Home-cooked food – Page 17 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Oven-Grilled Onion Chicken Chop

Here’s another oven-grilled meat dish that I whipped up for the girls. My most critical and persnickety daughter said “mummy, I’ll give you an A+++ for this dish!” That sure was a very motivational remark to make me dish up more delish oven-grilled meat dish for them 😀

Picture below shows the chicken before the 25-minute grill in the oven.

The big onions over the meat effused such natural sweetness to the meat that for a moment, we all thought that the meat was honey glazed. I did not marinate the chicken with any sugar or honey. The boneless chicken meat was marinated with Lea & Perrin sauce, oil, black pepper and mixed herbs. I also tossed in lots of chopped garlic over the meat before grilling. Because of the juice from the chicken which gave moisture, the garlic and big onions were not burnt at all.

The oven-grilled onion chicken, which tasted very much like barbequed chicken, super yummy!

And there was also a stir-fried veggie dish with fish paste and meat balls, naturally seasoned with lots of chopped garlic and onions – my 2 favorite natural flavor enhancer.

No. of times viewed = 1440

Herbs And Garlic Grilled Black Pomfret Fish

My girls and I love fish, especially if it’s pan fried BUT I hate frying fish. I suck at frying fish and can never fry a fish perfectly. This makes me miss Dyah, our former helper more. She used to help us fry fish for dinner almost every day. These days, I have been using the oven a lot to grill meat and fish. That’s because I hate to fry them using the wok or non-stick pan. I hate the oil splatters. I normally grill salmon and mackerel but yesterday, I tried grilling black pomfret fish for the first time. And it turned out fishylicious!

Here’s my oven grilled black promfret fish with lots of chopped garlic, oregano and parsley herbs, ground black pepper, oil, garlic salt, sea salt and a few dashes of Lea & Perrin sauce. All the ingredients were slathered on both sides of the fish.

Preparation time : 10 mintues

Grilling time in oven : 25 minutes (uncovered on a greased baking paper laid out on a baking tray. I used Knife peanut and sesame seed oil)

The girls prefer oven grilled fish over pan-fried fish as the meat of oven grilled fish is tender and juicy vs rough and dry meat if pan-fried. Best of all, there ain’t a single drop of oil splatter, except that I have to lightly wipe the oven after use. I use Sol-U-Mel from Melaleuca (which is non-toxic) to wipe the inside of the oven to remove the fish odor.

I’m really happy with the taste and texture of this grilled black pomfret fish 😀 Busy mums and dads who want to dish out sweat-free delish homecooked food for your little ones in a jiffy, do give this a try too!

No. of times viewed = 939

Pineapple Grilled Fish

This is what we had for dinner last night….

Grilled wild salmon fish and threadfin fish with herbs, EVOO and fresh pineapple. It was my first time grilling fish with pineapple and I was amazed with the strong aromatic and fruity flavor the pineapple effused into the fish meat. When the fish was grilling in the oven, the combined aroma from the pineapple and the fish was drowning me! It smelled heavenly and tasted divine too!

The fish was served with Japanese rice and Japanese rice condiment, grilled sweet corns, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. It was one of the easiest dinner to whip up ever, with almost zero oil splatter. Well, I had to lightly wipe the oven after use. Tonight’s menu will be grilled chicken with pineapples and I can foresee the girls grinning while they chomp on the delish and fruity chicken drumsticks 😀

No. of times viewed = 506

Maniac Monday

I have always disliked Mondays. As much as I want to avoid the Monday Blues, it’s hard. Yesterday was yet another maniac Monday for me. I made 5 trips to send and pick up the girls from morning through evening. In between trips, I did grocery shopping, ran some errands and quickly whipped up dinner. While Alycia and Cass ate dinner at home, I zoomed off to pick Sherilyn up and zoomed back home so that Miss Dilly Dally could finish her dinner on time for the part-time maid to wash up before she leaves. I left Cass at home with Alycia when I went out to pick up Sherilyn in the evening and asked my most reliable daughter to watch over her sister. Lately, I have been doing this and I normally put on a VCD for the rascal to watch before I zoom off to drop off Sherilyn at the tuition centre and ballet centre.

Yesterday I made Chicken Chop Fried Rice for dinner.

I used 2 pieces of deboned chicken thigh for this dish. I cut the chicken thighs into bite-size and marinated them. I then pan-fried it with big onions and garlic like how I would for a chicken chop dish. Then I added sweet corn kernels, red bell pepper, spam meat and cooked rice and pan fried everything.

