Cappelini con le Vongole

My mum bought for me recently a happy call grill pan. It was meant for my pre-birthday present! I was looking forward to using it. So decided to grill my scallops and tiger prawns in it for my pasta dish. I first soaked the clams in wine..

Then I grilled the prawns and scallops in butter with a sprinkle of salt.

Also made the clams stock using white wine, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms. I would probably add chicken stock next time round for more taste

Here's the final outcome.

Post Christmas??!

Today, my mum decided to cook turkey as it has been lying in her freezer for a long time. So she invited Marianne and family as well to join us in a post-Christmas feast.



I brought along my baby honey baked ham to add to the dinner. So we had turkey, ham,cheese sausages, potato, pasta, veggies, grilled portobello mushrooms with bacon and cheese, cream of pumpkin soup. The food was so yummy- all thanks to my mum for preparing. Even the turkey was moist and tender.



The children were busy colouring. Well, Caleb was trying to at least...



Just wishing for the time where the kids can really come together to play and share their stuff with one another as Caleb was chased away just minutes when he was trying to colour, probably because he was making a mess. Sigh.

New Recipes

Eversince I have been on leave, I have more time to enjoy what I like doing- that is cooking. Here are my recent new recipes that I have cooked for my family.

How I decide what to cook depends on how easy it is. I am not one who has lots of patience when it comes to cooking. That is why, I do not really bake as baking takes a whole lot of time and effort. I enjoy quick, simple, easy dishes!

I do not believe in spending so long and going through so many thousand steps to cook one dish which will be whopped up in minutes. So I rather cook something so simple and yet nice for people to appreciate and still finish the dish in minutes. In a practical sense, this is more worth my time.

So this first dish that I have "cooked" (didnt cook cos almost everything was raw) recently was a cold tofu dish.



Basically, I just bought silken tofu and transfer it on a plate. Then add pork floss on top with seaweed shreds. The only 'difficult' part was the sauce. Just add mirin (Japanese wine) and oyster sauce. Boil to dissolve. So simple right? Then just pour over around the tofu. Garnish with chopped spring onions. How easy is that?

The next dish was thought off because I had all the ingredients in my fridge. This dish was inspired by the show, "Chef for Hire" which is shown on Channel 5 every Wed night at 9pm. Basically this show is about families hiring a professional chef to their house to teach them how to impress their friends or families by cooking for them. So there was this dish, "Steamed mussels in bacon and tomato sauce". So basically, I tweaked the dish by just adding pasta and prawns, so that it can become my lunch.

First, I fried red and yellow onions in the pan. Should only add red onions but I only had one small red onion left. So I mixed with yellow onions as well. Ha.

Then add the chopped streaky bacon.



Then when the bacon browns a little (depending on how brown or crispy you may want your bacon to be). then you throw in the mussels and prawns



Finally, just end off with a can or two of tomato paste. You can chop up some tomatoes as well to add it in (just to make the paste look more authentic since there are pieces of tomatoes in your dish) Then throw in your cooked pasta (in my case, I used linguine) and mix it.



Lastly, I add chives as a garnish. Tada..a great, tasting simple dish. If you have problems getting mussels, you can add squid. So it would be pasta with prawns and squid. Anyway, cooking is flexible. Just add what you like to eat and make sure the taste doesnt clash.

It's been a while...

Few days ago, Vicky cooked a new dish. Normally, she would just deep fry the selar fish. But this time, after frying it, she set it aside and fry chopped tomatoes with shallots. It tasted really good.I told Vicky that it would taste nicer with a little lime juice in it as the tomatoes she used were more sweet, rather than sour.



Over the weekend, I finally decided to do some cooking. It has been a while since I last cooked. Seldom cook nowadays as I am so busy at work and Vicky has been doing a great job in cooking. But since she does not cook Western, that was what I cooked for the weekend.

On Sat evening, I prepared roast chicken leg and shepherd's pie for dinner.



I really liked what I ate (not trying to be thick-skinned here, but it really tasted good). CT and Vicky loves the chicken very much as it was very tasty and juicy. For the shepherd's pie, I used minced pork instead of the usual minced beef (which is def more tasty) as Vicky doesnt take beef. She cant stand the beefy taste. So, I had to use minced pork instead. But in any case, it tasted good too. It was a healthier version as I did not use butter and cheese. If you want your shepherd's pie to taste better, you can add lots of butter and sprinkle cheese on top before grilling. I just made do with what I had in my fridge.

On Sunday for lunch, I cooked mushroom pasta. Used portobello mushrooms, brown and white mushrooms. It was a simple and tasty dish. Added garlic, margarine(didnt have butter in my fridge) and mushrooms. Stirfry them. Then, add whipping cream (not whipped cream) and bring it to simmer. Then pour over the cooked pasta. I chose linguini pasta for this dish.



For mushroom lovers, you will def love this dish. Simple and good since there are diff kinds of mushrooms in this dish.

Macaroni tradition

This afternoon, Vicky cooked Macaroni soup for lunch. Initially, she was asking me how to cook the chinese style one. Then I told her and she then told me that it was different from filipino style macaroni. So, I asked how is it cooked in Phillipines and she then explained to me. Then I went on to ask her to cook it for lunch so that I can try.

So basically what she did was to fry onions, shredded carrots and cabbage with butter in a frying pan. Then she prepared chicken stock in a pot (chicken bones with water). After frying the veggies, she placed it in the chicken stock with the cooked macaroni. And that's it! I must say it was very tasty because of the butter she used in frying the veggies.

This is a blur picture I took with my phone.


While I was eating, I asked her if it was exactly how it is supposed to be. She said in Phillipines, they add coconut milk to it. Yeeks..I cant imagine because I am not a big fan of coconut milk in my cooking since it is so fattening and fills up the tummy real fast.Imagine butter with coconut milk...!

I also started to think how the chinese style macaroni soup used to be a dish I had from young because it is a light and nutritious dish with veggies and shredded chicken breast. Then I became curious and asked Vicky if this filipino macaroni dish is also a dish which she ate from young and she said, yes.

I was then amazed at how macaroni dish is a traditional dish in diff cultures. Just like in America, where kids grew up eating macaroni and cheese. How interesting. Talking about mac and cheese, I am starting to salivate as I remember my mum making for me when I was young too...how I loved the brown crispy parts at the edges of it after baking in the oven. Will bake it one day....maybe as a reward when I have returned back to my "before pregnancy" weight. Sigh..that will take some time.