Eat, Pray, Love: April Seasonal Food Story

April Seasonal Food Story

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Being a smart grocery shopper is never easy as you have to compare the prices between grocery stores, not to mention big supermarkets. But there is a tip: always go for seasonal fruits and vegetables because their price will be the cheapest at that season of the year. As for April, the seasonal fruits and vegetables are grapes, plums, lemons, pears, pumpkins, potatoes and eggplants. This will save you some time in researching about the seasonal fruits and vege.

And so, this week is about Eggplant, Plum, Potato and Pumpkin. Most of these ingredients can help to reduce risk of cancer and improve our skin tone! Why not have a try?

Day 1

Battered Seafood Marinara with Plum Sauce

Ingredients:

- Seafood marinara

- Plain flour

- Baking powder

- Milk

- Salt

- Fresh plum

- Red wine vinegar

- Dijon mustard

- Sugar

Methods:

1) Recipe for the batter here. Coat seafood marinara well with the batter before shallow or deep frying.

2) Plum sauce recipe: Core a plum and remove its skin. Cut it into small cubes. Put the plum and water together in a pan. Cook till the plum is soft and can be squashed. Water should not be put too much. Add in water if it is drying up. Add in 1-2 tablespoon of red wine vinegar and dijon mustard. Stir it to get the taste. If you prefer it to be sweeter, add some sugar.

3) Serve the seafood marinara together with the plum sauce.

Battered seafood marinara with plum sauce

Day 2

Baked Eggs with Grilled Eggplant

Ingredients:

- Egg

- Cherry tomato

- Greek yogurt

- Spinach or mesculin mix

- Feta cheese

- Eggplant

- Salt, pepper

- Extra virgin olive oil

- Thyme

Methods:

1) Put a layer of spinach or mesculin mix at the base of ramekins. Top it with greek yogurt. Break an egg onto the yogurt. Make sure that the yolk is in the middle of the ramekins. Add in cherry tomatoes and sprinkle with feta cheese. Bake in the oven for around 8-15 minutes or until the white is set.

2) Cut eggplant into slices. You can choose not to remove the skin. Sprinkle them with salt, pepper, thyme and extra virgin olive oil. Grill them in oven (180-200 degree Celcius) for around 20-30 minutes. The eggplant will appear to be soggy yet crusty at the side.

Baked eggs with grilled eggplants

Day 3

Stir fried Pork with Sweet Preserved Radish + Stir fried Pumpkin with Dry Scallop

Ingredients:

- Sweet preserved radish

- Pork or chicken

- Pumpkin

- Dry scallop or Dry shrimp

- Garlic

Methods:

1) Saute garlic until it is fragrant. Add in sweet preserved radish to stir fry. Then add in pork.

2) Saute garlic and dry scallop in a pan. Add in pumpkin and some water. Let the pumpkin to be cooked till soft. Add in some water if it seems to dry out.

3) Serve them with rice.

Note: My comfort food at home, perfect for the winter meal! Try to get sweet preserved radish rather than the salty one for this dish.

Stir fried pork with sweet preserved radish + Stir fried pumpkin with dry scallops

Day 4

Homemade Seafood Marinara and Eggplant Pizza

Ingredients:

- Plain flour

- Greek yogurt

- Eggplant

- Seafood marinara

- Mesculin mix

- Cheddar cheese

- Pasta sauce

Methods:

1) Pizza dough recipe: Mix 1 cup of self raising flour and 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt together. Knead into a dough. Sprinkle some additional flour if it is too sticky. Add some salt and Italian herbs (optional) into the dough. Flatten the dough out.

2) Spread pasta sauce on the flattened dough. Add seafood marinara, cubed eggplant, mesculin mix and sundried tomato on top. Sprinkle shredded cheese/sliced cheddar cheese on top.

3) Bake it in oven (210 degree Celcius) for around 25-35 minutes.

Note: I stuffed cheddar cheese at the periphery of the dough so that it can resemble Pizza Hut pizza back home. You can flatten it more if you like pizza with thinner crust. That would cook better and more evenly. Surprisingly, this 2-ingredients-pizza-crust works out pretty well.

Homemade seafood marinara and eggplant pizza

Day 5

Pan-fried Chicken Drumstick with Mushroom Gravy + Mashed Potato

Ingredients:

- Chicken drumstick

- Mushroom

- Thickened cream

- Chicken stock

- Potato

- Milk

- Butter

- Salt and pepper

Methods:

1) Coat chicken drumstick with salt and pepper. Pan fry it until the skin turns brown and that the flesh is cooked.

2) Mashed potato: Cook cubed potatoes in boiling water until they are soft. Mash it using fork and spoon. Add some butter and milk to smooth the texture. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3) Mushroom gravy recipe here.

Note: I did not cook the gravy long enough and that results in a flowy texture. You can put some gravy on mashed potato too.

Pan-fried chicken drumstick with mushroom gravy + mashed potato

Day 6

Honey Roasted Pumpkin + Soy Sauce Pork with Potato

Ingredients:

- Pumpkin

- Honey

- Salt, pepper, thyme, extra virgin olive oil

- Potato

- Pork

- Garlic

- Dark soy sauce, soy sauce

- Fish sauce, oyster sauce

Methods:

1) Recipe for honey roasted pumpkin here. Add some thyme to enhance the flavour.

2) Soy sauce chicken with potato: Saute garlic and add in pork. Add some water (3/4 covering the pork) and 1-2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce and soy sauce. Add cubed potatoes into the pan. Add in pepper, fish sauce and oyster sauce to taste. Cook until the potatoes are soft.
3) Serve with rice.

Honey roasted pumpkin + Soy sauce pork and potato

Enjoy the pleasant early April weather and prepare for the cold!

Love, Victoria

5 comments:

AnonymousApril 08, 2013 10:22 pm
Looks Yum, cant wait to try it out, =]
foodie@foodieportal.comApril 15, 2013 7:39 am
We love your pictures and recipes, they are mouth watering. Would love for you to share them with us at foodieportal.com. We are new but at foodieportal.com we are not photography snobs, we are just foodies.
foodienewzJuly 08, 2013 9:20 pm
Your food photos are amazing. You can share your mouth watering photos with us at foodienewz.com. foodienewz.com is a new food sharing site and we actually try our best to promote your food photos. At foodienewz.com all your food photos will be published without any editorial review so I really hope you come and join us.

Eat, Pray, Love

April Seasonal Food Story

Day 1

Battered Seafood Marinara with Plum Sauce

Day 2

Baked Eggs with Grilled Eggplant

Day 3

Stir fried Pork with Sweet Preserved Radish + Stir fried Pumpkin with Dry Scallop

Day 4

Homemade Seafood Marinara and Eggplant Pizza

Day 5

Pan-fried Chicken Drumstick with Mushroom Gravy + Mashed Potato

Day 6

Honey Roasted Pumpkin + Soy Sauce Pork with Potato

5 comments:

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Day 1

Battered Seafood Marinara with Plum Sauce

Day 2

Baked Eggs with Grilled Eggplant

Day 3

Stir fried Pork with Sweet Preserved Radish + Stir fried Pumpkin with Dry Scallop

Day 4

Homemade Seafood Marinara and Eggplant Pizza

Day 5

Pan-fried Chicken Drumstick with Mushroom Gravy + Mashed Potato

Day 6

Honey Roasted Pumpkin + Soy Sauce Pork with Potato

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5 comments:

Subscribe Via Email

Follow My Food Journey

@eatpraylove.19

Labels

Popular Posts

Blog Archive