Crustless vegetarian quiche(with egg and dairy)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Today is Christmas and I did not cook any fancy dishes tonight. Thanks to my dear friend, Mun Ching who passed us her club house excess card. We went there at 5pm with my freshly baked crustless vegetarian quiche. Phin Zhe had a good time there, burnt all his calories and he ate a lot of the quiche, ended up papa and mama didn't have enough food and have to munch snacks at night. Next round must cook more food. :p

Ingredients:
6 eggs
110g shredded cheddar
1 zhuccini(cut into bite size)
150g broccoli(cut into bite size)
150g cauliflower(cut into bite size)
1 medium onion(cut into bite size)
4 gloves garlic(minced)
some cherry tomatoes
1tbsp grape seed oil

Method:
1. Heat wok with oil.
2. Stir fry garlic until fragrant.
3. Add in all veggies except cherry tomatoes.
Stir fry until slightly soften. Don't overcook.
4. Season with some black pepper.
5. Oil a 8" tart pan.
6. Spread the veggies in the pan.
7. Mix the egg with half the cheese.
8. Pour the egg mixture into the pan.
9. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.
10. Decorate with cherry tomatoes.
11. Bake in a preheated oven at 180'c for 35 minutes.

It is meatless, but then it is so delicious. Today we only had meat during lunch. Yeah, less meat is good. :)

Wild mushroom soup and Pumpkin soup

I have cooked these 2 soups almost every week since Phin Zhe is one year old. I started with basic ingredients which are safe for Phin Zhe. As he grow bigger, I have fine tuned the recipes many times and I am quite happy with them now.

Wild mushroom soup:
1. Stir fry 1tbsp of minced garlic in 1tbsp of ghee until fragrant.
2. Add in 1 pack of fresh white or brown button mushroom slice.
3. Cook over medium heat until water release from mushroom and start to dry up
4. Add in 1 medium potato cubes and water to cover.
5. Bring to boil and simmer for 15mins or until the food is soft.
6. Use a handheld blender to blend it until smooth. Add water if needed.
7. Season with sea salt, black pepper and herbs(i like fresh thyme. if not, i will sprinkle some dried italian mixed herbs.

Pumpkin soup:
This is even simpler.
1. Put pumpkin cubes, sweet potato cubes and carrot cubes in a pot with just enough water to cover them.
Pumpkin:Sweet Potatoe:Carrot=4:1:1. Just a guideline, dun have to be exact.
2. Bring the water to boil and add in a medium onion, peeled and cut four.
3. Simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes or until the food is soft.
4. Use a hand blender to blend until smooth.Add water if needed.
5. Season with some black pepper.

These soups are good with everything on the breakfast table. Last weekend, I served it with wholemeal sourdough toast that has home made garlic spread on it. This is what I called good breakfast. ;)

Basic Mac and Cheese

Lazy mummy wanted to save time, so she cooked single pot for whole family.  :)
This recipe does not use milk, but yogurt as I have not introduced dairy to baby Phin Zhe yet. You can substitute yogurt and water with milk, but you might need to add extra cheese.

Ingredients:

150g cooked  macaroni
2tbsp ghee(Or u can use unsalted butter)
2tbsp flour
3tbsp plain yogurt(i use home made easiyo yogurt)
1/2 cup water
150g grated sharp cheddar cheese(I use Kerrygold cheddar)
salt and black pepper to taste

Method:
1. Melt ghee over medium heat, stir in flour, yogurt, water in sequence.
2. Add in cheese. Stir until cheese melt.
3. Season with salt and black pepper.
4. Add macaroni and mix well.
5. Ready to serve. Best serve with some blanched vegetables. Since this dish is very cheesy, sauteed vegetables might not be a good choice.

After step 2, I took some cheese sauce and mix with some macaroni for baby Phin Zhe, so his version is without salt and pepper. He did not use a spoon to eat. He enjoyed eating with his fingers. And from time to time, we passed him a carrot stick or some other vegetables. He was so busy eating, so we have a peaceful dinner tonight. ;)

Aglio e Olio

When I am lazy, I will cook this simplified version of Aglio e Olio. So, here you go, a lazy recipe in a lazy post.

All the ingredients can be found in Aeon(old Jusco). A pack of chicken fillet, a box of button mushroom, peeled garlic, minced chili. As for spaghetti, normally I use the thinner one, because this dish is lighter in taste.

Stir fry the button mushroom in dry pan with medium heat until you could smell mushroom and you could see water coming out from mushroom. Continue for a few minutes then set aside.

Stir fry the garlic in generous amount of cold press extra virgin olive oil.

Add in chicken fillet and button mushroom. Before this, marinate the chicken with light soy sauce, pepper and a little bit of water for 15 minutes. Add in cooked spaghetti and minced chili. Add sea salt to taste. Finally add some coarsely ground fresh black pepper.

A light meal is completed. I cook this again and again, not only because it is fast, but also it contains all the healthy ingredients, like garlic, olive oil, fat free chicken fillet, button mushroom.....

Seafood spaghetti in Tomato Sauce

I have not cooked spaghetti for long, until I read some tips on cooking spaghetti recently. Needless to say, I was tempted to try it.

I think everyone knows how to cook spaghetti, so I will only share some tips that I have picked up along the years, some of it which I have neglected but later re-discovered the importance of them. 

1. Avoid cooking too much of spaghetti

Do not laugh. It is a very common problem and I have heard it many times. "I always end up cooking too much spaghetti." A nice dish will turn to a bad one when someone has to stuff himself with the extra plate. A pack of 500g spaghetti is meant for 5 person serving. But if you are a small eater, or you like more ingredients than noodle(just like me), remember to reduce the amount further.

