A Hearty Bowl of Broccoli Soup

That’s Ashley’s old bib in case you’re wondering. Spent the entire of last night washing Ashley’s old baby clothing to be handed down to her little sister. So this morning instead of tiring myself out with heavy cooking I decided to make broccoli soup, I read that broccoli is a good source of  calcium, vitamin C, folate, and vitamin B6. It’s a fairly simple dish to make and it’s low fat but at the same time it fills you up. Which is something I need at the moment because I’ve gained my allocated amount of weight gain (10kilos) for this pregnancy and I’m only 33 weeks along. Pffttt!

You Need
1 small head broccoli, about 500g, including stems, chopped (separate the florets and stems)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium potato, grated or diced
3 cups of chicken stock or water
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and white pepper to taste

How To
1. Heat oil on a medium pot. Gently sauté onion until translucent or softened. Add in the chopped stems and continue sautéing for 5-6 minutes.
2. Add in the stock or water and bring to a boil before reducing the heat and add in the potato.
3. Leave to simmer for 30 minutes or until the vegetables are softened.
4. Allow the soup to cool slightly, then transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Return soup to the pot and over low heat, add in the florets. I only add the florets in the end so that it remains slightly crunchy which gives the soup a nice texture. Heat gently and season.
5. Serve with generous servings of grated Parmesan.

It was so hearty and comforting to have a bowl during a rainy morning that I had two servings!

French Toast

When we were young my mom would always make this for us to bring to school or for breakfast. Back then I didn’t know it’s French Toast, I thought it’s my mom’s special creation of sweetened condensed milk with egg and bread, with a slight saltiness from the butter. And it has such a wonderful aroma and nowadays when I make this for my little girl which happens to be her favourite snack it brings back fond memories of me and my mom during my early childhood days. It’s a pretty simple recipe and you can have many variations of French Toast which I’ll share one of them with you in this same post.  

You Need
1 egg
2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
a pinch of salt
butter
3-4 slices of white bread

How To
1. Break egg into a wide,shallow plate and beat lightly with a fork. Add in the remaining ingredients except for the bread.
2. Over medium-low heat, heat non stick pan with a thin layer of butter or margarine.
3. Place the bread slices, one piece at a time in the plate and let the bread soak up the egg mixture and turn to the other side. Make sure both sides are well coated but don’t let it soak too long otherwise the bread would turn out soggy. You want the French Toast to be light and eggy not soggy*.
4. Transfer bread slices to pan.heating slowly until bottom is golden brown. Turn and brown the other side.
5. Serve and enjoy on its own or you can have them with maple syrup.  

Cooking Tutorials 

Sweetened Condensed Milk

  

Cinnamon & Vanilla French Toast

You Need
1 egg
2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup milk
a pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
butter
3-4 slices of white bread**
powdered/icing sugar

How To
1. Break egg into a wide,shallow plate and beat lightly with a fork. Add in the remaining ingredients except for the bread.
2. Over medium-low heat, heat non stick pan with a thin layer of butter or margarine.
3. Place the bread slices, one piece at a time in the plate and let the bread soak up the egg mixture and turn to the other side. Make sure both sides are well coated but don’t let it soak too long otherwise the bread would turn out soggy. You want the French Toast to be light and eggy not soggy*.
4. Transfer bread slices to pan.heating slowly until bottom is golden brown. Turn and brown the other side.
5. Serve and enjoy on its own or sprinkle some powdered sugar on top.

Cooking Tutorials



Note
* To prevent from soaking the bread too long, what I usually do is when I turn over the slice of bread cooking on the pan, brown already on one side then I’ll place the white bread slice into the egg mixture. So when I dish out the cooked French Toast, I’ll transfer the soaked bread to the pan.
** You can substitute the white bread with slices of baguette/French Bread 

When you’re sick

 

I honestly think that the best meal to have when you're feeling under the weather is rice porridge with condiments!

