The soul of this dish is the soup. I have here some chicken stock and I’m boiling it with some diced carrot. You can use frozen vegetables with green peas and corn. Some tomatoes and celery would have been good too, but I didn’t have that. Of course, you can make it a vegetarian dish, but to add to the flavour, I’ve given it some prawns and a few slices of ginger.

Once the carrot has softened, add in the alphabet macaroni and boil it for a further 10 minutes and we’re ready to serve.

It tastes as nice as it looks. Spot any familiar words?

Trying out my new ceramic pan ($49.90) with some frozen prata from the supermarket. As you may see, I didn’t have a single drop of oil in the pan.

Flip over. No sticking at all.

Three pieces all nicely done. Ready to eat.

© Chan Joon Yee

Char kway teow is a notorious dish responsible for many clogged arteries in Singapore. To mitigate the guilt, I’ve come up with a char kway teow fried in olive oil. OK, it’s still oil and won’t do anything positive (or is it negative?) for the waistline, but it’s going to taste great on a Friday evening. So here goes.

First thing, lots of oil and lots of garlic. This is followed by an egg. Scramble it well and make sure you see lots of bubbles. No bubbles, not enough oil.

I don’t have to sell this for $3, so that’s why I’m so generous with the prawns and cuttlefish. I add in the yellow noodles first as the kway teow gets soggy real fast. Toss it around very quickly until the yellow noodles loosen up a bit.

I’ve put in the kaway teow, covered up by the green vegetables and bean sprouts in this picture. Add a bit of fish sauce and pepper for flavouring. Also add some water to prevent the kway teow from sticking.

It really doesn’t take long to cook. Once you’re almost done, add sweet black sauce and sambal chilli. Ai hiam mai hum.

And here’s the final product. A great way to start a Friday evening. Should go well with a port wine. Have a great weekend, guys.

© Chan Joon Yee

The first step is of course to marinate the chicken. I’ve done this with a mixture of black pepper, coarse salt and sesame seeds. In the meantime, I cook my rice in the usual way.

Ginger and garlic oil, sesame seed oil, seasoning and pandan leaves. Just let it cook until it’s nice and fluffy.

30 mins in the microwave oven and our chicken is nicely roasted. Absolutely delicious. The kids loved it.

This is a cheap, $16 wine which I had every intention to convert into Sangria. After tasting it on its own, I realised that it wasn’t so bad. It had a hint of nuts but was still rather acidic. The sangria that I made out of it, was superb.

For dessert, I had some of that sangria with a plate of organic dried apricots. Notice the dark colour. Most dried apricots have been treated with sulphur dioxide to make them look a more pleasing orange. I prefer my dried apricots without the acrid taste.

A nice, healthy dessert you can enjoy at home. Try it.