No-fuss dinners

Nowadays I am getting more adept in whipping up dinner in super fast time with any given ingredients I can find in the fridge. Actually, time spent on preparation and cutting of the ingredients is more than the time spent on cooking them. 

This was our dinner last night. I was determined to Steam Fish again and to emulate that sauce we like from the Chinese restaurants. My previous attempt was not so successful as the sauce ended up too sweet. This time was better but slightly too little for the chunky fish. Next was Snow Peas with Young Corn and Ham, all sliced into strips. I detected a faint "wok hei" which was what I wanted to create, it enhanced the taste of the crunchy veggies. Then there was Sauteed Mushrooms with Chopped Capsicum. I was craving for sauteed mushroom and I used White Button Mushroom. The Chicken Nuggets were frozen ones, just need to fry them. Easy peasy and kids love them.

Another night, we had these dishes. Stir-fry Long Beans with Dried Scallops as well as Fried Fish with loads of chopped garlic. The next dish was Rainbow Turnips. Well, I just anyhow name this dish as there were many ingredients used. *chuckle*  I was craving for a turnip dish. I cut the turnip into small cube pieces, together with prawns, pork, carrots, chinese mushrooms, all also into little pieces. One way of eating less meat is to have them as the complementary ingredient instead of the main. Here I have loads of turnips and carrots and mushrooms. The meat and prawns were added just for some sweetness and in smaller portions compared to the veggies. What I got was a very crunchy dish. We are soup advocates, so we usually have double boiled soups that are cooked for a long time. This was Chicken Herbal Soup. I usually removed the skin so that it will not be too oily.

Just this morning, my mom was blending chillis and onions to make chilli paste. The smell was so overpowering and spicy but nice. Notice she was using a traditional small chinese wok which is probably older than me. Normally we use the stick-handled flat-bottomed  pan instead of the wok. This antique wok, however, was given to Mom by her friend's mother (who was a fantastic cook), and it was made with real quality cast iron. What I found interesting was the camouflaged cover which came with it. Very old school.  Nostalgic. You can't find this type of wok anymore.