Quay Po Cooks: watermelon salad

Showing posts with label watermelon salad. Show all posts

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Eat right and be healthy

Last Tuesday, I attended a cooking demo that was featured as “Celebrating with Organics this Christmas Season”. It was held in The Pantry at Jaya Grocers, Empire Subang with Ozganics founder Anni Brownjohns. When I got the invitation from Chef Ryan, I extended the invitation to my friends but only Yen of "Eat Your Heart Out", Esther of "The Fuss Free Chef", Sonia of "Nasi Lemak Lover", Ping of "Ping's Pickings", Shannon of "Just as Delish" could join me because it was a working day for the others. We all enjoyed Anni's cooking demo and a delicious healthy 3 course lunch.

Like others, I used to think that organic food might be bland and tasteless. Nothing could be more mistaken as the food we saw and tasted from the Ozganics range of products was bright and tasty. Anni change my view of organic food.

She whipped up three dishes of gourmet quality. These were;

Thai Pumpkin Soup

Some of the ingredients used

The main ingredients for soup

Chef Ryan Khang assisting Anni in preparing the soup

Beautiful golden brown diced organic pumpkin

Chef Loke assistang in serving us the soup

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 tbs olive oil

1 brown onion, coarsely chopped

1.2 kg butternut pumpkin, peeled, seeded, diced

4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 jar OZGANICS Thai Red Curry Simmer sauce

squeeze of lime juice

Finely diced coriander for garnish

Method:

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion in oil, stirring for 5 mins or until golden. Add pumpkin and stir to coat and saute until slightly browing. Add stock and simmer for 20 mins or until pumpkin is soft. Use a hand blender to puree until smooth. Stir in Ozganics Thai Red Curry Simmer Sauce and add lime juice to taste. Garnish with some coriander and serve hot.

Moroccan Chicken with lemon and olives

Link to recipe: http://www.ozganics.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=41:morrocan-chicken-with-lemon-and-olives&catid=1&Itemid=51

Anni and Chef Ryan busy preparing the ingredients

It was served with quinoa

This dish goes very well with bread too and here are the loaf of bread that was made by Chef Ryan Khang, the head of the Nourish Team.

Multi-grain wheat bread by Chef Ryan

And

Watermelon and Feta salad

Anni showed us that it was easy and simple to eat right and be healthy with her Ozganics range of products that emphasize pure, organic ingredients and great tastes.

I believe working couples will find them especially convenient to get a healthy meal ready with no hassle after a hard days work. The above products are available at all Jaya Grocers outlets.

For those who wants to know more Ozganics range of products, you may want to visit http://www.ozganics.com.au. There are delicious recipes there as well.

If you are interested in attending the cooking demonstration and learn some healthy Christmas dishes from Anni, you may contact the Nourish team at 016-2001806 or via email at nourish.enquiry@gmail.com

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.