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One of life's simple pleasures. Turon harks us back to the old days when life was not very complicated, when the neighborhood magtataho was still greeted by glee and kids grabbing bowls for their share of the rich soya concoction. Turon, along with banana and camote cue, reigned supreme as the street food of choice.


















Turon is even simpler to prepare. All you need are cooking bananas (which we call saba), brown sugar, lumpia wrapper (available at the Asian store), and frying oil. Although in our case here in New Zealand, cooking bananas are more difficult to come by so I grabbed some when I caught the news that it was available at New World. It was still dark green, though, and so we placed it in a warm place for it to ripen properly. It took 2 weeks for it to become bright yellow, and then it was ready for greatness.

Ingredients:
Saba (cooking bananas)
brown sugar
lumpia wrapper
cooking oil
langka (jackfruit) - optional, but it makes the turon all the more special
a small bowl of water (for sealing the wrapper - you may also add a bit of flour in it)



















Procedure:
Peel off the bananas. Slice into three lengthwise.

Spread some brown sugar on a wide plate and coat the banana with the sugar by rolling the pieces over it.

Wrap with lumpia wrapper. You can put in two pieces if you want. To make more, just place one piece. Add the optional langka at this stage; a thin strip of this fragrant fruit will do nicely.

You can also cut the lumpia wrapper into two if you're only placing 1 piece per wrapper to maximize its use. Fold the sides, then roll, then dab the edge with the water to seal.


















Pour cooking oil into the pan, enough to partly submerge the turon pieces. Heat up the oil, then reduce to medium heat and fry the turon, turning occasionally to brown both sides. Let sit on a strainer to drain off excess oil and cool off.

Serve and enjoy.

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We are big on sandwich spreads principally because we have become accustomed to eating bread in the morning, and of course it helps a lot if there's something we can wedge between the bread slices! We love chocolate spreads especially. My wife, who is growing conscious of our increased food intake, would like to introduce healthier options into our diet. And so she bought Vegemite because she thought it, um, had veggies in it. She's partly right about that, of course.

Vegemite is made from leftover brewer's yeast extract (a by-product of beer manufacturing) as well as various vegetable and spice additives. The taste may be described as salty, slightly bitter, and malty — somewhat similar to the taste of beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and sticky, much like peanut butter. It is not as intensely flavoured as British Marmite and it is less sweet than the New Zealand version of Marmite.

Vegemite is popular with many Australians, who commonly consider it a national food and a cultural icon.[2] It can be found in shops around the world, particularly where there are large populations of Australian expatriates. Vegemite has not been successfully marketed in other countries, apart from New Zealand and to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom, and has failed to catch on in the United States, despite being owned by US food company Kraft Foods. When seen in the United States, the Vegemite label often does not contain the Kraft logo. (Wikipedia)

What a strange invention, this Vegemite is. I opened the lid and ventured to take a sniff. It does smell strange, for something that you put on bread. Nevertheless, I spread some on bread and gave it to Jo-Lo.

He took a bite and immediately stopped at first munch. It took him some time to swallow it and then he took it upon himself to get his own piece of bread and put his favorite chocolate spread on it!

My wife also noticed this and so she, too, took a bite. Like Jo-Lo, she stopped at first munch and her face got distorted somewhat. Intrigued by now, I took a bit myself.

It was salty! Too salty! And somewhat bitter too!

And I thought I will instantly like it because it's a beer by-product! This will take a lot of getting used to!

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Having trouble incorporating veggies onto your meals, keeping to simple meat dishes that only require a quick dip in the hot oil? Here's a site that will entice you to give veggies a try. Vegetables.co.nz will give you not only recipes but also tips on the best ways to handle vegetables properly so you can get the most out of them.


From the homepage itself, you can already select a vegetable of your choice and learn about its nutritional benefits and handling.

Another very handy feature is in the Recipes tab. Simply select a course (appetiser, meal, hot accompaniments, salad, soup, children) and a vegetable and a list of recipes will be listed out for you. How's that for convenience?

The online content is also supplemented by fresh inspiration, a publication that talks about food, foodies, and recipes. While this print publication is available only in New Zealand, you can still get a copy as a PDF version.

So head on over to vegetables.co.nz and see green!


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Did you know that around a third of the food we buy ends up in the bin and most of this could have been eaten? I know this to be true, especially during the time when I was living by myself in a two-floor apartment some years ago. I had a medium-sized ref which I liked to stuff with meat and veggies and leftovers and beer every now and then. My philosophy then was to put the ref to good use instead of just having cold water sitting there!

Unfortunately, I spent long hours at work and outside the house that I usually eat out with friends for both lunch and dinner. So it was not surprising that I will always find successful batches of mold experiments in the ref! It would be a delight if I were a collector of such amazing creatures like Dr. Egon Spangler, but I wasn't. So a lot of stuff gets thrown away. Except the beer, of course.

Times have changed since then. I moved to a much smaller place my molds experiment days were over. These days, my wife cooks wonderful meals for us and I no longer mind repeat meals so being more conscious of our food wasteage has really become part of our daily routine.

But enough about me. What I would like to share is this wonderful website called Love Food, Hate Waste. It's based in the UK but its principles are applicable pretty much anywhere else! In a nutshell, the site aims to help its visitors plan much better in food purchasing decisions, thereby minimizing wasteage and saving money at the same time.

This well thought-out site offers the following main courses:
Perfect portions - the best place to start in reducing (or possibly eliminating) cooking too much is in the portions we use. This section gives useful advise on how much rice to cook for a person and how much a tablespoonful is good for, among others.
Save time & money - who wouldn't want to?! This section gives useful tips on planning meals spanning two weeks, essential ingredients you can always use for a variety of yummy dishes, and taking note of expiration dates.
Recipes - delicious meals from leftovers! Is it possible? Now it is!
Top tips - how to prolong the life of your food.
About Food Waste - information about the group behind this site can be found here, and why reducing our food waste matters.
Add your voice - be heard! (or read!)

If you find yourself throwing lots of foodstuff into the bin, it's just like throwing money. Come to think of it, I think it will be great to imagine the food we are throwing to be coins and paper bills! And to save money, head on to this site and start saving.

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There's a show on TV here that teaches kids how to cook and is broadcast on Saturday mornings. Cool Kids Cooking presents fun, easy to make recipes that kids can help out in preparing. TK (the host) dishes out the instructions and guides the kids to culinary goodness. And there's a head chef, in the literal sense of the word.

The TV Show tackles a recipe per episode, which is then featured on the website. Meals that are fun and easy to make are used, and the kids get involved with both preparation and cooking, cutting with their colorful knives and taking ingredients onto the pan with measuring spoons.

The recipes on the website are listed by Episode, and there are two recipes per show. There has been 48 episodes so far as I write this, the last one I saw on TV being rice paper rolls which did not require any cooking at all! There are other fun recipes such as coleslaw, hamburgers, baked goodies, smoothies, pizza, and the occasional salad!

Head on over to Cool Kids Cooking and share the joy of the kitchen with your family.

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