Baby Food - Apple and Carrot Porridge

My babies are fed with savory meat and veggies porridge on weekdays. My 22M girl prefers rice noodle soup than savory porridge. Cooking up a meal for 2 babies pose new challenges, as both have different preference in taste. I was thinking of something else to feed them over the weekend to simulate their taste buds. With the available ingredients, I make a twist to cook up a sweet porridge instead of savory porridge. My girl didn't seem like it, but she still finished up her portion. As for my 11M boy, I fed him the puréed version. Seems like he can accept the taste.

Baby Food - Apple and Carrot Porridge
Serving: 2

Ingredients:
half of a corn, chopped into 2 pieces
5 red dates, rinsed and pitted
2 red apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 8 pieces each
3 ½ tbsp of rice, rinsed half of a carrot, peeled and cut into bite-sized
500ml of hot water

Steps:
1. Add rice, red dates, corn and hot water into slow cooker. Cook for 1 hour.
2. Add carrot and apple. Cook until you get the desired porridge texture.
3. Discard the corn and red dates.
4. Leave the porridge cool down a bit.
5. Mash the apple and carrot and serve together with the porridge.

Baby Food - Purple Sweet Potato Millet Porridge 紫番薯小米粥

My girl is facing minor constipation problem. I try my best to add good sources of dietary fiber to her meal. This purple sweet potato porridge may help in digestion, improve her bowels movement and ease the constipation. Don’t panic when you see your baby’s excrement in dark purple color.

Baby Food – Purple Sweet Potato Millet Porridge

Ingredients:
1 ½ tbsp millet, rinsed
50gm purple sweet potato, peeled and cut into pieces
260ml of boiling water (add more if needed)

Steps:
1. Add millet and boiling water to the slow cooker. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes.
2. Add sweet potato. Cook until you get the thickness you want. Add more water if needed.
3. Mash the sweet potato. Leave it cool for a while and serve warm.

Bowles Mint Jelly

This is a scheduled post.
This jelly is something either you like it or you dislike it. You’ll like it if you like the smell of Bowles mint, or vice verse. Hubby requested some jelly as water soluble fiber to his diet. Here comes the new flavor for him since I have lots of home grown Bowles mint leaves harvested. Hubby did not comment much, but he finished up the jelly in few days time. 

Bowles Mint Jelly

Ingredients:

5 tbsp of agar-agar powder
1600ml water
20 Bowles mint leaves, rinsed under running water
brown sugar to taste

Steps:

1. Boil 1600ml water in a pot. Add Bowles mint leaves when boiling.
2. Leave it simmers for 5 minutes.
3. Mix in the agar-agar powder. Add brown sugar to taste. Leave it simmers for 3 minutes.
4. Remove the Bowles mint leaves. Off the fire, and leave the agar-agar mixture to cool for few minutes in the pot.
5. Pour it into jelly moulds. Cool it to room temperature.
6. Chilled for 2 hours before serving.

Blue Seaweed Jelly

Few months ago, I passed some blue pea flower seeds to my parents in law’s domestic helper. She has green-thumb, and now the plant blossoms with blue pea flowers. She collected the flowers and sun-dried it. I’m so pleased when she passed to me a small bottle of sun-dried blue pea flowers.

This maid contributes so much to the family. With her around, we have organic sweet potato leaves, eggplants, tomatoes, sawi, bird’s eye chilis, bananas, papayas, and others. Tomorrow, she will go back to her home town. It's a loss to the family. Not easy to get a such responsible and kindhearted maid.

Okay, back to the jelly now. With the natural blue coloring contributed by the blue pea flowers, here comes the blue seaweed jelly. Does it look interesting? For a start, I thought of this simple way to utilize the dried blue pea flowers. Many more to come hopefully. 

Blue Seaweed Jelly 

Ingredients:
5 tbsp of agar-agar powder 

1600ml water 

6 screw pine leaves, tie into knots 

sugar to taste 

To prepare the blue coloring: 

a handful of dried blue pea flowers, rinsed 

250ml hot water 

Steps: 

1. Soak the blue pea flowers in hot water. Leave it for 30 minutes or more. Sieve it and retain the blue liquid.
2. Boil 1600ml water in a pot. Add screw pine leaves when boiling.
3. Pour in the blue liquid. Let it simmers for 5 minutes. 

