Well, if you don’t eat sardines, just substitute them with tuna, it will work just fine.

I use microwave cooking for the sardine filling, so it’s really easy and something you can slap on if you are rushing for time.

Ingredients (Serves 2 adults):

• 230 g canned sardines or tuna
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon tomato sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli sauce (optional if you don’t like it spicy)
• Ground pepper

Instructions:

Step 1:  I usually debone the sardines (although the bones can be eaten) and shred them with a fork into smaller pieces.  Set aside in a bowl.  If you hate the thought of it, just use canned tuna.  No bones to fret about.  LOL.

Step 2:  To cook the chopped onion, I place them in a microwave-safe bowl.  Add in a teaspoon of cooking oil and mix well with the onion bits.  Put it in the microwave oven and set it on HIGH cooking for 2 minutes.

Step 3:   Combine the sardine with the onion bits.  Add tomato sauce, chilli sauce, sugar and a dash of pepper.  Mix well.  Put it back in the microwave oven and cook it on HIGH setting for another 2 minutes.  Now the sardine filling is ready!

And look at this bread we just baked with a bread maker, doesn’t it look soft and fluffy?

If you are keen on the bread recipe, just let me know and I will post it separately.  For this sardine filling recipe, any type of bread will do.  I recommend wholemeal or wholegrain ones for their goodness.  You can also use croissants, pitas, baguettes, ciabattas, etc.

Step 4:  Now spread the sardine filling between two slices of bread.  This is how it looks when cut.  See the onion bits?

The reasons why I add onion to this recipe is to remove the “fishy” smell of sardines and to add some crunch to the filling.  Don’t worry about it tasting raw because after cooking in the microwave, it should be soft like you just saute-d it, but in a “lazy” way.  LOL.

Besides these sardine sandwiches, do add a side dish to your lunch box as well for a balanced meal.  A salad or slices of fruits will be a good choice.  And yes, this goes well with yogurt too!

Besides prawn fritters, prawn omelette, you can also make a prawn stir-fry for your lunchbox!  This is cooked in a blend of Asian sauces, and it has a slightly sweet taste which goes really well with the onions.

Ingredients (Serves 3 adults):

• 10 medium prawns
• 1 red onion, sliced
• Cooking oil

Ingredients for Asian dark sauce:

• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/3 teaspoon pepper
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons water

Instructions:

Step 1:  Wash the prawns, trim off the feelers and legs, but keep the shell intact.  Pat dry with a paper towel and set aside.

Step 2:  Put all the ingredients for the Asian dark sauce in a separate bowl.  Blend well.  It is easier to prepare this in advance.

Step 3:  Heat up a wok or pan with oil to fry the prawns.  When cooked, remove them and set aside on another paper towel to drain the oil.

Step 4:  Leave about 2 tablespoons of oil in the wok or pan for the stir-fry.  Add in onion slices.  Saute them till they are soft.

Step 5:  Transfer the prawns back in the wok or pan and add in the blended Asian dark sauce.  Stir-fry for 1-2 minutes till the sauces are absorbed and coated evenly on each prawn.  If you think the sauce is too thick, add in 1-2 tablespoons of water.  It’s now ready to serve.

I kept a portion for Hubby’s lunchbox.  How does it look?  Try it if you have the time!

It’s exterior looks like a large kiwi, with the fine hairs, but the interior comes as a cross between winter melons and zucchini.  To me, at least.  LOL.

It must be peeled before cooking and has a mild taste.  We usually cook it as a stir-fry dish or soup.  This recipe below is quite simple to follow and is a good variation to the usual broccoli, bok choy and cabbage stir-fry.

Ingredients (Serves 3 adults):

• Half a medium-sized hairy melon (or a small one)
• Half a small carrot
• 6-8 medium prawns, deshelled and deveined
• 1 teaspoon garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Dash of ground pepper
• 1 egg, beaten

Instructions:

Step 1:  Slice prawns into halves sideways.  Peel hairy melon and carrot.  Cut into strips about 2-inch long and set aside.  There are seeds inside which can be eaten, but if you do not like it, you can remove the seeds when cutting.

Step 2:  Heat up a wok or pan with cooking oil.  Add in the chopped garlic.

