A Fiery CNY Eve Lunch!

A very Happy Fiery Monkey Chinese New Year to all my Chinese fellow bloggers and readers.

Here was what we had for our reunion meal.

Steamed fish.

Thermomix stir-fried choy sum with carrots and prawns.

Steamed beancurd with minced pork (Yong Tau Foo).

Curry potato and pork.

Steamed okra with minced pork (Yong Tau Foo).

Steamed bittergourd with minced pork (Yong Tau Foo).

Double boiled bone broth with lotus root.

Steamed chicken.

And brownies for dessert! 

Yong Tau Foo

The Yong Tau Foo dish is a very popular Hakka Chinese soup dish found in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Basically it is a clear consommé soup served with a variety of food items such as fish balls, crab sticks, cuttlefish, vegetables and tofu which are stuffed with fish paste (also known as surimi). The usual vegetables that are used are bitter gourd, brinjal, lady fingers, and chillies.

These are cooked briefly in boiling broth and is served in the boiled broth.

Some people eat this dish with a bowl of steamed rice or with noodles. Some people serve this in a bowl of curry sauce!

This dish is usually served with a dipping sauce. It can be a spicy, vinegary chili sauce which is made from red, fermented bean curd or hoisin sauce.

Ingredients:

1. 20 okras (large in size if possible)
2. 1 bitter gourd (cut into medallion size)
3. 2 packets of firm square tofu.

This is how the tofu looks like. Just cut it into half. 

4. 600gm of fish paste (click on LINK)

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1. Slit open the okras. Slit the half-ed tofu. (Don't slice it into half.)

2. Scoop about 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of fish paste and stuff it into the slits. It should look something like this:

3. For the remaining fish paste, I made them into fish balls.

4. For the okras, bitter gourd and tofu stuffing, I steamed them for about 20 minutes. For the fish balls I baked them at 200C for about 20 minutes.

5. Serve warm with soup and rice or noodles.

Bon appétit!

Container Garden - A Fruitful Update

Cherry tomato-land!

My first ever yam harvest. I gave this to my mom. I can't eat yam. But I LOVED (still do) yam. Especially the deep fried yam basket dish!!!

I'm Popeye the Sailorman!

This year's first corn harvest!

The 3rd corn harvest!

So engrossed with the sweetness of the flower, that it had to eat upside-down!

A VERY friendly, regular visitor of the garden.

A blue kingfisher! It drops by the garden sometimes.

Slurping away!

Container Garden - An Update

We harvested 5 cucumbers from the plant before it got destroyed by the cucumber bug.

The bugs even ate the pollinated cucumbers!

Fresh spinach from the garden! Little boy ate all of it. He just loves spinach stir fried with garlic.

The toad who lived in my garden and subsequently became a FAT pig. This is Terry the FATTY-LICIOUS TOAD!

Fresh herbs for my mum. I have lavendula, mint, peppermint, lemon balm and parsley(which died).

A harvest of herbs and okra! The okra just keeps on producing. 

Container Garden - An Update

Baby grasshopper!

The yam plant!

One of the three cucumbers in the garden! My first ever successful plant!

The okras are flourishing!

The garden soldier fly grubs who are composting machines. They chomp away at my decomposing food and produce compost for my garden! Amazing!

Terry the FAT toad sunbathing!

Spinach harvest!

Abundant spring onion harvest!

An Oleander Hawk Caterpillar in the process of turning into a pupa.

2 Orange Dog Caterpillars on the lime tree.

A Swallowtail butterfly on the orange tree.

Container Garden - An Update (2nd Anniversary)

A very happy 2nd anniversary to the container garden! I have learned much by just gardening and planting my own vegetables. The garden has been a place of refuge (and stress too when things just die!).

The exceedingly 'long' ladyfinger/okra!

The end of the year is drawing near. The year-end monsoon will be here soon. And the garden is in the process of winding down. I am not sowing anymore seeds EXCEPT some leafy vegetables which thrive in rainy weather.

The large sunflower was one of the triplets. At the back of its huge head, were two of its siblings. 

The unopened Zinnia!

Ladybird feasting on the aphids!

Cherry tomatoes!

Look at who was feasting on my cherry tomatoes! Death to them all! :P

Capsicums! I was surprised as I thought they had died in the freak storm. :)

This is my first time planting pumpkin. And I was so surprised that this too survived the storm. This is the male flower.  

This is the female.

I helped the pumpkin to have 'sex'. I was afraid that the ants and insects would not be 'helpful' enough in transferring the pollen from the male to the female. 

Look at how 'saturated' the female is with the male's pollen.

This was the 2nd male flower which I used. There was some polygamy going on. I had to make sure 'she got impregnated'! HAHAHA!

I even clipped the flower closed to make sure the pollen stayed intact in the female! 

Plenty of stink bugs who were busy mating!

The third tomato plant is fruiting. 

Oleander Hawk caterpillar! Joel calls this as HIS 'CATTER-PIE-LEE' pet! Oh my! His pet! HAHA!

Okras!

Another harvest of cherry tomatoes. The yellow plate in the background is filled with kitchen waste which will be turned into compost.