4. Mix in the agar-agar powder. Add sugar to taste. Leave it simmers for 3 minutes. 

5. Remove the screw pine leaves. Off the fire, and leave the agar-agar mixture to cool for few minutes in the pot. 

6. Pour it into jelly moulds. Cool it to room temperature. 

7. Fridge it for 2 hours before serving.

Agar Jelly with Grass Jelly

After the first attempt of making seaweed jelly with coconut milk, I’ve been thinking of other alternatives to make the jelly more interesting, and yet not complicated. The first idea popped up in my mind to add in grass jelly cubes. With black-colored grass jelly, I can eliminate other colorings, and I’m able to add patterns to the jelly. A stone to kill two birds.

Agar Jelly with Grass Jelly

Ingredients:

25g agar jelly powder

3500ml water

8 screw pine leaves, tied into knots

250g grass jelly, cut into cubes

sugar to taste

Steps:

1. Bring water to boil. 

2. Add screw pine leave and leave the water simmers for 5 minutes or more. 

3. Add sugar to taste. 

4. Pour in agar-agar jelly powder and stir to dilute it. Boil for few minutes. 

5. Add grass jelly cubes in the heat-proof containers. 

6. Pour in the agar-agar mixture into the containers. 

7. Leave it cool to room temperature and fridge it. 

8. Serve cold.

Mixed Veggies Stir-Fry 炒杂菜

Besides eating the crispy fried tau kee as a dish complement, it can be used in cooking vegetarian food. This mixed veggies stir-fry is one of a good example. It's flavorful with combinations of all ingredients. I'm learning to appreciate this type of meatless dish.

Mixed Veggies Stir-Fry 炒杂菜


Ingredients:
1/4 cabbage, cut into strips
1/4 carrot, peeled and cut into strips
3 dried shiitake mushroom, dehydrated, stalk removed and cut into strips
3 florets of black fungus, dehydrated and cut into strips
Some fried sweetened bean curd stick (tau kee)
cooking oil
some water
1 tbsp of vegetarian oyster sauce

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok. Sauté mushroom till fragrant. Add carrot strips to stir-fry.
2. Stir in black fungus and cabbage. Mix well. Add vegetarian oyster sauce and some water. Leave it simmers for a while.
3. Toss in fried sweetened bean curd sticks. Stir-fry a while till the sauce reduced. Dish out.

Air Fried Sweet Tau Kee (Air-Fryer Recipe)

I like to have crispy fried tau kee served with take away economy fried bee hoon. I haven't made any deep fried tau kee at home before. With the air-fryer at home, I attempted to make this air-fried tau kee. It is so easy. It can be ready in less than 10 minutes. The result was not a failure, but the texture was not 100% satisfying. It's harder compared to the deep-fried version.

Steps:

1. Cut sweetened bean curd sheet (tau kee), into sticks. 

2. Mix it up with 1 tbsp of cooking oil. Remark: I used 4 pieces of sweetened bean curd sheet.

3. Air fry the sweet tau kee for 7 minutes under 170 def C. 

4. Leave it cool and keep in air-tight container.

Sweet Potato Dessert 番薯糖水

My friends asked if I have not been cooking for couple of months. It made me realized blogging is no longer my priority in daily routine task. I have very limited time to reply my readers' comment, and my readers' email. Although I spent very little time to blog, but I still cook a lot. I seldom fail to prepare dinner at home on weekdays, except Friday. Friday used to be our dine out day and to shop for groceries.

When comes to weekend, life's seem hectic. Baby sticks to me every time I bring her home. She prefers mummy much more than daddy. Hence, weekend cooking becomes difficult to me. I can cook on really simple stuffs. For example, the one-pot-dish, the stew, and slow cooked dessert like this sweet potato sweet soup. 

This is an improved version of normal sweet potato dessert. I added some dried longan, red dates and white fungus to this sweet soup on top of the sweet potato and screw pine leaves. So, you can imagine, it is tastier.

Sweet Potato Dessert 番薯糖水

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 liter water

1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into bite-sized

10 dried longan, soaked and drained

12 red dates, rinsed and pitted

2 florets of white fungus, soaked and divided into portions

4 screw pine leave, knotted

rock sugar to taste

Steps:

1. Bring water to a boil. Pour it into the slow cooker.

2. Add all the ingredients and cook under high heat for 2 hours.

3. Add rock sugar to taste.

4. Serves hot or cold.

Tomato Salad 番茄沙拉

This tomato salad was introduced by Chef James from Taiwan. It is very simple to prepare. Tomato is well known for its nutritional value as natural medicine to bring down the blood pressure. Hence, this salad is good for those who has high blood pressure.

I served this salad with home roasted chicken. It’s yummy!

