Healthy & Yummy, (cream-less) Roasted Pumpkin & Sweet Potato Soup

Wow! It's my first time making pumpkin soup and I must say while it's not too difficult, it's pretty time consuming. However, the resulting soup dish is very well-worth the time and effort! It's smooth, it's thick, it's roasted aroma shone through and just a teeny weeny bit of honey enhanced the flavor even more. It's wow wow wow, I cannot stop slurping this soup. Much thanks to "Grab Your Spork" for sharing this wonderful recipe so I may further spread the goodwill and may more people benefit from this very healthy yet robust soup!

I used chicken stock but to make it vegan, just use vegetarian stock instead.

Recipe:
1.5kg pumpkin (cored but skin on)
0.5kg sweet potato (skin on)
2 bulbs of garlic
1 large onion
1.5L of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of honey
Olive Oil and Salt to taste
Yogurt or cream to serve

1. Pre-heat oven to 220C.
2. Wash and cut pumpkin and sweet potato into pieces. Skin the onions and 1 bulb of garlic.
3. Place pumpkin, sweet potato, onion sliced in half and 1 bulb of garlic with skin removed, on a pan, skin side down (for the roots) and drizzle olive oil and sprinkle fine seasalt all over.
4. Roast until they are soft and slightly brown on top, around 30 minutes for me. It depends on how big the roots are cut. Once done, remove from oven and remove the skins from the roots and mash them up.
5. Heat a large pot with a tablespoon of olive oil.
6. Sauteed the remaining garlic (skin removed) in the olive oil.
7. Once the garlic are slightly brown, add the mashed pumpkin, sweet potato, roasted onion and garlic into the pot.
8. Stir them together quickly as it may burn on the bottom.
9. Add half the chicken stock, and turn off the heat. Blend the soup, it will seem like a puree at this point.
10. Continue adding the stock and stir them into the puree until your desired consistency.
11. Add the honey, some black pepper and stir in. Turn on the heat again and bring to a boil.

Serve with either a teaspoon of cream or smooth watery plain yogurt. Garnish with coriander for an extra fragrance!

One-dish dinner: Oyakodon

I love 1-dish meals! They are easy, fast and usually healthy and satisfying too. It also helps that it means there are less dishes to wash. Today's dinner is a chicken, egg and mushroom rice bowl. It's meant to be a Japanese dish but I did not have some of the ingredients and just substituted with available sauces which still tasted pretty darn good if I may say so myself. It cooked up in less than 30 minutes; Hubs and me both cleaned out our plates in 10 minutes! A dish that I have to note here for future reference.

Ingredients (Adapted from here)
Serves 2
3/4 cup of uncooked Japanese rice - soak for 30 minutes before cooking in rice cooker
4 tablespoons Mirin (I don't have sake so used more mirin versus original recipe)
1 tablespoon Jap soya sauce
3/4 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup water mixed with 1 teaspoon concentrated chicken stock (I didn't have dashi stock so used Maggi)
1 big onion, sliced
2 chicken thighs, cut into pieces
1/2 cup sliced white mushrooms
2 eggs, do not beat, only use chopsticks to swirl the egg yolks around 2-3 times to lightly break them
handful of coriander, chopped

Add mirin into a large heated saucepan; it will simmer up very quickly.
Add soya sauce, sugar, water and stock, bring to boil.
Place onions into the mixture then place chicken on top. Cover with lid and let it boil over medium-low heat for 10 minutes.
Add mushrooms and simmer another 3 to 5 minutes until when the onions are soft and the chicken are almost cooked.
Slowly let the eggs flow into and around the pan to set almost fully.
Add coriander, simmer 1 more minute and remove from heat.
Spoon over cooked sushi rice, pour all remaining sauce in too. I find that the rice soaks up the sauce and is plump and juicy!

Hearty Dinner : Vegetable Medley Stew with Whole Wheat Cornbread

I've bookmarked corn bread and stew recipes for a long time. My first tomato stew was a Tuscan egg stew at Wild Honey, absolutely 1 of my favourite cafes. It was delicious and lingers in my mind since 6 years ago. Pinterest is a great source of recipes and I've had several pins of stews and breads. Just what finally inspired me to do it today of all days?

 

Today, I had injections to the sides of both my knees, apparently they had undergone early wear and tear due to the angle of my slightly bowed legs. In pain for a month and finally dredged myself to the doc, in my yoga wear, ready to go Bikram afterwards. Hah! The end result was a stern warning from the doc in resting them legs for 2 weeks. Bummer. I then walked aimlessly around the malls and acquired a stainless steel WMF frying pan that can go into the oven. Yay it's something I've been looking for.

