Christmas calories!

I always end up eating too much during festive dinners. And New Year’s just round the corner! I’ve already succeeded in shedding 3 kilos, and am now just 2 kilos short of my ideal. Now I need to burn off all the piled on Christmas calories!


This Chocolate cake, a gift, was way too good to resist and I really should! I need to lay off the sugar, especially processed sugar! See, I would never have bought it myself knowing I need reduce my sugar intake, but when someone gifts something like this… it’s just temptation after temptation. And I’m only human.

Being asian of mixed parentage, every year we have something different for our Christmas dinners (one year turkey and roasted meats, next a backyard barbeque, then a feast of asian cooking etc etc). And every year we have multiple family dinners as we celebrate so many festive occasions from Chinese New Year to the Harvest Festival to Christmas. Then there’s father’s day and mother’s day and several birthdays! It’s hard to stay at my ideal weight when we eat so much even with all the treks I do.


For Christmas eve this year, we intended to cook a mixed asian-western dishes but in the end, all plans were dropped in favor of a steamboat dinner. It has been half a decade since we last brought out this electric hotpot! Imagine that! LOL Steamboat or hotpot dinners are easiest, no sweating away frying or sautéing or roasting or what not. And definitely none of that messy cleaning up to do after! Just buy and clean/prepare whatever it is you want to throw into the hotpot.


Here’s a portion for one or two persons. Clockwise from top, prawns, sliced chicken meat, cauliflower, broccoli, mixed frozen stuff like egg tofu cakes, fish balls, meatballs, cocktail sausages etc. Black mushrooms in the center. Also popular, fresh crab, fish (fresh parrot fish meat is a good choice), all kinds of mushrooms (straw, button, abalone etc.), cuttlefish or squid (calamari) and whatever else suits your taste. The shrimp is best de-shelled and de-veined.


And don’t forget the green leafy vegetables, popular ones are sawi, sawi bunga, sayur kerinting, chinese kale (kailan), bok choy, and other leafy vegetables. Young baby corn are good too.


Pour in either plain water or chicken stock into the hotpot, bring to boil and throw everything in! Add a dash of salt and pepper and some quartered tomatoes for taste (tomatoes contain natural MSG). Bring to boil again and serve while hot. The broth will be extra extra delicious after a few rounds of dipping and boiling food in it!


And more sugar! Local fruits for dessert. Red and yellow rambutans and local honey oranges (very sweet and juicy!).

I’m going to have to go on extra treks before the holiday season is over and I won’t have as much time to go hiking. Hopefully the weather will be good the next two days so I can go exploring the jungles again, there’s also a beautiful curtain waterfall I’ve never been to which I can’t wait to visit. Happy holidays!