Step 3:  When garlic starts to brown, add in carrot strips (because carrots take longer to cook).  Stir fry for 1 minute.  Add in the prawns and hairy melon strips.  Stir-fry till carrot and hairy melon strips are soft.

Step 4:  Add sugar and salt for seasoning.  Stir-fry for another 1 minute.

Step 5:  Pour the beaten egg evenly on the vegetables and stir-fry to blend well.  Add a dash of ground pepper.  Stir-fry a few more times.  It’s ready to serve!

Because hairy melon is mild flavoured, it takes on the sweetness of the prawns and aroma of the egg very well.  I think children will enjoy it too.

As usual, I will keep a portion in my thermos food jar right after cooking to keep it warm as long as possible.  Hmm.  Does it look appetizing to you?

When I cook the soup version (which is quite similar) on another day, I will also post the recipe here to share.  Do stay around!

Unlike Chinese double-boiled soup which takes a long time to simmer, miso soup can be prepared in just 10-15 minutes and it’s so light that you can drink it anytime of the day.

Ingredients (Serves 3-4  adults):

• 3 tablespoons miso paste
• 3 cups water
• 150 g  soft tofu
• 100 g fresh enoki mushrooms
• Handful of dried kelp/ konbu (optional)

Instructions:

Step 1:  Fill stockpot with water.  Soak dried kelp in water for at least 1-2 hours to soften it.

Step 2:  Cut tofu into cubes.  Wash enoki mushrooms, remove the portion at the roots (about one inch) and separate them.  Cut enoki mushrooms into half length-wise.

Step 3:  Boil stockpot of water and kelp.  When the stock is boiling, transfer the tofu cubes and enoki mushrooms into the pot.

Step 4:  Cook for 1-2 minutes.  Add in miso paste.  Stir to dissolve it well.

Step 5:  Cook for another 2-3 minutes at lower heat.

There are different types of miso paste available in the market.  If you are vegetarian, just make sure you get one which is purely miso without any extra seafood flavouring.

Remember to transfer the soup while it is hot into a thermos food jar if you are bringing it for your lunch box.

Enjoy!

This is a no-frills recipe, and is very easy to follow.  If you like the aromatic blend of garlic and olive oil, you would probably enjoy the taste.  If you are cooking for your kids, you may want to add some sausages and ham to go along with the spaghetti in case they think it looks quite plain.

Instructions (Serves 3 adults):

• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons garlic, chopped finely
• 300 g spaghetti
• 3 tablespoons fresh or dried english parsley flakes
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• Juice from half a lemon
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  Boil water in a stockpot enough to cook the spaghetti.  When water boils, add a pinch of salt and drizzle a teaspoon of olive oil.

Step 2:  Put in the spaghetti and cook for about 7 to 8 minutes till al dente.  You can taste a strand of spaghetti to check on it.  If you prefer them softer, leave it for another minute or so.

Step 3:  Remove the cooked spaghetti and place them in a colander to drain of excess water.

Step 4:  Heat up the rest of the olive oil in a pan.  When oil is hot, add the chopped garlic.  Stir fry till garlic is fragrant.

Step 5:  Transfer the cooked spaghetti back into the pan.  Toss spaghetti with garlic till well blended.

Step 6:  Add lemon juice, salt, parsley flakes and ground black pepper.  Mix well.  Serve.

This is my simple and satisfying lunch.

Another all-in-one lunch box idea for the lazy you (and me).  I hope you like it!

Well, for these bread rolls, you probably have to make them the day before as it will take a few hours to complete.  But it is a very fun activity that you can involve your kids as well.  Allow them to design the bread rolls the way they like them to be and I sure they will look forward having their own masterpiece in their lunch box the next day!

Even me, the “old” kid, had so much fun.  My mum and I moulded the dough into different shapes just to see how it would turn out after baking.  I even created one “uniquely shaped” bread roll (see it below) specially for Hubby.

Ingredients (for sweet bread dough):

Part A

• 480 g bread flour
• 120 g plain flour
• 110 g sugar
• 10 g fine salt
• 20 g milk powder (can be substituted with bread flour)
• 4 teaspoons instant yeast

Part B

• 1 egg
• 300 ml cold water

Part C

• 60 g butter

Ingredients (filling for sweet bread roll)

• About 400 g of luncheon meat, cut into smaller pieces

Instructions:

Step 1:  Mix Part A ingredients in a mixing bowl till they are well blended.