For my most persnickety and critical daughter to say that this dish is delish with her having a third helping to the rice, this dish must be really good 😀

Despite having all 3 rascals praising this dish lavishly, I think I am going to avoid cooking dishes that require a great deal of preparation on Mondays. The hubs said that I should have just packed some dinner home but the thought of eating those oil and salt laden food outside make me feel sick already. Starting from next Monday, I am only going to cook steamed dishes or in worst case scenario, take-away food to avoid having a stressed out Monday. I was flaked out in front of the PC at 10pm but could only call it a day at close to midnight last night. And I was up at 4:45am today! Ain’t life too good for me? Too good that I never have to suffer from insomnia and boredom, haha!

No. of times viewed = 710

Feeling Bleh, So?

Today is one of those days when I feel really bleh! Just tired and no zest. Throat still hurts and body feels like I have carried tons of weight yesterday. I have been telling the girls almost everyday that I feel freaking tired. Not sure if it’s caused by a deficiency in iron, my low blood pressure, PMS or combination of all or is it because I have been coughing throughout the nite for the past few days, thus have interrupted and insufficient sleep. No point complaining as I can’t get an MC anyway. The least I can do is to pack food for lunch and dinner but I am sick of packing the same old food that is available at the nearby shops. So soldier on lor, what to do. And like I always complain to the girls when they are bratty and make me climb up the wall: “My job is worst than a maid and slave. At least a maid and slave get paid and get rest days. I DON’T!”

Despite having to face the blue devils and having had a hectic day, I managed to whip up a nice dish for the girls yesterday.

Tangy turmeric chicken fillet – the chicken fillet were marinated with lime juice (which is a natural meat tenderizer because of the acid from the juice), turmeric powder (I used McCormic), freshly pound turmeric (thanks to my dad for the pound turmeric) and cooked with lots of shallots and garlic. Alycia’s comment of “oooh, smells so delicious and looks like a restaurant dish!” seemed to have defeated some of the blue devils in me.

Our dinner last night:

By the way, I found a way of cooking 3 over easy eggs or wallet egg (荷包蛋) at one go on the same pan. It requires some practice though when it comes to separating the eggs and flipping them. It is the kids’ constant request for wallet egg that I tried frying 3 eggs on the same pan at the same time, to save time. The eggs will turn out quite well on a Tefal-coated pan, albeit you will have to compromise on the shape, as shown in the above picture. My kids are A-OK with the shape as long as their wallet egg still tastes like wallet egg 😀

No. of times viewed = 634

Simple Dinner – 22 September 2013

Sunday is a day of outing for us. My kitchen is normally closed on Sundays but today, I decided to whip up something simple and easy as everyone ain’t in their best form, health wise. When my kids and I are not well, I try to minimize outside food.

So I grilled Salmon belly and sweet corns in the oven. I also reheated some cooked Japanese rice (which we took away from a Japanese restaurant the previous night) in the oven when the fish was being grilled and topped 2 slices of cheese on the rice to make a cheese-baked rice.

The salmon fish was marinated with dried parsley and oregano, EVOO, ground black pepper and garlic salt. The girls were very, very satisfied with this simple dinner, cooked without a drop of oil splatter *feeling happy*

No. of times viewed = 936

What’s For Dinner?

While cooking dinner yesterday, I have been thinking hard what I should be cooking for lunch and dinner today. It is not easy to please 3 fussy brats OK. The oldest brat is the hardest to please. She is a hardcore rice pot. To please her, I need to give her rice and 2 dishes. Brat #2 and #3 are pretty easy to please but they ain’t no fans of rice. So on most days, I will have a hard time deciding on who to please.

Yesterday I decided to please all 3 brats. I decided to reheat some cooked Japanese rice in the freezer for brat #1 and to boil some Japanese citrus noodles for brat #2 and #3.

But when brat #1 saw the plate of delish noodles, she decided against having rice. SO, I had to put the container of rice back into the freezer, eessssh, what fickle-minded girl!

This is what we had for dinner yesterday.

Morikawa Hand-made Iyokan Citrus Somen Noodles (the MIL bought from Japan) with a one-pot quick-stew dish composed of chicken, red and yellow bell pepper, baby french beans, loads of big onions (which added so much flavor to the dish) and Bunashimeji mushrooms.

The 3 ravenous brats polished off this big pot of colorful chicken dish! 😀

Tonight, I am going to please MYSELF. Since I am still having a strep throat, I will be cooking chicken porridge. Brat #2 and #3 will probably accept the porridge but brat #1 has already contorted her face in protest this morning when I told her that we are going to have porridge tonight BUT being a good daughter, she said “oh ok, just make sure that the porridge is really watery and the rice still looks like rice in water ok?”

