Healthy Living in Singapore

Healthy, Quick & Easy Party Food Ideas! :D

As we enter into the last quarter of the year, I’m sure everyone must be revving (their tummies) up for end year festivities and feasting! Did you know that in Singpore, the largest percentage of babies are born in the last quarter of the year? That means that not only will there be a crazzzzy amount of weddings and Christmas parties and corporate D&Ds to attend, there will lots of birthday parties as well! I totally advocate going all out and surrounding yourself with the love of family and friends any chance you get but parties don’t mean you have to stress about the food. I honestly feel that the food should compliment the party. Most parties have food that’s way too rich and ‘jelat’- inducing and instead of having a good time, you feel awfully bloated and greasy and lethargic. That’s not what parties should be like! Food at parties should invigorate you and allow you to have a great time with your family and friends!

So before you pick up the phone to call for pizza to settle your next party, here are some alternatives to hosting a healthy, colourful and totally delicious party! 😀
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Backstory: I have cellgroup most weeks and you know when a group of young adults get together, we want to FEAST and we want to FEAST well. But I realised that after yet another pizza takeout, everyone would get so bloated and lethargic and when my cellgroup leader talks I uhm.. feel a little bit like snoozing :/! So when it was my turn to host dinner and cell at my place, I happily told everyone we would be having “pizza” at my house! 😀 Hehheh.

Everyone works of course and nobody has any time to cook so this is the fastest, most fuss free way to throw a nutrition filled party ever.

The first thing I did was to order a bunch of salads from Dressing Room Salad Bar which is an online salad delivery service in Singapore selling a whole range of delicious salads! Fiona, the girl who runs it, started it out because she’d seen for herself how her mother, who is a cancer survivor, managed and improved her condition through nutritious, natural means! I love it when people believe so much in the importance of nutrition!

For quick and easy reference, here’s my timeline for the party:

3 days before: Confirm with Fiona the salads I want (Try to let her know as early as possible because sometimes certain fruits are are out of season and she would ask if you want to replace it with something else)
1 day before: buy fruits and disposable tablecloth / thaw the crabmeat

On the day itself: 
6:30pm: Fiona arrives with the salads! Ask my brother to open the door and collect it coz I’m not home from work yet -.- They are wonderfully packed and so fresh and not soggy at all!
6:45pm: Get home from work and cut the fruits
7:00pm: Blend tofu and cream cheese/ crabmeat. Top with mozzarella and shove it into the oven together with broken florets of cauliflower
7:02pm: Blend avocados, banana and cocoa powder into a creamy sauce
7:15pm: Lay out the tables
7:25: Remove crabmeat creamcheese dip from oven
7:30: The gathering begins!

Have you ever seen anything so lovely and green and nutritious for a party? I ordered 10 salads for my group. Dressing Room Salad Bar does 8 standard salads and everything else is customizable so I got all 8 standard ones and 2 customizable. My friends had a hard time deciding what they wanted so I took the liberty to choose for them. Hurhur.


So gorgeous! And vibrant! 😀 Totally livens up the gathering up SO MUCH. Usually party food is all.. brown :/

Anyway, here are the salads we got!


1. Greek Salad- greens, tomatoes, pepper, olives, feta, herb infused olive oil

2. Chicken Caeser Salad- greens, bacon bits, onion, parmesan, cheese, croutons, chicken

 
3. Tuna Pesto Salad- greens, tomatoes, cucumber, pine nuts, tuna flakes & pesto dressing

4. Oriental Miso Salad- greens, carrots, mandarin orange, egg, baked tofu, soba, chicken & Japanese miso dressing.

5. Fruitte Spinach Salad- spinach, strawberry, orange, apple, walnuts & yoghurt mint sauce

 

6. Japanese Sesame Shrimp Salad- greens, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, corn, soba, shrimp & Japanese sesame dressing

7. Thai Fish Salad- greens, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, peanuts, brown rice, dory fish, coriander & thai sweet chili dressing

8. Waldorf Pasta Salad- greens, apples, seedless grapes, celery, raisins, pasta, walnut & mayonaise dressing

9. Customized salad- greens, fish, roasted mushrooms, pumpkin, strawberry


10. Customized Salad 2- greens, chicken, brown rice, corn, parmesan, honey mustard dressing

Check out the party table! Isn’t it goreous and just a riot of colour? 😀

On the menu we have:

1)  TEN nutritious salads,

2) a crab and cream cheese dip
(that
my awesomest friend Zining made once and I fell in love with it. Just
that it’s really rich so I replace half the creamcheese with silken tofu
to lighten it– nobody could tell there was tofu! 😉 )

3) Roasted Cauliflower
(even hard core veggie haters loved it though I didn’t put any salt on seasoning on it)

4) A watermelon “pizza” with “sauce” and “toppings”
This was my pièce de résistance since I’d promised pizza. Heheh, I just didn’t say what kind!