Stir Fry French Beans with Anchovies and Vegetarian Goose (Chai Siew Ngor)

 Preserved Radish Omelette

Pickled Lettuce and Preserved Olive Leaves 

Preserved Radish Omelette  

You Need
A handful of sweet preserved chopped radish (soaked in water for 30 minutes, drained, washed and pat dry on kitchen towel)
2 eggs
1 onion, chopped
salt and pepper to season

How To
1. Beat eggs with salt and pepper until light and fluffy. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in wok. Stir fry the radish and onion.
3. Once the radish starts jumping around the wok or make popping sound pour in the beaten eggs.
4. As the omelette starts to set, lift an edge of the omelette with your spatula and tilt the wok so that the runny unset egg mixture can run underneath and once it’s set flip over.
5. When the omelette sets, slide onto a plate.
6. Serve and enjoy!

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Stir Fry French Beans with Anchovies 
You Need
200gm French beans, sliced diagonally
50gm carrot, julienned
A handful of dried anchovies cleaned and washed
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon of water

How To
1. Heat a little cooking oil in a wok.
2. Fry the anchovies until crispy and set aside.
3. In the same wok, stir fry garlic until fragrant. Add in carrots and stir fry for a minute before adding in the French beans.
4. Once the French beans looks a little translucent, add the remaining ingredients except for the anchovies and cornstarch mixture.
5. Simmer for a few minutes and just before you turn off the stove, add in the cornstarch mixture give a quick stir and add in the anchovies.
6. Serve and enjoy!

I’d be posting the recipe for the porridge/congee in a different blog post only because it would be a mighty long post :) So it’s not that bad to be sick when you get to enjoy great meal like this eh ;)

Chicken Nuggets

Home cooked meals are very easy to make and honestly nothing beats the satisfaction of knowing your loved ones are having the best there is in terms of nutrition and at the same time enjoys the meals as much you enjoy making them. And these days although fast food is very convenient for a busy family, sometimes having them too often can be quite harmful to one’s health. Ashley loves those meals that comes with a toy and I decided to cut down on her intake and make my own nuggets instead. At least I know what’s goes into her tummy and she wouldn’t even know the difference. So here’s one of the many ‘fast food’ you can make at home.

You Need
2 skinless and boneless chicken  breasts, cleaned and fat trimmed
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup *breadcrumbs (or you can get it from supermarket)
freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste
1 tablespoon of dried Italian herbs (you may use chopped fresh basil or parsley or dried mixed herbs)
4 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup of plain flour
oil for frying

Breadcrumbs
1.You need half a loaf of stale bread (you may also use any kind of bread, white, brown, baguette, whatever you have on hand)
2. Break it up into pieces and place it in food processor. Process until fine crumbs form.
3. Transfer and use according to recipe
4. Generally half a loaf (8-9 slices) will make about 3 cups so you may keep the remaining of the breadcrumbs in sealed bag or container in the freezer until the next time you need to use breadcrumbs.  

How To
1. After cleaning the chicken, pat dry and cut into chunks. Place them in the food processor and pulse the chicken until roughly chopped.
2. Add in half of the dried herbs, black pepper and salt and blend with the chicken. At this point the chicken should be well mixed with the herbs and seasoning.
3. Rub your hand with some flour to avoid having a sticky hand when you roll and shape the chicken mixture. Take some chicken mixture and roll it on your palm to form a ball shape about the size of a ping pong ball.
4. Once the chicken mixture has been all rolled and shaped up, prepare the coating. Mix the breadcrumbs with the Parmesan cheese, seasoning set aside. Line flour, egg and lastly breadcrumbs. Take the nuggets and roll it in the flour, shake excessive flour and next roll it in the egg and then in the breadcrumbs.
5. Gently press down the nuggets with your thumb or with the back of a knife.
6. Heat up oil in a non stick frying pan. Make sure the oil is hot and not smoking, otherwise your nuggets will burn. Place the nuggets onto the pan and cook about 5-6 minutes on both side.
7. Drain the nuggets on kitchen paper towel.
8. Serve and enjoy!  

Variations
You may add in some chopped vegetables such as carrot, celery into the chicken mixture for the added crunch and plus that way your kid if a picky eater like Ashley gets their vegetables as well  

Cooking Tutorials

Cooking & Blogging Mojo

I’ve been lacking of these two for the past few days if not weeks, that I’m starting to forget how it feels to cook and write about it. To be honest, I was having some personal issues and I wasn’t in the right state of mind to do anything.

