Maple Roasted Pumpkin Salad

My first experience for new year 2014 was to make a Maple Roasted Pumpkin Salad. It was so good the salad was finished within minutes with my family members. Enjoy a healthy start to a new year!

Recipe for Maple Roasted Pumpkin Salad, adapted from Martha Stewart.
(Makes for about 6 persons)

Ingredients:
300g Pumpkin peeled, seeded, and cut in 1 1/2-inch chunks
5 tbsp Olive oil
6 Garlic cloves, unpeeled
A pinch red pepper flakes
Coarse salt and black pepper
Smoked Paprika powder
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp pure maple syrup
3 tbsp Fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 packets (200g) Wild Rockets, washed and dried
1 packet Cherry tomatoes, washed and dried
1 packet Fresh Mozzarella cheese, sliced
Some crushed toasted almonds

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. On a baking sheet, toss pumpkin with 2 tablespoons oil, garlic, red pepper, smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper. Roast together with garlic cloves, tossing occasionally, until pumpkin is tender, 25 to 30 minutes.
2. Remove garlic cloves from sheet pan; set aside. Drizzle pumpkin with 2 tablespoons maple syrup; toss to coat. Return to oven and continue roasting, tossing occasionally, until pumpkin is glazed, 5 to 10 minutes more; let it cool.
3. Meanwhile, cut off root ends of garlic cloves; squeeze out garlic and mash to a paste with the side of a knife. Transfer to a bowl. Add lemon juice, mustard, and remaining maple syrup; season with salt and pepper. Whisking constantly, add remaining oil in a steady stream; set aside.
4. Add wild rockets and tomatoes, toss to combine. Drizzle the dressing and mix well. 
5. Serve salad topped with pumpkin and mozzarella cheese and sprinkled with toasted almonds.

Good Friday Dinner

With no other plans for Good Friday, I decided to invite my family over to my place for a simple dinner. Dining out with a big group might be rather difficult on holidays. They were very supportive. I wasn't prepared to whip up a storm, so I just prepared some simple foods.

On my dining table were:

1. Chicken Rice. This was prepared using the Prima Taste Fragrant Hainanese Chicken Rice Paste. My eldest son being a chicken rice rice freak, this was the best paste I could find on the supermarket shelves that will satisfy him. I also love this paste very much. You just can't go wrong making chicken rice using this paste.

(Source: Prima Taste Website)

2. Roast Chicken with Potatoes. The roast chicken was very flavourful as I marinated them for a couple of hours before baking. Using my Delonghi oven, I usually get a "burnt" chicken out. Nevertheless, the chicken still taste good, and even the breast meat was soft and tender! I marinated them with mushroom sauce, maggi seasoning sauce, light soy sauce, worchester sauce, HP sauce and chopped fresh rosemary. I also learned from Laureen the butterflied method of roasting. :)

3. Green Salads. The usual salad with coral lettuce, olives, red tomatoes on vine, yellow tomatoes, sweet basil leaves, raisins, sliced almonds, olive oil, pepper and salt.

4. Mushroom Salads. I improvised this from Laura Caulder's show. Infused olive oil with fresh rosemary and thyme, then sprinkle them over your mushrooms and grilled them. I added french beans for a taste of different textures. See recipe below.

5. Chocolate Hazelnut Tart. Using the sweet tart base, I mixed ground hazelnut into valrhona chocolate ganache and let it set. The base was very crispy. The chocolate was bitter sweet and soft with a light hint of ground hazelnut. The 9" tart was finished within one evening! First time I didn't have a chance to keep it overnight.

We ended the evening by driving to 717 Trading to have our dose of durians. Unfortunately, Mao Shan Wang wasn't in season now. So we ended up eating only D24. That was enough to satisfy us too!

Recipe for Mushrooms Salad, modified from Laura Caulder's "French Food at Home".

Ingredients:
200g Swiss button mushrooms (1 packet)
200g White button mushrooms (1 packet)
250g Portobello mushrooms (1 packet)

Some french beans, chopped to about 2" long (optional)

A sprig of fresh rosemary
A sprig of fresh thyme
Some olive oil (depending on how much you want to dress your mushrooms)

Method:

1. Wash and slice the mushrooms.
2. Lay them on a baking tray.

3. Warm up olive oil with rosemary and thyme in a pot, then turn off the heat immediately. Do not let it boil.

4. Sprinkle some olive oil in your mushrooms.
5. Bake your mushrooms at 180C for about 20mins.
6. Remove the mushrooms from the baking tray and place them in a salad bowl.
7. Stir in the remaining olive oil with herbs and mix thoroughly. Add a dash of black pepper and salt to taste.
8. If using french beans, blanch them in water. Drain well then mix into the mushrooms.
9. Serve and enjoy the juicy mushrooms!

