Green Apple with Honey Citron Tea

The ancient sages looked to nature to show them how to live a life of happiness. Oneness with nature and living in harmony with its ways are keys to inner peace. Living in the Urban, we are very far away from Nature and we feel unhappy.  We keep on trying to fill that gap or lack because of the unhappiness and that is never enough no matter what we try to fill it with. So, it is always good to visit the nature often to connect back to it.

Fruits and Veggies signify the nature in a way and therefore consume more of them, as they have vibrational frequencies which is not found in processed or canned food or meat, that is beneficial to our body.  

If you find that green apple is too sour or bland, just add some Korean Honey Citron Tea Paste (for making tea) to spice it up, just like this recipe. This creation is the result of not thinking and the idea just pop up from nowhere.   Hope you like it and find your connection to the creativity in you.

Preparation:      5 mins

               

Ingredients (serves 1)

°         1 green apple, diced

°         1 tablespoon Korea Honey Citron Tea Paste or to taste

Method

1.       Mix all the ingredients well and serves chilled.

Harmony of Nature - Fruit Salad with a Taste of Asia

Honestly, I did not create this recipe! I had this surprise salad at the last day of my CPC class.   The lovely person, who whipped up this, is the one that type this to me - [Breath In, Breath Out, We are ONE].  Maybe it is food from the heart that it touches my heart and I just want to recreate this via my memory and share with more people.

Feel free to do this fruit salad in your own way, by following your heart, mix different fruits (jackfruit or gavua or green mango or ...) and with some special ingredients and let it unites as ONE in harmony - full of colour, taste and beauty.  [I am eating this while typing this, it is getting addictive - full of nature energies!]

Preparation:     8 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)

°         1 green apple, diced

°         1 orange, peeled and diced

°         few slices dried lime slices, cut into smaller pieces

°         1-2 teaspoons dried canberries

Method

1.      Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Serve chilled. 

Passion Fruit 'N' Papaya Pickle

Passion Fruit 'N' Papaya Pickle

Papaya, Passion Fruit, Lemon Juice and Maltose - just mix it and play with it ... 

Match it. Mix it. Play with it. Yes, it is so simple ...

Preparation:     45 mins

           

Ingredients (serves 4)                              

°         600g green papaya shreds

°         1 tablespoon salt

°         1 passion fruit pulps

°         1/2 green lemon, freshly squeeze

°         4 tablespoons maltose or to taste  

Method

1.      Sprinkle salt on the papaya shreds and mix well. Let it sweats for 15-20 minutes.

2.      Wash and drain the papaya shreds well. Squeeze the papaya shreds to remove the moisture as much as possible.

3.      Combine the papaya shreds, lemon juice, maltose and passion fruit pulps in a glass container, mix well and leave to stand for 3hours prior to serving. It can be kept for 3 days in the refrigerator.

Rooty & Fruity Pink Salad

Another simple salad using beets which has been identified as a nutritional powerhouse and high in folate, manganese and potassium. The beet root will strain the yam bean, therefore making this salad pink (2 different shades) after mixing. Replace green mango with Japanese cucumber, if desired. The sweet pineapple gives a refresh sweet and sour taste to it. And adding mint leaves gave a different favour. For this salad, I added rice cereals too!

Preparation: 8-10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 25g beetroot shreds
° 25g green mango shreds
° 25g yam bean shreds
° 10g pineapple shreds
° 3 tablespoons rice cereals
° few mint leaves, finely chopped

Salad Dressing
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian salad cream/ vegan mayonnaise, to taste
° 1 tablespoon vinegar, to taste
° 1 teaspoon sugar, to taste

Method
1. Combine all salad dressing ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Set aside.
2. Arrange the beetroot, green mango, yam bean, pineapple in a serving plate. Garnish with mint leaves.
3. Add the salad dressing and sprinkle the rice cereals over it. Serve immediately.

Vegetarian "Century Egg" Congee (Version 2)

When I first created the Veg*n Century Egg Congee (using Avocado & Shiitake Mushroom to replace century egg) in 2007, I have thought of using Grass Jelly (Chin Chow) instead of shitake mushroom. Finally, gave it a try some time back.