But it warms my heart to know despite the lack of activities in both of my blogs, there are still readers visiting them. Thanks everyone :) So here I am, back from a short and unintended hiatus. The long overdue recipes .

5 Spices Chicken Wings

You need
10 chicken wing pieces
1 tablespoon of Chinese five-spice powder
1 tablespoon of sugar or 2 tablespoons of honey
1/4 cup of soy sauce
2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 inch of ginger grated salt and freshly cracked black pepper

How To
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Prepare the chicken wings and pat dry.
3. Mix all the ingredients except the chicken wing in a bowl. Place the chicken wings in the bowl, cover, and marinate in the refrigerator 8 hours or overnight.
4. Line the wing pieces up on a baking sheet so the side of the wing that has the most skin is facing up. Roast until cooked through, browned and crispy, or until the juice runs clear about 30 minutes.
5. Or if you’re using a griller, oil the grill grate. Grill the chicken wings on one side for 20 minutes, then turn and brush with honey. Continue grilling 20 minutes, or until juices run clear.

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Pasta with Sweet Pumpkin Sauce

You Need
250g of Spaghetti, cooked until al dente
1 cup of pumpkin, cubed
1 small onion, minced
1 cup of milk
1/2 tablespoon of sugar *
salt and freshly cracked pepper to season
olive oil

How To
1. Heat up oil in a saucepan, add in the onion and sauté until it turns transparent.
2. Add in the pumpkin and milk. Let it simmer until the pumpkin turns soft/mushy. At this point, the sauce would start to thicken.
3. Transfer the cooked spaghetti into the pan and coat it with the sauce. Season with salt, sugar and pepper.
4. Serve and enjoy

Fried Bean Curd with Sweet Chilli Sauce

I made this way before I got inspired to be a food blogger and it’s possibly one of my early attempts at photographing food with a SLR camera. So do forgive me for the not so nice pictures.

Before this when I cook the thing that matters most would be the taste of the food, but after sitting at home thinking what to do aside from looking after a baby, slowly I learned about the art of food styling and photography. And I have my husband to thank for letting me play with his SLR :D

 

Anyway back to the dish, it’s quite easy to make and it’s great as a starter or appetizer even as light bites when you’re entertaining . It mainly consists of tofu, seasonings, flour and egg to bind everything together. You can put in minced meat, prawn, fish or diced water chestnut for crunchiness, chilli for heat, anything at all. Be creative :)

You need
1 piece soft bean curd(I usually use organic soy bean curd, will update with picture the next time I go for my grocery shopping)
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped
1/2 small carrot, julienned
1 small egg
2 tbsps of corn flour
flour for coating

Seasoning
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp of oyster sauce (omit this if you are on a vegetarian diet)
½ tsp pepper

Sweet Chilli sauce
4 red chillies, minced
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup Rice vinegar
2 tablespoons garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime or lemon juice

How to
1. Mash soft bean curd in a mixing bowl and strain using a strainer to remove excess liquid. Add spring onion, carrot, egg, and seasoning. Mix and stir until well combined and lastly add in the corn flour. Mix well
2.Pour the ingredients into a lightly greased square tray. Steam for 15-16 minutes or until set and cooked. Set aside to cool completely.
3.Cut into squares or rectangular pieces then coat with flour. Deep-fry in hot oil until crispy and golden.
4.Dish out onto several layers of paper towels. Serve immediately with the chilli dipping sauce.

Sweet Chilli Sauce*
1.In a small, heavy saucepan, combine the chillies, sugar, water, vinegar, and garlic. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
2.Stir to dissolve the sugar and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the liquid reduces slightly and thickens to a light syrup.
3.Remove from the heat and stir in the fish sauce and lime or lemon juice. If you want a thicker sauce you can stir in a 1/2 teaspoon of corn flour mixed in with some water towards the end of the simmer.
4. Cool to room temperature before serving. Keep the cooled sauce in a tightly sealed jar.

Note
* I’ve made the sauce a few days ahead to keep, hence there is no step by step tutorial for the sauce

Cooking tutorials
Ingredients

How to