Have a bunniful weekend!

Cheese it all

Salmon was on sales. Button mushrooms were on sales. Bulk discount for Meiji cheese. No prize for guessing what I made for Saturday lunch. The theme for lunch was, anything that can use cheese.

It all started one day when one of my dear friend informed me that there was someone in a particular forum trying to clear stock of Meiji cheese because they were expiring real soon! And since it was going at rock bottom prices, and I really mean BOTTOM, I decided to get some. She knew that I like to use cheese in my baking, so she informed me of such good deal. Isn't it nice of her? ;)

I also had a new "toy"- grilling pan, which I bought from Tangs quite some time ago. So I decided to use the grilling pan to grill my salmon fillets. I thought there will be splashing all over. However it didn't. Probably because I used butter? Maybe it won't splashed in the first place. I love the grilling marks it left on my fillet.

Here was the menu for lunch.

1) Salad - coral lettuce, cherry tomatoes, basil leaves, raisins, onions, olive oil, pepper & rock salt.
2) Caramelised onions
3) Stir fried button mushrooms with cheese.
4) Garlic toast - fried garlic with butter and toast.
5) Grilled salmon - Marinated with rock salt and rosemary. Use butter to grill the salmon, then add the cheese after it's cooked.

My children loved the garlic toast amongst the food. Luckily I didn't make a lot, otherwise, they won't finish my salmon. Heehee... :p

What's for lunch?

I was home today as my eldest boy wasn't feeling well. The rest of the kids were also home since it's a school holiday. The exams are coming too!

I made my own lunch today. I bought some coral lettuce yesterday and decided to make a salad for myself. I used a packet of salmon flakes which my elder sister gave me. Mixed it with my homemade sesame olive oil dressings.

Here's what went into my healthy sumptuous salad-coral lettuce, cherry tomatoes, button mushrooms, salmon, fried garlic, almond nibs, black pepper and sesame olive oil dressings.

Quite sometime back, my sister ordered some books from Amazon and asked if I want to order. I told her I wanted to buy "Heavenly Cakes" by Rose. She ordered for me and didn't give me until lately.  I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out that she has shared with the other two sisters to give me the book as a present! I was elated! Isn't it just great to have siblings who give you what you wanted? I'm going to enjoy this book...

Back to Baking

Gee, I can't believe I've not been baking for two weeks! The past weekends were busy going out or doing some other non-baking-related things. So on Saturday, I decided to invite my parents and my sisters with their families, over for dinner. It will give me an excuse to do some baking, otherwise, I'm going to lose touch with my appliances and ingredients soon!

The morning started with me steaming a Radish Cake from Florence's website. Doris had previously recommended this Radish Cake to me and I hadn't had the chance to try it. I took the opportunity to do it early in the morning on Saturday. It wasn't too difficult. I didn't use as much radish as in the recipe. I only used about 650g of radish. I followed the rest of the ingredients from the recipe.

Then I proceeded to prepare a Chocolate Praline Tart from "The Pie & Pastry Bible" by Rose. The tart base was made from grinding walnut and keep in the chiller for a couple of hours. The base was very very soft. It just wasn't possible to mould it without it being hard! I had a difficult time trying to put it in the mould. After moulding, it had to be placed in the freezer for about 15mins before baking. Very tricky.

I made the chocolate fillings after the tart base has cooled. I realised that my base was rather thick and it wasn't possible to make a full recipe of the fillings, so I halved it. The fillings were just right for the depth of the tart base. I baked it for a further 10mins to let it set, then let it cooled.

Next, I prepared my chicken pie. I rolled out the pie dough first, then cooked the fillings for the chicken. Filled up the dough with the fillings, then covered the top with a puff pastry, and off to baking it went!

While leaving the pie to bake, I prepared the salads. Two types of salads were planned for-greens and tomatoes. For the greens, I added butterhead lettuce, coral lettuce (both from Jusco supermarket), capsicum, onions, olives, raisins & nibbed almonds. Add a dash of black pepper and some vinegrette dressings.

For the tomatoes salad, here is the recipe.

Recipe for Tomatoes Salad
Ingredients:
6 Kumato Tomatoes
1 packet of Baby Romas Tomatoes
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1/4 tsp Mixed herbs (better if use fresh basil leaves)
A dash of black pepper
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Method:
1. Slice Roma into half, Kumato into quarters.
2. Put all the seasonings into the tomatoes and marinate well.
3. Let it sit for at least 30-45mins before serving.

The chocolate praline tart was served with a dope of whipping cream, an applemint leaf (bought from Jusco) and a walnut at the side. It received very good comments from my family.

He's 10!

