Budget Meal: Sweet Potato Leaves, Red Spinach Soup, and Sweet-savory Sweet Potato with Bok Choy

1. Sweet Potato Leaves Soup 

Ichi's Fusion Recipes: sweet potato leaves soup - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Welcome back to Ichi's Fusion Recipes! Today's topic is budget meals as many food ingredients' prices have gone up because of inflation. Therefore, I want to share easy recipes yet tasty; moreover, it is good for the value of money so that we can still save money for our future.

At first, my reason to cook our meals was to save money each month as my partner and I started our life with zero savings. Many or mostly think that I have a good life today because I married a young executive man like some of my university friends who had a dream to marry an executive man so that they would have a good life without hard work. Yeah...about that, while I studied hard (many times until pass midnight or woke up earlier morning), my girlfriends were busy looking for a successful young career man and talked about married and even wanted to get married before completing their studies. Back then, My partner and I built our life from scratch, and these days, we are still upgrading our life including upgrading our degrees and skills. It all started by staying at school; school is the passport to get a better life in the future. One of the habits that helped us a lot to thrive is how to use money wisely; including how we spend on food. Cooking at home would save some money and we can use it for useful resources.

It is true, the first thing I had done to reach the life that we got today was by preparing our food and avoiding food from outside. Even after we moved to Singapore 10 years ago, I have kept my lifestyle. My attention is besides saving some money, I want to have a tasty meal yet healthy as well as my body reacts fast to unhealthy ingredients one example MSG and common cooking oil. Who would have known, I am interested in writing recipes. To be honest, writing recipe articles was to remind me what ingredient I had put in to make a dish so that I would get the same taste if I recreate the same recipe. Because everyday working in the kitchen, I am able to create fusion recipes which are to adapt to the environment and what I can find around me. Like this one in this article: Sweet Potato leaves soup, red spinach soup, and sweet &savory sweet potato. To make these soup is easy by adding exactly the same seasonings that I use to make the ridge gourd soup that I wrote before. The same seasonings but different veggies. Do not worry, the taste is absolutely awesome!

Eating sweet potato leaves was my maternal grandma's habit. She loved any kind of leaves if she thought edible then just ate them without hesitation. Picking from her own garden, and foraging, those were her lifestyle that led her to have a healthy body and long life. By adding salt, shallot, and garlic, that was how my grandma made a sweet potato leaves soup. However, nowadays, I create distinct seasonings. Let's check it out!

Ingredients:

• 1 pack of sweet potato leaves
• 1/2 big carrot - or 1 small carrot. Cut into thin slices
• 1 big tomato
• 3 green chilies - this is optional
• 10 g of anchovies season powder or 2 blocks of anchovies stock cubes
• 1/2 tbsp of tamarind
• 1/2 tbsp of shrimp paste
• 1400-1500 ml of water

These are what you do:

• Prepare a saucepan or wok
• Pour water.  Add anchovies stock cubes or anchovies season powder, tamarind, and shrimp paste. Bring to boil on medium flame
• Once it boils, turn down the flame to medium-low flame
• Add carrot. Give it 2 minutes to cook. Then add sweet potato leaves and tomato (cut and wash before cooing). Cook for about 3 minutes. 
• Before turning off the stove add celery. Turn off the stove

Ichi's Fusion Recipes: Sweet Potato Leaves Soup - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• Sweet potato leaves soup is ready!🤗
• I eat this soup with Japanese rice and a fried egg or it could be fried tofu, or fish (saba or salmon) to complete the meal

2. Red Spinach Soup

Ichi's Fusion Recipes: Red Spinach - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

To make this soup is easy peasy! The same steps as we prepare the sweet potato leaves soup. I added young corn this time!😉 With the same steps and seasonings I created red spinach soup. Put young corn along with the carrot before adding the leafy veggie (red spinach) and tomato. And before turning off the stove, add the celery. I ate this soup with Japanese rice, so basically underneath the soup is Japanese rice! I choose a fried egg, or it could be fried tofu, fried tempeh, sukiyaki saba, or butter salmon, to complete this meal. Easy to prepare yet healthy and tasty. Furthermore, will save some money!👊🤩 

Ichi's Fusion Recipes - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Ichi's Fusion Recipes - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

3. Sweet Savory Sweet Potato

Ingredient:

• 4 sweet potatoes - peel and cut
• a pack of bok choy
• 4 cloves of shallot - chop it
• 2 cloves of garlic - chop it
• 15 ml of olive oil
• 300-400 ml of water
• 5 g of onion powder
• 5 g of garlic powder

These are what you do:

• Prepare the pan, and add shallot and garlic. Pour olive oil, saute for about 3 minutes on medium-low flame

Ichi's Fusion Recipes - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• Add sweet potatoes, and pour water. Add garlic and onion powder. Cook for about 5 minutes; cook on medium flame

Ichi's Fusion Recipes - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• Add bok choy. Stir them and give 2-3 minutes to cook then turn off the stove

Ichi's Fusion Recipes - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Ichi's Fusion Recipes: sweet-savory sweet potatoes with bok choy, fried egg, an apple - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• Note: A different type of sweet potato may require more time to cook. In this article, I use Indonesia's purple sweet potato which is quick to be cooked. Some sweet potato varieties have a firm texture which is needed a longer time to boil/ steam. Another thing is that we can substitute garlic and shallot with one big yellow onion. And we can replace bok choy with kale or spinach!😊

Thank you for reading my article, see you and bye...!🖐🌞

Note:

• Written by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Do not copy this article without permission
• Do not reuse these photographs anywhere else without permission