No. of times viewed = 378

Down But Not Totally Out

I am down with a bad strep throat and throbbing head, no thanks to all the vicious and ravenous virus lingering in our house. Everyone in the house was down with cold and strep throat for the past two weeks. Sherilyn got it first and I think she must have gotten it from school or the tuition centre. Next was Alycia, Cass and the hubs. When everyone is sick in the house, it is pretty hard to escape from those pesky virus, especially so if you get coughed at, sneezed at, puked at, goo-gooed and boogered at all the time! Oh yes, those wet kisses too. How can you say NO to kisses, hugs and I Love Yous?

The one distinct con of being a WFHM is that you have no sick leave and no annual leave. No perks and no remuneration package. The only non-monetary rewards you get are hugs, kisses, a good body massage (from the kids, not the hubs ok) and just seeing the kids growing healthily. Well, that was my choice 6.5 years ago. My choice to leave the corporate world for good. My choice to loose financial freedom, impulse shopping, the luxury of having 2 live-in maids, splurging on things which I did not even have to think twice. Do I have any regrets? Not exactly a NO but at least I know I will never have to worry about the kids whilst I am away in the office. Did you read the news about the caucasian mother in Singapore who fainted when she came home to find her 3-month old baby boiled to death in a container? The maid boiled the baby.

Since I have zilch appetite to eat, I made a big pot of antioxidant-packed ‘purple soup’ today. My ‘purple soup’ consists of 1 huge beet root, half a head of organic purple cabbage, 6 carrots, a big chunk of lean pork and several chicken feet.

This was my lunch today and I could not be more satisfied with this bowl of goodness. I have just had a quick lunch of 2 hard-boiled eggs and this bowl of soup before I pick up Cass from school in a moment.

Now, who says that healthy food often tastes bland? This bowl of antioxidants-rich soup tasted so good and was full of sweetness from all the vegetables.

It is time for me to pick up Cass from school now. My slavery begins the moment the kids are back!

No. of times viewed = 484

Char Siew Bread Pizza

Bread Pizza is one of the girls’ favorite home-prepared ‘fast food’. This is an excellent way to get the girls to eat capsicum, something which they do not normally fancy. I normally top my bread pizza with lots of chopped antioxidant-packed capsicum (red and yellow ones), vitamin-packed cherry tomatoes, power-packed big onions, super mushrooms, protein-packed roast chicken or char siew and calcium-packed cheese.

This time I used lean char siew and all those ingredients that I mentioned above. I cleared all the frozen wholemeal bread that the mil baked before she went to Hong Kong.

Pizza bread is so easy to prepare that my almost 10-YO Alycia can help me with it.

Once all the toppings are spread on the bread slices, I baked it in the oven for 7-8 minutes (pre heated).

This is our delish bread pizza. It is SO tasty and even yummier than Pizza Hut and Dominos, so said the girls! And way healthier too.

The crust/bread was pretty crispy too.

I will add in some fresh pineapples and fresh button mushrooms the time I prepare bread pizza, which will be next week!

No. of times viewed = 502

Sweat-Free Crockpot Cooked Kaya and Homecooked Meals

This is my third attempt in making kaya (coconut milk + egg jam) using the crockpot and this time, the texture has improved as I used my most helpful kitchen helper – the Shimono food processor to blend it after cooking the kaya in crockpot for 2 hours.

This is a sweat-free and easy-peasy way to cook wholesome and lip-smacking kaya.

All you need are eggs, coconut milk (santan) and sugar — all in equal amount. For my recipe, I used 1 big soup bowl of coconut milk (from 2 coconuts), 1 bowl of free-range chicken eggs and 1/2 bowl of organic raw brown sugar. 1 bunch of pandan (screwpine leaves). Even with reduced sugar, my kaya was still sweet.

For ~~time-pressed~~ lazy mothers, you just dump everything into the slow cooker and stir every 15 minutes. If you have the time, the pandan kaya will have a more attractive bright green hue as well as a stronger aroma of pandan leaves if you squeeze out the juice of pandan leaves into the kaya mixture when it is cooking in the pot.

Once you have tried your own homemade kaya cooked using only natural goodness, you wouldn’t ever want to buy commercially made ones that are super sweet and have food additives.