5) Crispy, crunchy delectable toasted “chips” for the dip made from chia seed mountain bread
(Mountain
bread is sad and untasty straight out the of the packet and is a
miserable excuse for a wrap but toast it lightly on a non stick pan for 2
min and it can rival the world’s best chips.

 

Simply cut a large watermelon into rounds ( I asked the uncle at the fruit stall to do it for me. He thought I was doing a science project -.-) then I cut it into triangles myself. Blend 1 banana, 1 avocado and 1 tsp cocoa powder together for the “sauce”. Spread the sauce on top, and top with creamy, delicious mango, bluberries, strawberries and nuts and seeds of your choice 🙂 DIY and customizable!

And let the FEASTING begin! 😀

My cell leader loves the salads haha.

“we want some too! “
Presenting to you a bunch of the most hardcore “unhealthy” eaters who always eye me suspiciously when I serve “brownies” or “drinks”. (The previous time I had a “healthy” party, they brought their own KFC because they were afraid I would starve them with my new fangled creations haha) So if they give their thumbs up,  I’m very sure you will love it too 😀 You’ve got to give them credit though. They test taste the food here for you before I actually publish the recipe!

I had such a good time and I’m sure my friends did to! Best of all, everybody felt really good after that! Nobody felt like they were dying in a puddle of grease and I’m sure they all met their fruit and veg intake for the week. Haha.

So the next time you have a gathering or want to throw a party, serve healthier choices! I’m sure everyone wants to leave the party feeling good about the time spent together and what they ate! 😀 
 
Here’s to healthy, happy gatherings!! 😀
/ on a sidenote, I honestly think if you are clueless about meal prepping, hate to step into the kitchen/ no time, you should just order 5 different salads from Dressing Room Salad Bar or any salad place every Sunday night and just refrigerate it and bring one to work each day. They all taste great at room temperature/ cold and the dressings are amazing. I suppose there wouldn’t be much loss of nutrients etc coz the concept is kinda like my Rainbow Salad in A Jar just that you don’t have to do all the hard prep work yourself. Best part is, it’s only $6.90 for a salad! No queuing, no mess in the kitchen and she delivers it TO YOUR DOORSTEP. Just a suggestion for those looking to eat more nutritiously! Haha

Till next time,

xx

p.s SPECIAL THANKS to Fiona for being so accommodating and acceding to my requests and salad customizations at such short notice! 😀 You’re the best, babe! Keep doing what you are doing! 😀

Meal Prep #2- Rainbow Salad in a Jar!

 

Hello everybody! Yay to pretty rainbows in a jar!!!For this week’s mealprep I’m trying to include more raw fruits and veggies in my diet! Raw fruits and veggies have the highest concentration of nutrients and my diet has had a dearth of nutrition recently (been eating out a lot the past few weeks) So I decided to make supplementary nutrient packed salad jars to go along with whatever else I might find for lunch! 🙂

Here’s my grocery haul for this week- it’s cost me about $30 and it’s for 20 meals and 5 snacks! 🙂

Baby spinach leaves, romaine lettuce, granola (gift from a friend- thank you Connie! 🙂 ), lemons, apples, purple cabbage, mangoes, carrots, broccoli, avocado, papaya and unsweetened almond milk!

This, together with leftover meat (salmon, chicken & thin slices of beef (for last week’s shabu shabu dinner) ) will form the basis of my meals for this week! I also have leftover rice and curry veggies etc courtesy of my dear mother and her fabulous cooking. Haha. (Free food!)

Anyway! I’m really excited as well because I purchased 6 of these mason jars from Howard’s Storage World! It cost $24.95 iirc and they are 500ml each!

I’ve been wanting to explore the world of canning and making my own jams etc but for this week, I thought they were perfect for salads in a jar!

Meal prep time! I took a picture at 8:55pm because I wanted to se how much time I took to prep food in a week!

Shredding/ dicing 1kg of carrots!

Drying the romaine lettuce so they don’t get soggy when you store them. I really should invest in a salad spinner!

