Chicken Stew II

This post is a week late! Sorry to those who have been requested and have been waiting so patiently for this recipe! :)

I hope you like it as much as my family does! 

P.S. The chicken stock base is awesome and the best part is that there's probably enough to store some for quick fixes for lunch or the kids' food! 

Chicken Stew II

Ingredients:

• 2 packets of chicken fillet (I bought mine from NTUC) - remove the tendons and cut into bite sizes
• 3 large potatoes, peel and cut into chunks
• 2 carrots, peel and cut into chunks
• 3 sticks of celery, remove the fibers and slice
• 1 pack of white button mushrooms, remove stalk, clean and slice
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 2-3 small chicken carcasses 
• 2-3 cloves garlic, wash and leave peel on
• plain flour or cornflour
• 1 tablespoon butter 
• 1 litre water

Marinade for chicken (quantity is estimated only, go with your instincts):

• 2 tablespoons chicken marinade
• a few dashes of black pepper
• a few dashes of garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• dash of sesame oil

Method:

1. Place the chicken carcasses in a pot of water and bring to a boil. Remove the chicken carcasses and place them in a soup bag together with the garlic cloves.
2. Place the soup bag into a slow cooker together with the potatoes, carrots, celery, bay leaves and water. Cook on high for 3-4 hours. Do the following steps only after this stock is done.
3. Add butter to a pot and melt it. Add diced onions and sweat them. 
4. Add the mushrooms when the onions have softened more or less. If you need to, add just a little stock to prevent the mushrooms and onions from burning.
5. Add the chicken fillet and stirfry with the mushrooms and onion for a minute.
6. Add the potatoes, carrots and celery from the slow cooker into the pot and pour in just enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients. Store the rest of the stock for future use. 
7. Bring to a boil then simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes.
8. Add flour to thicken the consistency of the gravy if necessary and add more seasoning if it's not salty enough.
9. Serve with crusty bread or rice.

Cooking note: You may substitute the butter with oil but it will affect the taste of the stew.

Linking up with:

Stewed pork ribs with chestnuts

I cooked this super simple yet delicious dish last Saturday and just had to share it with you! 

I adapted the recipe from my friend, Pauline's blog and all I can say is that I'll be cooking it more often since it's so convenient (great for me, the pregnant woman!) and so nutritious. 

This can be a 1-dish meal but since I had some nai bai in my fridge that day, I just cooked it as another dish. :)

Stewed pork ribs with chestnuts

 

Ingredients:

• 500g pork ribs (original recipe calls for pork belly but I don't like that so I substituted with ribs and they turned out wonderful!)
• 300g chestnuts (I bought them in a pack at the vegetable stall at the wet market)
• 1 bulb garlic 
• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rock sugar (optional)

Method:

1. Boil the chestnuts (with their shells already removed) in water for about 3 min. The skin should come off quite easily when you peel them when the chestnuts are still warm.
2. Wash the bulb of garlic, individual cloves separated, skin intact, and lightly crush them.
3. Blanch pork ribs.
4. Add some oil to the wok and stir fry the garlic till fragrant.
5. Add the pork ribs and fry for 2-3min before adding in the chestnuts.
6. Finally, add the light and dark soy sauce and mix well.
7. Transfer the ingredients to a slow cooker.
8. Add enough hot water to just barely cover the ingredients in the slow cooker.
9. Once you see the water bubbling in the slow cooker, turn it to autoshift and let it stew for about 2 hours.
10. Add rock sugar 15 min before serving if desired.

Alicia loved this dish too! :)


For tot's consumption:


Using a spoon, cut the chestnut into smaller, bite-size pieces to prevent choking.
Pork ribs should also be prepared in bite-sized pieces so that it's easier to chew (and swallow) and look out for any small pieces of bones (just in case).

Fastfood

Two Sundays ago, we were doing our grocery shopping at NTUC and we came across two products that we thought might fascinate Alicia.

Here's the first:

It's not too expensive (I think it's about $3 for a pack) and each piece of smiling potato is honestly bigger than I thought (it's about 4-5cm in diameter). Simply place a few of these in a preheated oven (220degC) and bake for about 10min and they're nice and slightly golden brown.

These can be served as a carbo option for the tot who needs, perhaps, a change in menu once in a while. Great for an occasional breakfast or snack: just serve alongside some greens or fruits and even a pasta sauce for a dip.

My fussy tot however doesn't really fancy it. We think it's not bad though. :)

There was a promoter for this product that day and Alicia said she wanted to try it, and so we let her.

She seemed to like it and so we decided to just buy one to try.

