Ready-to-go Egg Muffins

While many of my non-nursing peers are either studying for exams or done with their theses, I have only just begun my clinical practicum at a hospital.  My post-thesis ecstasy has since ebbed away, and in place of which is clinical depression (pun intended).  Even the word 'depression' fails to capture the myriad of negative emotions afflicting me whenever I am doing my practicum.       

Some patients with depression suffer from sleep deprivation due to insomnia, but sleep deprivation due to shift work is one major cause of depression in my case. 

Morning shifts are 0700 to 1500, afternoons are 1300 to 2100, and nights are 2100 to 0800.  Here is the catch, afternoon shifts usually end one hour later because you need to wait for your turn to hand over your cases to the night-shift nurse.  For my hospital, the ratio of night-shift nurses to patients in a Class-C ward is 2:32.  Worse thing is that the management doesn't seem to recognize the detrimental health effects of rostering nurses on afternoon-morning shift sequence.  And I live 75 minutes away from the hospital. 

I should be thankful that I wasn't scheduled for night shifts though.  Due to manpower crunch, the management has (insensitively) increased the number of consecutive night shifts from three to four.  Having done night shifts before, I tell you it is no joke to even do three night shifts in a row.  If you are lucky enough to be not fighting to save lives (when your patients decide to collapse on you), you are fighting against your own body to stay awake - and alert.  

So anyway, now that I am facing the perennial issue of sleep deprivation, making my own lunch to bring to work has become an enormous challenge.  When on morning shift, I wake up at 0430 and leave house at 0540 to catch the train that takes me to my workplace by 0645.  Why make your own lunch despite time constraint?  Well, simply because outside food no longer appeal to my palate (and fit my food beliefs) anymore.  One solution then is to prepare food beforehand and store it in the refrigerator.  These egg muffins are a perfect example.

Ready-to-go Egg Muffins

(Adapted from the Primal Palate)

Ingredients (makes 14-16)

• Cooking fat (I used ghee)
• 2 garlic cloves (minced)
• 2 red onions (diced)
• 1 broccoli (cut into small florets)
• 1 yellow zucchini (grated)
• Minced pork (according to carnivorous desire)
• 14 eggs (beaten)

Directions

1. Heat oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes.
2. Heat cooking fat in the wok, and then add garlic and onions to stir-fry until they begin to brown.
3. Add and stir-fry broccoli and minced pork for 2 minutes to half-cook them.
4. Lastly add grated zucchini and continue to stir-fry vegetable and meat mixture for another 2 minutes.  The whole stir-frying process isn't long because you don't want to overcook them in the oven later.
5. Fill the muffin tray with the stir-fried vegetable and meat mixture (as shown in the picture above).
6. Pour in the eggs until they fill almost to the brim.
7. Place the muffin tray in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes.
8. Cool the muffins for 5-10 minutes before taking them out of tray.

Verdict
I tried one...Great-tasting!  What else can I say?  I am planning to store them in the refrigerator and then pack them into a container before I go to work.  Of course, when it is time for meal break, I will then microwave the muffins before wolfing them down.  The muffins are very nutrient-dense, and also low in carbs which won't give me the insulin crash after eating a high-carbohydrate meal.  Moreover, the high protein level should keep me satiated until my shift ends. 

Additional notes
Feel free to explore and replace the vegetables and meat with other kinds of ingredients.  The only constant here is the eggs.

Overdue recipe 2: Cream of Mushroom Soup (creamless & flourless)

I am a big fan of creamy mushroom soup, and I count the Mushroom Stroganoff at Soup Spoon as one of my favourites for its chunky mushroom pieces.  However, I decided to make my own version on one of my thesis-churning days after I recently happened to know that the soup contained flour.  Frequently, flour, which I suppose in this case is all-purpose (AP) flour, is used surreptitiously to thicken soups.  And I don't like the idea that I am eating empty carbs in the form of nutrition-less white flour.  I am not trying to count calories here...Soup Spoon states that its mushroom soup has a caloric value of 275, and how much of it is derived from flour?  In addition, because AP flour is derived from wheat, gluten-intolerant or sensitive people would not be able to digest the soup very well.