Cutting and soaking ALL my veggies for the week.

AND HERE WE GO!!!

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I use cocos coconut oil to cook. It’s a Singapore based company and uses the cold pressed method to extract the oils.  I highly recommend coconut oil to cook because it has one of the highest smoke points of most oils and therefore doesn’t turn carcinogenic so fast. However, oil is oil so just because it’s ‘healthier’ doesn’t mean you can pour half a bottle into your food and call it a day! Everything in moderation!

For this week, I’m freezing broccoli and carrot soups to use as a base for the week ahead. So whenthe weekday rolls around, I merely reheat the soup base and add in chicken or fish or toufu etc, pack it into my thermal jar and bring it to work!

While the soup is boiling away I wash and dry the new mason jar!

NOTE: if you are disinfecting the mason jars for the first time, I highly recommend not using extremely hot water. I poured very hot water (close to boiling) into a glass jar to disinfect it and the glass base TOTALLY shattered through. I washed all of the in 1 part cold water, 2 parts hot water and dishwashing soap.

Yeah, so now I only have 5 -.- #storyofmylife

Making hummus! 🙂 I adapted the recipe from here!

This was the only canned chickpeas I could find at cold storage that was just stored in water. Everything else had a lot of preservatives or salt so please check carefully before you buy!

Cypressa tahini (roasted sesame paste) is one of my favourite brands! It has nothing at all inside except roasted white sesame seeds ground into a paste! 🙂

Do you remember my garlic grinder from my Tokyo shopping haul?? Used it for the first time today and it’s so cute! Like a toy in the kitchen! I like! Haha

No more chopping garlic!!!

Look how smoothhhhh and gorgeous the hummus is ! 🙂

I forgot to buy corn (wanted to roast them) so had to make do with this that I found in the cupboard. This packaged corn is actually brined in a sugar and salt solution (see ingredients list) so be careful with eating too much! Always try to choose unpackaged food as much as possible!

Just layer everything in the jar. Isn’t it gorgeous? 🙂 ALWAYS place your liquids at the bottom and your hard veggies over and the lightest veggies like lettuce right on top to prevent them from getting soggy!

From the bottom:

layer 1: hummus
layer 2: purple cabbage (hard veggie to soak up liquid)
layer 3: chickpeas and corn (for crunchy texture!)
layer 4: super sweet ripe mango chunks! (I love fruit in my salads)/ grapes
layer 5: more purple cabbge to soak up moisture from the mango
layer 6: romaine lettuce
layer 7: assorted nuts for added crunch!

here’s a really helpful infographic on how to layer and store your salads!

I made 5 for the week ahead!

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And to end off with some not so pretty pictures- This is how they look stored in my fridge with my soup jar all ready to go for tmr 🙂

Cutting washing, cooking and CLEANING UP (I think cleaning up takes up half the time because I mop the kitchen floor and every thing as well) takes about 2 hours! 2 hours in exchange for highly nutritious breakfast and lunch and snacks for the week ahead sounds like a pretty good deal to me! 🙂

and here’s how part of my freezer section looks like! Soup for the week, frozen precut veggies/ veggies for my morning smoothies etc!

Have a great week ahead everyone! Stay healthy and happy! For any questions, leave a comment below or email me at vegsmoothiebunny@gmail.com! 🙂

Easy Carrot Soup Recipe

 

 Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
1 packet of carrots (around 400g)
1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly diced
Low sodium chicken broth / stock cube
Water
Coriander powder or fresh coriander (I don’t have it)
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
– Skin carrots and cut into small rounds
– Heat olive oil on low fire and saute onions and garlic for 5 min till soft
– Pour chicken broth till covering onions and garlic
– Pour cold water till 3/4 of the soup pot (depends on how thick you want the soup to be)
– Dump carrots into the pot
– Add 1tsp coriander powder or fresh coriander
– Wait for water to boil
– When it boils, place pot lid on, lower the fire and let it simmer for 20 min
– Once done, transfer to a blender (do not exceed half of the blender limit!!!)
– Cover with a damp cloth to prevent hot scalding soup from flying at your face and blend from low to high till pureed.
– Leave to cool then transfer into a container to freeze if used for meal prep. If not, add salt and pepper till its suitable for tastebuds. I skipped the salt because I love the subtle sweetness of the carrots but my friend said there was no taste till I added salt -.- So till your tastebuds change, feel free to adjust the salt levels according. 🙂

Enjoy! 🙂