This is a German product and costs $9.90 per box but it was on offer that day and we bought it for only $7.90.

There are other flavours available but we thought we should stick to the Hawaiian option for the fussypot: she tried both the Hawaiian and the Salami pizza and she spat out the salami, so we thought, Hawaiian should be fine since it stayed in the mouth and eventually went into the lil tummy.

A note of caution though. As with delicatessen meats, the sodium content is pretty high so don't overdose your tot with the pizza. :) 

The best part about these two products is that they are both to be baked at 220degC in a preheated oven for the same amount of time, so you can just toss them in together and wait patiently for that 10min. :) Bake for a longer time period if you are baking more pieces of course.

As with most other things, Alicia decided that she doesn't really like the pizza when she got home. Sigh. 

Waiting to be baked

Check out the thickness of the smileys :)

Minced pork fried rice

Cooked this for Saturday's dinner... these days I try as much as possible to cook dishes that Alicia will eat as well so that I don't need to make extra effort to cook something else for her.

This is a simple dish that's sooo yummy! Try it!

Minced pork fried rice

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cup of rice grains (the cup I used to measure the rice came together with the rice cooker, hence it's not your usual cup)
• about 3 handfuls of minced pork (about $3)
• 2 handfuls dried Japanese whitebait
• 6 cloves shallots (sliced thinly)
• 4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 2 handfuls frozen mixed vegetables
• scallions (for garnishing - optional)
• Oil
• Oyster sauce

Marinate minced pork with:

• hua diao jiu
• 2-3 tablespoons oyster sauce
• sesame oil
• ground white pepper

Method:

1. Cook rice as per usual. You may prefer to use overnight rice.
2. Rinse the Japanese whitebait and leave to dry on kitchen towel.
3. Heat some oil in a wok (be more generous than usual with the oil as we will need to pour this oil over the rice eventually).
4. Add whitebait to the wok and fry till golden brown. Strain and set aside.
5. Add the garlic and fry till light brown. Strain and set aside.
6. Add the shallots and fry till golden brown. Strain and set aside.
7. Dish out the extremely fragrant oil and set aside for later use, leaving a little behind to fry the minced pork.
8. Add the minced pork and fry quickly to prevent lumps.
9. When the pork is almost cooked, add the mixed veggies.
10. Add the cooked rice and mix well.
11. Add oyster sauce to taste.
12. Dish and top with the whitebait, garlic and shallots (and scallions).
13. Drizzle the fragrant oil made earlier over the rice.
14. Serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• If particular about seasoning, remove toddler's portion before adding the oyster sauce.
• Drizzle the fragrant oil over the rice and serve the crispy whitebait separately (skip the garlic and shallots if your toddler isn't fond of them.

Mini Cottage Pies (II)

Ooh, look at the golden brown pies! :)

This time I used red potatoes instead of purple ones so no purple pies! haha... and yes, these brown nicely as you can see from the pic. :)

Waiting to be baked...

Close-up! Look at the smooth texture of the potato prior to baking! :P

Cottage pies usually require the use of ground beef (and in the case of of the English, they use lamb or mutton). In my previous recipe, I used minced chicken because I didn't have ground beef on hand. This time, I had extra ground beef (leftover from the making of spaghetti sauce) and so I immediately thought of making some cottage pies since Alicia had finished the last lot quite a while ago.

If you or your child do not consume beef for religious reasons or simply detest the taste of beef, you can always give my previous recipe a try instead - not as authentic but nevertheless yummy! :)

Mini Cottage Pies (II)

Ingredients:

• 3 egg-sized red potatoes
• 3 tablespoons minced beef
• 1/3 yellow onion (minced) - I ran out of onion yesterday but would have added it if I had some
• 1/2 small carrot (minced)
• 2 tablespoons frozen green peas
• unsalted all-purpose herbs
• unsalted butter

Marinate beef with:

• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1-2tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• dash of black pepper

Method:

1. Marinate minced beef.
2. Peel potatoes and cube them. Boil them till they are soft.
3. Mash the potatoes with about 1 tablespoon butter, herbs and a pinch of salt.
4. Heat wok and melt butter.
5. Fry the minced onion and carrot till onion is soft.
6. Add the minced beef. Continue frying so that the chicken doesn't clump together.
7. Add the peas when beef is almost cooked.
8. Dish up the filling.
9. Fill the silicon mini muffin cups with the filling to about the half-way mark.
10. Add the mashed potato on top and shape them like little muffins.
11. Preheat oven to 200degC.
12. Bake mini pies for 20-25min at 200degC. (Usually 20min will do for mine)

These mini pies can be frozen and defrosted in the fridge.

