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new year resolutions

Eat Dinner at Lunch…

February 15, 2021 By Eleanor Hoh Leave a Comment

Here’s a Chinese New Year Resolution you might consider…eating your main meal at lunch, and eat lighter at night!

This makes total sense and has so many positive health benefits from everything I’ve read. No matter what diet you’re on, you could benefit from eating your main meal at lunch.

As they say, Eat like a King for breakfast, a prince at lunch and pauper for dinner. Another says, Big Lunch, Small Dinner Plan.

1. Eating the main meal during lunch gives us more time to digest instead of going to bed with a full tummy.

2. For a blogger like myself, it gives me more time to videotape.

3. Lunchtime provides more natural light to videotape.

4. I’m not rushing home from my evening walk and feeling pressure with time constraints to prep and cook.

Anyone doing this? Share in comments if this swap works out better for your digestion or other reason?

Ha, ha, we’ve had pescatarian for last 3 days, not intentionally but just happened.

The usual stir fry process: hot wok, add oil (avocado or grape seed), add garlic & ginger. Cook vegetables first, take out, then use same steps for protein.

Vegetables were Baby Yu Choy or Choy Sum, the name I grew up calling them. Had some snow pea tips and cubed a baby Bella. This is the size between a bell pepper and mini sweet pepper.

Wild caught shrimp were so delicious and tasted of the ocean vs farm raised, what a difference.

Salmon skin came out juicy, golden and crispy, yay. Both were fried in my cast iron wok and Iwatani gas stove setup with just a sprinkle of Celtic sea salt. If you want crispy anything, dry off well with paper towels before frying.

I’ll keep you posted of our results.

Filed Under: blog, Diets, dinners, new year resolutions, seafood Tagged With: diet ideas, eat dinner at lunch, healthy habits, main meal at lunch, new year resolution

Year of Snake, Feasts

February 23, 2013 By Eleanor Hoh 5 Comments

Year of the Snake is working out so well for me that I’m not going to listen to its forecast, you can read it here!  Two Chinese New Year Feasts later, I’m happy with how well they turned out. The best secret I’ll share is to have an assistant prep everything day before and stick with same menu for both Feasts so there are no surprises!  Another secret is to rope your friends in to help and voila, you have a FEAST!  This Sunday, February 24 is the end of the 2 week Chinese New Year celebrations. My New Year resolution to sleep earlier is not going so well, any tips?
Kung Hei Fat Choy everyone, share with us your favorite Chinese New Year dish or tradition you look forward to every year!
Here are Tips that will make your Chinese New Year Feast memorable…
Menu
Work your menu so there is not much ‘cooking’.  Purchase as many precooked meats as possible because those take the most effort.  Do a stir fry dish, a steamed dish, a stew. Get the picture? Keep it SIMPLE. Many dishes or are symbols of money, wealth, health and good luck or sound like it.
Stir fry your veggies ahead but undercook them and just warm through last minute and add your seasonings. I have a wonderful double steamer (great gift from my sister) so I could steam the corvina which was a life saver!
Guest Lists
Hone your guest lists (I so wanted to fit more friends in, and you will get a chance one of these years) I’ve always warned my friends they may get rotated so new friends can experience Chinese New Year at my home.  It was a nice mix of old and new friends which made the conversations quite interesting!
Cleaning
Hire a cleaning lady, it’s so worth it, it takes the stress away completely.  It’s too much to clean, decorate and cook.  Tradition says not to sweep on Chinese New Year day cause you’ll sweep away the good luck.  There are a lot more traditions on what’s lucky or not here.
I had to get everything done BEFORE New Year’s Day, so it was a perfect incentive to clear out my apartment.
Decorating
Buy potted orchids and sprays if you can find them!  They instantly give your space an Asian look and so stylish.  Have lots of red, yellow and gold.  Here’s more on how to decorate a festive table setting.
Redecorating our apartment in time for the Chinese New Year went like clock work and I’m thrilled with the results but I’m exhausted. I’ve mixed new furniture with an old Chinese camphor wood chest my mom gave me and I think it looks spiffy together.
So here’s what I served, it was miraculous that I ended up with 13 total in each party, whew because the no.4 is actually unlucky, sounds too close to ‘death’.

Appetizers:
Sesame noodles with cucumber and carrot garnish, Crispy grilled wontons with 3 dips and Cucumber pickles.
These are always a big hit, all carbs but everyone enjoys them!