What is the alternative to making a creamy mushroom soup without using flour?

Cream of Mushroom Soup (creamless & flourless)

(Adapted from Mushroom Bisque, The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman, p. 22)

Note: In this recipe, I am just going to give general instructions without exact amount of ingredients used.  This is because I cooked the soup a long time back during thesis-churning days, haha.

Ingredients

• Cooking fat (I used butter)
• Garlic cloves (minced)
• Red onion (diced)
• 4-5 varieties of diced mushrooms, including crimini, shiitake, enoki types (I must tell you, I went the easy way of buying this huge value packet of mushrooms for steamboat purposes from NTUC supermarket, haha!)
• Vegetable broth*
• Arrowroot starch
• Italian seasoning (optional)
• Dried thyme (to garnish)
• Ground black pepper (to taste)
• Sea salt/nama shoyu (to taste)

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add garlic and onion to stir-fry for about 3-5 minutes.
3. Add mushrooms (and Italian seasoning) and saute them until they start to soften and ooze out water, which takes about 5-7 minutes.
4. Add vegetable broth and let the mushrooms simmer away for about 10 minutes.  At this point, you may choose to reduce heat to avoid uncontrolled drying of the liquid.
5. Remove heat and let mushrooms sit to cool for about 5 minutes.
6. Transfer them to a high-speed blender.
7. Add arrowroot starch.  (You don't really have to add much of the starch, say about 2-3 tbsp at most, to thicken the soup because when you blend the mushrooms, the soup is naturally thickened.)
8. Blend the mushrooms and arrowroot starch mixture till it takes on a coarse pureed consistency.  Unless you want a baby-feed like consistency, please go ahead and blend away.
9. Transfer the soup to a bowl, add ground black pepper and salt to taste, and garnish with dried thyme before ready to serve.

Additional notes

• I am still a novice when it comes to playing with temperate herbs like thyme, rosemary, basil and stuff like that.  I used Italian seasoning for the sake of experiment and I think the variety of herbs in the seasoning added some complexity to the mushroom taste.  In the original recipe, the author used dried thyme to saute with the mushrooms.
• I think packaged vegetable broth is not common in mainstream supermarkets.  I bought mine from Cold Storage for about 7 SGD at about 950 ml.  Quite expensive.  You can choose to use vegetable stocks, but I discourage it because I don't like the food additives, especially MSG, inside such stocks.  For economical purposes, you can make your own vegetable broth or bone broth and store it in the refrigerator for future use.  
• Vegetable broth - Dump any kind of vegetables you like into a large pot and boil them for about 3-5 hours to extract the vegetable essence.  Some ideas are carrots, sweet potatoes, leeks, onions, celeries, cabbage etc.
• Bone broth - If you are a big fan of traditional Chinese meat broths, this should not be too surprising for you.  Just grab generous amounts of soup bones and boil them to extract the marrow. 

Overdue recipe 1: Stewed Pork Belly in Sweet Onion and Apple Gravy

I think this post is the most defining one for my blog.  I am no longer vegetarian/vegan or some strict herbivore anymore.  I find it embarrassing to explain myself, but I believe I have to.  You see, I can no longer stomach fruits and vegetables - literally.  Anything with fibre bloats me up like a balloon, and the only things that I can safely eat are meat, meat, meat...and small amounts of cooked dark greens.  Pretty depressing in the beginning.  Especially on one occasion when I had to buy and cut a whole chicken body to make a chicken stew.  I felt sad over the fact I had to give up my beloved veggies and make meat my life.  But I am adjusting well, the biggest challenge being how to cook meat dishes with so little experience.  And I should add that I feel better knowing my boyfriend is rather pleased with the fact I have started cooking meat because that means he would get to eat meat when he comes back to Singapore.  

