Nourish with Five- Tomato and Bean Stew

1 December! I can smell Christmas in the air! There'll be lots of cooking, baking, eating and entertaining in the weeks to come, and I'll get so fat after all the Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year festivities! Holidays are so exciting with the promise of fun/ family/ food-filled days to come, and I think this is also a good time for me to launch a little project called, "Nourish with Five". This series of recipes will showcase some of the five-ingredient recipes that I make at home. I'll try to sneak some bakes under this category too, and hopefully, you guys will try some of these simple dishes and sweets during the holidays.

I decided to start this project because, as mentioned before, I have a five ingredients per dish guideline (not including the necessary oil and seasonings) when cooking. This is not to say that I never make a dish that requires more, but I go by this mantra 90% of the time. Streamlining the processes in cooking, and quoting Mr. Jamie Oliver, "stripping down recipes to their bare essentials", makes cooking more pleasurable, and saves me a lot of time. Perhaps some of you might think that using just five ingredients to create a tasty, satisfying and nourishing meal sounds too little, but I assure you, it's not.

Another decision I recently made, is to go vegetarian for all my meals except maybe dinner. I'll still be eating a limited amount of seafood, but for the most part, it'll be cheese, eggs, vegetables, fruit, carbs and the lot. I'm not doing this because I'm on some weight-loss program, or that I dislike the taste of chicken/ beef/ lamb/ pork/, etc. It's just the same reason why I've never taken shark's fin... I'm sick of the torture that animals have to go through for our pleasure. Yes, animals were initially meant for our consumption, and mankind supposedly has free reign over all livestock. But in biblical times, chickens weren't caged up so tightly that they trample over and kill one another, geese and ducks were not force-fed with metal tubes down their throats to abnormally fatten their livers, poultry weren't injected with hormones to force them to grow faster... and sadly, the list goes on. I'm not naively thinking that I have the power to change the world with my decisions, but I just can't live with myself supporting this cruelty anymore.

On a lighter note, here's a great tomato and bean recipe that is healthy, comforting, quick and easy to make and very economical. Fuzzy and I chose to eat it with some pan-fried barramundi (you could substitute for any white-fleshed fish) for lunch, and I'll have the left-overs with a toasted cheese sandwich tomorrow.

Tomato and Bean Stew

Ingredients:-

1 can of canellini beans, drained

1 can of diced tomatoes

3 stalks of celery, diced

1 big onion, diced

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

water/ vegetable stock

salt and pepper, and optional dried herbs for seasoning

Method:-

1) In a small pot, sautee onions in olive oil till translucent.

2) Add celery and fry till slightly tender.

3) Mix in drained beans, and tinned tomatoes.

4) Add enough water/vegetable stock to cover all the ingredients, and bring the stew to a boil before turning the heat down to a slow simmer. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and add dried herbs if you'd like.

5) Simmer for 1 hour.

6) Serve with fresh basil and a good glug of extra virgin olive oil. This makes a great dish on it's own with some crusty bread, or with some pan-fried fish/ chicken as a side.

Feeds two very hungry adults.

To the Clipper's Again

Dishevelled and shaggy before haircut.

Not very happy during.

Ta-da!!!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Fuzzy and I drink a lot of coffee. And what's worse than drinking a lot of coffee, is that I have this incurable need to munch on something sweet and sinful on the side, EVERYTIME I have my jolt of java. On many occasions, it's shortbread, butter cake, Belgium wafer cookies, or some dark chocolate. I've managed to justify this artery-clogging habit to myself, because I take my coffee straight black, and the sugar and cream that's missing in the coffee comes in the form of sweet nibbles on the side. Right?

These wholesome whole wheat chocolate chip cookies are the perfect nibbles with coffee. They are crisp on the outside and tender on the inside; not terribly sweet, rich with butter and dark, oozy chocolate. Using whole wheat flour also makes them feel like less of a sin. Just. After eating them, Fuzzy was a happy hubby, and Chubbs was a happy baby.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg

Ingredients:-

2 cups whole wheat flour (I use stone-ground, organic)

1 cup unbleached plain flour
1 ½ tsp. aluminium-free baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp salt
227g unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes (I used Tillamook)
3/4 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
227g/8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped into ¼- and ½-inch pieces (I used Lindt 70%)

Method:-

1) Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, and whisk to blend.

2) Put the butter and sugars in the bowl and whisk with hand-held whisk or stand-mixer until the butter and sugars are blended, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.

3) Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4) Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture to the bowl, and blend on low speed until the flour is just incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.

5) Add the chocolate, and mix until evenly combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and then use your hands to turn and gently massage the dough, making sure all the flour is absorbed.

6) Chill dough in fridge for one day before baking.

