salt to the soup.



♥ ♥ ♥

The soup tastes mildly sour with slight sweetness, and it goes well for baby Ren who loves sweet sour fruits!

Upon drinking the soup, baby Ren's lips turn pinkish - like lipstick-adorned ones. He playfully laughs and sticks his tiny tongue out to slurp joyfully. Your heart surely melts when your little ones do so.



♥ ♥ ♥

Servings: 2
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:
♥ 1 green apple (苹果)
♥ 1 beetroot (甜菜根)
♥ 1 carrot (红萝卜)
♥ 6 red dates (红枣), pitted
♥ 1 honey date (蜜枣)
♥ 800 ml - 1 liter water

Directions:
1. Wash the produce thoroughly. I wash both organic and non-organic products, and wash more carefully for non-organic ones.
2. Peel carrot, beetroot, apple. Remove the core and seeds of the apple.
3. Add all ingredients to boiled water. Simmer over low heat for 60 minutes.

Tips:
♥ To make the soup more flavorful, use soup stock (e.g. gratitude soup stock, which is non-vegetarian). Next time, I will share vegetarian soup stock recipe.
♥ Beetroot stains. Please be careful especially if you are wearing light color clothes or preparing beetroot in the morning in your professional attire. I normally prepare and consume beetroot first before getting changed.

Other recipes that I love:
♥ apple beetroot carrot juice by Blessed Homemaker @ Singapore
♥ cucumber, celery, pear and lemon juice by Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy) @ Zesty South Indian Kitchen
♥ celery pear kale juice by Whitney Bond @ Little Leopard Book

Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.
   
With love,
ServicefromHeart

W for wolfberry for #AtoZChallenge: easy spinach soup with wolfberries recipe

Wolfberry is also known as goji berry (枸杞), desert thorn, or matrimony vine. When my eyes feel tired from staring too much into laptop, I remember Mom's advice to have some wolfberries. They are versatile ingredients for tonic soups, porridge or congee, or herbal tea.

Wolfberries go well with a variety of dishes, simple ones include spinach soup.

In Southeast Asia, we often have spinach soup cooked with 3 different kinds of eggs: normal egg, salty egg, century egg. Home-cooked version of thin and clear spinach soup can be egg-free and simpler.

For #AtoZChallenge on 2014 April 26 Sat, I lovingly present a recipe of easy spinach soup with wolfberries by ServicefromHeart.




Serving: 2 as a side dish
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 8 minutes

Ingredients:
♥ 1 packet spinach: sharp spinach (苋菜) or round spinach (菠菜)
♥ 1 tbsp anchovies / ikan bilis / ikan teri, rinsed
♥ 1 tbsp wolfberries
♥ 1 honey date (optional)
♥ 3 sticks imitation crab meat

Directions:
1. Bring water to boil with anchovies and honey date to acquire salty and sweet tastes, respectively.
2. Before boiling, add wolfberies and imitation crab meat.
3. Meanwhile, wash thoroughly spinach.
4. After boiled, add spinach. Stir. Be careful not to overcook.




Tips:
♥ It is best to consume this meal immediately. Mom warned not to eat left-over spinach dishes. Why? Spinach is rich in nitrate(which is reduced to nitrite) and Fe2+ (oxidation of Fe2+ results in Fe3+).
♥ Rinsing and soaking wolfberries are also important to remove pesticides and fungicides. 

Other recipes that I love:
♥ Nirmala Ganesh's spinach soup at Lil Spice & Lil Stir
♥ Wiffy's Chinese spinach in superior broth at Noob Cook

Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140426

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 zucchini soup with lotus root meatballs

Meatballs, also known as bakso in Indonesian, often bring back happy memories. A childhood song "Abang tukang bakso, mari mari sini, aku mau beli. Abang tukang bakso, cepat donk kemari, sudah tak tahan lagi" - echoes in my mind.

It literally means "meatballs seller brother, please come, please come here, I wanna buy! Meatball seller brother! Please come her quick, I cannot hold it anymore!"

A bowl of bakso was sold for Rp200 and later Rp500 when I was a primary school student! Today, a US$ is ~ about Rp11,400.

Listening to the song sung by Melisa inspired me to design a simple breakfast of easy zucchini soup with lotus root meatballs / 夏南瓜莲藕肉圆汤.



Serving: 1-2
Preparation time: 5* + 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes

* I mix the meat ball ingredients the night before.

