The Soup Queen

This is a soup that I made one day while trying to clear up leftover vegetables in the fridge. I had half a carrot and some fresh wai san. So I made this soup which I think tastes infinitely better than plain old wai san with pork ribs.  Carrots in soups make soups taste a lot "sweeter".  For this soup, you will need: 1/2 carrot, cut into chunks Fresh wai san, peeled and sliced 2 dried red dates, pitted 300gm of blanched pork bones 1 liter water Bring water in a pot to boil and add in all the ingredients. Boil on high heat for 10 minutes before putting the lid on your pot. Reduce fire to a mere simmer. Simmer soup for 2 hours. Add salt to taste. You must let your soup "sit" and have the flavours develop once your soup is ready. I noticed that if I immediately serve the soup, it won't taste as good. Let it "sit" for 30 minutes or so before serving. The soup is flavourful and of course you must eat up the carro...

Each Sunday I try to find a new herbal recipe to test. I love my Sundays when I lounge at home, listening to the jazz channel and sipping homemade herbal tea while reading. Today I dug out some wolfberries or "kei chi" or goji berries from the fridge. I am usually running out of space in my fridge because all my herbs go into the fridge. In this tropical weather, herbs will either dry out or go mouldy if you keep them too long in the cabinets. One distinct way to know if your wolfberries are deteriorating is to see their bright red colour becoming a dull, dirty red. That's why you know your wolfberries can go into the compost bin! (Or maybe you can stick them into some soil and grow your own goji berry plants. I might try this though finding available space in my already thriving garden can be tough!) This packet of wolfberries is considered Super Grade because each wolfberry is larger than regular itty bitty ones you see in most pre-packed herbal soup packets. My r...

Whenever I see fresh wai san or shan yao or Chinese yam in the market, I'll buy some. As wai san can keep for a few weeks wrapped in paper in the fridge, it is a worthwhile buy. (And you know how I love making wai san soup and wai san congee ). Sometimes, I forget I have wai san sitting in my vegetable compartment and when I finally dig it out, it has gone all mouldy and icky. I am not too sure if I mentioned this but I compost all of my organic matter - from cooked stuff to fish bones and meat bones. A lot of people will only compost vegetable and fruit - I am not too sure why they think fish bones or meat bones or chicken bones won't compost. Maybe they fear the smell of rotting animal matter? As I've been composting using a 10-pot system taught by my friend Don for more than 2 years now, I can tell you that as long as you cover your waste matter with minimum 2 inches of soil, there will be no flies or maggots. Of course bones will not compost easily. It is afte...

First of all, so very sorry for a long hiatus from this blog. I have been extremely busy with my business and that left me very little time for blogging (and you know I have another blog, right?). The thing about business is, after sometime, you need to re-focus and re-strategize because we're no longer interested in what we were in interested in say 7 or 8 years ago. Our focus has changed. That's got a lot to do with experiencing everything that a business puts you through - both good and bad. Anyway. This blog will resume (I found out just this week that a blogger friend had closed her blog for good! Wow. That takes a lot of courage) and I will continue blogging. I am never at loss for topics - usually it is a lack of time! So let's see.... remember my pomegranate tree ? It's still fruiting with wild abandon. Its branches, puny as they look, are heavy with fruits and supporting the rosy orbs. I was really eager to taste the fruit but this is my first time...