What we ate this week:

Dinners:

(My Mum’s Birthday):

First day back and we are already cooking in the kitchen. Despite our jetlag, we were able to pull off a meal fit for our mum’s birthday. We made gluten free vegan Korean Chili Paste (Gochujang) and homemade Low sugar Beet Ketchup.
Using our INCREDIBLE homemade gochujang (I could seriously lick this stuff off the spoon) we made Braised Korean Chicken and served it over crispy corn cakes instead of regular rice. We served it with:

• Baked Sweet potato fries (using orange and purple) paired with Beet ketchup (nightshade free)
• Cauli-broccoli egg fried rice
• Japanese Salty pickles (unfortunately this didn’t turn out so good)

Sunday Dinners are usually very special – because it is prepared by my grandpa:
For dinner we had:

• Freshly steamed fish
• Leftover steamed chicken from chicken congee (rice porridge);
• Mixed veg stir-fry 
• Handmade scallion pancakes (He uses leftover dumpling wrapper dough and rolls it out, then fills it ups with leftover dumpling filling. It goes straight into a pan to fry until golden. Genius right? Our scallion pancakes almost always has pork because it adds way more flavor than scallions alone!)

My cousin, aunt and uncle were leaving to Perth, Australia so we had them over for dinner on Wednesday evening. We had:

1. My favorite soy braised pig trotters, chicken wings and eggs with aromatic spices. A classic Chiuchow dish passed down from my grandmother! (Check out our recipe for Gluten Free Soy Braised Chicken here).
2. Deep fried fish with our leftover beet ketchup. Everyone raved about the beet ketchup again. I guess we need to post the recipe soon huh?
3. Stirfried Chayote with dried shrimp 

Final Dinner before we head to Singapore Zoe and I decided to test out a few recipes!

• Lemongrass chicken stirfry with mint and basil
• Lemongrass, Basil Shrimp (We wanted to make this healthier so we used coconut sugar instead. The key to getting it extra yummy? Toss this in fresh mint and basil!)
• Lettuce, cucumber, carrots (for lettuce wraps)
• Nouc cham sauce
• Tomato seafood soup. A great detox soup with lots of vegetables, tofu and seafood that is amazing for weight loss, skin and digestion. This was a recipe given to us by my dad’s nutritionist!

Breakfast:

Breakfast is usually simple. I’m kinda a laid-back morning sort of gal. I typically go for some eggs and vegetables. If I’m really hungry I’ll add some purple sweet potatoes, because everyone knows they taste better than orange sweet potatoes.

(Below sunny side up egg, celery sticks, tomatoes & apple cider vinegar-lemon detox drink).

Lunch:

For lunch, we also like to go light since dinner is usually our largest meal.

We had a random stirfry that involved lots of leftovers: handmade fishballs, mushrooms, sugar snap peas and dried shrimp, homemade ginger tea. I know it doesn’t necessarily sound the tastiest but seriously we get our fishballs freshly made from a well-known store. It costs over HKD$100 (USD $12.8) just to get a box!

When the weekend rolls by my parents like to take things up a notch. We usually go out for a good meal. I was so full I literally felt like I was going to die. We ended up going to a essentrics class – a type of yoga-ballet-pilates-physio inspired exercise routine that is great for those recovering from injuries. It was my first time and I quite enjoyed it. It is amazing how much you can sweat from that class despite how little I actually moved. I definitely am going to recommend my dad to go for his lower back pains!

We grabbed a drink on the way out of class. I needed something refreshing anyways. This drink has cucumber, parsley, green apple, spinach, lime ginger – all ingredients great for the gut and for detox. 

I found this fantastic recipe online on steaming fish in the oven. I don’t have a steamer back in the States so this recipe is definitely something I needed to try. This is basically fish “en papillate” but Chinese style.
We used boneless fish fillets and topped it with ginger, scallions and chili with a drizzle of soy sauce + green veg. This is our “ginger-soy” fish en papillote. It was soft, flaky and just perfectly cooked!

I love being able to walk into the fridge and find leftovers all the time. It is one of the perks of being in a large family!

• Soy braised pig trotters
• Stirfried veg
• steamed purple sweet potato

Literally this plate features 3 of my fav foods in the world. I know pig trotters sounds so gross but it is seriously so so good for you. Low in fat and rich in collagen it is great for health and for your skin!

LOVE,

Zoe & Mia

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