Vegetarian Snack Time

What a cute attractive packaging!

B bought me this packet of seaweed from local supermart, a product of Thailand -
Roasted Seaweed Giant Sheet.
Extremely crispy maybe bec of its Ziploc package and individually wrapped.
1st time tasted Seaweed so crispy/crunchy and Sweet!
It is stated as 100% Vegetarian.

Ingredients on label: Seaweed 98%, Salt 0.5%, Sugar 1%, Pepper 0.5%

Quick Cold Remedy

I prefer Chinese to Western Medicine (even if it is much bitter:P).
My 1st choice of cold remedy is to take Ge Gen Tang and my favourite brand is this Red Sun Cold Remedy manufactured in Japan.
It disappeared from the Chinese Medicine market for a period & returned recently with this packaging (somehow I preferred previous packaging which looked more Japanese & professional:P).

The medicine effect can be immediately felt and after a good sleep, one usually recovers.
It is also a must bring item for my tour. :-)

The label states that the herb extracts include:
Radix Pueraiae Lobatae (Ge Gen), Herba Ephedrae (Ma Huang), Fructus Jujubae (Da Zao), Radix Glycyrrhizae (Gan Cao), Rhizoma Zingiberis Recens (Raw Ginger), Cinnamon Cortex (Gui pi), Radix Paeoniae Rubra (Shao Yao)

Quite a number of Chinese herbs and quite a number of brands of Ge Geng Tang on market which I tried during its absence, but I still prefers this brand and glad it returned. ;-)

Vegetarian Snacktime!

Another snack from Taiwan, and just found besides at Vegetarian supply shop, it is also now easily available at Supermart too: Blueberry Yogurt Flavor Wafer. Maybe beceause of the yogurt ingredients? It has a refreshing peppermint taste and is mild sweet compared to similar products.

Ingredients stated: Wheat flour, corn starch, milk powder, sugar, glucose, corn oil, blueberry powder, flavoring (blueberry flavor, yoghurt flavor), raising agent (E503(ii), E500(ii)).

Burdock Fibrous Shredded

This had been prepared in resemblence to the meat floss in vegetarian version (no Fried food, no Preservatives, no MSG) which tasted great with porridge.:-)
A product from Taiwan with main ingredients: Burdock, Non-GMO soy protein, Olive Grape-Seed Oil, Sunflower Oil, Cane Sugar, sesame, Pea Powder, Wheat Protein, Salt & Vegetarian seasoning.

Had been looking for it for a long time since last tried it in India/Sri Lanka last Dec and I happen to discover this vegetarian shop : Ko's Vegetarian Pte Ltd while exploring the Xin Ming/Shunfu estate. In there, I found my other favourite snacks such as the Vegetarian Buckwheat Seaweed Cookies . :-)



It's a comparative neat air-conditioned shop which is a great contrast to other shops in an old HDB estate (Blk23, Sin Ming Rd, #01-33) that caught my attention. Half of it is an area selling instant vegetarian supplies & snacks while the other half is a Buddhist bookshop promoting mainly Dharma books of Venerable Master Yin Shun & Venerable Master Tai Xu as well as a small section of Dharma book free distribution section. I was told the shop may be only one of the 2 in Singapore that you could find works of the 2 Great Masters. Opening hours generally 10am-6pm daily , rest alternate Sunday, manned by Venerable De Zhen from PKFT who is ever friendly to introduce one to good books.

Great to discover another interesting shop amidst my foodhunt mission. :-)

Vegetarian Snack Time!

Visited Tian Yuan at #02-23 Fortune Centre to top up my stock & the lady boss recommended this new snack: Vegetarian Buckwheat Seaweed Cookies.
Inside has many individual packs, much like crispy rice crackers & each with crispy seaweed sheet.
Quite Good snack as it gives you a filling sensation easily.:-) And price is quite reasonable.

It's another product of Taiwan with ingredients stated as follows:
Millet, brown rice, malt, bitter buckwheat, peas, black seasame, seaweed tablets, natural non-hydrogenated vegetable oils (no trans-fat)

Sugar Apricot

Wow, another fruit in season! This mini peach like fruit recommended by the fruit vendor is actually Sugar Apricot. It's actually a 2 in 1 fruit as you just need to wash & eat the fruit without peeling of skin & the unappealing seed inside which is inedible contains Almond that you need to smash the seed with the help of an hammer to get it. It's real interesting & fun for the 1st timers deriving their own almonds instead of off-shelf purchase. :-)

Apricot is known to be rich in natural sugar, calcium and vitamins, beneficial in treatment of constipation & aid digestion process if consumed before a meal.

Soup, Cream of Tomato; Cream of Mushroom

Finally found 1 brand of Instant Soup to my liking. It did not label itself as vegetarian, I checked its label on ingredients:
No msg, no onion & garlic mentioned (& I couldn't sense the taste), the sourness & non-diluteness of the tomato soup is just nice for me! :-)
This Cream of Tomato by "Dancing Chef" is a product of Switzerland and I found it 1st on the shelf of OG's food/tibits section. However, it does contain milk protein which is not suitable for Vegans and it comes with croutons which I would had preferred without.

Having greater confidence after trying their tomato soup, I went in search for its other pro-vegetarian version, I found their Cream of Mushroom at the local Supermarket's Instant Soup section. The soup is thick too & taste good as well but abit salty to my taste though.:-)

Well, for vegetarians, you may have to exercise caution if to consume as according to a comment by a kind anonymous, whey/whey powder (stated as one of its ingredients) may be derived from animal rennet.

