Hello... wishing all my Chinese readers 'Kong Hee Fat Choy' & Happy Chinese New Year. Today is the 8th day of the first month of the Chinese Lunar calendar and the whole celebration is going to end soon on the 15th day. Kind of miss my family back home in Kuala Lumpur because normally on this day, we will gather at nite for preparation of some ritual worship. Though I am not the believer, i like the mood of preparation and the small gathering we had to catch up.
This Chinese New Year I am not baking any pastries as I have just given birth to a boy, the second addition to the family. I am coping to be a 'new mother' again to a new precious life :) That also explained the long silence of my blog that I have not been updating for months!! For those who follows my blogs, I am sorry. Nevertheless, I really wish to share with you some of the confinement foods that I was 'served' during the first month.
During the first week of the confinement, i took nothing but mainly black fungus, ginger, pork, chicken and some Chinese herbs; brewed into soup mainly to expel clog blood and wind. During this period it is pointless to take too much tonic drinks as the body is too weak and 'windy' to absorb the nutrients. Vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, capsicums, snow peas were slowly introduced to the diet during second week. We believe that fish consumption should not be too early during confinement as this will cause a person to dislike fish when they grow older. My mum said that my grandmother was a good example of not heeding the advice that she hated fish when she grew old! Could this be just an old wife tales? I don't know but I insisted to consume some to boost up my breast milk supply. By third week onwards, the diet will include more nutritional foods with a good balance of tonic soups. I took quite a lot of different tonic soups like cordycep double boiled with chicken, ginseng black chicken soup, chicken double boiled with wine and 'tong kwai' etc. These were taken every night for supper. On top of these, I have been taking soups for both lunches and dinners for one full month! We also used different types of wine in the cookings such as ginger wine, red rice wine, yellow rice wine, black dates wine and blue dates wine.
I have been consuming plentiful of ginger ... about 13 kilo in just one month that I really could not believe it that I took that much! I have posted some photos of the confinement food that I have had. I love to eat them all and the best of the best is my favourite black vinegar pig trotters! Yum yum! Enjoy....
Threadfine cooked in a few types of rice wines, ginger and dates
Soy sauce chicken with onions
Dried Longan, Red dates and some herbal chicken soup for lunch
'Mui Choy' (A Type of Sweet Chinese Vegetables) stewed with pork
Simple ABC soup
Pork Liver with plenty of ginger
Forever Green Snowpeas with ginger and carrot
'Ka Char Ma'/'Yi Mu Choa' (A type of Chinese dried herbs) cooked with chicken and wine
Strictly red residue rice wine with chicken
Fried Chicken marinated with ginger and soy sauce
Pig Trotter with black Vinegar
Pig Stomach Organ Soup with lot of pepper
Chicken Chinese Herbal soup
Steamed Chicken with Black Fungus and Ginger
Steam Fish with Ginger, Red Dates and Black Fungus
Pig Liver Soup with Black Fungus and Pork
Ginger Fried Noodle
Chicken Lemongrass Soup
Fried Spinach with Ginger
Fried Threadfin with plentiful of Shredded Ginger on top...yum!
This is not a confinement food but the morning breakfast that my husband prepared for me before I went to give birth :)
This Chinese New Year I am not baking any pastries as I have just given birth to a boy, the second addition to the family. I am coping to be a 'new mother' again to a new precious life :) That also explained the long silence of my blog that I have not been updating for months!! For those who follows my blogs, I am sorry. Nevertheless, I really wish to share with you some of the confinement foods that I was 'served' during the first month.
During the first week of the confinement, i took nothing but mainly black fungus, ginger, pork, chicken and some Chinese herbs; brewed into soup mainly to expel clog blood and wind. During this period it is pointless to take too much tonic drinks as the body is too weak and 'windy' to absorb the nutrients. Vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, capsicums, snow peas were slowly introduced to the diet during second week. We believe that fish consumption should not be too early during confinement as this will cause a person to dislike fish when they grow older. My mum said that my grandmother was a good example of not heeding the advice that she hated fish when she grew old! Could this be just an old wife tales? I don't know but I insisted to consume some to boost up my breast milk supply. By third week onwards, the diet will include more nutritional foods with a good balance of tonic soups. I took quite a lot of different tonic soups like cordycep double boiled with chicken, ginseng black chicken soup, chicken double boiled with wine and 'tong kwai' etc. These were taken every night for supper. On top of these, I have been taking soups for both lunches and dinners for one full month! We also used different types of wine in the cookings such as ginger wine, red rice wine, yellow rice wine, black dates wine and blue dates wine.
I have been consuming plentiful of ginger ... about 13 kilo in just one month that I really could not believe it that I took that much! I have posted some photos of the confinement food that I have had. I love to eat them all and the best of the best is my favourite black vinegar pig trotters! Yum yum! Enjoy....
Threadfine cooked in a few types of rice wines, ginger and dates
Soy sauce chicken with onionsDried Longan, Red dates and some herbal chicken soup for lunch
'Mui Choy' (A Type of Sweet Chinese Vegetables) stewed with pork
Simple ABC soup
Pork Liver with plenty of ginger
Forever Green Snowpeas with ginger and carrot
'Ka Char Ma'/'Yi Mu Choa' (A type of Chinese dried herbs) cooked with chicken and wine
Strictly red residue rice wine with chicken
Fried Chicken marinated with ginger and soy sauce
Pig Trotter with black Vinegar
Pig Stomach Organ Soup with lot of pepper
Chicken Chinese Herbal soup
Steamed Chicken with Black Fungus and Ginger
Steam Fish with Ginger, Red Dates and Black Fungus
Pig Liver Soup with Black Fungus and Pork
Ginger Fried Noodle
Chicken Lemongrass Soup
Fried Spinach with Ginger
Fried Threadfin with plentiful of Shredded Ginger on top...yum!
This is not a confinement food but the morning breakfast that my husband prepared for me before I went to give birth :)
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