Creativity..

So, after the minestrone soup, I had a lot of leftover pieces of vegetables to use up. So entered.. Vietnamese food week! I made a crispy Vietnamese chicken dish - the majority of the preparation was making the marinade ( which involved boiling celery, carrots, fish sauce, among other ingredients); the chicken was then poached in this liquid and finally roasted topped with lime-fish-sauce-honey mixture. It was great, but I'm not sure it was worth the prep time; as similar tasting dishes (like Martha Stewart's Everyday Food recipe for lime-ginger-curry crisp chicken) take less time. Also tried some five-spice chicken, but I'm not sure if that one is worth posting either! However, this pickled raw carrot and daikon salad recipe (similar to the side that comes with fried cha gio at the Vietnamese restaurants) is really simple and tasty! I used regular white sugar instead of caster sugar.

This week, i've been experimenting with Indian food - I went to the grocery store today and decided to buy a few random things - including a huge bag of Basmati rice. Planning on making Chicken Tikka Masala today. I'll let yall know how it turns out. And I also plan on making the Basmati in the electric rice cooker :).

Now, on the subject of creativity, so recently someone in the household has had to be on a pureed-liquid diet for health issues, temporarily...or maybe weeks. I personally think that puree-ing normal table food to drink as a smoothie is kind of gross, so I've been trying to find real recipes for this diet. So far things have turned out well - yesterday made a cream of celery soup that is quite tasty, as well as pureed cauliflower (with heavy cream, butter, and nutmeg) - not bad, but i realize not that nutritious/filling either. Supplementing with Carnation Instant Breakfast, yogurt, milk, soymilk.. Today making some congee with preserved duck egg and salted duck egg. We'll see how that goes.

Oh, did I mention that roasting tomatoes is one of my favorite things to do now? I love the taste - how it really brings out the sweetness and aroma of the tomatoes. Love it. Can't buy canned tomato sauce for pasta anymore.