tortellini salad

With the recent heatwave, I needed to make something cool for dinner. Pasta salad was the answer.

Ingredients: tortellini, ripe tomato, basil, salami, romano/parmesan cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Italian seasoning, freshly ground pepper

Tortellini - cook and drain. Ripe tomato - dice into small pieces. Basil - cut finely. Salami - dice into small peices.

Mixed tortellini with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Italian seasoning, ground pepper, 3/4 of diced tomato, salami, basil and spoonful of cheese. Sprinkle the remaining tomato, salami and basil on top followed by more cheese. Chill and serve!

Sing qua, oyster & straw mushrooms with beef and pork meatballs

Yeah, we like sing qua and beef meatballs. Sometimes a dish is created based on what we have at home, you can use any combination of your choice of veggies and meat.

Ingredients for this dish: sing qua, king oyster mushroom, straw mushroom, beef meatball and pork meatball.

Sing qua - peel and cut diagonally. King oyster mushroom - clean and cut. Drain and rinse a can of straw mushroom.

Heat up pan with a drizzle of oil, brown the meatballs first then add sing qua, followed by straw mushroom then king oyster mushroom. Add a drizzle of soy sauce and stir fry another minute, add sugar, oyster sauce and a bowl of water mixed with corn starch. Cover pan with lid, turn heat off when it heats up again.

long bean w/ ground pork and egg

This is another simple soul food. My version has meat because my hubby likes it. Also, it adds a bit more flavor and substance to the dish.

Ingredients: long bean, ground pork and egg

Long bean - cut into 1/4 inch pieces. Ground pork - marinate. Eggs - add a sprinkle of salt and a dash of egg and beat.

Heat pan w/ a drizzle of oil. Brown ground pork then add long bean. Stir fry it for couple minutes then season w/ a little soy sauce, white pepper and sugar. Stir in egg and *let it brown on one side then flip to brown the other side.

*another option is mix and stir and treat like scramble

tomato beef w/ egg

This is a very homey dish and one of my hubby's favorites. It's very simple to make and tastes great over rice.

Ingredients: ripe tomatoes, beef and eggs

Cut tomatoes into 2" cubes, depending on which kind you buy (roma - cut into quarter or 6-8 pieces depending on size). Beef - use anywhere between 1/2 to 3/4 pound. I normally buy flank or skirt steak - slice thinly and marinate. Eggs - use 6-8 depending on size, beat it w/ a sprinkle of salt and a dash of milk.

Heat up pan with a drizzle of oil. Add beef, stir fry to add flavor - when medium cooked, add tomatoes to pan and stir then put lid on. When it heats up, press and flatten tomatoes - add sugar and a sprinkle of salt to taste. Add egg and swirl around until mixed, swirl everything around to ensure eggs don't stick to pan. When eggs has a nice soft scramble consistency, turn off and remove from heat.

Sing qua (Chinese Okra) soup

Sing qua (aka Chinese okra) is seasonal and we try to eat it as often as we can while in season. You can stir fry sing qua but I decided to make soup with it.

The ingredients for the soup: sing qua (1-2 pounds), 2 small pacakages of bean threads, 1 pound of ground pork and 1 package of preserved mustard green.


Peeled the sing qua and cut it diagonally, do a quarter turn and cut. Soak the bean threads in water for about 20 minutes or until soft. Marinate the ground pork w/ soy sauce, salt, sugar, white pepper, a dash of corn starch and a little bit of water.



When the water boils, add the package of preserved mustard green and the ground pork. Break up the ground pork in the broth. When it heats up, add the sing qua and cover the lid. When it boils, season to taste - may need to add a sprinkle of salt. Add bean thread, boils for another minute then turns off heat. If you want the bean thread to soak up the soup so it's like noodle then put the lid on for another 10 minutes. Enjoy!

sugar snap peas w/ beef tendon meatballs

Sugar snap peas are in season so take advantage of it! Unlike snow pea, the sugar snap pea is full and puffy and as the name indicates - it's sweet : )

This is a very simple dish. Only ingredients are 1 pound of sugar snap peas, make sure to peel the end and side or you'll end up chewing them or spitting them out. A bag of beef tendon meatballs*, go ahead and cut them in half. Heat up the pan with a drizzle of oil then add the beef tendon balls - stir fry it for 3-5 minutes to get them a little brown and heated up then add the sugar snap peas. Stir fry the two together for another 3 minutes, drizzle a little soy sauce, sprinkle a little white pepper and a teaspoon of sugar and add a bowl of water w/ a dash of corn starch to create a little gravy. Put the lid on until it heats up then stir around a little and turn off heat.

*You can substitue the beef tendon balls with beef meatballs, pork meatballs or any kind of meat or seafood.

Seaweed soup

Either hubby read my mind or I read his, I decided to make seaweed soup today. So off I went to get the necessary ingredients. Seaweed, get the sandless type - cost a little more but so worth it. Dried shrimp - get the larger ones, they are sweeter and adds a nice crunch to the soup. Tofu - get the soft kind. A package of preserved mustard greens - spicy and thin sliced.

This is probably one of the easiest soup to make. Just boil up a pot of water and add the ingredients in - start with the dried shrimp (wash or soak it a little first), followed by the preserved mustard greens (this is optional but I like that it adds flavor), then the tofu (I prefer the silk one but the soft one is ok too. Rinse with cold water then cut into 1" cubes) and finally the seaweed (a package comes with about 4 round pieces - you can use as much as you like).

You can use ground pork instead of or in addition to the dried shrimp for flavor. Another option is to use bouillion.

Simple and delicious - if you or your loved one like seaweed, give it a try.