So I now present to you one of my first meat experiments during the two weeks when I had been away from blogging and focusing on my thesis (which I submitted yesterday).

Stewed Pork Belly in Sweet Onion and Apple Gravy

(It was a successful self-experimental recipe, at least IMHO.)

Ingredients

• Pork belly
• Yellow onion
• Red apple
• Ghee (or replace with other cooking fat)
• Goji berries
• Salt to taste (I used a tsp of nama shoyu)

Directions

1. Heat ghee in cooking pan.
2. Stir-fry yellow onion and red apple at medium heat for about 5 minutes till the apple starts to soften.  Don't use too high heat as the purpose is to draw out some water from the onion and apple which contains their sweet essence.
3. Add pork belly and stir-fry with the rest for about 3 minutes.
4. Add some water and let the ingredients simmer for about 15-20 minutes with the cooking pan covered.
5. Garnish with Goji berries (or add them in the last 3 minutes before turning off heat) and serve.

Verdict
As you can see, I did not use any sweeteners or other condiments (except for a little nama shoyu).  Yellow onion was used because I find it sweeter and less onion-y than red onion.  Thus it potentiates the sweetness of the red apple used.  When it comes to cooking fatty meat, I find that simmering is a good method to soften the meat and melt its fat to produce a richer tasting gravy.  I know many of you are afraid of saturated animal fat.  But having done my personal reading, I find that it is not harmful at all, and should be part of an (omnivorous) healthy diet.  The bad thing about Singapore is that I haven't found a place that sells non-factory-farmed pigs.  Sad, isn't it? 

Spinach in Mashed Sweet Potato

If you may recall, I am currently writing my thesis which is due in less than two weeks' time.  Being a nursing student, writing a thesis is not just reading journal articles and inventing a story.  In fact, I had to plan and conduct my own research study from scratch.  I did a qualitative study exploring the experiences of older Singaporean Chinese women coping with chronic illness, which involved a series of face-to-face interviews with real-life patients in a hospital.  I then had to listen to the audiotapes on repeat and transcribe the interviews into written form.  That was not the end.  I had to read my transcripts again and again, analysing the content and coming up with themes  Painstaking?  You bet!

The research process was undoubtedly arduous but strangely rewarding in its own way.  As it approaches its end, I like to share with you one of the themes which emerged from my study.  The theme is 'To eat is wealth', which is drawn from the translation of a common Chinese saying '能吃是福'.  Now I am not sure about other ethnic cultures in Singapore and around the world, but being a Chinese myself, I think the finding resonates in me.  

Food is the embodiment of life.  You feed your body with nourishing food.  You feed your soul through the enjoyment of good food.  Food is also the celebration of life.  You eat with people and talk over food.  You celebrate birthdays with birthday cakes.  You cook food for your loved ones.  Most good things in life come with food.  

To the older Chinese women whom I interviewed, food was life and life was food.  This was in spite of their chronic illnesses which often imposed on them dietary restrictions.  Having been feeling somewhat ill for the last two weeks, I think I can attest to such ingrained mentality towards food.  Even though I was bloated and lost my appetite, I still felt sad over not being able to cook and eat the food I wanted!  

So now, I present to you a simple but delicious recipe that goes pretty well into my tummy.  

 Spinach in Mashed Sweet Potato

(inspired from a couple of similar recipes which I have forgotten)

Ingredients

• 2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
• Baby spinach leaves (amount depends on how much you love greens)
• 1 red onion (diced)
• 2 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
• 1 tbsp ghee/butter/VCO* 
• A few cloves (optional)
• 1 cinnamon stick (optional)

Directions

1. Steam sweet potatoes for 20-30 minutes until soft enough for a fork to penetrate easily.
2. Heat the cooking fat, and then add spices, red onion and garlic to stir-fry until the onion becomes soft and slightly brownish.
3. Add the baby spinach leaves and stir-fry for about 1 minute.  (Baby spinach wilts very fast, so make sure you don't overcook them!)  Then turn off heat.
4. Once sweet potatoes are ready, mash them up in a large bowl and then mix in stir-fried vegetables.  