Ingredients:
♥ 1 zucchini (夏南瓜), sliced
♥ 1 tsp anchovies (凤尾鱼)
♥ 1 tsp wolfberries / Goji berries (枸杞子), washed & soaked
♥ 1 tbsp parsley (香菜), chopped
♥ 300 ml water, (水) filtered if possible
for meat balls / meat coins:
♥ 1 tbsp meat (肉), grounded & blanched
♥ 3 tbsp sweet potato flour (薯粉)
♥ 1 tsp lotus root powder (莲藕粉)
♥ 1 tsp oat (燕麦)
♥ 2 cloves garlic (大蒜), minced
♥ 1 tsp sesame oil (麻油)
♥ 0.5 tsp pepper (胡椒粉), grounded
♥ 0.5 tsp sugar (糖)
♥ 0.5 tsp light soy sauce / kecap asin


Directions:
1. Mix ingredients for meat balls in a bowl. Leave in a fridge overnight to marinade or you can use it immediately.
2. Boil anchovies in a pot of water.
3. Shape meat mixture into balls & dump into the anchovies stock when it boils.
4. Add zucchini & wolfberries.
5. Once cooked, turn off the heat & add parsley. Enjoy!



Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140327

easy red yeast rice soup recipe by Zhen

The first time I learned about red yeast rice (红曲米) was from Zhen, who refers to it as angkak or anka. Red yeast rice is produced when rice is fermented with a red yeast strain (红曲菌) scientifically known as Monascus purpureus.

Chinese people, especially in Fujian province, have been consuming red yeast rice to revitalize blood, reduce cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure.



The red yeast strain produces statins, that can lower cholesterol. The statins include lovastatin - which is  extracted, formulated & marketed by Merck as Mevacor for reducing cholesterol and risk of cardiovascular disease. 

These statins work by blocking action of the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, which is involved in cholesterol synthesis.

Since red yeast rice appears to be beneficial to our health, how is about enjoying a bowl of warm red yeast rice soup to begin our (cool) day? This red yeast soup is clear and relatively bland, so it can make a gentle starter to a more flavorful main course. 

In Singapore, I could not find red yeast rice in NTUC Fairprice but have purchased it from a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) hall / shop.



Baby Ren enjoys ginger-flavored pink milk mixed with red yeast rice soup.



Servings: 3
Preparation time: ~ 5 minutes
Cooking time: 65 minutes

Ingredients:
♥ 1 tsp red yeast rice (红曲米)
♥ 8 red dates (红枣), pitted & soaked
♥ 2 thin slices ginger (姜)
♥ 200g meat (骨) & bone (肉), e.g. pork ribs (排骨)
♥ 1 liter water (过滤水), filtered if possible

Directions:
1. Wash and soak red yeast rice in water. Re-wash and drain.
2. Blanch bones and meats in boiling water for ~5 minutes. 3. Drain and wash.
4. Add all ingredients into a pot of boiling water.
5. Simmer over low heat for 1 hour.

Tips:
♥ Get red yeast rice from a reputable source to prevent exposure to toxic and carcinogenic Sudan Red G.
♥ For (potential) medicinal use of red yeast rice, please consult your doctor. In this post, we are merely sharing a food recipe.



Other recipes that I love:
♥ Red Yeast Rice Congee with Sweet Potato @ Chinese Cuisine Food by EchoMe
♥ Ang Kak and Ginger Chicken Soup @ Daily Cooking Quest by Anita Jacobson
♥ Char Siu duck @ Indonesia Eats by Pepy Nasution
♥ Home-Made Chinese Red Rice Wine （Foo Chow Ang Jiu) @ A Taste of Memories - Echo's Kitchen
♥ misua with red yeast rice @ What To Cook today by Marvellina



Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.

With love,
ServicefromHeart
201403

easy apple pear soup recipe

Fruits like apple and pear are suitable to cook clear and refreshing soup, especially for hot summer or dry spell (kemarau) such as an extreme one that we had in Singapore in February-March 2014. It is the driest one since 1869 for Singapore!

The apple pear soup (苹果雪梨汤) is good to soothe throat and clear phlegm.



Snow pear is known for its cooling and thirst-quenching properties.

The benefits of apple have been epitomized in a saying that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

 ***

Ministory 1:

Once, a little girl shared to me that she dislikes apples because Snow White died after having a bite of a poisonous apple. I was inspired by how her mother, instead of lecturing her on the goodness of apples and forcing her to eat apples, asked the little girl a thought-provoking question.

"Darling, do you think the Prince will be allowed to kiss Snow White if she has not eaten the apple?"

"If there is no kiss from the Prince, do you feel that Snow White will immediately fall in love to the Prince once she opens her eyes?"

While it is essential to guide our children to be prudent - not to accept food from a stranger without an approval of parents / teachers, I found that it is also equally meaningful to reflect if our past encounters are blessings in disguise. What do you think?




♥♥♥


Ministory 2:

A man whom I have been greatly grateful to is Sir Isaac Newton,  an English physicist, mathematician and great thinker.

