Capsicum and Carrot Soup with Meatballs

Welcome to my new kitchen.

A home that we have been waiting for. We finally moved into our home around a week ago. Thankfully, and praise God that it went smoothly and we are slowly settling into our space. My favourite room(s) in the house would be our kitchen and bedroom. Kitchen, in particular feature my 1.5 oven, massive pigeon pair fridge and freezer and the ultimate.... a dish washing machine.

I am always a hand washing kinda gal, but this machine is totally a God-sent. I meant, we calculated that we saved over 30-45 mins a day by just having this aid. why we didn't have one of those earlier, I have no idea.. no wait, I do know... it is because we were on a total budget and couldn't bear the thought of spending more than what we needed to.

So much to do, so little time. As I write, I'm sitting our our dining table- would you believe we NEVER had a dining table? What a luxury right? By no means we are still pinching ourselves that we are savouring our little reward of a home from the years of thinking/saving/budgeting. It keep us grounded for sure. This home means we can actually have friends over, and family can actually stay with us (and no, it was really a space reason and not because we don't want you here!!). (just in case one of you are reading this! LOL). And a proper table to have dinner on.

These things count no? :)

It's full blown winter here now, and I find myself making more soups in our kitchen. The space helps, and having a fridge and freezer means I can properly cook in bulk and freeze. I love the our kitchen bench as it means I can spread it out as I bake or when I have multiple things going on at the same time. Take tonight for instance, I had soup simmering on the stove and a casserole cooking in the oven.

Yes. Someone told me there is never such a thing as too big a fridge and freezer. Do you agree?

The soup that I do want to tell you about today, is this heart warming capsicum and carrot soup with meatballs. Fresh vegetables blended together and simmered with a hint of chill. I love a good bite in my soup, so I decided that I could shape some pork meat balls to go with it.

I also found a very handy helper- my hubby is meticulous and actually did shape these meatballs for me. I would have just thrown it in the soup. He actually made it look pretty.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be slowly changing the focus of this writing space. Just to reflect where I am right now- 90% clean eating and 10% treats that I eat without guilt. Of course, there could be more treats than clean eating posts at times- no guarantee there. But I thought I could also share with you some of my lifestyle changes and hopefully, a few little projects around our home.

Change is exciting no? :)

Capsicum and Carrot Soup with Meatballs (serves 6)
1 kg of carrots peel and chopped
5-6 red capsicum
2 red onions chopped
1-2 tablespoon of garlic
4-5 chili padi
1 bunch of celery chopped
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
2 ltre of chicken stock

Meatballs
600 grams of pork mince
2 tablespoon of almond meal
1 egg
salt/pepper
2 tablespoon of crushed pistachios

greek yogurt to serve.

Marinate and mix pork mince. Set aside.

Saute onion, garlic and chill in a huge pot (or two pots if you are me) with tomato paste. Add in celery and cook till soft. Cook through other veges. Simmer with stock for around 10 minutes till cooked through. Cool and blitz it through hand blender or blender and return to pot. Meantime, shape meatballs and dropped into soup to cook.

Serve with a tablespoon of greek yogurt.

Our No Kitchen Dinner

Late last year and early this year, AR and I embarked on a project. No no, I don't mean babies. I mean our kitchen renovations.

Here are some of our before photos:

Love the avocado green?

We didn't like it one bit either.


Notice I didn't have a pantry? Dried food was stored in a basket and exposed to the big bad world.


 So what happened when we have NO kitchen to cook from?

Ah.. we used our handy bbq set!

 We also renovated our patio area a few months back and bought a bbq set to celebrate the event. Alas though, what we have is a 3 burner, hence slightly smaller than this one. Still, it has a wok burner which means I can actually do some stir frys. Grandma will be happy too-since she likes her gas cooking, while we still have no gas (only electric), this one will let her fry up all the sambal that she wants!


You are probably asking what is so hard about cooking a bbq dinner right? Well, AR threw me a challenge and said he wants a proper chinese meal. The 1 meat, veg and soup deal! HeLLO! I have no STOVE to boil soup in for hours to come.

So when in need, pull out your magic gun thermal pot.

