Not-so-Vegan but Awesome Spinach Pizza

My brother had been bugging me to make pizza for him and I was tired of the same old topping of green peppers, mushrooms, olives and tomatoes. After looking up vegetarian pizza online, I came across this recipe. I used the topping suggestion with my standard pizza crust recipe which is to me fail-proof if you are using yeast that is alive! 

Unfortunately, since I picked up the ingredients at the neighbourhood NTUC, I could not find soy cheese, so had to end up with Mozzarella. Just as luck would have it, I also had sun-dried tomatoes at home that I bought from Mustafa, so I pretty much had all the ingredients. After a quick par-bake of the crust, the topping was piled on and it looked so beautiful with the green spinach leaves acting as a bed for the topping of sunny yellow peppers, sliced broccoli, olives and tomatoes. I just had to snap a couple of pictures, for it felt that I was in some country home baking wholesome pizza for my family! Needless to say, everyone at home loved it and the three of us polished off a pan of wholesome goodness with delicious vegetables!

Fractal Food - Romanesco Brocolli

Hubby and I made a trip to Seng Siong to grab some vegetables. We came across this interesting vegetable that was called the Pagoda Flower. The first time I saw it, I was wondering what on earth it was. It looked so weird and even scary that I felt that it came from outer space! Haha!

Later when we were measuring out some of the vegetables, I asked the sales staff about it and they told me it is something like broccoli and can be cooked normally. Even though it was costly,  I purchased a small one as she told me that the pagoda flower is seasonal. 

After doing an online search, I found out from good ol' Wiki that this is vegetable belongs to the same family as broccoli and cauliflower. It is called fractal food because of its beautiful swirls that end up in a pyramidal shape. One of nature's example of self-similar patterns. It was first grown in Italy but guess where this came from - China! Some of the suggested recipes included steaming it to retain its high Vitamin C content, so that is what I did.

After steaming it for about 10 mins (it was still crunchy), the colour turned from a golden yellow green to a beautiful jade green. It was so pretty and amazing that I started to munch on it. In terms of taste, after steaming it imparted a lovely sweet, delicate flavour very much like cauliflower! I made a sauce for it with oyster sauce, some seasame oil, minced garlic and crushed dried red chilli. I warmed it over the stove and pour it over the broccoli. Yum!

Guest Chef at World Vegan Day

Food #03, a vegetarian eatery has a guest chef programme. I was invited on the 1st of November to be a guest chef to commemorate World Vegan Day. I made green tea, mango, choc-vanilla and coconut-lime cupcakes for this event. However, I did experience a series of kitchen disasters! The first batch of green tea deflated on me! And by the time I finished doing the mango cupcakes it was four in the morning. Since it was made with a pudding centre I wanted to keep it in the fridge. Guess what! In the process I toppled the entire thing and it was four in the morning! I screamed so loud that my hubby woke up. In the end, he cleaned up the huge frosting mess and I sat there stoned and stunned! Without knowing what to do, I decided to sleep and do another batch in the morning! However, it was a fantastic opportunity to meet up with friends and make new friends as well! Thanks peep for coming down to support!

Strawberry Cupcakes with a dash of colour to the frosting (for an earlier order by Food #03)

Vanilla-Choc Marble Cupcake with V-C frosting

Mango Cupcakes again but with a slight variation to the frosting (contains mango pudding)

Green Tea Cupcake with Green Tea Frosting

Coconut Cupcakes with Lime Frosting

Customer enjoying the cupcake

Me (with barely four hours of sleep) with customer

My Lunch - Laksa Pesto Linguine 

My hubby's lunch - Black Pepper Linguine

Some of my amazing friends!

More of my amazing friends! I'm so blessed to have met them :)

Rasam and Rice Lunch

Every South Indian loves rasam. It is a simple, hearty soup that is amazing flavourful and addictive. It is made with spices and tamarind which imparts a distinctive spicy sour taste that is simply awesome. Here I served it with ponni rice (parboiled rice), stir fried soya beansprouts with tempeh, stir fried turmeric french beans and curried potatoes. Of course, an Indian meal is not complete with papadam. I have had request for this recipe from friends of kitchen capers. I'll do it again and measure out the ingredients and post the recipe soon!

Cupcake Order - Oreos, Strawberry and Mango

My friend from VSS, XY was finishing her internship, so she ordered 45 cupcakes for her colleagues. Since she liked fruit based cupcakes, she requested, strawberry, mango and oreos. It was nice baking for her cos' she's a supportive and wonderful person :)

Oreos Cupcake

Mango cupcakes with mango pudding in the centre and mango frosting

Vanilla Cupcakes stuffed with strawberries and a dollop of vanilla frosting

ST Interview Article!

For those who did not get your hands on the article, this is the tiny version of it! Hugely embarrassing un-photoshop picture of me!

Indian Rojak - Vegan Style

I was running out of ideas for dinner and decided to do an Indian rojak for a change. Well basically it was just fried tofu, dough fritters and cucumbers since I did not have the time do other stuff. I think adding steamed potatoes, blanched kangkong and beansprouts will up the nutritional value. I made the peanut/cashew sauce based on estimation and guess work. In all, it was pretty tasty though not high on the nutritional scale!