Second course:
Steamed Corvina with ginger and scallions
Stir fried Chinese Broccoli

Third course:
Buddha’s Delight: snow peas, mini sweet peppers, wood ear mushrooms, tofu.
Roast Duck, Soy sauce chicken, Char Siu
(store bought roast meats arranged on large platters)
Pork stew with Chinese mushrooms served in clay pot it was cooked in. Didn’t manage to get photo, boo!
(This dish got cut in second round cause my sister thought I had too much food!  The truth is, she wanted to eat the leftovers.)

Dessert:
Chinese cakes all store bought: melon pastry, coconut tart, almond cookies
Lacquer box:
Coconut chunks, candied lotus seeds, licorice plums, fortune cookies.
I forgot to serve Cara Cara oranges and Asian pears which I specifically bought for this dinner!
Drinks:
Fiji Water, wines, Tiger beer, Tsing Tao

L to R: Dining table setup was tight squeeze, I made everyone sit with someone they didn’t come with.
I love those Indonesian masks my hubby’s sister gave us.
Gift bags under console were not so obvious and I forgot to give them to some friends, oops.

Oh, and I received many lovely gifts, lots of teas for some reason.

I was so touched with Mary’s lovely gift basket full of exotic fruits from her own garden, guava, pomegranate & star fruit (carambola), also she dried carambola and kale with sesame seeds, they were delish, comes in handy and goes with everything!  Mary also made “lean go”, a very traditional Chinese New Year Cake that took 4 hours to make and she steamed in her cast iron wok! Can’t believe she forgot to take a photo!

Chopsticks galore! Did my friends really have to use SO many?

Some behind the scene shot my friend, Irene took of me cooking, notice double steamer on left and on right, my wok and gas stove setup ontop of electric coil cooktop.

Best part of Feasts, I get to use leftovers in many creative ways, you can see them on Instagram where I post daily.

Filed Under: blog, Chinese New Year, new year resolutions, Year of Snake Tagged With: Chinese New Year, Feast, tradition

5 Tips to Jumpstart Your New Year Resolutions

January 18, 2013 By Eleanor Hoh 2 Comments

Happy New Year! Every year, we start with a clean slate to stay slim and trim.  These 5 Tips to Jumpstart Your New Year Resolutions will help you whether you want a healthy approach to dieting or just easy ways to cook up fast tasty weeknight dinners!

Wok Tortilla Omelet

Here’s how to do it…
Shake up your routine so you never know what to expect and you won’t get bored!  Above all, treat your dinner as if it’s the last meal you’ll ever have on a desert island! What would you want them to be? A few ingredients and you can’t go wrong.

Chuck out using recipes this year and try a new way to tackle weeknight dinners that will make you a Star or a “Wok Star” if you have my Kit! Even if you don’t have a wok, try frying in a skillet or pot as long as it’s not non-stick!

  1. Buy just 2-3 different fresh & seasonal veggies and 2 kinds of protein on a Sunday. Buying a week’s worth is overwhelming plus makes your trip longer & stressful. I can be in and out of store in 15 minutes or less.
  2. Make ingredients work in a variety of ways: stir fry one dinner, soup for another, stew for yet another, par boil & have with salad dressing, steam.
  3. Save time by cooking up a week’s worth of quinoa instead of starchy rice/pasta and notice your energy soar. To prevent spoilage, store quinoa in containers and freeze, take out night before.
  4. Stock 5 basic seasonings that instantly make your cooking taste GOOD!  Wok Stars use these same seasonings in Hispanic, Italian, Korean, Spanish. I call it TSPC: tamari (Japanese soy sauce, get San-J Intl. without MSG and gluten free), sherry (get medium drinking not cooking sherry), pepper (white pepper to change it up), cornstarch (for marinading your protein and thicken sauces)and of course, chili sauce (Huy Fong garlic chili sauce or sambal olek.) I used these seasonings in salad dressing as well.
  5. Stock these fresh ingredients: scallions, cilantro, fresh limes, garlic, ginger. Other goodies to have on hand: Miso paste, dried shitake or oyster mushrooms.

I’m working on more Tips and Techniques, so subscribe to my free newsletter in right side bar to get the latest updates!

I’ll leave you with a useful post, “How do I come up with a dish?”  I think once you get this, you’ll be on your way to cooking without recipes, yay!

5 Minute Wonder Soup

 
Miso Soup and Salad

Quinoa salad

Steam Chinese Meatloaf in your Wok

Par boil your rappini in your wok!

Dried oyster mushrooms are handy to have around!

Marinade protein like shrimp with TSPC!

Filed Under: blog, new year resolutions, Tips Tagged With: "New Year Resolutions", diet, healthy, Techniques, tips, weeknightdinner

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