Peppercorn braised beef (498 calories per serve)


“Grilling blade steak” read the label on the plastic wrap of the meat. I was almost tempted to grill it but in the end, I knew that it is best for braising. I knew I was on to a good thing after my husband came home and sniffed his way straight to the kitchen without even…

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Chinese steamed whole snapper (196 calories per serve)


Gong xi fa cai! Another year has gone and we now welcome the year of the Rooster and my husband has already started making “cock” jokes. Sigh! Anyway, we decided to walk to Footscray market this morning and I couldn’t resist getting some fresh fish. After all, fish on Chinese New Year is supposed to…

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‘Picnic pleaser’ potato salad (334 calories per serve)


My friends organised a casual picnic for this year’s Australia Day celebrations so I decided to bring, amongst other things, a simple potato salad. I’ve always loved potato salads, but not the ones at supermarket delis that are absolutely drenched in mayonnaise. I like adding a bit of mayonnaise but not too much as it…

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Asian crispy pork belly (524 calories per serve)


I was planning on making a kimchi pork belly stew to accompany the Korean fried chicken that my brother and his girlfriend were bringing over for dinner. Except … there was no kimchi in the house … or rather, the one we had in our fridge was expired (oops!). So we had to save the…

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Basic Burmese kyay oh (475 calories per serve)


‘Kyay oh’ is one of my favourite comfort foods. I described it to my husband as the Burmese equivalent of the Vietnamese noodle soup, ‘pho’. Whereas ‘pho’ is commonly made with beef, ‘kyay oh’ is made with pork and served with a variety of toppings such as pork liver, pork intestine and quail eggs. I…

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Chocolate chip lactation cookies (83 calories per cookie)


So, I’ve got news … James and I have welcomed our first baby, Cora Rose. She is absolutely delightful and keeps us busy 24/7. I haven’t been cooking much (thankfully!) because my mother has kindly flown down to stay with us for 6 weeks to help out. To help with my milk supply, I started buying…

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Classic creme caramel (306 calories per serve)


The first time I made creme caramel was when I was about 11 or 12 years old. My French teacher decided to invite us all to her house for the day for a French cooking lesson. We made creme caramel. It was amazing and surprisingly simple. For such an elegant dish, it really did not take…

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Chinese turnip/radish cake (301 calories per serve)


My uncle made this amazing Chinese turnip cake one night for Chinese New Year many years ago. It had a lot of fillings and had a lot of umami flavour. At the time, I didn’t understand why he was so excited about the fillings as surely they were standard in all turnip cakes. Little did…

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Decadent chocolate molten lava cake (638 calories per serve)


I made this without thinking about the calories … oops! Sorry, not sorry. We had friends over for dinner and everyone was feeling great but there was something missing … we hadn’t prepared any dessert. We started talking about that time I made a molten lava cake the last time the girls were over and I…

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Miso glazed steak (525 calories per serve)


This is so easy to make and because it’s already marinated, you don’t need to make any additional sauces or jus to serve with it. It is also an Asian-style steak which means you can eat it with rice and Asian vegetables, such as bok choy. Serves 2 Prep time 10 mins + 20 mins…

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Taiwanese braised pork and egg (369 calories per serve)


My family went to visit Taiwan in 2008. I remember there were lots of night markets and seeing brown eggs that had been infused with a spiced broth. We went sightseeing to a gold mine of some sort and along the way up to the mine, we had lunch. The lunch came in a metal…

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