Because of the mini size, these can serve well as snacks or even breakfast. Just give more for lunch or dinner! :) Or pair them up with another western dish such as spaghetti - that's what I do sometimes!

Homemade pasta sauce (version II)

I slow-cooked the pasta sauce this time and it was really marvellous! So convenient to make and so delish! For the previous recipe, click here.

Even Alicia loved the sauce... you can be sure that if Alicia likes something, it's gotta be good though the converse isn't true... LOL.

Homemade pasta sauce (Version II)

Makes 3-4 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 cans Hunt's stewed tomatoes
• 1 yellow onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• about 200g minced beef
• 4 white button mushrooms
• 4 Swiss brown mushrooms
• unsalted butter

Marinate minced beef with:

• worcestershire sauce
• oyster sauce
• hua diao jiu
• dashes of ground black pepper

Method:

1. Blend the stewed tomatoes with the onion and garlic.
2. Pour mixture into the crockpot.
3. Remove stalk of mushrooms and chop mushrooms into small pieces.
4. Heat wok and melt butter.
5. Brown the minced beef.
6. Add the mushrooms and beef to the crockpot.
7. Cook on HI for 3-4hours or LOW for 6-8hours.
8. Pour over cooked pasta of choice and serve hot.

Optional: Transfer to stovetop after cooking with the crockpot if the sauce is too watery. Simmer till sauce has thickened to desired consistency.

Freeze in batches for instant hearty meals! :)

Mini Cottage Pies for the tot!

How would you like some of these?

They aren't baked yet though... but don't they look nice?

I decided to bake mini cottage pies for Alicia the other day, but using minced chicken in place of minced beef since I didn't have beef on hand. And just in case you're wondering, the potato I used was a purple one hence the violet hue instead of the usual yellow. :) Hubby actually thought it was yam... lol.

Check out Alicia's response:

Hot!

Help me with it daddy!

Waiting...

Still waiting for it to cool...

hmmm... what does it taste like...

mmmm... not bad...

Fresh out from the oven!

Mini Cottage Pies for the tot

Waiting to be baked...

Makes 10 mini pies

Ingredients:

• 1 red potato
• 1 purple potato
• 3 tablespoons minced chicken fillet
• 1/3 yellow onion (minced)
• 1/2 small carrot (minced)
• 2 tablespoons frozen green peas
• unsalted all-purpose herbs
• unsalted butter

Marinate chicken with:

• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1-2tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• dash of black pepper

Method:

1. Marinate minced chicken.
2. Peel potatoes and cube them. Boil them till they are soft.
3. Mash the potatoes with about 1 tablespoon butter and a pinch of salt.
4. Heat wok and melt butter.
5. Fry the minced onion and carrot till onion is soft.
6. Add the minced chicken. Continue frying so that the chicken doesn't clump together.
7. Add the peas when chicken is almost cooked.
8. Dish up the filling.
9. Fill the silicon mini muffin cups with the filling to about the half-way mark.
10. Add the mashed potato on top.
11. Preheat oven to 200degC.
12. Bake mini pies for 20-25min at 200degC.

These mini pies can be frozen and defrosted in the fridge.

Because of the mini size, these can serve well as snacks or even breakfast. Just give more for lunch or dinner! :)

Alicia's response in the beginning was lukewarm and almost disheartening but after serving these little pies to her a few times, she started to warm up to them and eats well now! :)

Toddler egg fried rice

This was Alicia's dinner on Saturday. I was at a loss about what to cook for her and decided to try fried rice again but of a different sort.

It was whipped up on the spur of the moment and I've kept seasoning to a minimum since she doesn't really take to food with a lot of seasoning. You may want to add more seasoning if your child is accustomed to it.

Alicia took quite long to eat this too but she still finished about 2/3 of the portion given to her... she kept picking out the peas and shallots to eat at first before agreeing to eat the rest of the fried rice... sigh.

Egg fried rice

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup rice (I used the 'cup' that came with the rice cooker, not the regular cup)
• 1 egg (beaten)
• a handful frozen peas
• 2T carrots (chopped)
• 2 baby corn (chopped)
• 1 shallot (sliced thinly)

Seasoning (according to your child's tastes):

• light soy sauce
• ground white pepper

Method:

1. Cook rice as per normal.
2. Heat oil in a pan and fry the shallots till golden brown. Remove the shallots, leaving the oil behind.
3. Fry the peas, carrots and corn in the shallot oil till they are cooked through.
4. Add the rice and mix evenly.
5. Pour in the beaten egg bit by bit and stir-fry quickly.
6. Add seasoning.
7. Dish and serve with fried shallots.

