My weekly meal plan consists of 1-pot curries. Curry chicken, curry tofu, curry chickpeas, anything that I can put in a curry and anything that I can cook in 1 pot. Some days I can see the look in my family’s faces ‘not curry A G A I N’. Well, my husband and three-year old have the ‘look’. My 19-month old just throws everything on to the floor.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Fish and chips with a hint of spice
My weekly meal plan consists of 1-pot curries. Curry chicken, curry tofu, curry chickpeas, anything that I can put in a curry and anything that I can cook in 1 pot. Some days I can see the look in my family’s faces ‘not curry A G A I N’. Well, my husband and three-year old have the ‘look’. My 19-month old just throws everything on to the floor.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
To beet or not to beet?
The question is but how to make the humble salad more interesting?
And unfortunately, the answer my friend, is definitely not blowing in the wind. I’ve been eating salads for the most part of 3 weeks now and I’m bored bored bored.
My pants aren’t any looser, my muffin top isn’t any smaller and I’m heading for a great big chocolate binge! I spent 10 minutes in the chocolate aisle at the supermarket today, trying to decide if I wanted Lindt with whole hazelnuts or Lindt with chili, before telling myself that I had dried cranberries at home that I could snack on instead. Yes, I know, dried cranberries are also loaded with sugar, however providing I don’t eat 3 packets, dried cranberries are still better than chocolate!
Anyway, I’ve been cruising the
Beetroot.
I

Add to that a light drizzle (or a heavy downpour in my case) of a creamy Asian flavoured dressing and I was once again inspired to chow down on salads for the next 3 weeks….um…ok…maybe 3 weeks is exaggerating, but at least for the next week!
Salad ingredients for 2
Rocket (about 2 big handfuls)
4 beetroots (cooked) sliced
sunflower seeds
150-200g smoked salmon
Garlicky creamy Asian salad dressing (adapted from CooksRecipes)
1 tbs mayonnaise
1/2 tbs soy sauce
3/4 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tsp water (omit if you like a thicker dressing)
2 tsp minced garlic lightly fried in olive oil
Mix the mayonnaise, soy sauce, sugar, pepper, sesame seed oil and water well until the sugar is no longer grainy. Lightly fry the garlic in oil. Drain the oil then add the garlic to the dressing. This makes roughly ¼ cup of dressing.
Then, drown your salad in the dressing!
Ok, I know, eating salad drenched in dressing sort of defeats the purpose but I can’t just eat plain salad!
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Tilapia à la nectarine salsa

The only thing standing in my way was the lack of quality fresh mangos or lychees in Frankfurt. What to do? Well, substitute!
I’m terrible at creating (and following) recipes so here’s what I roughly used for my fruit salsa:
2 very ripe and super sweet nectarines
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp lime juice
¼ Spanish onion diced (I like raw onion!)
fresh coriander chopped
pinch of salt
pinch of chilli powder
Mix all ingredients, mash the mixture a little and voila, there you have it – a nice sweet, salty and spicy salsa.
The other thing that I didn’t really think about is what to have the salsa with! I was so keen on the salsa that I didn’t think about what to serve the salsa with. Luckily I had some Tilapia (that almost sounds dirty!) filets on hand.
I don’t ever remember seeing Tilapia in France or in Australia so I have no idea what kind of fish this is. When I bought it, I just pointed, said “Ja, ja, ja” and paid! Anyway, the fish is just simply seasoned with a salt, pepper and olive oil mixture.
I love fried fish but I’m not big on the frying part as the apartment tends to be filled with super fishy odours for days on end. So to make the frying time shorter, I zapped the fish in the microwave for a few minutes till semi-cooked, then lightly fried it to brown the sides.
I piled everything on top of some rocket and that was last night’s meal! I am still eating semi-healthily to compensate for all the German beer that I’ve been drinking. Only 3 weeks till we leave for Melbourne so I need to keep the spare tyre under control!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Ginger Tuna Patties with Wakame Salad and Wasabi

Making tuna patties is pretty basic and I’m sure everyone’s tried them at least once. Here’s what I used:
Tuna Patties
2 eggs
2 x 200g canned tuna
1/4 cup flour
3 stalks green onions diced finely
2 tsp ginger minced
1/4 capsicum
1/3 tsp salt
Combine all ingredients.
Drop spoonfuls onto a heated and oiled frying pan. Flatten the spoonfuls into patties and fry both sides until browned and cooked.
For the salad, I used cucumber, wakame and sesame seeds. I also recycled the salad dressing recipe that I used in my last wakame adventure.
However this time, once the tuna patties and the salad had been assembled, I drizzled a slightly runny wasabi paste over the whole dish! It definitely gave the meal a bit of a kick!
I usually buy wasabi in powder form. A Japanese friend once told me that I should only prepare the paste just before using as the flavour tends to evaporate. For this meal, I made my wasabi paste runnier that I usually have it when I’m eating sushi or sashimi.
Runny wasabi paste
½ tsp wasabi
3 tsp water
Mix well and spoon into mouth…hehe..no, drizzle on the tuna patties and salad!
Voila, another healthy meal! (I don’t think I can take this salad eating much longer!)
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Asian Tuna and Sweet Potato Shepard’s Pie