Just an idea, if you like the mashed sweet potato to be more creamy, feel free to add (nut/rice/dairy) milk.

Verdict

I love it.  This is my third time cooking it.  The first was without spinach and the second was with fennel instead of red onion.  I think the third try is the best as I really like to see green against the yellow backdrop of the sweet potatoes.  Haha.

*In my humble opinion, I believe that ghee, butter and virgin coconut oil (VCO) are the best oils to use for high-heat cooking.  I don't believe in seed oils like sunflower or canola, even though they are aggressively promoted as 'healthy' oils.  Some emerging studies are showing that such oils may be more unhealthy than the much demonized saturated fats like butter and coconut oil.  I am traditional in the sense that if these oils weren't used in the past to make food, I shouldn't be using them at all.   

Apple Brown Rice Congee

As an aspiring food blogger, one of the many challenges I face is making the food I cook look pretty in the photos.  I can eat visually unappealing food as long as I am the chef.  Simply because I know what goes into my food.  It is only natural, however, that people feel suspicious if they see that the appearance and purported taste of the food do not match.  Looking at the photo, would you doubt me if I were to say the congee tasted fabulous?

As you may recall, I had been suffering from a severe episode of abdominal bloating which persisted, despite going grain-free for more than a week.  So a few days back, Mom brought me to see a traditional Chinese physician who prescribed me some medicine which seemed to help, along with a list of forbidden foods, among which is anything raw.  No raw fruits.  No fruit/vegetable juices.  No raw salads.  Cold foods are out of question.  Until he pronounces me to be fully recovered from my digestive woes.

Today's recipe follows a principle of health in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), that is, to eat or drink warm, cooked and easily digestible food.  Nothing raw, uncooked, cool or cold.  These two traditional health systems also share the view that congees (or porridge if you wish to call it) make an excellent breakfast, provided you cook the whole grain properly so as to maximise its nutritional value.  And the recipe is inspired by stewed apples, commonly extolled in Ayurveda for its simplicity and nourishing qualities.  For Chinese readers, this should not be too surprising since the Chinese also have their own Apple and Pear Pork Rib Soup which involves stewing apples too. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup of brown rice* (soaked for at least 24 hours)
• 1 large red apple (2 small ones)
• 1 tbsp ghee (optional)
• 5 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 aniseed
• 1-2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp pure maple syrup (or to taste)

Directions
Add everything into a cooking pot and cook for about 40 minutes to 1 hour (as was in my case since my share was so small).  For a larger portion, you can opt to use a slow-cooker but I think the time taken to cook needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Verdict
If you aren't a congee type of person, you won't appreciate eating it as a meal by itself.  However, what makes it different from traditional Chinese congee is clearly the use of spices and pure maple syrup.  The maple syrup adds an overall mild sweetness to the congee, while the stewed apples create a delightful burst of sweetness when you bite on them.  For me, at least, the congee sits comfortingly well in my belly.


* For proper brown rice preparation, please refer here.  Among all the whole grains, I do think brown rice is one of the best sources of essential minerals, but you really need to prepare it very well because it has substantial amounts of phytic acid which chelates with these minerals, effectively negating any potential nutritional benefit it may have.

Coconut banana brownies

First of all, let me express my most sincere apologies for being away from blogging for a while.  Though I know a serious blogger would never allow a long hiatus to happen, I couldn't help but stay out of my kitchen for the following reasons:

• I have been feeling extremely bloated for nearly a week, and I still do.  I don't know what I have eaten that has caused such a severe reaction in my digestive system.  I cannot eat much, only subsisting on raw fruits and hot liquid soups.     
• I have been working on my thesis that is due for submission in the next two weeks.  Combating writer's block has left me too weary to step into my kitchen.

