I got this recipe from Safeway on one those free recipes stand. I made it for a BBQ get-together with Polly and family a couple weeks ago. It is a great cheesy appetizer — not to mention it being so colourful.

The filling in the sweet peppers consists of chopped tomatoes, chopped red onion, chopped fresh cilantro, shredded cheese and salt to taste.

The peppers are grilled over medium heat for 5 minutes or so until the peppers blistered and slightly charred on the bottoms.

The cheese in the peppers would have melted when they are ready.

Transfer the peppers to a clean platter with a wide spatula. Serve the peppers with a teaspoon of sour cream over the hot peppers.

My late mum used to make a Chinese vegetarian dish (Loh Hon Jai) on the first day of Chinese New Year. I have not eaten this dish for a long time until my next door neighbour, Richard and Jeanie shared it with me. The dish brought back so much sweet memories and I’m really grateful to Richard and Jeanie for sharing the recipe with me.

Ingredients

• Fresh oyster mushrooms
• Dried shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted or fresh shiitake mushrooms
• Cloud ear mushrooms, reconstituted
• Cabbages, blanched
• Fried gluten (mien gen), blanched to remove excess oil
• Can fried gluten, remove top later of oil but reserve the liquid
• Fried tofu puff, the rectangular type
• Fried bean curd stick, blanched until soft
• Bean curd skin, lightly fried
• Vemicelli (tung fen), cooked in boiling water for 2 minutes and rinse off in cold water
• Shanghai bean curd, red (lam yue), mushed up to dissolve in some water and strain if necessary
• Corn starch solution
• few cloves of garlic, chopped

You may any mushrooms in season or can mushroom like straw mushroom, button mushroom, inoki mushroom, etc. The Shanghai red bean curd can be substituted with oyster sauce.

Click on the link below for the instructions.

continue reading "Chinese Vegetarian Dish (Loh Hon Zhai)"

I’m privileged to have my Korean friend, Allie to show me how to make Kimchee. Kimchee is the staple side dish for Korean and Korean eats Kimchee almost in every meal.

Kimchee is a traditional dish of fermented chillie peppers and vegetables, usually based on cabbage. The word Kimchee originate from ‘chim-chae’ which means steeped/submerged vegetables.

Allie always have Kimchee in her fridge. When her Kimchee ran out of supply, she’ll make a big batch which last for 3 months.

Allie emphazised that the ingredients for making Kimchee must be bought from Korean groceries stores. Though the ingredients sound like ordinary ingredients which you can buy from many other groceries stores, Allie said they taste different.

Here are the ingredients for making Kimchee.

• cabbage
• radish
• garlic
• ginger
• fish sauce
• salted shrimp
• chillie peppers
• sea salt
• brown sugar
• a pair of gloves

Allie told me that the chillie peppers were from her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law planted the peppers and dried and grinded them herself. They are all organic.

Allie usually bought a whole box of cabbages and several radishes for making Kimchee. The box contains 8 large cabbages.

Click on the link below for the instructions.

continue reading "Kimchee"

My good neighbour, Zee shared with me how to make a vegetarian curry dish. Zee is of Indian descent but she was born in Kenya. The Vegetarian Curry dish is a very versatile recipe as you can use an assortment of ingredients.

For this recipe, Zee used kidney beans and cassava. Cassava is grown for its enlarged starch-filled roots, which contains a high concentration of starch. Cassava is used much like potato.

Click on link below for Ingredients and Cooking Instructions.

continue reading "Indian Vegetarian Curry"