I know, I know, I keep making variations of the same thing! I’m going through a slight sweet potato obsession at the moment and have been making just anything and everything I can with it (I’ll stop soon I promise!).
Shepard’s pie is a pretty basic dish – usually it’s just a minced meat (beef or lamb) layer topped with a layer of potato and baked until crusty. This used to be one of my favourite dishes…until I stopped liking red meat (don’t know why, I just went off it! Too many Shepard’s Pies perhaps?).
Anyway, I tried combining an old favourite (Shepard’s pie) and a new favourite (sweet potato!) and ended up with a tuna and sweet potato Shepard’s pie!
What?
Bottom layer
3x 200g canned tuna in spring water (flaked)
2 1/2 tsp ready-made red curry paste
2 eggs
1/2 red capsicum diced and lightly fried
1 onion diced and lightly fried
1 tsp garlic minced
Top Layer
2 medium sweet potatoes
1/4 tsp salt
3 spring onions chopped
3 tbs coconut milk
How?
1. Bottom layer: Mix all ingredients and spread in an greased baking dish. I used a (roughly) 26cm x 16cm x 4cm baking dish.
2. Top layer: Cook sweet potatoes then mash in a bowl. Mix all ingredients and spread on top of the tuna layer.
3. Put the baking dish in the oven at roughly 220C for around 40 minutes (I think…I forgot to time it!).
I didn’t add any salt to the tuna as canned tuna tends to be already salty and I used store-bought red curry paste which also had salt in it. The bottom layer ended up slightly salty but this was ok as it balanced out with the sweet potato. I would probably use home-made red curry paste next time – less salt!
I was also too impatient (and hungry) and didn’t wait till the top got slightly burnt and crusty. The dish turned out great and the sweet potato-coconut milk combination is absolutely delectable!
Hmm…maybe my sweet potato obsession is due to the fact that I’m not eating enough chocolate! You know, not enough sugar in my body! ;-)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Poivrons farcis
Anyway, it’s not easy coming up with healthy meals when all I want to eat is fat and carbohydrate-laden stir fry noodles and chips! Big fat golden chips glistening with oil and lightly sprinkled with salt…to be precise!
Basically, I had a bit of leftover rice and wanted to use it up, while having a healthy meal at the same time. So I dug out 3 whole red capsicums (or peppers – is that what you call it in the US?) that were starting to get a bit wrinkly and old (things get pushed to the back of the fridge and then I forget about them!), stuffed them and stuck them in the oven.
The result came out better than I thought! The only problem was eating them! There is no easy way to eat these things. No matter how you try, it ends up being a big (but yummy) mess on your plate!
Here’s what I used:
3 red peppers
3/4 cup cooked rice (I had leftovers!)
250g canned tuna
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 onion lightly fried
2 tsp mayonnaise
1 tsp sweet chili sauce
1 tsp garlic
sesame seeds
1. Mix the rice, tuna, egg, salt, mayonnaise and sweet chili sauce in a bowl.
2. Lightly fry the onion and garlic before adding them to mixture.
3. Mix the ingredients well.
4. Remove the stalk, top and seeds from the capsicums. Also slightly trim the bottom of the capsicums to make the bottom level so that they stand up.
5. Oil a baking dish and stand the capsicums in the dish.
6. Stuff away with the tuna-rice mixture!
7. Top with sesame seeds.
8. Bake for roughly 20-25 minutes (or until cooked) at 220C.
Quick and easy!
Monday, March 12, 2007
9-minute tuna pasta
We had friends from the UK this weekend and spent most of it sightseeing and eating out, which meant very little cooking. However, a late start to the day today meant a late breakfast and therefore, a very late lunch. We all got hungry around 3:30pm however being a Monday* in Paris meant that some restaurants were either closed, or the lunch hour was over. Not even Pizza Hut’s lunch service was still open (we tried!). And McDonalds was definitely out of the question – urggghhh.
Having only 1 hour until our friends had to leave for the Eurostar, we had to find decent food fast (and sandwiches weren’t going to do the job here!)! Hence, we headed back to our place for a speedy meal.
I have to say, I’m a lazy cook and love being able to throw everything into 1 saucepan or pot to produce something both tasty and edible at the end. (I’m also pretty crap at food presentation but that’s a whole other issue!)
Anyway, being in a rush today and not having planned on cooking a meal, I didn’t have much at all in my fridge, so tuna pasta was the quickest solution.
Here’s my solution to 4 hungry people needing sustenance immediately:
- Spaghetti or any other type of pasta for 4 people
- 4 tomatoes diced
- 1 onion diced
- Minced garlic to taste (I used about 3 BIG cloves – I love garlic)
- 2 256g cans of tuna (Don’t ask me why the cans were 256g and not something “round” like 250 or 200g!)
- Broccoli or zucchini chopped into small pieces
- 1tbs tomato paste
- ½ cup light cream (add more if you prefer a creamier sauce)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Boil water in a saucepan, add the spaghetti or pasta, cook to al dente and drain (takes roughly 7 minutes). When I was young, my dad used to tell me that if you took the spaghetti and threw it against the wall and it stuck there, it was cooked! Needless to say, my mum wasn’t very impressed when she saw spaghetti stuck to the walls of her kitchen! Anyway, I’m digressing…
While the pasta is boiling, brown the onion in a saucepan over a low fire until translucent and fragrant (2 minutes). Add the garlic and brown slightly (1.5 minutes). My French father-in-law (who’s a great cook) tells me that garlic should not be sautéed for too long otherwise it gets bitter (something like that anyway). However, I actually like my garlic sautéed until it’s brown. In Malaysia, we cooked garlic in oil until it was nice and brown, and then used the “garlic sauce” as a condiment for jook. Digressing again…
Add the diced tomatoes and cook until soft (2 minutes). Mix the tomato paste and tuna into the saucepan and cook till slightly bubbling (1 minute). Add the vegetables and heat until tender (I like my vegetables crunchy so this usually takes about 2 minutes). Lastly, add the cream and the salt and pepper. If the sauce is too dry, add a little water.
I then usually throw in the drained pasta and mix well with the sauce.
And voila, roughly 9 minutes later, a meal for 4!
* In France, some shops and restaurants close on Monday if they’ve been open on Saturday.