And below picture was my ‘East Meets West’ homecooked dinner yesterday…

1) Tangy chicken fillet with fresh Portobello mushrooms

2) Butterhead lettuce, broccoli sprouts and alfalfa sprouts, chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, Emmentel cheese and seaweed salad.

served with Japanese rice cooked with pandan leaves.

I had intended to cook Terriyaki chicken fillet but when I opened the fridge to search, I then remembered that I had thrown the bottle of expired Terriyaki sauce a few months ago! So I just whacked whatever marinate sauces I could find in the fridge and came up with this very tasty chicken dish marinated with Lea & Perrin sauce, Japanese Aba Ponzu citrus vinegar, soy sauce, black pepper, Maple syrup and organic agave nectar. The 2 ripened tomatoes and 2 huge onions added so much tanginess and flavor to the sauce. Needless to say, the chicken dish was a hit with everyone, including the one that’s the hardest to please – the foodie hubs 😀

No. of times viewed = 2254

Easy Peasy Homecooked Meals

It’s been almost a week since the MIL left for Hong Kong and the girls are still pretty happy surviving on mummy’s simple and no-frills meals.

Here are some of the simple one-dish platters that I had dished out…

Dinner on 30 Aug 2013 – Stir-fried Chinese cabbage with sawi and minced meat in egg sauce. The 3 little fussy eaters loved this dish and commented that they do not mind having this everyday. Now that’s music to my ears 😀

Dinner on 30 Aug 2013 – also reheated the frozen pre-cooked braised Hakka pork dish that the MIL mass-cooked for us before she left.

Dinner on 3 Sept 2013 – 1) pasta with homemade pesto sauce and roast chicken. 2) Brocolli-chick peas-cherry tomatoes-celery salad with Emmentel cheese and chia seeds.

Tonight dinner’s menu will be terriyaki chicken fillet with big onions and Portobello mushrooms and a fresh garden salad consisting of butterhead lettuce and alfalfa sprouts. HFM only serves healthy food and striving to go as natural as possible and trying hard to steer clear from food laden with food additives.

No. of times viewed = 374

Lunch For The Kids Today – 16 April 2013

After 3 days of vomiting and retching with zilch appetite, Alycia’s appetite is slowly returning today. For 3 days, everyone at home has been eating porridge and vermicelli cooked with minimal oil and meat. According to the paed’s suspicion, Alycia has been attacked by some kind of virus. You know doctors, when they cannot be certain as to what is wrong with their patients, they will usually diagnose them as suffering from viral fever – the ‘cannot be ascertained sickness’ — you agree with me? I thank God that her body temperature is now back to normal after hovering at 39.4 – 39.9 degrees Celsius for the past 3 days. All kinds of thoughts on what could be wrong with Alycia ran through my mind — from Dengue fever to bird flu, chicken pox to the latest H7N9 virus. The paed told us to bring Alycia back to this office should the fever not subside by today (Tuesday) and she will then be prescribed with antibiotics – the medication that I dread the most as I had seen the ugly side effects antibiotics had caused to my kids — which made them sicker!! The ultimate horror of antibiotics is when the bacteria in your body becomes resistant to it. That was what happened to Cass when she was on long-term prophylactic antibiotics and that is another long story to be told.

Anyway, according to the girls’ BM tutor, more than 30 people from a school in KL had been down with the same sickness with similar symptoms. So I guess that this strain of virulent virus is now in the air. So parents, please keep your child hydrated, ensure that they pop their vitamins, eat healthily and stay away from crowded places, if possible.

Today, I asked Alycia what she’d like to have for lunch and we spent more than an hour to finally think of something that she felt like eating! Instead of going to a nearby Japanese restaurant to have ramen or soba as suggested by the mil, Alycia told me that she wanted to eat Maggie mee, of all things! So the mil and I came up with our healthy version of instant noodles for Alycia, without any MSG.

Our healthy maggie mee, minus the sachet of powdered junk. The soup base is chicken breast fillet with tomatoes and squids, a dash of salt and bonito flakes. Made some scrambled eggs too.

Starting from tonight, I can have my restful and uninterrupted sleep again after having to wake up several times at ungoldly hours in my groggy state of mind for the past 4 nights to sponge my 10-year old girl and to feed her with water and fever meds. Oh well, that’s the fun of being a mother!

No. of times viewed = 609

Homecooked Meals

Grandma made a batch of pumpkin buns just before dinner. My bread-crazed Cass announced to grandma that she ain’t going to eat rice and only wanted to eat mien pau (bread in Mandarin) with homemade kaya and cheese. So while the rest of us had rice with yummy homecooked dishes, Cass had bread and I only nibbled on the dishes, minus the rice.

