Pasta with creamy mushroom and oat sauce (5 ingredients pasta sauce)

The happy lil' fella :)

Aside than the creamy tomato and pumpkin sauce, this is my favorite pasta sauce that I always make for the lil' fella. It's easy to prepare with just a few simple ingredients and it is yummy especially when served with shaved parmesan or just grated cheese. Sometimes, I add more milk or water to it, and turn it into a soup, served with toast. I have also used it as sauce for pasta bake. Very versatile indeed. I don't add salt into it, still standing firm that his food shall not need to be seasoned with salt, before he reaches two year old. The garlic and onion gives it the mild savory note. Of course, the final addition of cheese (but it's optional) makes it yummilicious!

I have made this sauce with potato and mushroom. This time, I added in rolled oat instead of potato. The addition of rolled oat makes it thicker and creamier without the need of adding in flour. It also boost up its nutrition count and dietary fiber content.

All you need for this creamy and healthy pasta sauce are:

• 3tbsp rolled oat soaked in half cup of full cream fresh milk
• 1 cup of water or stock
• 5 - 7 fresh brown button mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• Half an onion, finely minced

Instructions:

1. Heat up 1-2 tbsp cooking oil (I used rice bran oil) in a heated frying pan. Stir in minced garlic and onion till onion turns translucent. Stir in chopped mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms sweat.
2. Add in rolled oat with the soaking milk and water or stock.
3. Simmer on low heat for about 10-15min or until the mushrooms turn soft. Season with pepper and salt (optional).
4. In a food processor or blender, blitz the sauce till creamy. Serve with cooked pasta sprinkled with shaved parmesan or grated cheddar.

Options:

• Serve with cooked vegetables eg broccoli, carrot or sweetcorn that is pre-cooked in another pot of boiling water or steam-cooked.
• This sauce is suitable for freezing for 2-3 weeks. Prior to serving, thaw in refrigerator and heat till piping hot.



Pasta with creamy broccoli sauce/ soup

The lil' fella had been refusing to eat his broccoli lately! To avoid him wasting the remaining broccoli I have in the fridge, I decided to turn them into pasta sauce. Any kid that refuses vege wouldn't know this super creamy and yummy pasta sauce has veg in it.

Ingredients (this makes about 3 baby's meal portion)

• 1 stalk of broccoli, cleaned and cut into florets
• 2 small size potato, peeled and cut into cubes
• 1 cup of water or vegetable stock or 1/2 water 1/2 milk
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 onion, minced
• 1tbsp butter

Instructions

In a pot of boiling water, cook cubed potato and cut broccoli till soft (about 5min). Drain off and set aside.

Heat up a soup pot, or fry pan. Add in the butter. When it starts to sizzle, stir in the minced garlic and onion. When the garlic and onion are brown and fragrant, add in boiled potato and broccoli. Saute for another 1-2 minute.

Add in water/ stock. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

Bring the mix to a blender and blend until creamy and smooth.

Serve with cooked pasta or serve as soup.

He told me he was going to board the airplane and waved me 'bye'.

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (June 2014 Event: Butter) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Jozelyn Ng (Spice Up My Kitchen)" 

Seafood kimchi hotpot (kimchi jjigae)

Kimchi jjigae is a spicy Korean stew or hotpot dish made from either seafood or pork with kimchi, tofu and soybean and red hot pepper pastes (some food ingredients I lugged back from my recent trip to Seoul). I made this twice in a week. The first time, I made it using pork soup stock. The second time, which is for this recipe, I stewed it with prawns and scallops. Both yummy! It can be used as a soup base for steamboat or served with ramen. Even though it looks complicated, but it's actually super easy to prepare!

 

 

 

Ingredients:

• a pack of kimchi (about 200g) together with its juice
• about 5 cups of water or stock
• 2tbsp red hot pepper paste
• 2tbsp soybean paste
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 Chinese cabbage, cleaned and cut into chunks
• 1/2 medium size carrot, sliced
• 1 potato, sliced
• 3-5 soft white tofu
• seafood eg prawns / scallops / octopus *I use a little amount of these to prepare the soup base in order to sweeten up the soup. The rest are only added in near the end of cooking time to ensure that they don't overcook.

Instructions:

1. In a pot or larger pan, stir fry garlic and onion till fragrant with vegetable oil.
2. Stir in prawns and scallop, followed by kimchi, carrot, potato and Chinese cabbage. Cover up for about 2-5min.
3. Add in water or stock, with soybean paste and red hot pepper paste.
4. Stew for about 30min to an hour. Last 10min before serving, add in the tofu, followed by the seafood.

Korean ginseng chicken (samgeytang) 삼계탕

I just got back from Seoul last week. Unlike my first few trips of spending like crazy on Korean skin care and masks, this time, I only splurge on food!! I lugged back some fresh fat wild Korean ginseng and some hot pepper and soy bean pastes. I'm pretty pleased with myself this time. At least I make good use of these food ingredients, unlike the skin care and masks. In fact, I still have quite an amount of masks left from my trips to Seoul two years ago :p

 

I have gotten these pretty looking Korean ginseng from Lotte supermarket in Myeongdong. It cost me KRW40,000 (equivalent to about RM125) for 500g (which has about 15 ginseng roots). I felt that this is quite a good price, not as pricey as the dried Korean ginseng, and these days, there are risks involved when buying dried ginseng, we aren't sure the stuffs we are buying are genuine or not. 

