Category: Vegetarian

Homemade zucchini dip with melba toasts recipe.

Some of you might know that we embarked on a detox diet immediately after our holiday in Bangkok.

How could we not? As we waddled through the airport huffing and puffing at every step, we knew something had to be done. And that something would not involve things that once had heartbeats.

By the time we reached home, we were ready to crash….to fall into the deepest food coma but somehow, we managed to reach a mutual decision of going vegetarian and preferably fat-less for a week.

And then I woke up covered in beads of sweat after a rather unnerving dream of having an affair with a woman who liked to dress up as a man. Honestly, I do not want to know what that dream had meant.

Anyway, we started our detox week with apple + carrots slushies for lunch and the following recipe for dinner; zucchini dip with melba toasts.

# – Zucchini dip with melba toasts.

For the dip:

  • 1 zucchini, sliced
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  • A dash of salt
  • A dash of black pepper

For the melba toasts:

  • 3-4 slices of wholemeal bread
  • A rolling pin

# – First, heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pan then brown the garlic and zucchini slices.

# – When zucchinis are evenly browned, transfer them to a blender together with the garlic.

# – Add the lemon juice.

# – Followed by salt.

# – And black pepper. Blitz till content transforms into puree. The zucchini dip is now done. Set aside.

# – Now, cut the crusts off the wholemeal bread and then cut the bread into triangular shapes.

# – With a rolling pin, flatten the bread slices till quite thin.

# – Put them on a non-stick baking tray and stick in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees celcius for 20 minutes. Serve with the dip.

# – Zucchini dip with crispy melba toasts, DONE!

I wouldn’t recommend it as a main meal but it would make a delicious and light appetiser. It’s creamy, flavourful and yes, healthy!

We were hungry as hell by bedtime, but sometimes you just got to be an adult about it and not succumb to temptation of heading out to Mcdonald’s for some fried chickens.

The refreshing and delicious watermelon salad recipe.

I met my brother’s girlfriend for the first time last night. I made pasta with stuffed pork meatballs and watermelon salad for dinner, followed by lemon almond sandwich cookies for dessert. It was a nice dinner, that’s all I’m letting out :)

My first experience with watermelon salad was at a BBQ-Addicts party and it has become one of my favourite salads in the world. Unbeknownst to the folks at BBQ-Addicts, the other reason I love their parties is the watermelon salad! So this recipe was very much inspired by it.

I was a bit worried about it at first, because I’ve never made it before and it might turned out nasty. Then there was the hurdle of buying a watermelon. I’ve never bought a watermelon alone. I was SCARED T_T

I must have done something good though because as I was cluelessly checking out watermelons in Tesco, a total stranger started tapping on all the watermelons and suddenly, he pointed at one and told me in mandarin, “That’s a good one” and just nonchalantly walked away. Of course, I bought the one he pointed at and he was right, it was sweet and juicy!

Thank you watermelon angel!!

This recipe serves 4 and requires no cooking (yay!!!).

# – Watermelon salad.

The ingredients:

  • 1.5 kg of seedless watermelon (weight with rind on), rind discarded and cut into cubes
  • 100 grams of mature cheddar, cut into cubes (you can use feta cheese or goat’s cheese too!)
  • 15 black olives, sliced
  • 1 small red onion, sliced thinly
  • 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1 bunch of Italian parsley, roughly chopped

The dressing:

  • 100 ml of olive oil
  • 50 ml of balsamic vinegar
  • A dash of coarse sea salt

# – First, cut the watermelon flesh into cubes and dump into a large mixing bowl.

# – Then, throw in the sliced olives.

# – Followed by the thinly sliced red onion.

# – Okay, lets cut to the chase….throw in the parsley, cherry tomatoes as well as mature cheddar cubes!

# – In a measuring jug, pour in the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a dash of coarse sea salt. Whisk till combined. Dressing is now done.

# – Pour the dressing all over the salad.

# – Toss the salad…

# – Watermelon salad, DONE!

Thankfully, in spite of my first time making it, the salad turned out delicious! So much so, the BF was stealing salad from my plate!

I love this salad because it’s so refreshing and tasty! The crisp & juicy texture of the watermelon goes amazingly well with flavours of savoury cheese and olives. The dressing holds everything together as though they are meant to be.

Well, they are MEANT TO BE! I’ll be having dinner alone tonight and guess what I’m making :)

Simple and delicious spinach and egg bake.

This recipe is literally hot off the oven because I’ve just had it for dinner.

Since it’s so simple to make and so tasty (there she goes tooting her own horn, again), I’ve decided to blog it right now.

The BF is away attending some geeky event after work so I was all alone at dinner time. Instead of nuking some gazillion year old frozen casserole, I thought I’d make something from scratch just to soothe my separation anxiety.

# – Simple and delicious spinach and egg bake.

And nothing makes me more happy than gooey egg yolks. You can say that the entire idea of this dinner revolved around the egg yolks.

Also, I had a huge bunch of spinach I got from Tesco for RM0.30 that I had to use up. Yeap, you heard me, 30 Malaysian ringgit cents!!!!!! I love midnight knock-downs :D

The ingredients:

  • 150 grams of spinach leaves, cleaned
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon of parsley flakes or fresh finely chopped parsley
  • 3 tablespoons of whipping cream
  • Some salt
  • Some ground black pepper
  • 4 cherry tomatoes, halved

# – First, pour a bit of cooking oil onto a paper towel and wipe it all over an oven safe dish. You can use butter to grease if you want…I was just too lazy to handle butter :P

# – Then, lay the spinach leaves at the bottom of the dish.

# – Season the spinach with some salt.

# – Now, crack 3 eggs over the spinach. Ideally, the yolks should not burst.

# – Sprinkle parsley flakes or fresh chopped parsley all over.

# – Pour about 3 tablespoons of whipping cream. Try to avoid splashing onto the yolks.

# – Season with ground black pepper.

# – And finish it off with a sprinkling of salt.

# – Stick the dish into a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees celcius for 12-13 minutes. 15 minutes if you like the yolks to set, but seriously!??

# – While the dish is still very hot, lay the halved cherry tomatoes all over.

# – Spinach and egg bake, DONE! It was absolutely perfect with buttered toasts :D

Wilted spinach with gooey egg yolks and creamy egg whites interspersed with juicy cherry tomatoes. I don’t know how else to explain it. Absolutely blissful.

I could eat this everyday!!!!

(For the record, the BF separation anxiety thing is a joke)