Our Saturday dinner

It's has been ages that I've prepared a full course dinner as we would usually dine out on Saturdays. The feeling of eating at home, just the 3 of us, home-cooked meal, is really warm and good. If you have not been dining together with your family at home, I urge you to go ahead and do it (immediately)!

Actually just before getting the dinner ready, I was quite pissed with the boys as they seem to take ages (couple of hours) to help me get a loaf of french loaf and orange juice. By the time they got back home, it was almost half-past-7 and the mood of cooking dinner was gone. Anyway I still proceed grudgingly. Thankfully I did it, when we sat down for dinner, my fumes were gone and was feeling satisfied with the dinner, and feeling good to dine together as a family.

Our 4-course dinner includes garlic bread, creamy pumpkin soup, pan fried salmon with caramelized apples, chocolate fudge yellow cake (recipe to be posted later), and of course accompanying sparkling moscato and orange juice (for the lil boy).

Garlic Bread
(serve 4 slices)

Ingredients/ Method:
French loaf or baguette (store-bought)
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
40g salted butter
2 tsp dried parsley

1. Mix finely minced garlic and dried parsley to butter. 
2. Slice french loaf and spread garlic-butter generously. 
3. Bake in pre-heated oven at 150 deg C for 7-10 mins, or until golden brown. 

Creamy Pumpkin Soup
(for 3 servings)

Ingredients/ Method:
200g pumpkin puree
20g yellow onion, chopped
white salt n pepper to taste
1/4 cup cream
1/4 cup chicken stock + 1/3 cup water
some black pepper and dried parsley, to garnish

1. In a small pot, add olive oil and saute yellow onion till translucent. 
2. Add in pumpkin puree and continue stirring till mixture starts to boil. Sprinkle salt and white pepper to taste. Stir to mix well.
3. Add in cream, chicken stock and water and continuing stirring till mixture boil. Remove from heat. 
4. Using a handheld blender, blend the pumpkin soup till smooth. 
5. Sprinkle some black pepper and parsley before serving. 

Pan Fried Salmon with Caramelised Apples
(for 3 servings)

Ingredients/ Method: 
300g salmon, sliced into 6 portions (length-wise)
salt and black pepper, to taste
1/2 tbsp butter

1 apple, peeled and cored, thinly sliced (about 3mm)
10g raisins, soaked and drained
slightly less than 1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup orange juice

1. In a pan, add butter and pan fried salmon on medium-high heat. Sprinkle some salt and black pepper to taste. Continue pan-fried till golden brown and and looks crispy. Set aside. 
2. In the same pan with remaining oil, cook apple and raisins till slightly soft. Stir occasionally. 
3. Add nutmeg and toss apple and raisins evenly. Continue to cook for another 2-3 mins. 
4. Add orange juice and let it simmer on low heat until juice reduced to slightly less than 3 tbsp. Occasionally stir to avoid apple & raisins getting burnt. 
5. To assemble, scoop caramelised apple-raisins into 3 equal portions on serving plate. Followed by salmon. Drizzle remaining caramelised sauce over the salmon. 
6. Ready to serve. 

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (Oct 2014 Event: PUMPKIN) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Eileen (Eileen's Diary).

Salmon, pumpkin & cheese mini pies

Since I've been cooking lunches during most of the weekdays, my pathetic knowledge of cooking is really being put to test. Without letting my boy getting bored with my home-cooked lunches, and myself cooking the same old thing, I will try to prepare different dishes for the little one. Luckily, there are many generous bloggers sharing their interesting recipes, so it is not a very difficult feat. The only tough part is choosing which one to cook/ prepare first.

Before bake

Here's another salmon recipe, and using mini-pies recipe which I bookmarked from Domestic Goddess Wannabe. I've also added some pumpkin puree as I like to incorporate vegetables to make our meal more wholesome and healthier. It turned out really easy and delicious. We had it for our lunch, and the next day, the boys re-heated them as their breakfast!

I'm copying the recipe here, with some modifications, for ready reference.