Ingredients indicated on label of Cream of Tomato:
Tomato powder, potato starch, sugar, modified corn starch, croutons (wheat flour, vegetable oil, salt, yeast, anti-oxidant: propyl gallate), salt, dried glucose syrup, vegetable fat, wheat flour, yeast extract, dehydrated beetroot juice, milk protein, dehydrated basil, citric acid, flavours.

Ingredients indicated on label of Cream of Mushroom:
Potato starch, vegetable fat, dried glucose syrup, salt, whey powder, modified corn starch, maltodextrin, champignon extract, sugar, dehydrated mushrooms (champignons, boletus), yeast extract, dehydrated parsley, flavours, citric acid, spice.

Yang Mei, Arbutus!

This is mum's favorite fruit & is in season now or ending soon, she had finished boxes of it by now. (Saw Lychee also same time in season now with similar packaging too so be careful not to mistaken the two ...)

I only know it as "Yang Mei" in Chinese and only from the label do I know its English name as "Arbutus". What we had here were from China but a search in the internet showed few replies.

It is supposed to taste refreshingly sour plus some sweetness & well known to have a good cooling effect for a bad sore throat.

A simple way taught by lovers is to wash them & then sprinkle some salt over them (was just recommended on adding both salt & sugar together tasted good too by the vendor but hadn't tried adding both yet). This way will enhance their flavor and tasted fantastic especially taken out cool from the fridge.

:-)

Vegetarian Snack Time!

Vegetarian Supplies just at the small shop beside left of Toa Payoh MRT entrance!

I was amazed when I pass by the little shop on left side of Toa Payoh MRT station, before the escalator to HDB Hub. I had noticed it started selling a small variety of Vegetarian pastries months ago and now even Vegetarian Supplies! Though it is not a full pledged vegetarian shop, impressive enough. It now has bread & pastries from Yes Natural & Su Ya (the vegetarian bakeries), vegetarian tidbits, dry supplies like instant noodles, chilli sauce, etc. & frozen products (though not well arranged in the freezer) as well!

Must support it & hopefully it can survive well.
Ya, ya, that's the glutton me having a soft spot for tidbits:P,
I bought the HAW YUANG Seaweed cracker which is a product of Taiwan that boasts of using Japan Sea salt & technology to process the crackers.
Well, worth the price, as it is crispy without the fishy seaweed smell that some other brands had.:-)

Ingredients; Flour, Starch, Veg oil, Rice, Soy Sauce, Salt, seaweed, Sesame
Imported by Friendly Vegetarian Food Supplier

Vegetarian Snack Time!!

New tidbits produced in Indonesia discovered at a Vegetarian outlet visited.
Mini Conz - Mini Corn Sticks that came in 3 flavours: Roasted Corn, Chocolate & Cheese. On one munch, one may thought it does contain MSG but its Package had specifically indicated as no MSG added. Personally I prefer the Roasted Corn flavour.
On its package, it had indicated as Suitable for Vegetarians with ingredients of :
Corn, Vegetable Oil, Sugar, Corn Powder, Milk Powder, Salt, Roasted Corn Flavour, Permitted Food Colouring, Tartrazine CI 19140 (E102).

Instant Funori Jelly

It's quite a tedious process to make Funori dessert the traditional way but with the popularity of Funori as a good supplement for Collagen & being inexpensive, it had caught the attention of merchants to come up with different brands & ways to let people enjoy it. The most popular form is the jelly style which is often being served in those organic cafe. I would thought it difficult to home-made to the softness & smoothness of cafe standard (tasted like the ice jelly found at dessert stalls) but no longer a trouble after the invention of such rock sugar cube type of instant funori dessert.

(dissolving the cube in hot water)

This was bought outside the promotion stall set up for CNY goodies outside the Fortune Centre Vegetarian supply shop near the escalator. (However, I found out that there is another new vegetarian supply shop: "Tian Yuan Healthy Vegetarian Food Paradise" which just opened at #02-23 Fortune Centre & is retailing this product)

The product from Taiwan has 2 version. This brown version that I bought was pre-added with brown sugar, red-dates and dried longan, there's also the plain version which you could add lime or passion fruit syrup or any creation yourself.

Method:
Add 500ml (5 cups) of hot water to cube & stir til dissolved.
If you find it still too sweet, which I do, simply add more water till to your taste.
Cool it & put in fridge (non-chiller section), within hrs, you could enjoy one whole big bowl of Funori jelly with a family of 6 at the price of 1.5 cup at cafe. Really refreshing on a hot day!

Crystal had a good post on her blog on the after-product of the jelly. Pls click here:
http://crystalbyblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/funori-jelly-aka-algae-essence-jelly.html

For convenience, these instant products are great, however, to really feel the collagen presence, I would prefer the conventional way of processing it, as maybe psychologically, you know through the process that there is really rich collagen content in the funori you are having. :-)

Lazy Way of Enjoying Avocado

Yes, it's me on instant food series again.

So simple,

choose a ripen, soft avocado,

just cut the fruit into half without hurting the seed,

and use the half with the hollow space (without the seed) as a saucer for chilli,

use a small spoon and scoop the fruit like ice-cream & dip with the chilli sauce.

Heinz chilli sauce is currently my favourite dip as it is sweet & a good complement to the avocado which is quite bland in taste. :-)

Or for those who likes some thrill, use wasabi as the complement dip. :-)
For those who really like sweetness, try Molasses, healthy & nutritious!

What do you do with the seed?

Wash it with running water, dry it, then plant it with 1/3 of the tip popping out of the soil.

Water it daily, and in a few weeks, if you are one with green fingers, a stalky green plant would grow.

Yes, it grows in Spore weather... But it may take long before you can enjoy the fruit. :-)