 

In Korea, fresh ginseng are usually used to make samgeytang (which literally translates as ginseng chicken soup) by boiling a whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice. In Korea, samgeytang is widely believed to both cure and prevent physical ailments.  The proteins and nutrients from the whole chicken mixed with the beneficial properties of the ingredients combined in the dish makes it a revered culinary item in South Korea. Samgeytang is a favorite dish consumed in Summer cos food with high nutrient content is eaten to regain the loss of stamina in the summer heat.

 

I cooked this for a few friends at my place at dinner time. I was worried that it would keep me awake all night since it's supposed to boost stamina and uplift energy. But surprisingly, I slept well (went into snooze-land upon touching my pillow) and woke up with good glow on my skin. Must be the Korean ginseng chicken or was it just psychologically? Hahaa.. Feedback from all my friends who had this soup for dinner, they all slept superbly well. Amazing, huh?

 

 

Recipe

For the soup

• 1 whole chicken
• 3-4 fresh Korean ginseng
• 4 red dates
• handful of yuk zhuk 玉竹and wai shan (Chinese yam) 淮山
• bunch of spring onion
• Pinch of salt
• 10 cups of water

For the stuffing

• 3-5 fresh gingko
• 1/2 cup of glutinous rice (I used a combination of black and white glutinous rice), soaked in water for at least 1hr
• 3 red dates
• 2 fresh Korean ginseng 
• 2-3 fresh Chinese chestnuts

Instructions

1. Wash the chicken thoroughly.
2. Stuff the inside of chicken with soaked glutinous rice, 3-5 red dates, 1-2 ginseng, all the gingko. Use the red dates or ginseng to block the opening so that the glutinous rice doesn't oozes out while cooking. Do not attempt to over-stuff the chicken, cos glutinous rice would expand when cooked.
3. Place the rest of the ingredients at the bottom of your soup pot. Place stuffed chicken on top. Pour in 10cups of water.
4. Boil for at least 2-3 hours.

Creamy mushroom soup in a bun

He loves to play with containers. He would remove the lid of the containers, put some of his favorite toys in (ie balls, toys etc) and put the lid on, and then reverse the whole process and repeat again. It goes on until he gets bored and move on to another activity. So let's see if he'll does the same thing with this mushroom soup in a bun, which comes with a lid too.

 

This was his creamy mushroom sauce which I prepared for his pasta lunch. In the evening, I was supposed to let him have the same thing for dinner, but I was so busy baking chiffon cakes, yes I'm addicted to baking tang-mian chiffon off late, I didn't even have time to boil his pasta. Instead, I just cut off the top of the black sesame bun I made this morning, scooped out the flesh (bread), pour in heated soup into the bun and that was his dinner!

 

Recipe

• 1clove garlic
• 1/2 small onion, minced
• 4-6 fresh brown button mushroom
• 1/2 small potato
• 1-2 cups fresh milk (the amount varies, depend on whether you're making a sauce or soup)
• cracked black pepper

1. Steam or pan fry all ingredients till soft. Simmer with milk.
2. Blend till achieve creamy consistency.
3. Season with grated cheese (optional).

 

This was the cocoa-banana chiffon cake I was busy making that evening. For recipe, please refer here. Instead of orange juice, I replaced with half milk half banana puree. The brown color was achieved by dividing the batter into half, and added half with cocoa mix (1tbsp cocoa powde+1tbsp water).

 

 

Creamy tomato soup with pasta and purple sweet potato bread stick

In the mommies network Healthy Food for My Baby, there was a dad (hmm... I realized it's not right to call it a mommies network) who's very committed to preparing all sorts of yummy meals for his little ones. I get very impressed cos all the men in my family doesn't cook. This is a breakfast meal that was inspired by one of his meals prepared for his little boy. 

 

This is quite an easy one. The purple sweet potato bread loaf was done in my breadmaker using this recipe, but the spinach puree was replaced by purple sweet potato puree. I served them fresh on the first day. Second day, I toasted them in the oven and spread some pesto on the bread. Still nice!

 

 

Here's the recipe for the creamy tomato soup:
This recipe makes 2-3 servings
*2 tomato, blanched in boiling water to remove the skin
*1 small onion, peeled and chop
*2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
*100g pumpkin

Steam all the above ingredients for about 20min until soft, then blend with about 1/2-1cup of milk until achieve soup- consistency. Serve with mini corrallini pasta.

Creamy mushroom soup

 

 

 

I am good at making soups, the creamy type, cos I own a superb blender. It never fails to give me creamy, lump free soup each time, it's sooo smooth that hubby starts to complain that there are no texture in my soup. I was like.. isn't creamy soup supposed to be creamy? Why should there be texture? Oh well.. for that, I had to forbid myself from blending it for too long, or, I would spoon out about 1/3 of the soup after about a min of pulsating and blend the rest till smooth, in order to give my hubby 'the texture'.

 



Here's my simple recipe for a great, delicious, creamy mushroom soup (which is way better than many that's served outside):

• 3 cloves garlic
• about 5-7 brown button mushrooms (I used to buy imported ones, but I started using the ones grown locally, they tastes good and fresh too! and of course, cheaper)
• half a red onion/ or white onion, whatever available
• half a medium size sweet potato*
• about 1cup milk (full cream milk would be great) or cream (your choice)
• seasoning: salt and pepper

*I used to thicken my soup with rolled oat and blend everything. But recently, when started to make pureed food for the lil' fella, I realized sweet potatoes are not just great thickeners for sauce or soups, but they also render that natural sweetness to the dish.

Instructions:
Steam everything for about 15-30min, with milk. Blitz all in a blender (together with the milk and liquid from steaming).