Tom Yum Soup with Udon

It's been a while since I managed to leave work early to take conference calls from my home instead of staying in late at the office.

It's not easy to rush off at 530pm in the evening, rush home, prepare for dinner, take 2 calls in between and then cook dinner. But the reward of all that rush was that The Husband and I got to eat a nice home cooked dinner on a weekday night, which is quite a treat for both of us.

This Tom Yum Soup with Udon noodles is very easy to make. I cheated by using instant tom yum paste - but I tried to add lots of fresh, healthy ingredients into the soup - prawns, sliced fish, tomatoes, mushrooms, vegetables and lots of fresh coriander.

I also used those dried udon noodles and cooked them for 10 minutes in a separate pot, draining them with iced water before dunking them into the tom yum soup. I liked these dried udon noodles a lot better than those supposedly "fresh" ones from the frozen/ chilled section of the supermarket because I think you can control the doneness on these a lot better.

All it took was 10 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes to cook the soup and noodles. 

Did you manage to have a home-cooked dinner today?

Ice blended Juices

I've been trying to eat more fruits in all forms - fresh, dried, juiced and cooked.

One of my favourite ways is to blend the fruits with ice in my Vitamix. This afternoon, I blended oranges with ice and treated myself to a very cold and pulpy orange juice.

It's nice to have a glass of fresh juice whilst reading, watching the rain from the comfort of my living room on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Korean Strawberries

Korean strawberries seem to be in season now. You can find them in almost all the supermarkets in Singapore. These are really reasonably priced strawberries. I even saw 4 punnets for $10 in a neighbourhood fruits store at Aljunied.

They do not look that sweet - a bit on the pale side and not as red and huge as the strawberries from the US.

But they are pretty sweet and I find the size just nice for popping into your mouth.

I have been having them with everything.

From yogurt and muesli for breakfast..

To fruit salads for lunch..

The Husband used these to make desserts..

And I've made many a delicious smoothie out of these pretty little things..

Mixed Berry Smoothie with Mint

Ice-blended strawberries

Korean strawberries are really quite good! The only strawberries I like much better are the ones I had in Japan - very small and very red, these are so sweet you'd stop to wonder if they are artificially sweetened.