Fresh lily bulb with wolfberries porridge

From the looks of it, you know that this porridge ain't mine... :P

Yup, it's my darling Alicia's. I decided to try this for her dinner last night because she suddenly went nuts over wolfberries yesterday and were popping them into her mouth like popcorn... must be the slight resemblance with raisins... she ate a lot of raisins at Julia Gabriel on Saturday too...

Anyway, I saw a recipe about lily bulb and wolfberries in a toddler recipe book before but they used dried lily bulbs. I didn't follow the recipe closely at all and I used fresh lily bulbs at that. Hee. That's the leftover lily bulb from the other day when I cooked the fresh lily bulb dessert. :)

Anyway, someone didn't really like it and took forever to eat. My hubby was doing the feeding coz I was busy cleaning up the stuff I bought from the market earlier on so I'm guessing I'd most probably have yielded a better 'result' if I was the 'feeder' coz she didn't finish her porridge. Then again, it's a huge bowl of porridge so oh well.... at least we tried out something new and now we know she doesn't like it.

Not sure if your kid will like this but you can always give it a try. :)

The health benefits of consuming fresh lily bulbs:

• 'cooling'
• moistens the lungs (润肺)
• calms the nerves
• good for treating 'heaty' coughs
• alleviates anxiety and insomnia
• good for the skin (美容养颜)
• anti-cancer

It is especially useful to consume fresh lily bulbs after recovering from an illness.

Contraindications: Those with 'cold' coughs and diarrhoea due to cold in the spleen and stomach should not consume fresh lily bulbs.

You can read about the benefits of wolfberries here.

Fresh lily bulb with wolfberries porridge

Ingredients:

• 2T rice grains
• 1/2 fresh lily bulb
• 3T wolfberries
• 300ml water
• rock sugar (optional)

Method:

1. Rinse the rice grains twice.
2. Remove the petals from the bulb. Soak them to remove dirt particles. Remove any blemishes.
3. Rinse the wolfberries.
4. Place the water, rice grains and 2T wolfberries into the innerpot of a small slowcooker.
5. Bring the water to a boil on a stove then transfer the innerpot of the slowcooker back to the outerpot. Slowcook for 2hours.
6. Add rock sugar to taste (optional).
7. Garnish with 1T wolfberries.

I chose to add 1T wolfberries only when serving so that the child will get to enjoy a different texture of wolfberries in the porridge. If you're worried that your child cannot handle the wolfberries then cook them together with the porridge.

Crockpot chicken wings stew for the toddler!

I marinated the chicken wings the night before yesterday and hence I had to find some way to cook it without stinking up the machine-load of clothes that was drying in my kitchen. I figured that the crockpot would be the way out for me and so voila! Crockpot chicken wings stew was Alicia's dinner last night. :)

It's much oilier than the previous crockpot chicken stew I made for her simply because in the other recipe, I used chicken fillet (which has no skin). Anyway, because it was a last minute decision to cook this and ingredients are seriously starting to run out in my pantry (thank God that my mum is here today so I can go marketing in peace!), I was secretly hoping that the stew would turn out fine - and it did. Phew.

Crockpot chicken wings stew for the tot

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken midwings
• 2T diced carrot
• 2-3T diced potato
• 2-3T diced sweet potato
• 2 shallots, sliced thinly (I had wanted to fry this but the clothes hanging over my head were a constant reminder that I had to do what was rational)
• water

Method:

1. Place all the ingredients into the crockpot (the wings are to be put in last).
2. Pour water into the crockpot such that it almost covers the wings.
3. Slowcook for 2-3hours and you get a very savory sweet stock as well! :D

Chicken stew served with macaroni for the toddler!

That's Alicia's dinner tonight... macaroni with chicken stew - just for her.

She hasn't had macaroni for months since the last time she rejected it so here I am, trying my luck again.

Unfortunately, it seems I'm out of luck because someone still doesn't like macaroni, so she only ate the chicken stew readily but left all the macaroni behind. It's a really tasty dish but I guess she just doesn't like macaroni so I ended up having to cook spaghetti for her...

Anyway, here she is, sampling her food:

Here's how to prepare the dish:

Ingredients:

• 2-3T chicken fillet meat (or thigh)
• 1/3 large carrot
• 2 baby corn
• 2T yellow onion
• 100ml stock

Marinate chicken with:

• 1T chicken marinade
• 1tsp brown sugar
• 1tsp oyster sauce

Method:

1. Cut the carrot, baby corn and onion into chunks for toddler.
2. Place the veggies into the slow cooker and place the chicken (including any leftover marinade) on top.
3. Add the stock.
4. Cook the stew in the small slow cooker for 2-3hours.
5. Thicken with cornflour solution if needed. You can add noodles instead of thickening the stew - just as flavourful! :D
6. Serve with rice, porridge or your choice of pasta.

