Bite On It!

It has been a long time since I make any baked snacks at home. We have just too many packets of cookies and other snacks lying around the house waiting to be finished up. Darrius spent half the day in school so he skipped one snack time at home. When he returned, his lunch will filled him up till dinner time and that means, no more snacking time in those 5 days of the week!

I actually made these simple snack some time back when I was trying to find ways to make something interesting to munch…

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Ingredients

• 100g Pasta (I used some characters pasta)
• 6 slices of Bread (cut into star shape)
• Pasta sauce (I used the Leggo’s Pasta Bake sauce)
• Cheese bits
• Ham bits

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Methods

1. In a medium sauce pan, boil the pasta with some salt. Drained and leave to cool down.
2. Cut the bread slices into star shapes using a cookie cutter and placed them into muffin tins with the 5 edges  sticking out.
3. In the centre of the bread, put a dullop of pasta sauce and some cooked pasta on it before dropping another dullop onto the pasta.
4. Before sending the tray into the oven, sprinkle with some cheese and ham bits on the top. Bake at 200°C for about 20 minutes or till the edges of the bread turned brownish.

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 Bolognese/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 bolognese/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.