 

I really ought to stop buying kitchen gadgets. For a household with a grand total of only 2 persons and cooking incidences of approximately once a week and baking frequency of 2-3 times a month, I've loaded cupboards with at least 1 wok, 2 pans, 1 griddle, 3 pots, 1 crockpot, 2 casserole dishes, 1 pizza pan, 5 baking pans, 1 loaf pan, 4 silicon bakeware and miscellaneous other cooking apparatus. I've got my new Cuisinart blender last week too! yay, time to keep the hand blender back into the dark. My most frivolous purchase must be the soy milk maker! ha ha, probably used it 3 times only.

 

Anyway, tada! I've a pan that can baked immediately. 30minutes into my pins and decided on the below.

 

Assorted Vegetables Tomato Stew (Source)

Ingredients:

1 eggplant, cut into strips.

1 cup pumpkin cubes

1 onion, cut into rounds

3 cloves garlic, crushed or cut

1 can whole tomatoes in sauce

1/2 cup sliced white mushrooms

Half a ripe avocado

Handful of coriander

Mixed herbs

Pepper and Salt to taste

Olive Oil

Preheat oven to oven with fan on 200C.

 

Steps:

1. Heat olive oil in frying pan, sauté garlic and onions until fragrant, add a splatter of mixed herbs.

2. Add the cubed pumpkins and pan fry a short while, around 3 minutes.

3. Add the tomatoes and all the sauce in the can.

4. Cover well and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until pumpkins are a little soft but not very soft or they will melt into a mush after baking.

5. While the stew is simmering, slice eggplants, wash and sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper. Lay them side by side in the casserole. 

6. Apply a layer of the stew, place mushrooms and chopped coriander above the eggplants and cover with remaining stew. (I didn't have enough stew to cover the eggplants as my dish was too large)

7. Cover with foil and place in oven to bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

8. Top with sliced avocado and I've also added a small layer of minced chicken leftover from last night's dinner.

 

Thumbs-up!

 

Whole Wheat Corn Bread (Source)





Ingredients / steps:

 

A.

1 cup cornmeal

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Mix all together in a large bowl

 

B.

1 cup milk

1.5 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 egg

Mix all together in another bowl

 

C.

Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients and stir to barely mix, do not over mix.

Add 1 cup of corn kernels and a spray of black pepper, stir to combine.

 

D.

Heat an oven-proof skillet with a light coat of olive oil. (My skillet is 20cm and just the right size)

Pour batter into skillet and balance the batter out.

Bake in pre-heated oven with fan at 200C for 20 minutes. (I baked this together with the vegetable stew)

 

The stew was good, with sweet pumpkins and eggplants that still retained the shape and soaked in sauce. The sauce was lightly tangy from the tomatoes, so add sugar or ketchup if you like your stew sweeter. The cornbread has a nutty taste and crisp top, well-designed to soak up the sauce from the stew. Approved by the hub! 

 

Above would serve 4 pax.

 



Multi Grain Rice Salad

To balance all those sinfully rich desserts and daily Milo/coffee drinks I indulge in, I try to make balanced wholesome meals at home sometimes. Much as I try to buy enough for 3x cooking a week, we usually end up cooking barely once or at best, twice. Today I discovered an even faster way of whipping up a meal than my usual cut/marinade/oven-grill. It's probably used by many ladies all the time already but somehow only occur to my little-used culinary mind.. and that is to cook rice in the rice cooker and steam the vegetables at the same time!

Everything will put together in only 15min of prep and 30 minutes of cooking (by the rice cooker). It was delicious and entirely wholesome! Multi-grained rice cooked to plumpness, steamed broccoli and carrots for the vegetable portion, chickpeas and tuna in olive oil for protein, avocado for healthy fat and coriander/chilli padi for that additional oomph to the overall flavor of the dish.

