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).

Salmon with mushroom ragout

I like to cook salmon because it's the easiest fish that I know how to prepare, and one of the fishes where there are not many bones. I also like them to be fatty & oily, the goodness of salmon, as these gives us the vitamins A and D, and they are also rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

To buy salmon in small pieces is actually very expensive, I was paying more than $16 for about 200g salmon the other day. So when I saw the supermarket having promotion for whole salmon, I almost grab it immediately. Imagine I paid about $35 but I have the whole fish, and I get to share with my aunt and feed the brood. My aunt agreed that we will buy and share whole salmon the next time!

So, here's one of few salmon dishes that I'm going to prepare.

Salmon with mushroom ragout 
(serves 3)

A) 3 pieces of salmon
salt and black pepper to taste

B) 2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp mayonaise
dash of black pepper
dash of dried parsley

C) 15 shiitake mushrooms, chopped into big chunks (diced the mushroom stems - very small cubes)
white beech mushrooms

D) 1 yellow onion, sliced in rings
broccoli

1. In a pot of boiling water with salt, boil potatoes for about 5-10 mins or till potatoes is soft. Drained potatoes and in a bowl, mash them using fork. 
2. Add mayonnaise, black pepper and dried parsley to mashed potatoes. Stir to mix evenly. Set aside. 
3. In a pan, add 2 tsp olive oil and fry broccoli. Add salt to taste. Add 2 tbsp water and let it simmer till almost reduced. Set aside. 
4. Saute yellow onion till become translucent. Set aside. 
5. In a pan with 1 tbsp olive oil, medium-low heat, fry the diced mushroom stems for about 2 mins before adding the big chunks mushrooms, followed by beech mushrooms. Fry till fragrant, add salt and black pepper to taste, about 5-7 mins. Add 1 tbsp water and let it simmer for about 1-2 mins. Set aside. 
6. In a non-stick pan with 2 tbsp olive oil, pan fried salmon and sprinkle salt and black pepper to taste. 
7. To serve, scoop dollop of mashed potatoes on plate, add mushrooms, followed by salmon. Put broccoli and onions at the side. Sprinkle some black pepper and dried parsley on the salmon. 

Aglio olio

Aglio (garlic) Olio (oil) my-style, with salmon and asparagus added to make it a healthier and delicious lunch.

Cooking a meal for my lil boy has been the only motivation why more thoughts and efforts are put in, if I'm home alone, I'll go for instant noodles anytime (equally delicious but unhealthy, isn't it?)

Aglio Olio
(serves 2)
Ingredients/ Method

Linguine (as I don't have spaghetti)
4 gloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
cracked black pepper
salt
a dash of mixed herbs (as I don't have parsley)
salmon
thin asparagus, optional

1. In a pot of hot water, add 1 tsp salt, boil pasta per instruction indicated on box.
2. Drained and toss some olive oil to prevent pasta from sticking (if not cooking immediately). Reserve some pasta water. 
3. In a pan, pan-fried salmon. Using fork, loosely breakup the salmon. Set aside. 
4. In the same pan, with some salmon oil left-over, add 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil. 
5. Add in minced garlic and stir fry till fragrant and lightly brown, about 1 - 2 mins. 
6. Add in asparagus and fry for another 1 - 2 mins, or 80% cooked. Season with some black pepper, mixed herbs, and salt. 
7. Add in pasta and continue frying for about 2 mins. Add 1-2 tbsp pasta water and let it simmer till sauce reduced, giving it an occasional stir. Takes about another 2 mins. 
8. Turn off heat and add in salmon, and give it a few stirs to mix salmon with the pasta. 
9. Ready to serve. 

Pan fried salmon

Our simple but high-omega lunch today. Just sprinkle salt and cracked black pepper as seasoning. Add some sides to make it healthier - we have potatoes, thin asparagus, baby carrots, white onion and sliced garlic.