About
Hello! My name is Kee, I’m an illustrator, graphic designer, music lover, gym freak, mountain hiker, vegan cook and wine drinker. I’m originally from Hong Kong and have been living in London for years.
London is a fantastic city with a lot of things going on; the hustle and bustle, the colour and vibrancy, life in London is not bad at all. However, after living here for so many years, I realised I’d started taking it for granted. I had stopped seeing the beauty of London and at the same time, I felt I were in a bottleneck with my creativity. So at the end, I decided to shake up my life a little bit.
Putting all my possessions in storage, I said goodbye to my workspace, flat and friends. I solo travelled and worked around Europe like a nomad for 13 months. As a freelance illustrator/graphic designer I was fortunate that I could work anywhere as long as there was a desk, laptop and internet. This gave me the freedom to make this journey without costing me an arm and a leg.
On my travels, I preferred living like a local rather than a short visit tourist, so stayed in each city for at least one month to really settle in.
During the week, I worked 9-5 in co-work spaces and went to the gym after work. I met lots of new people from work, the gym, local meetups and neighbourhoods.
I discovered strange ingredients from the local markets, ate in authentic local restaurants and spent time in the kitchen experimenting with new recipes that I’d learnt along the way. Each weekend I explored every little street and dug out the hidden gems and secrets from all the corners of all the cities I visited.
This journey taught me to see life from a different perspective and challenge my perceptions of convention. It opened my eyes and fed my soul on so many different levels; Strengthening my passion for travel, food, adventure, art and music.
Here I am back in London, after a year of travelling, self-discovery and learning. With fresh perspectives and creative vigour I’m starting this new project on top of my regular job to see where it takes me.
Welcome to K33 Kitchen, nice to meet you all!
K33 Kitchen:
I have no ambition to become a master chef; indeed I am lazy when I cook for myself. However, I enjoy cooking for others, seeing people’s joy when eating my food gives me butterflies.
I love the challenge of learning new things, discovering fresh ingredients and new recipes. For me, food is not just the indulgence of taste-buds; it is a way to connect people together, a way of feeling, of touching, of loving and of sharing. It creates a moment, a memory and a togetherness with someone you care for or an experience just for yourself.
London is such a big melting pot of culture, I am not vegan myself, but I have friends with all different diets, from vegans to meat lovers and everything in-between. We all love and respect each other’s lifestyle choices, and so I want to create delicious plant-based dishes that everyone can experience and enjoy together, whether vegan, vegetarian or meat eater.
Now, I’m going to be honest with you about my cooking – as I said above, I am a lazy cook, a very lazy one; except for the occasional weekend when I am just really in the mood to make something fancy.
Most of the time, I scarcely spend more than 15 minutes preparing a meal for myself. Particularly after a long day of work and going to the gym after, I would rather not to spend my evening in the kitchen. I prefer to make a one-pot-meal that takes just 15 minutes or something I can prepare quickly, toss in the oven/slow cooker and leave until done.
As you may discover, many of my recipes use ‘cheat’ ingredients such as microwave cooked rice pouches, prepared pastry sheets (surprisingly there are vegan ones available in the UK) and bouillon powder to accelerate the cooking process. I am trying to find the balance between fast, simple, delicious… and aesthetically pleasing. As a designer food presentation is important too!
I want to share all my lazy cooking tricks and short-cuts with you so that you can create tasty, fast, easy and professional looking dishes that are sure to impress your loved ones.
You may also realise some of my recipes are quite “meaty”. Despite the fact I no longer have much of a meat craving in terms of taste, I have particular food urges when it comes to specific occasions. For example, if I am watching football, I feel like I must either have a hot dog or some chilli con carne with nachos, having a quinoa salad or a bowl noodle soup, no matter how tasty they are, I just doesn’t feel right! Beer in the pub with a burger is a MUST!!! Or when having a full Chinese meal, I’ve got to start with hot and sour soup or wonton soup with spring rolls, followed by crispy duck; without them the meal isn’t complete for me.
So since I got into vegan cooking, I have been working hard to convert my old meaty dishes and eggy baking habits into vegan-friendly recipes. Lots of new and unfamiliar ingredients introduced to my ingredient lists, such as nutritional yeast, spirulina, flax/chia/hemp seeds, tempeh and gluten-free flour… etc. They were all alien to me at the beginning.
