My Sedap Singapore Meal Plan

Found on fashiontag.com

I must confess some of the meals in this week’s plan I may not be wholly responsible for cooking!

So who’s the fine looking lady you are asking? I could lie, but I won’t. It isn’t me. But it is what my hair will look like tomorrow, yay. It is important to look stylish at all times (hah) even when cooking.

I am being kind to myself this week – it has been a busy one already and it’s only Tuesday. My washing machine has broken down, which completely sucks when you have three children aged four and under who soil their clothes with reckless abandonment. On the plus side, I will be regaining some sense of style, and as if that wasn’t enough to make me smile, my big sister and family are coming to stay this weekend (who live in another country usually – woohoo). So, I shall be busy baking lots of lovely bread for the weekend, and be cooking up a storm of cakes and treats for their stay. So not much time left for regular meal cooking, between baking and looking uber glamorous!

Monday (or day one) – Roasted sea bass in Heng’s Nonya sauce, rice and corn on the cob
Tuesday – Mee Goreng with added veggies and less chilli for the kids
Wednesday – Ginger and Honey Stir Fried Pork with sweet potato, rice and garlic broccoli
Thursday –  Ayam (Chicken) Curry with fresh condiments, mango chutney and rice
Friday – Beef rendang with green leafy veggies

Top Tip for moms with little kids – Stock up your freezer
For those days when I cook something too spicy or way out for the kids taste buds, I have a freezer stocked with kid friendly food like fish fingers, leftover casseroles, mini sausages, bolognese and soups. So I don’t have to cook two different dinners, just cook one, defrost one!

Bad Boy Bass

Thank you Heng’s for making a super easy and tasty fish supper for me and Mr X. So tasty in fact I decided to blog about it. Best of all your delicious sauce contained no MSG or preservatives and it was indeed quick and easy. My cooking equipment included the oven, a pair of scissors, some aluminium foil and a cooking tray. easy lah.

I happened upon the sauce during one of my browsing sessions of the weird shit section of the supermarket. It’s not that weird I concede, but you should have seen some of the stuff it was alongside!! All I needed to do next was buy a bargain priced sea bass at NTUC supermarket ($5 people, that’s about £2.50 for my UK followers), gutted and cleaned or course. No fishy guts on this moms hands!

I cooked it, served it with boiled Basmati rice and simple steamed corn on the cob. Delicious, nutritious and quick. Will be doing again. Here’s a piccie pre-bake….and yes for all you lily livers it has the head on it still, oh grow a pair.  My Singaporean reader’s will be wondering what I am on about – don’t worry it’s a peculiar British thing that people like to pretend their headless fish were born that way!

 

BTW – in case you didn’t guess this recipe is for mum and dad, bloody spicy.

W3 Meal Plan…

So, I’ve decided I’m going to do a years worth of meal plans – call it a belated new years’ resolution. Roll on week three, or W3. It’s also my lazy way of getting out of coming up with a snappy name each week for my meal plans. So please forgive me, abbreviated W’X’ it will be.  Sexy, this weeks meal plan’s name is not, but it tastes damn hot!

Day one – Hot Punjabi Prawn Curry
Day two – Pork Chops in Ginger Sauce
Day three – Smoked Paprika Sausage Pot
Day four – Ricotta and Spinach Cannelloni (Vegetarian)
Day five – Coriander Salmon

Toddlertastic Crunchy Pasta Bakes

Flexible recipe suitable for all ages – dial down the salt for babies. Just blend!

Pasta bakes are great dishes for fussy eaters as you can blend in a myriad of unattractive vegetables in the sauce, and put the pretty ones on show! You can make lots of different versions of this recipe using a vegetable sauce, or white sauce (below).

Save time by making double quantities and freezing one (pre-baked) for next time. Use aluminum foil cooking dishes from the supermarket for your frozen future dinner – just remember to defrost in your fridge and not your microwave!

If doing the vegetable sauce, you make up a very thick blended veggie soup for the sauce. I use 1/2 leek, 1 parsnip, 1 potato, 1 handful of cauliflower florets, and 100 ml  cream. Start by gently frying veggies in saucepan, add boiling water, some herbs, simmer, then blend and add cream. You can also use my Secret Seven Soup if you like tomato sauces.

The Coup D’etat according to my kids is the crunchy topping. Which is….drumroll…. blitzed breadcrumbs, dash olive oil, Italian herbs and grated cheese sprinkled on top and crunchified in the oven. The crunchy topping shown above is yellow as it uses home-baked corn bread, get me!