7) Next day, preheat oven to 180degreesC. Position racks in upper and lower third of oven. Use an ice-cream scoop to scoop each cookie, leaving about 3 inches between each cookie. If you, like me, don't have an ice-cream scoop, just roll similar-sized balls of dough in your hands instead. But you have to act fast because the dough goes runny easily.

8) Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the cookies are evenly browned. Transfer the cookies, still on parchment, to a rack to cool. Store in airtight container for up to a week (if they even last that long). After the first day, just slightly warm them up in a toaster oven before eating, to make them extra moreish.

Afternoon tea/ breakfast of champs.

My Son, the Streaker

Chubbs had a little accident over lunch, when he bit into a very juicy cherry tomato and it exploded all over his clothes. So I stripped him down and fed him with just a bib in place. He was plenty pleased at that point, because for as long as I can remember, he has loved to go around naked/ just with his diapers. Whenever I have to change his clothes in shopping malls/ parks, he'd take off running, and laughing, stealing as much time without clothes on as possible. He's a funny one.

Scratching his armpit while eating lunch. Extremely unhygienic :/

Very happy to be out of his high chair, so he could run around shouting, "No shirt!!!"

Evidence of another incident when he ran around gleefully, once his shirt came off.

The Best Birthday Present of All

Chubbs drew this for me. He said, "Birthday cake for Mommy!" I melted and hugged him for a few good minutes. No present in the world (this year) can trump this.

At the top right corner, it's the birthday cake itself, and the three squiggly tadpole-looking things in it are the candles. He explained that the other squiggly items near the bottom of the doodle board is a knife to cut the cake with, and spoons we need to eat with. This, to me, kicks Marc Chigall's ass.

Yet Another Year Older

I've haven't been into birthday celebrations recently because I don't like to be reminded that I'm inching towards the big 3-0! The past birthdays have been kept very simple with just dinner with the immediate family (if at all). But this year was strangely but refreshingly different. I had:-

1) Dinner with my dad, brother (my mum was ill), Fuzzy and Chubbs at CMPB- great wine, the yummiest mushroom and truffle oil pasta, crispy deep-fried chicken wings and huge desserts.

2) Dinner No. 2 (after dinner with my dad and brother) with girlfriends at P.S. Cafe-lots of laughs over drinks, a cheese platter, truffle fries and rich chocolate cake. What more can we ask for?

A very thoughtful gift from my gal, Shu; Nigella's newest cookbook! Woot!

Cheryl and I.

The girls thinking of what to order for dinner, at 10.30pm.

3) A lovely, quiet lunch and ice-cream by the river with just Fuzzy and Chubbs (literally, because we were the only ones in the restaurant).

Waiting for our food.

Pointing out to a boat.

Chubbs and Buzz checking out Christmas displays.

Ice-cream!!!

Then he moved on to the cone.

4) Lunch with Fuzzy and Chubbs at Chiharu- the best Japanese a la carte buffet in town. The sushi is outstanding.

5) Dinner with Fuzzy's family, plus cake-cutting at home. Chubbs was practising singing, "Happy Birthday to Mommy!" all day :)

Fuzzy very happily made sure that the many, many candles could be seen clearly.

Chuubs loves his Great-GrandAunts; playing with No. 5.

Hugging No. 4.

Caught licking off the cake knife.

It was a full, but lovely weekend of good eats and great company. Thank you everyone, for making this birthday a fabulous one.

Food Poisoning

Chubbs vomited five times last night. The first time was in his sleep, and he actually threw up his entire dinner all over his face and hair while lying face up. It wasn't a pretty sight. And through the mess, and him still puking, we had to get him to lie on his side as quickly as possible, so that he doesn't inhale any vomit. Kids have actually died from vomit getting into their lungs. We changed the sheets so he could lie back down to rest, and he puked again 5-min later. We repeated this sheet-changing "game" three more times over within the next hour or so, until we ran out of bedsheets. At the end of it, he was so exhausted and spent from throwing up, that he collapsed on the bed and passed out cold for the next few hours. Only to wake up again, and start retching. But his system was really empty by then, and he simply didn't have anything more to throw up.

He was feverish through the night, but we thought the worst was over. Until this morning. He had really severe diarrhea from the moment he woke to past mid-day. He complained of pain in his abdomen and demanded to, "See Dr. Chan now!" I told him that the earliest we could bring him to the pediatrician was tomorrow, he wouldn't have any of that and he repeated his request firmly. He was in great discomfort, to say the least. Partly because his bum was so sore from the diarrhea that he found it impossible to sit, and spent most of his day standing or squatting.

Despite being in pain, and completely fatigued from purging, he was still at least 70% of his chirpy self, and even humored us by trying on his new school uniform (to be used in January next year). I couldn't believe how adorable he looked in it :) There's my grown up baby!

Very sweaty, with hat.

Sans hat.