On a windy afternoon in a colorful autumn, Newton walked at a beautiful garden. * Taking a rest under an apple tree, Newton saw a ripen apple fell to the ground.

He did not reach out to eat the crunchy red apple, as what some of us might do. However, his mind was searching for the possible explanations why apple always fall perpendicularly to the ground.

"Why not fall sideways? Why not upwards?"

After meandering, thinking, and pondering, Newton explains:

"Every object draws every other object toward it.
The more matter an object contains the harder it draws. The nearer an object is to another the harder it draws.
The harder an object draws other objects, the heavier it is said to be.
The earth is many millions of times heavier than an apple;
so it draws the apple toward it millions and millions of times harder than the apple can draw the other way."

Thanks to a humble event that nature offered Newton a glimpse of (the falling of an apple), Newton described the effect of gravity and defined the law of universal gravitation.


* I remember the excitement of seeing the descendants of the Newton's apple tree at Cambridge University Botanic Garden!

♥♥♥

Chinese almond kernels (南北杏）can strengthen our respiratory systems. Before I left to live in England, Agnes lovingly packed me some Chinese almond kernels to make soups. Thank you! I'm blessed.

Serving: 3
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 65 minutes



Ingredients:
♥ 1 apple (苹果), peeled, cored & quartered
♥ 1 snow pear (雪梨), peeled, cored & quartered
♥ 1 honey date ((蜜枣）, washed
♥ 8 red dates ((红枣）, washed & pitted
♥ 1 tbsp dried scallops (干贝)
♥ 1 tbsp Chinese almond kernels (南北杏）
♥ 200g meat (骨) & bone (肉), e.g. pork ribs
♥ 1 liter water

Directions:
1. Blanch bones and meats in boiling water for ~5 minutes. Drain and wash. 
2. Add all ingredients to boiled water.
3. Simmer over low heat for 1 hour.



Enjoy this soup with our other #5minutemeal recipes, that are fast and easy to prepare.

Other recipes that I love:
♥ Fong's Kitchen Journal also uses dried figs as an ingredient.
♥ Snow pear soup recipe @ Nobcook & the tips on not to over consume bitter almond (北杏).

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140315

gratitude soup stock recipe 感恩高汤

Soup stock is not only tasty and nutritious to cook / boil soup, but also versatile to prepare other dishes, from stews, savory steamed rice, stir-fried / sauteed vegetables to noodle meals.

I call this soup stock gratitude soup stock (感恩高汤) because it is supposed to contain rich nutrients from the sky, the land and the sea. We are grateful for all goodness that are bestowed to us.

Ingredients:
♥ 2 kg bones (骨头) and meat (肉), washed & cut into pieces
♥ 200g dried mushroom (干香菇), washed, soaked, drained
♥ 120g red dates (红枣), pitted & soaked
♥ 5 honey dates (蜜枣), washed (optional)
♥ 50g dried scallops (干贝), soaked
♥ 2 tbsp anchovies, washed
♥ 5 cloves garlic (大蒜)
♥ 1/2 small knob (10g) ginger (姜)
♥ 1 tsp white pepper powder (白胡椒粉)
♥ 2 liters water (过滤水), filtered if possible

Directions:
1. Blanch bones and meats in boiling water for ~5 minutes. Drain and wash. 
2. Boil 2 liters water in a big pot / slow cooker. Add all ingredients. Boil for a minimum of 5 hours using low heat.
3. Remove oil on the surface of the stock using a ladle (optional)*.
4. Sieve the stock from the ingredients. Pour stock into freezable containers**. Use some immediately, they are the freshest!
5. Store in a freezer after the stock cool down to room temperature.


* If you choose to keep the fat, it will float to the top layer in a refrigerator / freezer. An option is to use the fat for stir-frying.

Since I am going to store the soup stock, I am not using other ingredients that also make soups delicious, such as onion, green onion / spring onion / scallion, carrot, celery, pumpkin, sweet potato.

** I use Avent breast milk containers that fit into baby bottles warmer. The small cups are ideal for me because I am cooking in relatively small portions. Faster to thaw!



Alternatively to store stock in a freezer, Zhen suggests to use Zebra stainless steel tingkat / rantang / dabbas / safartas (tiffin carriers) that are commonly used as lunch boxes. You can reheat food in tiffin on the stove top or using an open flame.

Important note: Do not put your tiffin in a microwave because metal should not be microwaved.


Tips:
♥ If you like salty taste in your soup, add salt only at later stage of boiling soup so that nutrients can dissolve in the soup faster at early stage.