Our dinner on Wednesday — stir-fried cabbage with julienned carrot, steamed minced pork with water chestnut, french beans omelet and a fried rice left over from lunch.

The mil is away for a few days, so I am back in action in the kitchen again! Tonight I will cook a one-pot dish cum soup of anchovies with spinach and chicken drumsticks. There is still some porridge left in the pot, which I cooked for lunch.

Have a great weekend everyone! 🙂

No. of times viewed = 187

Homecooked Dinner – 23 Feb 2013

Presenting 6 of our 7-course homecooked dinner that we had at home 2 evenings ago.

1) Gado-gado– composed of fried tofu bought from the Japanese food section at Isetan, blanched cabbage, long beans and special homemade Gado-gado sauce.

2) Steamed egg with minced meat

3) Stuffed dried oysters with minced meat, fish meat and watercress. Sauce composed of dried oysters, minced garlic and fatt choy (Angel’s hair). My dad made this for CNY and he brought some for us last week.

4) Stir-fried Por Choy (Chinese spinach)

5) Minced arrow-roots with minced khang choy (Chinese celery) and minced siew yoke (roast pork)

6) Roast chicken (restaurant bought)

7) Lotus root soup (not in pic)

Close-up shot of the dishes…

There are still lots of raw meat and fish in the freezer bought specially for CNY and it looks like we will continue to have CNY themed dishes for another week or more, YUMS 😀

No. of times viewed = 242

Our 2013 Valentines Day

Today the mil and the hubs’ aunt brought Alycia and Sherilyn to Mid Valley Megamall for lunch and shopping. Hubs was at a client’s function and so could not bring them out. And I was just too lazy to go out as we have been going out almost everyday during the CNY holiday. I just wanted to stay home and like what Cass said, “enjoy some peace” lol! To Cass, peace means having the whole lappie all to herself and doing whatever she wants with the lappie and no fighting with her 2 sisters 😀

Since there was no left over dishes in the fridge, I cooked instant noodles for lunch for Cass and myself… a healthy bowl of instant noodles that is, without any seasoning or soy sauce… just 2 pinches of pink sea salt, pepper and sesame seed oil. The rest of the flavor in the soup comes from 2 pieces of chicken drumsticks, some fresh Eryngii mushrooms, 2 ripened tomatoes, 2 baby sweet corns and 3 eggs. I used the rectangular dried instant noodles packed without any seasoning.

This is all for Cass and she was so glad too that she need not have to fight with her 2 sisters for the noodles!

Tonight we are having homecooked dinner at home and I think the hubs will be home with a cake as usual, just for his 3 angels to have a cake blowing, cutting and photography session for our album. I doubt my man will surprise me with a gift since he’s just given me a X’mas pressie and next month will be my birthday.

No. of times viewed = 1375

Kobe Beef Lunch – Sunday, 3 Feb 2013

Here’s our homecooked lunch today, which is the first meal that the mil whipped up for us since her return from Hong Kong yesterday.

1) Kobe beef #5, flown from Japan to Hong Kong, which the mil brought back from Hong Kong yesterday

2) Super sweet and juicy cherries which the mil brought back from HK

3) Homemade whipped potatoes. After mashing up the potatoes, we used a hand mixer to whip up the potatoes so that the texture is smoother. Seasoned with fresh milk and a dash of salt and pepper

The Kobe beef was really juicy. The kids ate medium well and without any salt or pepper, yet it was really juicy and tasty, without a tinge of beef odor. Now I know why Kobe beef is frigging expensive! The piece of steak you see in this picture cost over RM100 a piece. It’s the tenderness, texture and the juiciness of the meat that give Kobe beef a cut above the rest. The adults ate medium rare and seasoned with a little salt and pepper.

Kobe beef refers to cuts of beef from the black Tajima-ushi strain of Wagyū cattle, raised according to strict tradition in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The meat is generally considered to be a delicacy, renowned for its flavour, tenderness, and fatty, well-marbled texture. Kobe beef can be prepared as steak, sukiyaki, shabu shabu, sashimi, teppanyaki, and more.

Tonight, the mil is cooking dinner again. I think she is going to pan fry Salmon fish, braise pork ribs, steam Chinese sausages from HK and stir fry a veggie. We so miss her homecooked dishes and I am SO happy I don’t have to sweat it out in the kitchen anymore, for the next few months LOL!

Koo Ma, the girls said thank you very much for the Kobe beef, cherries, shoes and all the goodies!

No. of times viewed = 303