It is even much easier, just cook some plain congee with vegetable stock or season with mushroom bouillon. Prior to serving, adding the avocado dices and grass jelly! That’s it!

Frozen the rice grain (washed) for few hours in the freezer before cooking the congee, it helps to speed up the cooking time and all you need is about 15 – 20 minutes.

Veggie & Fruity Salad

We had this simple yet wonderful salad at KMSPKS. We like it. We re-create it. We share it. The salad we had, have some grapes too, add them or any other fruits you desired. I omit vinegar/lemon juice, salt or sugar totally, as I find the salad cream after mixing with the fruit had the just nice consistency.

Preparation: 8-10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 100g green apple dices
° 100g red apple dices
° 75g carrot dices
° 75g Japanese cucumber dices

Salad Dressing
° 2-2½ tablespoons vegetarian salad cream/ vegan mayonnaise

Method
1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Serve chilled.

Mango Crispy Mock “Prawn”

In fact, I was thinking of doing a veg*n version Mango Crispy Chicken, using either mock chicken drumstick or marinated king oyster mushroom and deep-fried. In the end, I used the mock prawn and it is quite similar to one of my earlier recipe Plum Sauce Mock Prawn! The problem is having too many recipes, I lost track of them!

Ok, this is so much simpler! You need to know how to deep-fry and that’s about all. The rest is just mixing the sauce. For Thai Mango Crispy Chicken, the sauce called for sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and chilli. In this recipe, I used plum paste and adding a little bit of tangy taste using orange juice! So, you can always come up with your own sauce or use other sauce like Tangy Orange Sauce!

Preparation: 15 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 8 (200g) vegetarian noodle prawns, deep-fried or pan-fried or baked
° 1- ½ mango, diced
° some mint leaves, for garnish

Sauce
° 2 tablespoons plum paste
° 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
° toasted sesame seeds (optional)
° ½ fresh red chilli, seeded and sliced
° toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Method
1. Mix all the sauce ingredients a bowl and set aside.
2. Arrange the mock prawns, mango and mint leaves on a serving plate.
3. Serve with special plum sauce.

Potato Salad with Avocado Wasabi Cream

I was looking at those ripe avocado and potatoes at home, not knowing what to do with them. Out of sudden, Sunny who I have never met before, came to my mind, I don’t know why. She loves avocado and wasabi! Usually, we would use mayo for potato salad. To make this recipe healthier, I use avocado to replace mayo. Since Sunny loves wasabi, I use it to give it a different twist. So, this recipe is for her. And this also look like Egg Mayo Salad!

Preparation: 10 mins Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients (serves 2-3)
° 200g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks and steamed

Avocado Salad Cream
° 1 avocado, peeled and stoned
° 1 tablespoon mayonnaise/vegetarian salad cream
° 1 tablespoon freshly squeeze lemon juice
° ¼ - ½ teaspoon wasabi or to taste
° salt to taste

Method
1. Combine avocado, vegetarian salad cream, lemon juice, wasabi, salt in a blender and blend until smooth.
2. Place the potatoes in a salad bowl. Add the avocado salad cream to the potatoes and mix well.
3. Set aside to cool in the refrigerator and allow the flavour to develop.
4. Serve chilled.

Green Apple with Tempeh Salad

Just whip this up this morning … In fact, I wanted to make little cup using wonton skin for the salad, but I am just too lazy! You can add some mango if desired.

Preparation: 8-10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 100g tempeh, diced and toasted
° 1 green apple, diced

Salad Dressing
° 2 tablespoons vegetarian salad cream/ vegan mayonnaise
° 1 teaspoon sugar
° 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
° ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper or curry powder (optional)

Method
1. Combine all the salad dressing ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Add in the green apple and tempeh and mix well. Serve chilled.