Hub and I loved the one-bowl dish and he has declared this as his preferred grain over quinoa. It's so easy to eat that we probably over-ate the necessary portions and it kept us full over the next 5 hours! It's so easy, so healthy, so packed with nutrients, I urge everyone to try this:

Ingredients: (serves 2 hungry adults)
3/4 cup Multi-grain rice (you can substitute with brown rice or quinoa)
Cut Broccoli and sliced carrots (or any veg of your choice)
4 garlic cloves
Pinch of Sea salt
Half can of garbanzo beans, washed and drained
1/2 can of Tuna flakes in olive oil
1 avocado, sliced
Handful of coriander
2 chilli padi

Dressing:
6 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
Juice from half a lemon
2 finely chopped garlic cloves
1 finely cut chilli padi
Sea salt and pepper
Mix everything together, stir to emulsify and place in fridge to cool

Method:
1. Soak rice for 15 minutes, wash and place in rice cooker
2. Add 1.5 cups of water, one tablespoon olive oil, pinch of sea salt and garlic cloves. Start the "cook" process.
3. 10 minutes later, add the broccoli and carrots to the steaming basket and place into the rice cooker.
4. 10 minutes later, add the chickpeas to the steaming basket.
5. Once rice is cooked, toss vegetables, tuna and dressing together. Add avocado, coriander and chilli padi to serve.

Goodness in a plate!

Chicken Chickpea Pie

Yippee! I'm going home.. in ONE WEEK's time! My 6 months stint in Malaysia is coming to an end. I would not say that it flashed by, I missed home so much. However, it's been relatively quick. Work has been time-consuming, colleagues have become friends, weekends were filled with gym sessions, baking classes and grocery shopping. Pavilion, KLCC, Midvalley are my favourite haunts. I've visited more cafes these 6 months than combined in the prior 6 years. (this is probably an overstatement but I've not yet had to repeat any cafes here so far. Such is the width of cafe outlets here). My favourite - Plan B!

Other than monthly trips back to SG, I've squeezed in a Pangkor Laut beach holiday, a vacation trip to Taiwan, day trip to Melaka and 2 visits to Klang so far. My grand plans of Penang, Cameron Highlands, Langkawi, Sabah and Genting remain as future plans, albeit from SG but gladly so.

Since I spend alot of time trawling the aisles of Jusco, Cold Storage and Carrefour, it also means the fridge and pantry are well-stocked and with 1 week left, my cooking/baking frenzy began. It started with a red bean longan sweet soup with peanut tang yuan last week. Last night, I used all my whole wheat flour, half a slab of butter, a tub of yoghurt and made a small dent in the seasalt box. Today, I defrosted all the chicken and fish, opened a stewed whole-tomato can, drained out a can of chickpeas, blanched half a bag of frozen spinach, boiled a big carrot, roasted a huge sweet potato and chopped up 12 cloves of garlic and 2 big onions. Here's the resulting mish mash of food - vaguely disguised as a Chicken Chickpea Pie!

Pie Pastry Recipe: (Makes about 8 individual pies)

150g unsalted butter, cold and cubed

250g whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon fine-grained sugar

1 egg yolk

Pinch of fine sea salt (or flakes)

1 teaspoon of herbs (your preference)

100g non-flavored yoghurt

In a big wide bowl, mix all above except yoghurt, and rub together until it resembles breadcrumbs. (A food processor can also be used to do this) Add yoghurt and mix in to form a dough. Do not over-work the dough.

Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 min. I tend to make this 1 night before.

The filling for the pie can basically be anything you like. Since I was clearing out my fridge, the mixture is pretty random. I've used a mushroom cream base previously which pairs even better with the pie crust.

The tomato filling I used here:

Roast:

One big fat sweet potato until tender but not mushy - around 30 minutes at 200C

Stir Fry:

Garlic and Onion in hot oil until fragrant

Add cubed chicken and sauteed with pinch of salt and black pepper (I added chilli flakes too)

Remove from heat when chicken is just cooked

Boil in a pot:

1 can of chickpeas in water

1 can of stewed tomatoes (for mushroom cream base, replace canned tomatoes with 1 can of mushroom soup and add lots of slivered fresh mushrooms)

Spinach

Add boiled carrot cubes and stir-fried chicken

Thicken the sauce with a teaspoon of cornflour, dissolved with a bit of water

Simmer and add additional condiments to taste (I added a generous dose of a very spicy chilli sauce)

To assemble:

Lightly brush pie moulds with melted butter

Roll dough thinly, cut and line pie moulds

Add filling and sweet potato cubes

Cut circles of dough and cover top of filling. Pinch the seams together to seal.

Cut a cross onto top of pie crust for steam to be released. Brush with egg wash.

Bake at 180C for 30 minutes - Rotate the pie trays halfway through baking.

Enjoy!

Note: I had alot more filling left, probably enough to fill another 6-8 tarts. So, double the dough recipe or halve the quantity in the filling.