Bite On It!

Now that my baby is at the stage where she is getting more active and mobile, I have less time to prepare lunch hence I will cook and freeze some food which my boy likes. All I need to do is to reheat these frozen food stash before I go and fetch him from school.

One of these is pasta/spaghetti with bolognese sauce. The sauce can be kept in the freeze up to a month. All I need to do is to put appropriate portion into small containers and deep freeze them once they have cooled down.

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Ingredients

• 500g Meat (chicken/pork/beef) minced/ground
• 80g Frozen mixed vege – optional
• 4 Button Mushroom (sliced/coarsely chopped) – optional
• 1 jar Balognese/pasta sauce – I used the 575g jar
• Pepper and salt for taste
• 250g pasta
• Olive oil (to fry the meat and to seperate pasta/spaghetti)
• Water

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Methods

1. Heat up a frying pan with some olive oil and stir-fry minced meat till 70% cooked.
2. Toss in the mix vege & sliced button mushroom and continue to stir.
3. Add in the balognese/pasta sauce and mixed well and add in water (about 1/2 cup). Stir till cook and sprinkle with pepper and salt to taste.
4. In a pot, boil 1.5 little of water, add a teaspoon of salt and wait till boil before tossing in pasta/spaghetti and cook according direction on the package. Drain and add in some olive oil to avoid them from sticking to each other.

Gosh… been ages since my last post here! Apologize for the long absence! Having 2 kids and managing a few blogs are the reasons why I hardly post here!

The weather in Penang has finally turned cooler with more frequent rainfalls… which is really a blessing! We were having the longest hottest weather for the past few months and all of us are so glad the rain has finally returned!

During the hot weather, I seldom do a lot of stir-frying or deep-frying but more to boiling soups and porridge for the family. Darrius fell sick a few times and his cough took a long time to recover too which is why I steamed most of our dishes for his sake.

Here is another healthy porridge which I have been preparing for the family…

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Ingredients

• 1.5 cup Rice (wash and drained)
• 3L Water
• 80g Gingko nuts (‘heart’ removed)
• 1 stick Carrot (medium – shredded)
• 2pcs Dried scallops
• 100g Groundnuts (washed and pre-boiled to remove dirts)
• 2pcs Chicken thighs (cut into small pieces)
• 10g Goji berries (Wolfberries)
• 1tbsp Oil + salt to be added into rice and soak for 10 mins
• Salt for taste
• Lettuce for garnishing

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Method

1. In a pot, when water is boiling add in the soaked rice and let it boil.
2. Add in the chicken pieces, dried scallops, shredded carrot and groundnuts and let them boil on low fire.
3. Stir the porridge constantly every 15-20 minutes so it would not stick at the bottom.
4. Boil the porridge for an hour and when it gets thicken, add in the gingko nuts and continue to stir and let it boil for a further 20 minutes.
5. Turn off the fire, sprinkle the goji berries and mix well into the porridge.
6. Serve hot with shredded lettuce.

Ever since I have 2 kids, I am always looking for easy to prepare dishes which takes less time to cook and something Darrius will enjoy as he has been a little fussy lately. As I have to cook 2 meals a day, sometimes I really have to scratch my head to think of what to cook since PiggyBeng can be quite fussy too.

Kids being kids, Darrius loves Western food more than his daddy so I’ll try to cook stuff that PiggyBeng likes least for lunch. It is during lunch I will cook pasta or spaghetti which PiggyBeng tried to avoid as he thinks these carbo food are too fattening!

Being pressed for time, I don’t cook these sauces from scratch anymore which I used to do last time. Now, I’ll just grab a few cans of those pasta sauce each time I visit the supermarkets and they come in real handy when I want to have a quick bite for both Darrius and myself.

Campbell’s came out with quite a few pasta sauce recently and I guessed this is the perfect time to try all of them… With some frozen fresh scallops stash from our reunion dinner, I made some yummy cream pasta that don’t require much time.

