Hot Pot... Not

I found myself wanting very much to eat nabe, Japanese for hot pot, after reading chika-san's post on the Japanese winter quintessential. So we don't have winter here in Singapore, but the recent monsoon has made it somehow conducive for some hot pot action.

You would have realised that the photo doesn't show a pot. Of course, it would have been an actual hot pot if I did have a proper pot. But I didn't. Or rather, I didn't have one for a single portion. So I cooked everything in a normal over-the-stove pot and served it in a bowl. So, perhaps you would prefer to call it udon with soup.

I'm not posting the method (yet again), only because it just involves heating up some ingredients and water in a pot. I used ingredients that I had in my fridge; Napa cabbage, eryngii and buna-shimeiji mushrooms, tofu and cheated with frozen store-bought meatballs. Instead of cooking everything at the same time as per a usual nabe, I opted to cook the stalks from the cabbage first. Since I wasn't really going to eat it hot-pot style, I wanted to have the stalks soften before adding the rest of the ingredients that didn't require long cooking times. The cabbage also helped sweeten the soup which I seasoned with some light soy sauce and a little sugar and guess what, the individual scallop snacks (again). My sister, who cannot stand mushrooms, said they gave the soup "undertones" which I was more than happy to have.

I had my "nabe" with udon, sprinkled with negi (spring onions) and lots of chilli powder. I think rice would also make a nice carbohydrate, almost like a "porridge". But well, I'm more a noodle person but that's just me.

I wasn't a very much of a soup person until I my Japan trip, just like how I began going back to rice. I liked, and still do, prefer stronger flavours, favouring fried noodles or dry versions with lots of sauce over soup versions. But I've since become more receptive of soup if it was well-flavoured. When I was busy trying to squeeze the food in an aesthetically-pleasing manner into my really small bowl, my sister actually noted that it looked too "bland" for my taste, besides the fact that the bowl was too small. Well, it's nice to have a change sometimes, right?

今日の弁当

今日の弁当, originally uploaded by Ms_evinrude.

今日の弁当

今日の弁当, originally uploaded by Ms_evinrude.

サツマイモご飯に小豆を入れてみたかった
そして、ご飯がお粥になった　（笑）

小豆がずっと軟らかくならなかったので
しかったないね～
でも、意外に美味しかった…

今日の弁当

今日の弁当, originally uploaded by Ms_evinrude.

Roasted Vegetables

I love vegetables. I find them much more convenient to cook, especially for a 1-person meal and with so many different types of flavours: sweet, sour, bitter, peppery, fresh... I guess I could probably do without meat for a day, but definitely have to have my vegetables.

I found myself craving for roasted vegetables the other day and whipped up a batch. Although very simple and quick, I really like how flavourful the vegetables become from roasting in just a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Warm, wholesome and hearty. I sometimes mix a simple dressing of red wine vinegar, wholegrain mustard and something sweet like strawberry jam, seasoned with salt and pepper to eat as a warm salad, but it's just additional and could definitely be done without.

No recipe, but hey, just drizzle cut vegetables with some olive oil and sprinkle with cracked black pepper and some sea salt. Roast in the oven at 220 degC until the vegetables are tender. I used a mixture of pumpkin, potatoes, carrots and onions cut into wedges. Sweet potatoes would be great too. I also recently discovered one of the most delicious vegetable when roasted: garlic! I never knew the humble garlic clove could develop so much sweetness and flavour with just 20 minutes in the oven. I was skeptical until I tried it for myself and it was so good! I didn't think my friends believed me either until I decided to roast whole heads of garlic over the grill for a recent barbeque to make my own garlic bread.