Chickpea and Black Beans Wrap

 Homemade chickpea patties, black beans, rice, and hummus wrap.  This was suprisingly very good, especially with a bit of hot sauce and pickled jalapenos.

Pan-fried chickpeaa patties, with garam masala, garlic, onions, cumin, and lots of parsley!

Eight Treasure Congee

Did you know that congee can be made with other grains, other than rice?  Like millet, barley, and sorghum.  These types of congee are common in the north of China.  Here, I've made an 'eight treasure congee.'  The eight treasure really just means 8 ingredients that you will put in the congee (excluding water), and those are any 8 ingredients that you have on hand.  

For my eight treasure congee, I put in red kidney beans, glutinous rice, raw peanuts, lotus seeds, barley, red jujubes, dried logans, and grated ginger.  This is a sweet congee instead of a savory one, so I seasoned it with rock sugar (or jaggery).  I guess that'll make this a Nine Treasure Congee and not eight?  I can't count!  This is sort of like a mixed up Vietnamese sweet dessert soup. :)

Pongal with Spicy Cashews

Pongal- saffron, cracked pepper, peppercorns, moong dal (mung beans), and basmati rice cooked together in lots of water (like congee).

Toppings:  Spicy cashews and fried shallots.  

Congee and pot sticker dumplings

Warm congee on a chilly day.  Here, this congee is accompanied with homemade veggie pot stickers and sauteed cabbage and carrots.  I actually enjoyed making pot stickers, and it might be something that I'll play around with on a rainy day.

So some additional add-ins that I used and you may also like in your congee too: sesame oil, scallions, fried tofu puffs, hot sauce, parsley, thousand year old eggs, quail eggs, chicken eggs (yolk only), etc.

I used the Shanghai Style dumpling wrapper, because it's the right thickness and the right texture too.  They're crispy and chewy at the same time.

Lunch: Tomatoes 'n Eggs

Tomatoes, onions, and eggs. Very good with rice, and nothing complicated.

Pink Cat's Special 3-Rice Fried Rice

Red jasmine rice, regular jasmine rice, and basmati rice.

What's in it: tofu, scallions, eggs, green beans, corn, chili flakes, broccoli (or whatever veggies you have on hand... carrots, peas, etc.) Remember to finish it off with some sesame oil at the end. I added some almond slices for additional crunch too.

Lunch: Spicy rice, sauteed spinach, and soupy soup

Spicy basmati-saffron rice and sauteed spinach with tofu curds.

Kabocha soup with soft tofu.

If I am to choose between a kobocha squash or a butternut squash, I'd definitely go for the former. The texture and the taste is far better than a butternut in my opinion. It is sweeter and has a 'toothy' bite to it, like a drunken noodle would have more of a 'toothy' bite than a pad thai noodle.

You can cook a kobocha squash into a savory soup, or make into a sweet dessert like Asians do. Leaving the skin on is also better, because it has lots of nutritional content. If you make a savory soup out of it, then make sure to watch it when you're cooking it. It tends to fall apart and dissolve into the broth if you cook it too long, to death.

When shopping for one, be sure to look for one that is small or medium size, but dense and heavy in feel. The ones that feel light doesn't really have a good smooth sweet taste to it, maybe because it hasn't ripen fully.

Lunch: Curried Cauliflower and Tofu

Cauliflower tends to be bland, so not many people like it... :( That's why you gotta season the heck out of it to make it tasty! I love just sautéing cauliflower with some curry powder, chili flakes and spices to make it tasty and healthy. You don't need to deep fry it, although a veggie tempura would be good too. The important thing is not to cook it to a mushy death. Keep it crisp!

I always think that if a cauliflower head and a broccoli head were to battle each other on the nutritional level, the broccoli would win. Broccoli just seems more powerful and almighty. But cauliflower is very nutritious too!

Low in fat, high in dietary fiber, folate, water and vitamin C, and possessing a very high nutritional density (whatever that means).

Lunching with some rice, cauliflower, and crispy lettuce.

Tofu and Zucchini Blossoms

My simple lunch: Red rice with braised tofu, ginger and pineapple, and sauteed zucchini blossoms on the side.

Some people like to stuff the blossoms with cheese and then fry them. I just like to prepare 'em simply and healthy.

Pork Fried Rice

Golden corns...

Sweet peas...

Crunchy green beans...

Spicy eggs...

Flavorful rice...

Juicy BBQ pork...

Oh wait, I got the wrong bowl of fried rice! This is the meat version!

One of the things I did with this fried rice is, instead frying up the egg whites+yolks together, I used the yolks to mix into the hot steamy rice. This gave the rice a nice yellowish color to it, as well as making it very tasty. I used only 1 yolk and the rest egg whites for the chopped egg pieces. Add in a little chili flakes when you eat, and it's very good.

p.s. One of the things I'm liking more and more is using basmati rice for making fried rice. It has a soft and nice texture to it.

Sticky Rice with Peanut-Sesame Topping

It's not a good idea to be posting up pictures of food at night, especially at 2am. Because I'm hungry!

This is sticky rice I cooked with split mung beans, and topped with a roasted sesame peanut sugar salt mixture. Sounds odd, since the Thai sticky rice with mango is more well known, but I really like the combination of eating sticky rice with a salty-sweet peanut topping. It's the Vietnamese way.

The mung beans add a buttery texture to the rice, and also making it not as sticky and heavy. Sticky rice is also served at weddings and New Years (artificially colored pink) because I think there is a special meaning to it.

Congee..!

With thousand year old eggs.

I like to fry up some scallions and ginger too, to mix into the congee. Add some soy sauce/fish sauce, sesame oil, and chili flakes. yummee!

Some people like congee loose and liquidy, but I prefer to have it thick and creamy (from the rice starches). One of my favorite things to eat on a cold day.

If you eat meat, you can saute some minced pork with garlic and add it into the congee. That would make it heartier.

Braised Wintermelon and Tofu

For this dish, I pan fried the winter melon first and then braising it with tofu in a sweet bean sauce. I prefer using hoisin sauce with some soy sauce and water.
.....

I peeled and cut the gourd into about 1/2-3/4 inch circles, then pan frying them. This adds flavor to the dish, and also help the gourd pieces stay together during the cooking. Then just add fried tofu (non-fried ones would fall apart easily in this dish), and cook together in the sauce for a while.

I like to eat it with red jasmine rice and some steamed veggies, like bok choy, chinese broccoli, green beans, or kale. Fresh crunchy cucumbers and lettuce would be good too.

Spicy Basmati Fried Rice

Basmati rice is specially supplied by Chi's Rice& Spice Co. (^_~)

Yummy spicy fried rice!