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For this dish, I used the Alfredo Portobello sauce…

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With some fresh ingredients…

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Ingredients

• 150g Spaghetti or pasta of your choice
• 2 pips Garlic (sliced thinly)
• 4-5 Button mushrooms (caps + stipes)
• 3pcs Fresh scallops (sliced half and cut into 4 sections)
• 80g Fresh medium prawns
• 1 can of Campbell’s Alfredo Portobello sauce
• 1/2 cup Water (optional)

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Method

1. Heat some water in a stock pot – half filled with a teaspoon salt and let it come to a boil. Toss in spaghetti or pasta and cook till preferred softness. Drained, add a teaspoon of olive oil, mix and set a side.
2. In a frying pan, add some oil and saute garlic till golden. Lift up and set aside.
3. Using the same frying pan, add another tablespoon of oil and stir fry mushroom, scallops and prawns till 70% cooked.
4. Add in the whole can of Alfredo Portobello sauce and mix well with the ingredients. Add 1/2 a cup of water if you want it to be slightly diluted and stir till cooked.
5. You can either pour on top of your spaghetti or you can toss in your spaghetti and stir fry it for a minute. Garnish with the saute garlic and some vegetables.
6. If you love herbs, you can sprinkle some mixed herbs for extra flavors.

One thing I’ve been dying to eat during my confinement was this fresh turmeric chicken. However, due to jaundice in baby, I was ‘advised’ by a few friends to avoid any ginger in large amount especially turmeric. I do not know how much effect turmeric has on newborn jaundice so to be on the safe side, I avoided it for almost 3 weeks. That means my chance of having this particular dish is pretty limited!

So, die-die on the 3rd week I begged my mom to cook it for me else I’ll never have a chance! Not that I don’t know how to cook it just that I don’t wish to handle all the yellow stuff in my kitchen! Yeah, it can get a little colorful sometimes! Normally I will use turmeric powder which is less fragrant. Usually I will have them pan fried but you can always deep fried it or grill it… it is an individual preference.

I asked my mom to add in some curry leafs this time as these leafs give the dish an extra flavors! They are oh so yummy!
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Ingredients

• 2 pcs Whole chicken thighs
• 80-100g Fresh Turmeric (crushed/blender)
• 2 strands Curry leafs
• Sesame seed oil
• Salt for taste
• Black pepper

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Methods

1. De-bone the chicken thighs (optional) and marinade with crushed fresh turmeric, some salt and black pepper for at least 30 minutes (the longer the better as the turmeric juice can absorb better) and mix in the curry leafs before cooking.
2. Heat up frying pan with sesame seed oil and pan fried both chicken thighs till cooked.

With the unusually hot weather since the beginning of this year, I have made it a point to cook porridge or jook at least once a week to cool our body down beside boiling liong-cha. When Darrius started solid some 4 years ago, I will normally cook just a small pot solely for him since PiggyBeng is not a fan of porridge. To him porridge can’t fill his tummies (see the plural?) up so he prefered to have rice with dishes.

To many people, cooking porridge is simple and healthier as there are more water content in porridge as compared to cooked rice. Especially when we are sick, a hot bowl of porridge is so comforting!

I was never a fan of pumpkin until I was living in Perth many years ago. I was staying with my aunt then and there was once her neighbor gave her a huge pumpkin which she grew in her backyard. Both my aunt and I was cracking our heads on how to finish up such a huge pumpkin! So, I told my aunt why don’t we cook porridge with it since the weather was a little chilly then. It was an instant blast!

Then a uni-mate from Norway fell sick and she can’t seems to get food into her. So, I offered to cook her some pumpkin porridge with a few other ingredients and she fell in love instantly and told me she has never tasted anything as good as this!

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Ingredients

• 1.5 cup Rice (wash and drained)
• 3L Water
• 150g Pumpkin (you can put more if you like)
• 1 stick Carrot
• 2pcs Dried scallops
• 100g Groundnuts (washed and pre-boiled to remove dirts)
• 150g Mince meat (pork/chicken)
• 1tbsp Oil + salt to be added into rice and soak for 10 mins
• Salt for taste
• Lettuce & Egg omelette cut into strips for garnishing

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Method

1. In a pot, when water is boiling add in the soaked rice and let it boil.
2. Cut pumpkin and carrot into small cubes, wash the dried scallops and groundnuts before  tossing them into the pot.
3. For the mince meat, add a little salt and oil and let it marinate for 30 minutes or so.
4. Stir the porridge constantly every 15-20 minutes so it would not stick at the bottom.
5. Boil the porridge for an hour and when it gets thicken, add in the mince meat and stir so it won’t be a big lump.
6. Continue to let it boil for a while but constantly stirring to avoid the bottom from getting burnt.
7. Serve hot with lettuce and egg omelette strips.