I am sorry for the lack of action on my blog, I was so sick most of August, blame on the weather. However it’s getting warmer and I am happy. It will be 27oC this weekend and I can’t wait to get out there playing under the sun. Spring is definitely here. I am happy to bid adieu to winter.
The flowers in our garden are in blossom, the veggies patches are calling for spring crops. I am feeling better now and can’t wait to the weekend to start on our veggies garden. There will be dishes cooked from home-grown produces. I am already excited just thinking about that.
Do you have a little veggies patch, do you grow your own vegatables? If you haven’t tried, do it, you will be addicted. At the moment we are having mint, Vietnamese mint, plenty of chillies, parsley, peach, plums, lemons, cherry, apricot, kaffir- lime, endive… My little Apple Seed loves being in the garden, I’ve promised her we will be gardening in pijamas and pink boots and she’s super-excited because she’s going through ” boots-phrase” at the moment.
Happy gardening, please share your gardening stories!
I love avocado. If I have to pick a fruit to create a meal base on it, I will pick avocado straight away. From appertizer to dessert, all with avocados and keep the cooking to the minimum, I will go avocado, yes!
Not only tastes good, avocado has the best source of vitamin E compared to other fruits and its fat help to lower cholesterol lever. The extract from avocado helps to prevent ” breast cancer” and ” prostate cancer ” as well. So here we go, consume as much avocado as you can.
Living in Ha Noi- the Northern part of Vietnam- where we have 4 seasons, I didn’t have a chance to eat avocado until I was 7 years old. When my Mum took me and my little brother to visit our grandparents in Highland of Vietnam, I was introduced to this tropical fruit and loved it straight away. Even better, the avocado was from my grandparents’ garden. Our grandfather loves gardening, he planted so many different fruit trees as well as lovely roses and jasmines. He showed me some very simple ways to eat avocado from eating the fruit by itself to spinkle with brown sugar. I loved it. Then came the avocado smoothie: avocado flesh blended with condensed milk, I didn’t look back. I kept eating avocado smoothie EVERYDAY during our visit and took so much back to Ha Noi. I even planted the seed with hope I would have an avocado tree in our garden with such cold climate. Sadly, the tree died after a storm when it was 3 years old, was bearing fruit for the first time!
Try this avocado smoothie and tell me what do you think. Silky smooth, creamy, yummy and healthy, and only takes under 5 minutes to make… Am I right?
Ingredients:
- 2 avocados
- 150ml of milk
- 2 tablespoon of condensed milk
Method: remove avocados’ skin and seed. Combine with milk and condensed milk in a blender and blend until smooth. Serve 2!
Enjoy!
99% of Vietnamese meals have soup (Canh). We pour Canh over steamed rice, eat them along the meal. Canh is not an entree. Normally Canh consists of vegetables cooked with broth of prawn or chicken, pork spare -ribs, crabs. Canh can be eaten with steamed rice without a main dish. I remember growing up, woke up from a day nap feeling hungry, went searching for food and often ended up having left over steamed rice with Canh from lunch, felt very satisfied!
Winter melon ( bí đao) has a mild-sweet taste often used in soup or in making candy. It has the anti-inflammatory agent which helps clearing the “heat” inside your body. Winter melon is a wonderful natural source to improve skin condition. I have seen my auntie applied it to her face and the result was amazing. She steamed the winter melon , then mashed them up, mixed with milk and wheat to make the face mask. She kept a jar in the fridge and used every 3 days, I noticed the change instantly.
Dried shrimps are shrimps which were sun-dried until sunken to almost half size. It has the wonderful sea flavour with a very pretty pink color. Size of dried shrimps can be vary from tiny like a toothpick to little finger. People from the Southern part of Vietnam eat dried shrimps as snack during Tết ( Lunar New Year) with pickled onion. The saltiness of the shrimps married so well with the sweet and sour, crunchy of the pickled onion. I will have a seperate entry on this soon!
Ingredient for the soup ( not face mask 
)
- One winter melon ( around 600gr) : peeled then chopped into bite size
- 50gr dried shrimps: soaked in warm water for 10′ then drained well
- 2 shallots, sliced
- spring onions, corianders: chopped
- fish sauce, black peppers
- Chicken stock: 1l or enough to cover the winter melon
Method:
Lightly pound shrimps in the motar with the shallot. Add chicken stock to the saucepan and bring to boil, then add shimp and shallot, skim off and impurity and simmer for about 10′ or until the shrimps are tender. Add wintermelon and cook for another 5′ or until turned translucent, add fish sauce to taste,. Remove from the heat and add spring onions and coriander and black pepper( optional) Served hot!
Enjoy !
One thing I love and am trying to make it as one of the unwritten rules of ours is we need to sit down and have dinner together everyday! You don’t need to cook up a storm everynight to strengthen the love, just something quick and easy but still tasty will do. This prawn dish is super easy and fast to cook. It goes really well with steamed rice and steamed veggies which are quick to make as well. The prawns smell amazing from the combination of fresh all the fresh herbs, especially from the kaffir lime or lemon leaves. It will get the conversation started in no time and don’t blame me if you eat more than you intended to!
Ingredients:
- Prawn meat (already defosted and drained) or whole prawns with shell intact: 300gr
- Kaffirs lime leave/ or just lemon leave: 2-3, coarsly chopped
- Ginger: 3 slices, finely sliced or chopped
- Garlic: 2 gloves, chopped
- 1 shallot chopped
- 1 bird eye chilli chopped ( you can omit this if you can’t tolerate the heat or change to a milder one)
- Fish sauce: 1tables spoon ( or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1teaspoon sugar
- Cooking oil
Method:
Heat up the frying pan over medium-high heat. Add oil then half of garlic, ginger, shallot and chilli, stir for 1 minute or until fragant. Add prawn, cook for 2′ or until turend opaque then add fish sauce, sugar and the rest of chilli, garlic, ginger, shallot and kaffir lime/lemon leaves and lemon juice. Stir until the prawn is completely cook, all the juices are reduced and the prawns have a caramel color coat. Remove from heat. Served with steamed rice
Enjoy !
For a long time I know that I love cooking and photography. I kept doing them seperately until recently discover the world of blogging and food photography. Being a first time Mum and now working full time, my day is very hectic. I am happy with what I’ve got, a beautiful daughter, a wonderful and supportive husband, incrediblely generous and kind extended family from both sides of us, great friends. But, somehow I feel I’m missing something, there must be a puzzle missing somewhere I need to find to make everything in my life connected. I need to do something FOR ME. Food blogging, foodography, lots of writing, just perfect, just what I need !
This blog will be mostly about Vietnamese food, the food of my root, where I come from. This is also a present for my daughter A., hopefully she will grow up loves cooking and appreaciates good food and treasure every chance she can cook for people she loves, as much as I do.
Thank you for reading and I hope this blog will be a place where you can find lots of easy and simple Vietnamese food recipes to create at home.
Cooking is so much fun, let’s hop on this ride with me and have funs together!
H.