My eldest son has just turned a perfect 10! I had decided to have a simple celebration at home with my in-laws. Come to think of it, it has been a memorable 10 years for us. He was the first grandson in both my family and my in-laws. When he was a baby & toddler, he was under my parents care. My parents doted very much on him. My dad will buy some expensive stuff for him to play, while my mum will buy some expensive fish, brown rice and other foods for him. So he is quite pampered.

He has since grown from a very adorable boy, to a little pump cutie. It wasn't easy when he started going to school. He belongs to the kind that needs "pecking", nagging, canning and scolding before he will study. Initially, I will teach him during examinations or tests, after his P3, I sort of gave up. I let my spouse take over that role. I'm just too impatient to coach him anymore.


Coincidentally, after the birth of my eldest boy, my third sister bought an optical fibre christmas tree for me. Since then, I've been keeping it with me and bringing it out every Christmas. It's no exception this year. We took out the christmas tree as part of the celebration. The christmas tree with its optical fibre lights is easy to assemble and dis-assemble. It's so durable to own such a christmas tree!


The menu for the celebration party were:

1. Appetiser 1 : Oriental Salad.


2. Appetiser 2 : Baked Potatoes. The inspiration was from Elinluv's Tidbits Corner. I simplify the ingredients.


3. Appetiser 3 : Mushroom soup. The soup was very diluted as I didn't add starch to it.


4. Main : Chicken Puff Pies. Chicken pies of all sizes. I made two big, and six individual share to feed nine adults and six children. Of course there were some left overs.


5. Dessert 1 : Chocolate Rum Bars. Ya, I had lots of cakes in my fridge. Heehee... But they were not those "spoilt" ones. They were the leftovers...


6. Dessert 2 : Birthday cake as requested by the birthday boy - Oreo Cheesecake. I bought mini oreos to decorate the cake. But guess what, there was one mini oreo short!!! Goodness! I wanted to scream out "HELP!" However, when it comes to singing the birthday song, I managed to put the candle on the "flower" of the missing oreo place! *whew!* Close shave!




7. Drinks : Homemade Gourmet Lemongrass Tea. I boiled many sticks of lemongrass, let it infused overnight. The following day, I poured the lemongrass water out and add fresh water to the pot of lemongrass and boiled again. After I turned off the heat, I put lipton tea into it to let it infused, together with some sugar. Let it cooled down completely. Then mixed the first round of lemongrass water with the second round with the tea. Placed it in the fridge. Before serving, add some ice. It's very very refreshing. If you like lemongrass, try this. I'm a BIG BIG fan of lemongrass. Also, drinking lemongrass will keep mosquitoes off from you...for at least 24 hours! ;)

At the end of the evening, my sister-in-laws managed to packet some of the leftover goodies home. I'm glad they enjoyed the food. I had spent hours preparing them with the help of my domestic helper. Even though I was really tired from the preparation, I think it was really worth the effort!

Tarty

Since last week, I've had this craving to eat chocolate tarts. I prepared the dough, left it in the fridge. Then the next day, I baked the tart crusts. Then I kept it in the air-tight container. Then, came Tuesday...Wednesday...Thursday. And I haven't gotten the chance to add my chocolate! Finally on Friday, since it was a public holiday, I finally decided to add my chocolate.

Initially, I wanted a dark chocolate tart. And thought of adding some Bailey's Creme Caramel. However, it ended up I used the leftover Strawberry ganache from my chocolate workshop on Tuesday. It turned out to be really nice. My sister liked it very much, and bought some home too!


My parents and sister came over to my place for dinner on Friday. I prepared some simple fare - baked pasta and oriental salad. The recipe for the oriental salad was given to me by Amy, who was our instructor for our Wedding Cake Decoration in BITC. She has given us quite a number of recipes for salads and dips. She's really very good.



To backtrack a bit, I baked pita breads last week. It was a bit too thick. My sister requested for it for her hummus. I've not heard of, or taken hummus until she made it. It was supposed to be taken with pita bread. It was really healthy and good! It wouldn't be my last try too!

Sisterhood

When the parents are out, the children came out to play! This was what happened to us on Saturday, well, almost! My parents were off to Jordan with some relatives, leaving us siblings to settle for our own weekend. So we arranged for all to come over to my place for dinner. It was almost like a "given" arrangement. Why? Because elder sister stay alone, she would definitely need help if she need to cook for so many of us. Third sister's (younger) place has no free parking as she is living in HDB. Youngest sister's house too small to accomodate all of us, plus she doesn't cook. So naturally, it'll have to be my place-I have a helper & I cook & bake.

The best part of Saturday's gathering was, it was almost like a sisters' gathering! The husbands had other appointments/comittments! Even my spouse left to attend a wake after dinner. So ended up, the four of us, plus one of my sister's lady colleague were home (and with the children and domestic helpers, of course)! We ended up watching "Red Cliff II" DVD!