Tomato Salad 番茄沙拉
Serves 2-3


Ingredients:
2 tomatoes
mint leaves, chopped
1 tbsp of rice wine
1 tbsp or less of sugar
a pinch of sugar
water
cold water

Steps:
1. Bring a pot of water to a boiling point. Boil the tomatoes for 1 minute. Drain and soak it in the cold water. Peel the skin and dice it.
2. Mix up the diced tomato with rice wine, sugar, salt and mint leaves.
3. Store in fridge and serve cold.

Vegetable Yogurt Curry 蔬菜咖哩

I've been seeing quite a lot of people using yogurt to replace coconut milk in curry. So, I gave it a try and it didn't disappoint me. In fact, yogurt's natural sourness is very suitable to the curry.

In this curry, you can find five colors of vegetables in it. Purple from the onion and eggplant. Yellow from the potato. Green from the okra, green chili and mint leaves. Red from the tomato. White from the fresh button mushroom. I'm very satisfied with my meal with only the curry and steamed rice.

Vegetable Yogurt Curry 蔬菜咖哩

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

1 potato, peeled and cut into pieces

1 round purple eggplant, cut into wedges

half of tomato, cut into wedges

2 green chili, cut into 2cm length

4 okra, cut into half

2 button mushroom, cut into wedges

8 pieces of vegetarian mutton

half onion, peeled and chopped

4 tbsp of yogurt

500ml of vegetable stock, from the potato boiling water

fresh curry paste

cooking oil

Seasonings:

light soy sauce to taste

sugar to taste

Steps:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boiling point. Add half tsp of salt and a tbsp of cooking oil. Blanch the okra and set aside. Then cook the potato till soft. Retain 500ml of the vegetable stock.

2. Heat up enough oil in a wok. Saute onion till fragrant. Add fresh curry paste to saute till oil is separated.

3. Add eggplant and vegetable stock. Bring for simmering.

4. When eggplant turns soft, add all other vegetables and vegetarian mutton to mix well. Bring it for simmering.

5. Add yogurt and seasonings to taste.

6. Garnish with mint leaves and serve hot with steamed rice.

Vegetarian Curry Mutton One-Plate Meal

Some time ago, we were fancy over a local vegetarian restaurant's one-plate meal. However, their food quality have deteriorated over time. Hence, we no longer dine in the vegetarian restaurant. According to my previous dine in experience, I used to order their one-plate meal with rice, vegetarian curry mutton, and some veggies.

The one-plate meal concept interests me. So, I apply the similar way for my home cooking in preparing our meatless meal. I always have great appetite whenever I see this type of one-plate meal. Funny! :-)

For the vegetarian mutton curry recipe, please refer here.

Vegetarian Mutton Curry

Vegetarian mutton curry is one of my favorite pick when I dine in at any vegetarian shop. The "vegetarian mutton" is made of mushroom stem, flour, and soy. I don't take it that frequent, as this frozen product sure contains seasonings and preservatives. In any vegetarian shop, this dish is pretty expensive. To accomplish my so called "cost saving" project at home, I attempted to cook it on last Sunday. I'm glad that it turned out to be so yummy! Thanks to the good quality fresh curry paste that hubby bought from a reliable fresh spice stall.

Vegetarian Mutton Curry
Serves 3 to 4


Ingredients:
250gm vegetarian mutton
fresh mutton curry paste ( I bought it at MYR1.20 from a reliable stall in wet market)
3 springs of fresh curry leaves
50ml evaporated milk
100ml water
4 tbsp cooking oil
light soy sauce to taste

Steps:
1. Heat oil in the wok. Sauté curry paste curry leaves till fragrant and oil separated.
2. Add vegetarian mutton and stir fry. Pour in water and bring to a boil.
3. Add evaporated milk and light soy sauce to taste.
4. Dish out and serve hot with rice.

Home Made White Bread

New year, new resolutions. The first thing I learnt in 2011 is bread making. With the newly bought Tesco bread maker BM07, I can now have fresh home made bread for breakfast. So here, I'm sharing with you the first bread loaf that I made this afternoon. It was a successful trial with the recipe provided in the user's guide. I'm so impress with its soft, fluffy and little bit of springy texture. It's quite similar to the "Bengali" bread that I used to have when I was a kid.

Wishing all my fellow friends a very Happy New Year! I hope 2011 is a good start for everyone here! 

