Quay Po Cooks: planned-over

Showing posts with label planned-over. Show all posts

Thursday, May 10, 2012

When life hands you leftovers

In end of March, one of my son's friend, also a local musician collapsed during a performance due to brain haemorrhage. He is only 30 years old and he did not have any medical insurance.

He went under a surgery and the Doctor said the surgery was successful and he is in induced coma and will take about three weeks to heal. Until now, he is still in a coma and his hospital bill is running causing much financial burden to his aged parents. Local musicians had been organising gigs to raise funds to help out and if you are interested to know more please go to his facebook. If any of you wish to do a little donation or wish to spread the words by blogging or tweeting, all the details are there. I am sure Alda's parents will be VERY grateful for your kindness.

Then, two weeks ago I woke up to a bad news from one of my ex school mates. She told me her brother's life was ended abruptly by some robbers because of a serious head injury. The robbers hit his head with their helmets before robbing him. It always break my heart to hear of anyone lose a love one. I know how it feels and I know the pain.
A word of caution, please be alert when you are out and about. This can happen to anyone of us

Life had handed these two families lemons. It is so sad. I know what to do when life hands me leftovers but I am not sure if I know what to do if they are lemons. I came across this website that has so many suggestions on what to do when life hands you lemons and it was a fun read. I thought it is worth sharing with my friend and hope it will cheer her up. I know this will give her a chuckle and brighten up her day. Hope it will also put a smile on your face.

Okay, so now at least if life hands me lemons, I will have some ideas what to do with them. But there are other things life presents us with that could use our best thoughtful approach. Yes... I am talking about leftovers. You know, if we do nothing, they just sit there and grow a funny blue and green garden of their own. Unless you LIKE alien life in your fridge, you better be ready to do something with them. A few evenings ago. I turned them into a brand new dish, even though the "leftovers" were the ingredients. With a little creativity, I invented a new dish. I had some leftover garlic and butter sautéed zucchini and mushrooms. I used a piece of ciabatta bread, halved it and applied a little mayonnaise on each side. Then, I poached an egg (not very nice done though) and used the leftovers, some sliced tomato and lettuce, and constructed a sandwich for lunch. It was a scrumptious meal. So, next time you have leftovers, don’t throw them away.

A fresh new meal made with leftover sauteed veggies

I have never been successful poaching an egg (you can see that in the pucture. I search the web for methods and gave exoerimented with a few. Finally, I found an excellent way to do it right from the blog "Martha meets Lucy" Here are the instructions:

1: You need a nonstick pan with a lid that fits. Preheat it on medium heat.

2: Add a teaspoon or so of bacon fat or other fat that you have at home. However, the egg will be more tasty if you use bacon fat.

3: Carefully crack an egg or eggs into the pan ensuring that the yolk is/are not broken. You will see the bottom part of the white start to turn white immediately and you know you are on the right track.

4: Add 1 tablespoon full of water to the pan and cover. The water will create steam to cook the top of the egg/eggs.

5: Let the egg/eggs cook with the lid on for 30 seconds to 1 minute. When you see a whitish think layer white formed on the yolk, the white white is completely set, you have to remove the egg from the pan and serve.

Note: The egg in the above photos was not poached with this method, I did not know how. I did not take a photo of the ones I poached with the method I shared above but I can assure you this method works.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.