As this is a “guess-ecipe” all measures are approximates.

For the white cheese sauce:
large knob of butter (approx 50g)
75g flour
900ml milk
1 bay leaf
tsp wholegrain mustard
seasoning (easy on salt)
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
100g grated medium cheddar cheese (save tbsp for crunchy top)

Melt butter in saucepan, add flour, stir vigorously for 1 minute. Stirring with a whisk continuously so it doesn’t go lumpy, gradually add rest of the milk. Add herbs, mustard and seasoning. Stir regularly and gently bring to boil. When sauce has thickened to yoghurt like thickness, turn off heat, remove bay leaf and stir in most of the cheese. Use the rest of the cheese for the crunchy topping mix (described above).

Pasta – your choice of shape, we have macaroni and Animaletti! Boil up enough for 4 people. Add handful of frozen peas and corn 2 minutes from end.

Combine pasta, sauce, peas and corn (and any other cooked ‘visible’ chopped vegetables you’d like to) and put in oven dish. Sprinkle with my much-sought-after crunchy topping, and pop in top of hot oven (180-200 degrees celsius) for 10 minutes and serve.

Black Bean Chilli

Vegetarian friendly. This recipe is from a clipping from BBC Good Food magazine, October 2012. I kept several recipes from this edition, all were unusual in the sense I hadn’t cooked anything similar before and all have become my ‘specials’. Watch out for the Guinness, Treacle and Ginger Christmas pudding I’ll be posting soon.

You can add more or less chilli as you like. Toddlers may or may not like this chilli as it has quite a lot of rich spices. My 2-year-old eats it, but his 3-year-old sister doesn’t… You can make it quite fun by serving with condiments in pots; Greek yoghurt or sour cream, chopped cucumber, guacamole, romaine lettuce and feta salad, pitta bread or corn bread for dipping etc…

2 tsp oil (grape seed or olive)
2 garlic cloves
1 large red onion, chopped
2 large green chillies chopped
3 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp hot chilli powder
1 tbsp tomato purée
2 x 400g cans of black beans
1 x 400g red kidney beans
2 x cans chopped tomatoes
250ml/9 fl Oz vegetable stock

Put a large saucepan over the heat and add oil. Add garlic, onion, chopped chillies, pinch of salt and cook for 5 mins. Add all the dry spices and tomato purée. Stir and cook for 1 min. Don’t worry if the mixture browns (not black!) and sticks a bit, all this adds a smokey flavour to the dish and you can stir it all in when you add the stock. Add all beans, tomatoes and stock. Slowly bring to boil, simmer for approx 1 hour. Season and serve with condiments. YUM!

Meal Plan Mediterranean Stylie

Hi everyone, here’s this coming weeks meal plan. Just in time for the weekend shop! I’ll add recipes for the salad and pizza’s in next few days…

Monday – Meatballs, Spaghetti with Secret Seven Tomato, Garlic & Basil sauce
Tuesday – Salmon Nicoise Salad a la Elaine
Wednesday – Aubergine Parmagiano and Roasted Chicken Breast
Thursday –  Chunky Chicken and Vegetable Soup
Friday – Home-made pizzas

One-Pot Morrocan Chicken & Prune Couscous

Suitable for toddlers and adults. This dish smells and tastes great. You can add other dried fruits to the couscous, or swop prunes for dried apricots. Pimp it up with oven roasted red pepper and courgette stirred in before serving, top with toasted pine nuts and chopped parsley for a feast! Caution: Supervise toddlers eating whole nuts.

1 whole chicken cut into portions. If you are in Singapore I recommend the Sakura chicken at NTUC Finest. It’s free of hormones and barn raised, plus, for 40 cents extra you can get the pre-cut packaged Sakura chicken – saves about 10 minutes!
1 small cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1  tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp finely grated ginger root
3 tbsp cooking oil
1tsp ground turmeric
pinch sea salt
8 pitted soft dried prunes halved
Approx 1 litre pre-boiled water
Approx 200g Couscous

Heat cooking oil in an extra-large saucepan, turn heat low and add spices and salt. Sizzle for 1 minute. Add and brown the chicken pieces. Add pre-boiled water and prunes. The water should almost cover the chicken parts. Cover pan and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. The chicken should be cooked and falling off the bone when ready. Add couscous and distribute around the chicken so it sinks into the stock. Simmer for 2 minutes then turn off heat and leave for 5 minutes before serving.  Serve with green vegetables, or for a ‘mezze’ experience serve with cucumber and pomegranate salad, aubergine yoghurt dip and flat breads.