如果你喜欢咸的味道，煮汤时，别太快加盐，使营养物质可以在汤里快溶解。

♥ While boiling soup or soup stock, do not keep opening the cover of pot. This is to ensure that heat, fragrance and aroma stay and circulate well in the pot.

当煮汤或高汤，不要继续打开锅的盖子。这是为了确定热和香味逗留并在锅内循环良好。

♥ While boiling soup or soup stock, do not add room-temperature water. This is to prevent the nutrients (e.g. proteins) of the meat from solidifying.

当煮汤或高汤，不添加室温水。这是为了防止肉的营养成分（如蛋白质）再次凝固。

♥ Consume also the edible ingredients used for boiling soup. This is because not all nutrients of the ingredients will be dissolved completely in the soup regardless of the hours of boiling soups.

♥ Use frozen soup stock by 1 week to ensure freshness.

使用冷冻高汤1周内以确保新鲜。 


Other posts that I love:
♥ Lesh Karan's amaranth vegetable soup recipe @ The Mindful Foodie
♥ Shu Han Lee's Vietnamese fish stock @ Mummy I can cook
♥ Kathleen's chicken stock recipe @ Providence Farms
♥ Tiffin Time! Classic Stacked Lunch-Pails by Shahan Cheong

Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140302

No-fry udon with vegetable soup recipe by ServicefromHeart

We love udon meals, especially on cold nights. Hot udon soup reminds me on Lunar New Year's steamboat in simplified form. Although udon (うどん) -- thick wheat floor noodle -- originates from Japan, I used Made in Korea udon for this recipe, simply because the brand was on promotion at NTUC Fairprice today.



Udon has soft, slight chewy texture and slight salty taste. In term of diameter, udon is thicker than thick rice noodle (粗米粉) commonly used for laksa in Singapore. Udon is also similar to pici / pinci, which is fat spaghetti originating from Sienna, Tuscany, Italy.

We prefer to have our no-fry udon in dried form to soup-based one, with a bowl of hot soup rich in ingredients as a companion. This preference is because dried seasoned udon is more fragrant and less scalding than the soup-based one, especially for toddlers' relatively sensitive tongues.

Udon soups are often served with delicious crispy tempura or fried tofu, but tonight I am preparing no fried meal. This recipe is a good choice when we or a family member suffers from sore throats, cough (please pray me to recover quickly from cough that has waken me up at nights), or flu.

Servings: 1 adult + 1 child
Preparation and cooking time: 20 minutes*

* You can do faster because I took my own sweet time, and wash some utensils in between preparation.

Ingredients:
♥ 1 packet fresh udon noodles (乌冬面)
♥ 1 cup lettuce (生菜)
♥ 1 cup baby spinach (菠菜)
♥ 1 cup green bok choy (小白菜)
♥ 1 tomato (番茄), quartered
♥ 1 egg (鸡蛋)
♥ 3 imitation crab meat sticks (kepiting imitasi), cut into inches long
♥ 1 tbsp anchovies (ikan teri)
♥ 1 tsp sesame oil (麻油)
♥ 1 tbsp honey (madu)
♥ 1 tbsp fresh cilantro / coriander (daun ketumbar), finely chopped
♥ 1 clove garlic (bawang putih), pressed

Directions:
1. Boil water with anchovies to let flavor out.
2. Meanwhile, wash vegetables thoroughly.
3. Add tomatoes, crab sticks, and later vegetables to boiling water.
4. After vegetables are cooked, add egg to soup and quickly stir to obtain soft tofu-like texture for 1 minute.
5. Pour soup into bowls.
6. Boil water to cook udon for 2 minutes or until the noodles are separated.
7. Meanwhile, make seasoning by mixing sesame oil, honey, cilantro and garlic.
8. Drain cooked udon noodles and coat them with seasoning by gently tossing them.

Tips:
♥ Use pre-made soup stock (if any) to replace water for soup.
♥ For variations, substitute anchovies with miso (fermented soy bean paste). Jaden Hair at Steamy Kitchen shared that to dissolve miso, whisk it in a separate bowl with parts of hot soup before adding the mixture back to saucepan. Directly adding undissolved miso to saucepan may cause the miso to turn gritty. However, Marc Matsumoto at No Recipes appears to disagree with this. For me, I simply try whatever methods that work.

Other recipes that I love:
♥ Namiko Chen's kitsune udon with aburaage** at Just One Cookbook
♥ Bon Appétit Test Kitchen's udon noodle soup with vegetables
♥ Katie's veggie miso udon soup at Produce on Parade 

** Aburaage (deep-fried tofu) sweetly reminds me on tau pok (fried tofu) of Singapore, a favorite food of baby Ren's Dad.

For faster-to-prepare recipes, consider our #5minutemeal recipes.

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140218