White Bread (Use Basic Programme of Tesco Bread Maker BM07)

makes a 700gm loaf

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups of room temp water

1 tbsp of sunflower oil

1 tsp of salt

2 tbsp of sugar

3 1/3 cups of bread flour/high Protein flour/high gluten flour

2 tsp dried yeast

Steps:

1. Add water follow by oil.

2. Add flour, salt and sugar.

3. Tap the pan lightly to settle the flour.

4. Add the yeast in small heap in the center of the pan.

5. Lock the pan in the bread maker. Set the program to "Basic" follow by loaf size and select the crust color.

6. The bread maker will complete the task in 3 hours. 

Vegetarian Fried Rice With Spices

This is a good recipe on a meatless day. It’s my own version of vegetarian fried rice with spices. With so many fresh spices around in Malaysia, it’s definitely an advantage in cooking a vegetarian meal. For example, the ginger bud and Kaffir lime leaves that I used in this fried rice could easily be found in the wet market. The spices are not only infused the rice with pleasant fragrance, but it also make the food more presentable.  Anyone said vegetarian meal is bland? This will proof you wrong.

Vegetarian Fried Rice With Spices
Serves 3


Ingredients:
1.3-1.5 cups of rice, cooked and leave it cooled
1 broccoli stem, cubed
1 carrot, peeled and cubed
12 French beans, chopped
8 cloves of shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
6 Kaffir lime leaves, cut into thin strips
1/2 of ginger bud, chopped
cooking oil

Seasonings:
3tbsp of light soy sauce
1/2 tbsp of dark soy sauce (optional)

Garnishing:
1/4 of ginger bud, chopped

Steps:
1. Heat enough oil in a wok. Fry the shallots till golden yellow.
2. Add carrot and sauté for 2 minutes. Toss in the French bean and broccoli stem to sauté for another 1 minute.
3. Pour in the cooled rice and light soy sauce. Fry till the rice is evenly coated with soy sauce.
4. Add Kaffir lime leaves and ginger bud. Stir to mix well. Of the flame and dish out. Garnish with chopped ginger bud.

Charcoal Noodle Topped with Acar

The other day, when I got a bottle of Acar from my mom, an odd conception popped up in my mind. I thought of a noodle dish that is topped with Acar. Does this sound appealing to you? I had no idea at all how will it turn out be. I just wanted a short-cut to prepare a simple dinner. So, I beared the risk to proceed with the idea.

As you can see, it turned out quite acceptable. I'm glad with it. Haha...Besides Acar, the charcoal noodle is garnished with fried beancurd strips, carrot strips and mint leaves. This is quite a healthy dish for our meatless dinner. 

I'm submitting this dish to Presto Pasta Night #183 which is hosted by Ruth from Once Upon A Feast.

Charcoal Noodle Topped with Acar

Serves 2

Ingredients:

Dried charcoal noodle, portion for 2

1 hard beancurd, cut into strips

half carrot, peeled and cut into strips

Acar for topping

cooking oil

Steps:
1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cook the charcoal noodle as per the packaging instruction. Drain and divide the portion into 2 bowls.
2. Heat some oil in a pan. Shallow fried the beancurd strips until golden brown. Dish out and set aside. With the remaining oil, sauté carrot strips for 30 seconds. Dish out and set aside.
3. Top the noodle with Acar, and garnish with beancurd strips, carrot strips and mint leaves.

Acar (Pickled Vegetables)

Mom cooks quite a lot of delicious Nyonya food, though she is not from Peranakan family. For example, she cooks very nice loh bak, assam curry, chai boey, jiu hu char, assam prawn, curry chicken, bubur cha cha, and many more.

Recently I brought up a topic that is related to the food that mom has not cook for very long. I thought about Acar - the pickled vegetables. I volunteer to cook with mom on my off day, so that I can learn how it is prepared. I want to learn mom's home cooked food. I want to pick up her dishes as much as possible.

About Acar, it's a kind of Nyonya pickled vegetables. It has cucumber, long bean, pineapple, carrot, cabbage and chili. Before cooking, some veggies are marinated with salt and rice vinegar, and some is boiled vinegar-salt water. Then the veggies are stir-fried with chili paste and seasoned with turmeric powder, vinegar, salt, sugar and light soy sauce. Once it's done, mix it with grounded roast peanut powder and top with roasted sesame seeds. It tastes sweet and sour, with a hint of spiciness and aroma of roasted peanut. Hmm...and viola!

Mom used to make a big portion of Acar, so we can keep the left over in fridge for the next few days. It can be served either warm or chilled.