Mum bought this for me when she realized in horror that I was losing my Cantonese roots- not boiling nutritious clean soup regularly enough. Since then, I have used this to cook curries, stews, soups, boiling it in the morning and then putting it in the magic thermal pot for a good hearty dinner at night. The best bit is it that it uses no electricity as the pot retains heat from when it is boiled.


So anyhow, using the bbq wok stove burner, I boiled chicken thighs (fat trimmed, boned in), carrots, corn, celery and tomato with some gozi berries. 4-5 hours later, AR has what he asked for. SOUP. I was proud to say, the soup was a winner. Sweet and hearty. Score 1.

The meat dish? That really got me. I guess I could do similar soya sauce chicken or perhaps some stir fry chicken with cashew nuts. But I had a sudden craving for steam dishes. In fact, I was thinking of making a similar dish like the one Singairishgirl made. One problem? How do I steam the meat? No way that was going to happen.. so I thought I will make a pork mince omelette instead.

BUT the amount of eggs was NOT proportional to the amount of meat I have. In fact, I had more pork mince than eggs. By that time, the pork was nearly fried up...So i dished it on to a metal plate, break a few eggs into it and pop it into the bbq to use it as an instant oven. To make it look slightly better, I err...sprinkled some pine nuts over it.

It was a tad dry but edible.  I have NO idea what I did to be honest.. it was just crazy messy cooking. Score 0.5

The veges were easy. Stir fry chinese veges with chili, garlic and oyster sauce. You can't go wrong right? Wrong! It was over cooked. Score 0!

Oh well, he asked and I delivered. Still, it was a semi decent dinner, as we sat outside our patio area, enjoying the breeze and a home bbq Chinese style dinner.

Holidays!

Woohoo! The holidays are upon us. While we celebrate this festiveness, rest assured I will be back soon with even more fabulous ideas and adventures. I will attempt to update periodically- good food galore! So come back to check.


Here is wishing everyone a  

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A FABULOUS NEW YEAR!

Baked Lamb Meat Balls with Couscous

The thing about having a long weekend is that it gives us a taste of what it feels like having those few days not being at work. Apart from the usual mundane chores, hubby managed to put up wooden venetians plus curtain rod and curtains up.

I thought we took BEFORE photos ages ago when we proudly tried to install beige curtains up and removed ugly green ones. Due to our computer crashing on the 24th of April (YES! Our wedding day!), we lost alot of data and photos despite backing it up (must have forgotten that file) hence the only ones I could find were the ones my mum took when she came over. Even that I only found one that has a photo of our curtains...

Yup.. a photo of me and dad during my parents' visit for my graduation.

And the now photos:
Interior look:



ah... Hubby said that since after the wedding, I have been itching to plan and do other things JUST to add on to my load of work to do. He was being sarcastic of course but in a nice way. Afterall, I had 3 weddings + a doctorate thesis to plan in 1.5 years. Well, right now, I have to say that work is enough to drive me crazy and cooking and home improvement is keeping my sanity in tact (plus alot of prayers of course).

Having said that, I am very proud of hubby as he took upon my crazy idea, even went with me to Ikea to pick these blinds up. AND despite the person saying it will only take less than 2 hrs (it took us 8!!!), it eventually did happen and we have pretty windows. Certainly add abit of warmth isnt it?

I'm also looking at adding some home ideas stuff on this blog- To add flavour (haha pun!!) but also to reflect our next stage of life.

Wait, I did not forget to cook! I was still in winter mode when I baked this but it was such a warm nice Sunday night meal to have. Add a glass of red and a good movie, life is meant to be enjoy isnt it?



Baked Lamb Meat Balls with Couscous (Serves 5-6)
500 grams of lamb mince
1 tub of ricotta cheese (around 250grams)
1 chopped red onion
1 tablespoon of corn flour
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
2-3 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce
salt and pepper
1 egg
1 cup of bread crumbs spiced


Tin of tomato (I had mine with oregano and basil)
1 cup of cheddar cheese

1 cup of couscous (cook to packet instructions)

Marinate lamb mince with ricotta cheese, cornflour, sauces, seasoning, egg and bread crumbs for around 30 minutes.

Pre heat oven 200C. Shape mince to meat balls and place in cassoroel dish. Bake for around 25 minutes. Remove from oven and pour tin tomatoes over it.Sprinkle with cheese and return to oven for around 5 minutes. Serve with couscous.