Sometimes I feel like my kitchen has turned into a science lab, especially when it comes to vegan baking, finding the right substitutions and ratios can be challenging but also a lot of fun.
I still remembered watching a YouTube video about how to make vegan whipped cream from chickpea bean juice; It was so utterly mind-blowing that I felt like I was watching the Big-Bang happening in front of my eyes.
The rewards and satisfaction of vegan cooking are huge; I remember last summer I cooked a vegan crispy duck for my long-time-vegan friend who had never tried the real thing. I showed her how to roll a pancake with plum sauce, salad and my vegan crispy duck and she skeptical put in her mouth, then her eyes sparkled. The smile on her face has stuck in my mind and is something that keeps me going.
I am not a professional chef, and my recipes are not perfect or flawless. I am still on my journey of learning… so I hope we can learn together. If you see any mistakes in my recipes, or you have a better, faster or lazier techniques to share (or simply you want to share your favourite recipes), please feel free to drop me a message. <3<3
My Recipes:
My mother was a professional mom, working very long hours, who didn’t have to time cook or look after us. From a young age, I was very independent especially when it came to food. I began to cook for my family from the age of 12, and I was a waitress from 16 to until I graduated from Uni. I worked in many different areas of catering, such as food stalls, cafes, ramen shops, snack bars, takeaways, Chinese restaurants, pizzerias and spaghetti houses… etc. Even though I mostly worked as waiting staff, I was always curious and loved to watch how the chefs prepared their dishes, regularly volunteering to be a helper in the kitchen. That’s where and how I learned all my cooking skills and knowledge.
As my website is very new, I still have stacks full of recipes to share; mostly Asian dishes I have cooked for years that I can’t even trace back to where I learnt them. Perhaps from my grandmom, or the ramen shop I worked in at 17, maybe from people I met during my travels or just some variant I have concocted myself from a mixture of everything.
I also love to blindly recreate the yummy dishes I tasted made by friends or my favourite restaurants without asking for the recipes. I will try to work out the ingredients and methods in my mind by their taste and look, and attempt to recreate them through trial and error; this can be quite challenging. Often I will cook them repeatedly until I get something I am happy with. The outcome is not always the taste I intended to achieve. However, I have a lot of fun on experimenting and mostly end up with something unexpectedly great.
And of course, I research recipes on YouTube, following other bloggers and cookbooks for inspiration. It is almost impossible to invent a completely original dish; especially when I focus on developing simple everyday recipes. I will always include a link to the original if my recipes are inspired by other sources. And I hope that others would do the same for me. Please link to my website and put a reference if you are recreating my one of my dishes.
All photography, text and content are owned by K33 Kitchen. Please do not copy, print and reuse for any commercial purpose (on the website, blogs, social media, in print) without permission.
Allergy and Diet:
Gluten-free:
Does not contain gluten.
Peanut-free:
Does not contain peanuts.
Tree-nut-free:
Does not contain any tree nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, brazils, pistachios, macadamia nuts or Queensland nuts.
Soy-free:
Does not contain soy such as tofu, miso, soy sauce, soy milk, soy nuts and edamame.
High-protein:
High protein diet – contains more than 20 grams of protein per main meal or 10 grams of protein per snack and side dish.
Low-carb:
Low carb diet – contains no more than 30 grams of carbohydrate per main meal or 15 grams of carbohydrate per snack or side dish.
No sugar:
No added refined sugar or artificial sweetener, and no processed ingredients containing refined sugar.
Raw:
Food has never been heated over 48˚C (118˚F)
I make every attempt to identify ingredients that may cause allergic reactions in those suffer food allergies/intolerances. However, the food allergy information on this website is only for general guidance as no ingredients have been tested by a certified doctor.
Ready-made product’s ingredients may vary depending on the brand/region and manufacturers may change ingredients or production practices from time to time. If you have any food allergies, please check the ingredients labels on individual packages carefully or contact your doctor for professional advice before consuming.
If you spot any misinformation throughout my recipes, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me, your help is always appreciated.
All recipes’ nutritional values are analysed by www.myfitnesspal.com.