Step 2:  Add Part B ingredients and knead to form a dough.

Step 3:  Add Part C butter and continue to knead until the dough looks smooth and elastic.  Cover dough with a clear film.  Let it prove for 50-60 minutes or until it doubles its size.

To check if the dough is ready, test by pressing a finger on it lightly.  If the dough does not sink but shows a clear finger print mark, you can proceed to the next stage of separating them into individual portions.

Step 4:  Divide the dough into 60 g portions.  Shape them into balls and leave them to rest for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, you can prepare the luncheon meat filling.

Step 5:  Now the fun begins!  You can make the bread roll according to your liking.  The easiest way is to wrap the luncheon meat in the dough completely, or you can elongate the dough and coil them around the luncheon meat.

See what I did for the first tray?  I made a round one, an oval one, a “pillow” shaped one, and one that resembled a croissant.

Step 6:  Brush the surface of each bread roll with a little egg wash (egg yolk+water) and bake at 190 deg Celcius for 12 minutes.

Does my first tray of sweet bread rolls with luncheon meat look good?

I can’t describe to you in the picture, but the smell of freshly baked bread is just heavenly!

Besides luncheon meat, you can also vary the fillings for the bread roll.  Think of tuna?  Ham?  Raisins?  It’s up to your family’s preference!

For lunch box meals, just pack these sweet bread rolls in a normal bento box with a salad or some fruits at the side.  It’s a lighter meal, and an interesting alternative to noodles or rice.

Well, we made about 17 sweet bread rolls in total for this batch.  And this is the “masterpiece” I mentioned above that I gave to Hubby.  Can you make out what it resembles?  (Clue:  We usually call it a pile of …)

We both had a good laugh and he really ate it for breakfast next morning.  LOL.

Hope you like this recipe and have fun making your own home-made bread roll!

But always going to the restaurants to get my fix is not going to be good for our pockets in the long run, so I am learning how to prepare them from my home.

For example, this meal below which serves four would cost us about US$40 – US$50 at a mid-range restaurant, but when we cook it ourselves, we can probably save two-thirds of what we would have spent.

For convenience, I have used pre-mix tempura flour that you can also get easily at supermarkets.  Other ingredients like furukake (Japanese rice seasoning) and bottled tempura sauce can also be bought readily.

Ingredients (Serves 4 adults):

• Cooking oil (for deep-frying of tempura)
• 4 cups of cooked Japanese short-grained rice
• 4 large shitake mushrooms, trimmed of caps and cut into halves
• 2-3 ladies’ fingers (okra), tail trimmed and cut slanted
• 1 small carrot, peeled and sliced
• 15-20 tiger prawns, de-shelled and de-veined
• 100 g tempura flour pre-mix
• Cold water (1 cup should be more than enough)
• 8 tablespoons tempura sauce
• 4 tablespoons furukake seasoning

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  Place the tempura flour pre-mix in a mixing bowl.  Add cold water (it must be cold!) a little at a time, and mix batter lightly till a moderately thin consistency is achieved.

Step 2:  Heat up enough cooking oil for deep-frying in a saucepan or wok.

Step 3:  Pat dry the prawns and vegetables with a kitchen paper towel before frying.

Step 4:  Test whether the oil is hot enough by dripping a drop of tempura batter.  If the batter comes up to the surface immediately, the oil is ready for frying.

Step 5:  Dip the vegetables, one by one in the batter and put them gently in the hot oil.  It is best to use a pair of long chopsticks or tongs to flip them to protect yourself from oil splatters.  The tempura should float on the surface when frying, coated with a layer of batter.  If the batter does not stick well, add a bit more tempura flour to make the batter thicker.  After the vegetables are done, continue with the prawns.

Step 6:  When the coated layer turns golden brown, remove the tempura and place them on a kitchen paper towel or rack to absorb excess oil.  This picture below shows part of what I have made.  How does it look?

Step 7:  To make tempura don, scoop a cup of pre-cooked Japanese steamed rice into a bowl.  Drizzle two tablespoons of tempura sauce on the rice.  Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of furukake seasoning in the centre.  Place the tempura on the bowl and serve while the tempura is hot and crispy.  Repeat for another bowl.