Mango and Veggie Salad with Wasabi Salad Dressing

Lately have been busy with other stuff that I didn’t spend enough time on this recipe blog and those things on my January To-Do List. So last night, I decided to create this recipe at 8pm. It is real simple as I love to say. It has to be simple yet nutritious to be done at home by anyone, anything that required more works; let’s enjoy them at the vegetarian eateries. Maybe it is a little bit costly, but just takes that as the price for the manhour if we have to do it ourselves and we can relax and dine in a different ambience … Be a little compassionate and pamper ourselves once in a while by having a nice meal at the vegetarian eateries …

Back to this recipe, adding mango to the veggies salad gives a different taste – natural sweetness.! The amount of mango or carrot or cucumber to be used depends on individual preference. For the salad dressing, I added Wasabi! Sunny had left comments on my blog that avocado with wasabi is her favorites, I think. So, I happened to pass by the sushi counter at Cold Storage @ Bugis, so I brought 2 little pack of wasabi at 10 cents each. By adding wasabi to the salad cream, it gives a totally new flavour and it is nice, but you have to taste it before adding more wasabi, if not …. : )

Oh yeah, just to share this new piece of information from Health Promotion Board (HPB) - A Vegetarian’s Guide to Eating Right Share with ALL your friends (veg*n and non-veg*n)….

Preparation: 8-10 mins

Ingredients (serves 1-2)
° 75g mango shreds
° 50g carrot shreds
° 25g Japanese cucumber shreds
° 1 lettuce leaves (optional), for garnish
° some toasted/roasted sesame seeds (optional)

Wasabi Salad Dressing
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian salad cream/ vegan mayonnaise
° 1 teaspoon sugar
° 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
° ¼ - ½ teaspoon wasabi or to taste

Method
1. Combine all the wasabi salad dressing ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.
2. Arrange the mango shreds, carrot shreds and cucumber shreds on the lettuce leaves. Garnish with sesame seeds.
3. Serve with wasabi salad dressing sauce.

Crystal’s Green Mango Salad

Salad mixed with dressing and ready to be eaten!

Healthy salad! A new twist to the common vegetarian Green Mango salad. You can add pine nut or some crispy stuff such as Yu Sheng Bok Chui Biscuit, if desired. See, we don’t have to stick to the non-vegetarian Thai Mango Salad, we can let our imagination run wild and come up with different ideas to make our vegetarian dishes exciting and interesting. Be a pioneer and dare to be different.

This salad can be served with Vegetarian Chicken Rice. You can make this salad one day in advance by mixing the dressing with green mango and carrot. Sprinkle peanut powder or grounded peanut, sesame and chilli flake prior to serving. Replace with freshly chopped chilli if dried chilli flake is unavailable or omit it.

Preparation: 8 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 175g shredded young green mango, chilled
° 25g shredded carrot, chilled
° 1 teaspoon peanut powder or grounded peanut
° ½ teaspoon black and white sesame seeds (optional)
° ½ teaspoon dried chilli flake (optional)

Dressing
° 1 tablespoon plum sauce
° 1 tablespoons (2-3 limes) freshly squeezed kalamansi lime juice
° 1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste

Method
1. Mix all the dressing ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Arrange shredded mango and carrot on a serving plate.
3. Drizzle the dressing over the shredded mango and top with peanut powder, sesame seeds and dried chilli flake. Serve immediately.

Persimmon Punch (Sujeonggwa)

This Persimmon Punch Using known as Sujoenggwa in Korean is often served as a dessert. It calls for dried Persimmon, but I used frozen Persimmon. Lately, there is lots of Korean Persimmon in the supermarket selling as a very reasonable price – 5 for S$1.55. I bought some of them and frozen them for soymilk shake. So, I just use one of them to make this dessert. I added something extra lily bulb instead of pine nuts!

If you like it chilled, do refrigerate this dessert for few hours.

Preparation: 5 mins, Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 1-2 frozen persimmon, cut into chunks
° 25g ginger
° 1-2 cinnamon stick
° 25g fresh lily bulb, peel off petals piece by piece
° 75g rock sugar, or to taste
° 1 litre water

Method
1. Combine the ginger, cinnamon, and water and rock sugar in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes. Throw in the lily bulb and bring to a boil.
2. Add persimmon and serve hot or chilled.