Tri-Colors Stir-Fry (Chayote, Carrot and Shiitake)

Stir-fried vegetables is never absent from the dining table if we had oriental rice meal at home. I like simple vegetable dish with just garlic and vegetables. I love the original taste of fresh veggies. Tri-colors stir-fry is a new dish that I serve after the mix and match experiment. Surprisingly, each of them contribute a delectable flavor to the dish. Ended up, we pretty enjoyed this simple dish. It has the sweet taste and is packed with nutrients.

Tri-Colors Stir-Fry (Chayote, Carrot and Shiitake)

Ingredients:

1 small Chayote, peeled and cut into match-stick
1 small carrot, peeled and cut into match-stick
5 Shiitake, cleaned, stalk removed and sliced thinly
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp of cooking oil
150ml water

Seasonings:

Light soy sauce/ salt to taste

Steps:

1. Heat up the oil in a wok. Saute garlic till fragrant. Add carrot and stir-fry for 1 minute.

2. Add chayote. Stir-fry for 1 minute and pour in water. Leave it simmering for 2 minutes and stir in the Shiitake. Stir-fry until the water reducing. Add light say sauce or salt to taste. Dish out.

Alkaline Dumpling

These are my mom's home made dumplings. She made more than 100 pieces of it, which used up 3kg of glutinous rice. This is the only alkaline dumpling that I trusted.

Alkaline dumpling contains of glutinous rice that is premixed with alkaline water. The rice is  then wrapped in bamboo leaves and boil for hours. It tastes bland, that's why it is served with palm syrup. Many people eat it with coconut jam too.

Happy Dumpling Festival to all!

Veggie Patties

Not feeling like to have a "proper" lunch today, I just made several veggie patties to go with some raw vegies and bun. Unlike meat patties, vegie patties are more difficult to handle. It is so soft that I need to handle it with extra care. Otherwise, it will be out of shape. May be for the next trial, I should add some bread crumbs to firm up the dough.

For my first attempt, here's the outcome. The patty has a thin layer of crunch outside, and it tastes like a flavorful mashed potato inside. Overall, it resembles a hash brown - my hubby's all time favorite! For the left over patties, I stored it in the freezer. I'll just heat it up in the oven for our next meal. :)

Veggie Patties
Yields for 6 patties

Ingredient:

500gm potato, peeled and cubed
1 carrot, peeled and diced
2 onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
4 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 pearl corn, kerneled
half egg, lightly beaten
Japanese bread crumbs
salt and black pepper to taste
cooking oil

Steps:

1. Steam carrot and potato under high heat for 8 minutes. Leave it cool. Mash it with potato masher. Set aside.

2. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a wok. Saute onion and garlic under low heat until onion turn soft. Remove from wok and add to the mashed potato.

3. Combine the mashed potato and carrot with sauted garlic and onion, beaten egg and corn kernel. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Mixed well. Pat 1/6 of the mixture into burger and sprinkle the surface with bread crumbs. Continue the make the balance 5 patties.

4. Heat up a pan with some oil. Pan-fry the patties until each side turn golden yellow.

Baby Portobello Spaghetti

Finally my kitchen renovation is completed. I managed to clean it up and started cooking a quick meal at home yesterday. There are still some kitchen utensil awaiting for my direction before they get a space in the cabinet. Haha...Means my job has not done yet.

I'm back to cooking now. Yoohoo~~ I longed to cook for so long. Even cooking a simple meal like spaghetti can cheer me up. I love home cooked meal. It's less painful to our body and to our wallet. Don't you think so? The first dish that dedicated to the new kitchen is my Baby Portobello Spaghetti. A fast meal that turned up in just 20 minutes. The spaghetti with just baby portobello, broccoli, onion and tomato pasta sauce can be a palatable vegetarian meal.

This dish is submitted to PPN#156 founded by Ruth and hosted by  Our Taste of Life.

Baby Portobello Spaghetti

Serves 2

Ingredients:

200gm baby Portobello, cleaned and sliced
1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced
200gm broccoli, cut into florets
spaghetti, portion for 2
1 can of Prego mushroom pasta sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
20ml water
1/2 tsp of salt

Method:

1. Bring a wok of water to a boil. Add 1/2 tsp and salt and few drops of olive oil. Blanch the brocolli and set aside. In the same wok of water, cook the spaghetti as per the instruction on packaging until al dent. Set aside.

2. Heat olive oil in a wok, saute onion till translucent. Add broccoli and mushroom to stir-fry a while. Pour in the pasta sauce and 20ml of water. Leave it simmers a while. Toss in the spaghetti to mix well with the sauce. Serve hot.