Yummy Calories

Kung pao chicken (432 calories per serve)

This dish has a pretty good kick to it so feel free to adjust to your tastebuds. Traditionally cooked with whole dried chillies, I have replaced it with chilli flakes which add more spice than whole chillies. The sichuan peppercorns also add that classic, tingly spice to the dish. Serves 4 Prep time 20 mins…

Burmese fried chicken (668 calories per serve)

What distinguishes a Burmese fried chicken from other varieties? At its most basic level, I would say it’s the combination of fish sauce and tumeric. The other ingredients simply round out the flavours. Serves 6 Prep time 10 mins + 2 hour marinade time Cook time 30 mins Ingredients 2kg chicken drumsticks 1 tbsp fish…

Chicken tikka masala (590 calories per serve)

I don’t cook much Indian food. When my middle brother used to live with me, he used to cook Indian curries all the time. I would smell all the spices in our little apartment for days after he cooked. I suppose that’s why I never cooked it myself. It was always a thing that he…

Cambodian grilled chicken (541 calories per serve)

I spent a good chunk of my childhood in Cambodia. Most of the time, my mom or our helper would cook. But sometimes, especially when my mom was time-poor, she would buy grilled chicken from local hawker stalls that used to set up in the evenings outside the Lucky Supermarket (back then there was only…

Strawberry yoghurt cake (379 calories per serve)

I made my first yoghurt cake a while ago and got hooked. It’s just brings out a light and fluffy taste to it. I have since started experimenting with various different fruits and berries into yoghurt cakes. We went to a strawberry farm last week and picked a lot of strawberries. My daughter was absolutely…

Yee Sang New Year Salad (215 calories per serve)

Gong xi fa cai! I don’t often get to host Chinese New Year lunches because we usually spend it at my uncle’s house. Having lived in Shanghai for a number of years, he’s got the whole Chinese New Year festivities down pat. But he was away this year celebrating at Daylesford, a spa town about…

Addictive Apple Pie (493 calories per serve)

My daughter loves fruit and apples are one of her favourite because of its crunchy texture. She loves being able to hold it in her hand as she diligently bites around the core (in a very systematic way too!). We had some leftover apples and they were getting a bit too ripe for her to…

Family favourite lasagne (731 calories per serve)

My daughter’s childcare was sharing recipes from their kitchen and one of those recipes was for lasagne. It was one of my daughter’s favourite meals at childcare and she even had 3 serves of it in one sitting. So I decided to recreate it with some adjustments. The original recipe had used a vegan bechamel…

Creamy garlic prawn pasta (510 calories per serve)

My husband and I are big fans of garlic and after 3 years of marriage, we are not disgusted with each other’s garlic breath. Phew! So it’s no surprise that we both love garlic prawn. The first time I had garlic prawn was with him on one of our trips over to WA. I distinctly…

Thai chicken and vegetable stir fry (242 calories per serve)

This pairs very well with the Thai “street vendor” grilled pork (370 calories per serve) recipe and can form part of a Thai meal. We recently had some friends over for dinner and the kids got to play with each other. Unfortunately they decided they didn’t like this because it was cooked in a sauce base (my…

Baked sago pudding (270 calories per serve)

My friend had been craving baked sago pudding, something that is generally easy to find at yum cha restaurants. However, the yum cha restaurant we went to didn’t have baked sago pudding on their menu – shock horror! So I decided I’ll make one for her when she came to visit. I wasn’t sure which…

Herbal pork noodle soup (668 calories per serve)

This pork noodle soup is a variation of my mom’s recipe, which she loosely calls “ba mee nam” (Thai pork noodle soup). This is not, however, what I would consider a traditional “ba mee nam” hence I wouldn’t call it that. This is one of my favourite winter soups and great for colds too, in…