I kept a lunch box portion for Hubby, where I separated the rice and the tempura into two boxes. I also added a coleslaw side created from the left-over wasabi mayonnaise I made the day before.  Wasabi flavoured coleslaw taste awesome by the way!

The challenge about this lunch box is the tempura will go soft if it is not eaten hot.  But as long as you or the person you make the lunchbox for don’t mind, making this tempura rice lunchbox is a nice change to the menu.  And it is not too difficult at all.

I am glad I tried it!  How about you?

This baked fish fillet recipe is suitable for any type of white fish, although I would prefer boneless ones like these sutchi fillet that I have used.  Dory fish fillet is a great choice as well.

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  Marinate fish fillet with salt and ground white pepper.  Set it aside for half an hour before cooking.

Step 2:  Place fish fillet in an oven-proof dish lined with aluminium foil.

Step 3:  Drizzle lemon juice and olive oil over fish fillet.

Step 4:  Spread minced garlic on the surface.  Sprinkle mixed herbs and black pepper evenly over fish fillet.

Step 5:  Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius or 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Step 6:  Bake the fish for about 15 minutes or until the minced garlic turns brown.  Check if the fish is cooked with a fork.  If it flakes easily, it is ready.

Note:  Do pay attention while the fish is being baked as the baking time may differ slightly for your oven.  The thickness of the fish will also determine how long it takes to be cooked.

This recipe is simple, healthy, tasty and easy to make.  Boneless fish fillets are a good choice if you are preparing for your kid’s lunch box too.

I love it so much still that every time we cook this, I can finish two portions.  LOL.

I also found out that almost every kid who tried this dish liked it very much as well.  It is not only colorful, but it’s healthy, tasty and filling.  If you have kids who are fussy eaters, try cooking this once and see if they like it.  Perhaps, they will ask you to cook it again the next day!

Ingredients (Serves 4 to 5 adults):

• 1 medium carrot, diced into 1 cm cubes
• 2 regular sized potatoes, diced into 1 cm cubes
• About 170 g luncheon meat, diced into 1 cm cubes
• 1 small red onion, sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon dark soy sauce (optional)
• Ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
• 5 tablespoons cooking oil
• 3 tablespoons water

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  Heat up 4 tablespoons cooking oil in a fry pan.  Deep fry the potato cubes, carrot cubes and luncheon meat cubes respectively.  Remove and set aside after they are cooked.

Step 2:  Heat up 1 tablespoon cooking oil.  Add the minced garlic.  When it is turning golden brown, add in the red onion slices.  Stir-fry for 1 minute till onion slices are soft and starting to brown too.

Step 3:  Put in the deep fried potato, carrot and luncheon meat cubes prepared earlier.  Add 3 tablespoons water.

Step 4:  Add the sugar, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce (optional).  Stir-fry for another minute, ensuring the ingredients are blended nicely.

Step 5:  Add a dash of ground pepper.  Stir-fry a few more times to mix well.

This is how it looks after it is completed.

It’s a well-balanced lunchbox dish as it is made up of a meat, vegetable and potato combo.  I recommend you to eat it with plain white rice.  Yummy.

It is good enough for me as a one-dish meal, but with another vegetable dish, my lunch box will be perfect.

Sometimes, home-cooked comfort food taste best, don’t you agree?

PS:  I am infatuated with luncheon meat, so there will be more luncheon meat recipes to come.  Hehe.

Ingredients (Serves 4 adults):

• One medium sized broccoli (about 300 g), cut into smaller pieces
• One small carrot, sliced
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce (or similar)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
• Water for blanching

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  Heat up some water in the saucepan.

Step 2:  When it is boiling, add the olive oil and salt.  Thereafter, put in the sliced carrots and broccoli.

Step 3:  When both vegetables are cooked, take them out with a strainer to drain away any excess water.  Set aside in a salad bowl.

Step 4:  Add the oyster sauce and toss the vegetables till it is well mixed.

Step 5:  If you are preparing it for your lunch box, place the broccoli immediately in your thermos food jar to keep it warm.  You can also choose to store them in a microwave-safe container and reheat them at your workplace.

This method of cooking does without the need for stir-frying with a wok, so cleaning up is also a breeze, especially if you are rushing to work.

There are other vegetables that can be cooked this way too, like brussel sprouts, kailan, xiao bai chye, etc.

Remember to include more vegetables in your diet always!