2. Add good amount of salt to the boiling water for cooking spaghetti

It is very important because the spaghetti will absorb some of the salt and have a taste of ocean. If not the result will be very bland spaghetti. Worst is this can not be corrected later by adding salt to the pasta sauce.

3. Use big cookware and sufficient water for cooking spaghetti

The boiling water need to fully cover the spaghetti. This is to make sure that all the spaghetti are evenly cooked. Remember to stir the spaghetti at the beginning and occasionally during the cooking.

4. Toss the drained pasta with olive oil

I thought that this is only to prevent sticky spaghetti.But since I am going to serve the spaghetti right away, there is no need to do so. This step was skipped until a Taiwan chef explained that the second reason is to let the spaghetti absorb the aroma of the olive oil. However, this has to be done while the pasta is still hot.

5. Ingredients that are going to make perfect red sauce or tomato sauce spaghetti

Since I am blogging about red sauce spaghetti, I will keep other spaghetti recipe for next time. :)

I should have tried to make my own tomato sauce. But anyway, I am still using the ready type from the shelf since it is more convenient. Even with the ready sauce, I will add extra ingredients to make it more tasty.

Garlic. The strong, sharp and spicy garlic taste is going to balance the sweet and sour tomato sauce.

Onion. It is going to give some natural sweetness to the sauce.

Mixed herbs. A must for tomato sauce spaghetti.

Black pepper. Not white pepper. Add some coarsely grinded black pepper during cooking and add again when serving.

Salt and Sugar. For seasoning.

Tuna in Can. A few spoons of it for thicker sauce. Normally I will dilute the tomato sauce(ready type) with 50-100ml water and later thicken with mashed tuna.

Seafood. Use all your favourite seafood, prawn, squid, mussel, scallop....

Cheese or Cheese Powder. I personally prefer melting some cheese in my spaghetti sauce. 

5. Toss the spaghetti with the sauce

Transfer the spaghetti to the sauce in your pan and toss it. Make sure that spaghetti is well coated with the sauce and serve it immediately. My old practice was to add the sauce to the spaghetti in serving plate. I was worried that all the sauce will be absorbed by the spaghetti and leave no more sauce if I were to toss it. I also thought that it was nicer to serve this way. But the Italians do it for a reason. It is easier to toss it in the hot pan then to mix it in the plate later.

The happiest thing in cooking is to have someone slurping the noodles and not forgetting to give nice comments in between the slurps. I had it last Saturday. Yipee! 

**Share with me your tips on cooking spaghetti if you have any.**

Working Day Lunch Gathering

A few friends came to my house for a speedy lunch on a working day. Since recent lunch and tea break topics are all about photography, Mark brought his reflector, flash and wireless trigger along. It was not convinient to bring their expensive but bulky DSLRs to the office, so they had no choice but to use my LX3.

While I was busy in the kitchen, they were entertaining themselves with the photograhing session. The lunch was just simple one dish meal, Black Pepper Chicken Chop paired with Mojito Mocktail. And of course, we were not going back to work before sipping a cup of espresso.

Here are the food photos taken by the talented photographers. And thanks to Mark for editing the photos.







Mojito Mocktail

Ingredients:
Lemon(cut into cubes)
Lime(cut into cubes)
Mint leaves
Lychee(Canned, cut into cubes)
Soda/Sprite/7-Up
Ice cubes

Mix all ingredients together. To make Mojito Cocktail, just replace the soft drink to Rum/Vodka.

Caesar Salad

Last night, I decided to have something light, which meant something easier to prepare. Having in mind that I need some spare time to try out the Boot's spa products I bought from Phuket, I thought of Caesar Salad. Romaine lettuce. Croutons. Parmesan cheese. Ok. Set.

I had been using this Classic Caesar Salad recipe for a few times, and I like it very much. It had taught me all the details to prepare the perfect Caesar Salad. Another good point with this recipe was there were substitutions for some of the ingredients, like coddled egg.


close up


I had grilled a piece of salmon, hoping that this could be my dinner.

But the Caesar salad was too appetizing that I was looking forward to the main dish of the night which I did not prepare any.

Fish and Chip

I was away for phuket sunshine last week and today is my first day back in office. More photos and stories will be shared in my travel blog which I need more time to filter the photos. Gosh! I had taken a total of 1050 photos! After first round of filtering the over exposed or under exposed images, there is still a total of 800 photos. :p

Meanwhile, let me share my last Sunday lunch.

Bought two fresh fish fillet from jusco. Washed, drained and wiped with some salt and pepper.


The nearer one was homemade tartar sauce, which I combined mayonnaise, yogurt, minced dill relish, salt and pepper. The bigger plate was a very simple batter for fish. It had 100g flour, 2 tbps corn flour, 1/2 tbs baking soda, 1/2 tbs baking powder, 1 tbs salt, 1 tbs pepper and about 125ml water.


Frying some french fries...



Hot and crispy Fish 'n' Chip served with lemon slice, tartar sauce and chili sauce. Bon appetit!

pizza

I was celebrating Winter Solstice Festival with a group of colleagues last night even tough it was supposed to be on Sunday. Anyway, it was fun cooking and finishing the food together. Besides glutinous rice ball, the main dish of the night was pizza. We made the dough, baked it and topped with our favourite food and baked it again. Thin crust pizza base spread with tomato paste, topped with salami, sausage, mushroom, black olive, capsicum, sprinkled with some herbs and black pepper, not to forget the most important mozzarella cheese. So, we had yummy pizza fresh from the oven!

I love baby

This is a dish with baby potato. I am always tempted to buy anything start with baby, baby carot, baby spinach and now baby potato. To me, baby means more tender and soft.

A simple pan-fried baby potato with garlic and fresh white button mushroom. No special seasoning was required, just some sea salt and freshly grounded black pepper. Suitable as side dish, appetizer or standalone dish.