Salmon, Egg and Cheese Mini-Pies
(makes 4 ramekins)
(Recipe from Domestic Goddess Wannabe, with modifications)

Ingredients/ Method:
150g salmon
1/4 yellow onion, diced
3 tbsp pumpkin puree
1 egg, boiled and chopped
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar/mozzarella
Salt and pepper to taste
Black pepper to sprinkle

1. Pan-fried salmon. Roughly mash them using fork. Set aside.
2. In a pan, saute onions for 2-3 minutes in extra-virgin olive oil.
3. Add salmon, salt and pepper. Stir to mix.
4. Add pumpkin puree, stir to mix. Transfer into a bowl to cool.
5. Greased ramekins with vegetable oil.
6. Add a scant tablespoonful of batter, followed by 2 tablespoons of filling and 1-2 tablespoons of Cheddar/mozzarella. Top with another tablespoon of batter.
7. Sprinkle with black pepper.
8. Bake at 180C for 30 minutes, or until the tops of the pies have turned golden brown.
9. Cool completely before removing from muffin pan and storing in fridge (2-3 days) or freezer (up to 3 months).

For the Batter using Ready-Made Bisquick Mix:

1/4 cup Bisquick mix* (pls refer below for homemade bisquick mix)

1/4 cup milk - this can be whole milk or low-fat milk

1 egg

1. Whisk Bisquick mix, milk and eggs in a bowl until combined.

Homemade Bisquick Mix:

3 cups plain flour, sifted

1/2 tablespoons baking powder, sifted

56.7g cold butter or shortening

1. Place flour, baking powder and butter in a mixing bowl. 
2. Use a pastry cutter (or food processor) to cut in the cold butter until evenly incorporated. (I used rubbing-in method.) 
3. Keep in refrigerator for up to 4 months.

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (Oct 2014 Event: PUMPKIN) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Eileen (Eileen's Diary).

Pumpkin ondeh ondeh

Previously, I've mentioned that my fil has a secret garden, and occasionally he will harvest the vegetables and fruits and pass them to us. This time round, we got a big pumpkin and some dried roselles from him. Everyone at my aunt's place went 'wow' when they saw the pumpkin, it was really big at about 3.5kg, nice and round. My fil said that he has 'accidentally' harvested the pumpkin, otherwise it would have grown bigger.

Too bad I didn't take a picture of the pumpkin when it was in whole. The pumpkin is sweet and I managed to keep the seeds with intention to grow them too.

With about half the pumpkin left, I took it back from my aunt's place and have in mind a few recipes to try out. I've pureed the entire remaining pumpkin, and used some for my hubby's favourite ondeh ondeh. The balance pumpkin puree is in the freezer, waiting to be transformed!

The pumpkin taste is not imminent in the kueh, but the skin is really soft and with enough palm sugar, I can feel the ooze-sensations!

Pumpkin ondeh ondeh

Ingredients/ Method:
(Recipe modified from previous Sweet potato ondeh ondeh)
200g pumpkin puree
200g glutinous rice flour
10 tbsp water or less (depends on the moisture of pumpkin)
1.5 tsp corn oil
chopped pieces of gula melaka
freshly grated coconut (without skin)

1. Steam pumpkin till soft.
2. Steam grated coconut for about 5-10 mins. When ready, sprinkle a little salt over the grated coconut. (This will prevent the grated coconut from turning bad/rancid.) Set aside.
3. In a bowl, mash pumpkin and add in glutinous flour and oil. 
4. Slowly add in water and knead till smooth dough is formed. Add more water if dough is dry. If dough is too sticky, add more glutinous rice flour. 
5. Chop gula melaka to bite size.
6. Dust hand with some glutinous rice flour, divide dough (about 15-20g each) and wrap in the gula melaka (about 1 tsp or as much as you can to get ooze-sensation). 
7. Put wrapped balls into big pot of boiling water. The balls are ready when it floats on the surface of water. 
8. Toss on plate filled with grated coconut.
9. Ready to be served.