Ok, I think most of you would like to know what I cook or bake on Saturday. I wondered if I haven't been baking much during the weekdays, ended up, I was pretty lazy on Saturday. I didn't do much though! :p These were what I did.

Donuts: The not-so-fantastic JL Donuts that turned tough the following day! Hahaha... I used my previous recipe for these baked donuts. The flavours I made were: Oreo, Cinnamon, Chocolate with Hazelnuts and Chocolate with Almond Nibs.




Tarts: I baked the tart crusts and added melted chocolate. Topped them up with crusted oreos, ground hazelnuts and almonds. Same ingredients as the donuts. Heehee...



Soup: First time I tried this Cream of Carrot soup. I must say, the result is really good! I've got praises on this soup, even my hubby said this is really good. Sprinkle some black pepper and home-made crotons, it's almost like "ABC" cafe! The recipe has been provided below.


Pasta: Also for the first time, I tried making my own cream based pasta sauce. Not very successful though as it was not salty enough. I thought just modified a little from the cream of carrot soup recipe, cannot be too far wrong right? Hmm... it will be good if I added a little salt as I didn't add any. But besides being salty, there is the salmon taste. I added mushrooms and salmon to the sauce. If topped up with parmesan cheese, the taste, I thought will be good enough. Perhaps, I should have added some shredded cheese to the sauce to make it more cheesy and creamy. Good attempt, I thought, for the first time.


Salad: Very nice salad contributed by my sister's friend. Really nice, but sinful!



Recipe for Cream of Carrot (based on my own modification)
Ingredients
1 brown onion, diced
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp plain flour
1 litre chicken stock (I used Knorr's chicken stock cube)
3 big carrots, diced
3 sticks celery, diced
salt to taste (optional)
1/2 cup cream (optional)

Method:
1. Sauté the onion dices in the butter until they are tender and translucent but not browned.
2. Add the flour and stir and cook until a soft paste has formed but not browned.
3. While still cooking, pour in 1/2 cup of the stock while stirring.
4. Gradually add the rest of the stock, stirring to make the mixture is smooth and not lumpy.
5. Continue cooking until the mixture is bubbly, then add the carrots and celery and cook until they are soft enough to mash easily, about 20mins.
6. Puree the mixture until it is smooth. (I used my Philips blender and it was done in no time! I put the whole blender into the pot to puree! I'm so proud of the blender!) I turned off the fire before I pureed.
7. Add salt to the puréed soup, if needed, to taste. Add the cream, if required. For me, I omitted the salt as the chicken stock was good enough. I added half a cup of cream to the soup to thicken it slightly. Heat the puréed again if salt or cream is required. Otherwise, it'll all be done at step 6!

Bon Appetit!

Small Celebrations, Big Preparations

The whole week was spending preparing for Aloysius, my eldest boy's birthday. He turns 9 this year. Born on the same year I got married! So it's very easy to know my wedding anniversary and his age. On a lighter note, if you think it's a shotgun marriage, I'll let you guess. I got married in March and he was born 37 weeks in December. Now you tell me...aren't I just lucky? ;)

Ok, back to preparation for his "big" day. Although it was just a small celebrations with my family, lots of preparations were put in place since Monday!?!?! This was my dinner menu:

Starter
Brown Rice with mixed nuts Salad

Main Course
Pasta with cream sauce or tomato sauce

Desserts
1. Choice of Rum & Raisins or Cookies & Cream Ice-Cream
2. Birthday Cake - Chocolate Fudge

Drinks
Lemongrass infused tea

Preparation before the actual day were:
1. Rum & Raisins Ice Creams


Recipe from Camemberu: No-Churn Rum & Raisin Ice Cream.

2. Cookies & Cream Ice Creams


Recipe from The Kwoks-Viewfinder: Cookies & Cream Ice Cream.

3. Lemongrass infused tea


4. "Lightning McQueen"


5. Baking of Chocolate Cake one day before.


Actual Day preparation were:
1. Brown Rice Salad with mixed nuts salad


Recipe from Kitchen Culture Demo.

2. Pastas
Since I used mainly canned sauces and added chicken & minced beef separately, there was nothing much to show. :p

3. Chocolate Fudge Birthday Cake Frosting



Recipe extracted from Kitchen Capers Forum.

4. Rosemary & Garlic Foccacia
Somehow, I might either have killed the yeast by the heat of my mixer, or put in too much water to the dough.:< The dough was so liquid, almost like soup. But I went ahead to bake it anyway. It was still very fragrant, except it doesn't really taste like foccacia.
Recipe from Happy Home Baking.

The Chocolate Fudge Cake was really good. However I think I might have underbaked them slightly. The recipe is here to stay for me!