The emphasis of today's recipe is that the brownies are grain-free.  You probably may not have realised, but grains, in all their diverse forms, are ubiquitous and integral in the standard modern diet.  However, that wasn't the case in many traditional societies, in which more emphasis was placed on fruits, vegetables and free-range animals in the immediate environment.  Where grains were consumed, traditional methods of preparation had been developed to ensure that these grains were suitable for consumption.  Traditional methods of preparation included soaking, fermentation and sprouting, which, of course, would be deemed time-consuming from a modern perspective.  But why should grains undergo such intensive treatment prior consumption?  Well, simply because they are not digested and assimilated well in the human digestive system.  Moreover, grains have substantial anti-nutrients, which are substances interfering with absorption of micronutrients.  The most notorious anti-nutrient found in all grains is phytic acid, which chelates with minerals like zinc and iron and thus, deprives the body of their absorption.  In the absence of proper preparation of grains, prolonged consumption of grains could lead to many types of health problems.

Now, I am not sure how many of you are aware of celiac disease, a condition characterised by chronic intestinal inflammation due to gluten intolerance.  Gluten is a type of protein that is found in many grains, most notably wheat.  Other gluten-containing grains include rye, barley and spelt.  Gluten-intolerant individuals cannot eat foods containing gluten, and their dietary restriction is extremely challenging to adhere to, especially in the standard modern diet which is heavily based on wheat and its derivatives.  The worse thing is, many people are ignorant of the importance of proper preparation of wheat.

For example, modern wheat bread is made using quick-rise yeast whilst its traditional counterpart utilises sourdough, a dough containing both (natural) yeast and bacteria (a Lactobacillus strain) in symbiotic co-existence.  Quick-rise yeast allows the dough to ferment and rise more quickly, but compromises optimal fermentation that is necessary to break down gluten and phytic acid in the wheat flour.  In contrast, sourdough is able to break down the gluten, and especially phytic acid much more effectively because its Lactobacillus bacteria produces a favorably stronger acidic environment.  Moreover, in traditional bread-making, the wheat dough needs to be fermented for a much longer time, even up to two weeks to ensure thorough degradation of the harmful substances.  The fact that at least some gluten-intolerant people are able to consume traditional sourdough bread testifies to the importance of proper grain preparation, which unfortunately, many of us are unaware of.

Because of my condition, I have been abstaining from grains for a few days now.  In fact, I suspect that my poor digestive health may be attributable to prolonged consumption of ill-prepared grains.  Even though it is merely a suspicion, I would rather not take chances.  Although I am still bloated, I must admit that I feel slightly better.  I hope my suspicion proves me right; at least, I have better control over my own body by knowing what to eat and what not to eat.  Being a person who loves bread, however, I find the elimination of grains to be challenging.  And so, I tried to make for myself coconut flour bread, but which turned out to look more like brownies due to using a wider baking tray.

Coconut banana brownies

(Lightly adapted from the Nourished Kitchen)

Ingredients

• 6 small bananas (acting as egg replacement and its natural sugars acting as sugar replacement)
• 75 g coconut flour *
• 50 g almond meal (aka ground almond; I used it here to add some density)
• 100 - 120 ml virgin coconut oil (adjust according to the consistency of batter)
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon, or to taste

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together, including the bananas to form dry batter.
3. Slowly add in the VCO to test for the desired consistency, which should not be too wet.  What I achieved was somewhat sticky and slightly wetter version of bread dough.  
4. Pour batter into oiled/ parchment-covered tray and bake in oven for 40 minutes.

 * I made my own coconut flour using grated coconut flesh bought from a wet market.  Grated coconut was used for two purposes.  First, I placed it in a muslin bag and squeezed to procure coconut milk.  Second, I dehydrated the dried coconut remaining and then used a food processor to further grind it into finer shreds which formed the flour.

Verdict
Unless you are a coconut fan, you probably won't enjoy the coconut aroma and taste in the brownies.  My parents said they were pretty strong, but I love them anyway.  Yums!!!  If you don't like the brownies to be too coconut-ty, you could incorporate other types of flour, or replace the VCO with butter.