Sweet potato brown rice porridge (with modified si shen soup)

For the past two days, Alicia has been having one meal of sweet potato porridge cooked with my modified si shen soup. It's sooooo sweet and fragrant, and most importantly, oozing with nutrition! :D

Guess what Alicia does when she sees her sweet potato porridge?

She picks out all the sweet potato to eat first... leaving behind the porridge. But after tasting the first mouth of porridge and realising that it's yummy, it becomes easier to feed after that... note: easier compared to usual; doesn't mean it's easy per se.

And so, she has this porridge with either pan-seared/baked cod fillet or baked/braised chicken and it's a balanced meal already. Hehehe. For those who have children who don't mind minced chicken or pork in the porridge, by all means add that in!

Sweet potato brown rice porridge (cooked in modified si shen soup)

Ingredients:

• 2T brown rice grains
• 200ml modified si shen soup
• 3T Japanese yellow sweet potato (peeled and cubed)

Method:

1. Wash the brown rice grains twice.
2. Steam the cubed yellow sweet potato for about 5min to release the flavour and aroma.
3. Place the grains into the soup in the slow cooker's earthen inner pot and bring the soup to a boil on the stove.
4. Place the earthen pot back into the slowcooker's outer pot, add the steamed sweet potato cubes and cook for slightly past an hour.
5. Dish and serve.

Experimenting with Alicia's menu: Chicken veggie combo

Made this for Alicia's dinner yesterday. I thought to give her a break from porridge so I decided to run this experiment. She was quite wary of it at first but later warmed up to it... even then, she wasn't VERY keen... she definitely wasn't going "more! more!" but well, she ate it though she didn't finish all of it. I may try it again some time later again, varying the texture and ingredients...

If mashed up totally, it's actually suitable for younger babies too. :)

Chicken veggie combo

Ingredients:

• 2T cooked chicken fillet
• 2T broccoli
• 2T yellow sweet potato
• 1T carrot
• 3T potato
• 1T uncooked alphabet pasta
• water
• pinch of salt
• a few drops of oil
• 70-80ml stock
• unsalted all-purpose herbs

Method:

1. Bring a small saucepan of water (with oil and salt added) to boil then cook the alphabet pasta and potato till soft.
2. Steam everything else for about 5min.
3. Mash the cooked potatoes and carrot (I have to hide this as Alicia's not very fond of these).
4. Chop the cooked chicken fillet, broccoli and sweet potato into smaller bits.
5. Bring the stock to a boil.
6. Add all of the cooked ingredients to the stock and bring to a boil again.
7. Add a few dashes of unsalted all-purpose herbs before serving.

Egg noodles soup

I cooked egg noodles soup for my dinner yesterday (it was really a last minute decision as my hubby decided that he wanted to go wash his car and asked me to have dinner first). I was lazy to go downstairs to buy food so I just scavenged around in my fridge and found some simple but nutritious ingredients to make my dinner. Since it was so yummy, I reserved some for Alicia. It's really simple and easy, just like instant noodles - but without the MSG! :)

Ingredients:

• Stock - this is a MUST to make the noodles tasty!
• egg noodles
• cauliflower (or other veggies of your choice. I used this coz Alicia usually has broccoli for lunch and cauliflower for dinner so I always have these two veggies in my fridge)
• egg
• fresh shitake mushrooms
• a pre-packed portion of chicken fillet (optional since there's already egg. Feel free to interchange the two sources of protein)

Method:

1. Soak the egg noodles in water for awhile to soften slightly.
2. Rinse the shitake mushrooms, remove the stalk and slice them.
3. Wash the cauliflower and remove any brown spots.
4. Bake the pre-packed portion of chicken fillet and cut/shred into small pieces after it is cooked.
5. Set the stock to boil in a saucepan.
6. Once the stock boils, add in the cauliflower and egg noodles.
7. Once the noodles have softened (you can pick a little strand to try if it's soft enough for the toddler), add in the shitake mushrooms.
8. Crack the egg and add it to the saucepan. I like to have my egg in small pieces when I eat noodle soup so I will stir quickly (but not too hard in case the yolk disappears into the soup totally).
9. Add the baked chicken pieces/shreds in and voila! the nutritious meal's ready. :)

Add a small amt of salt/sauce if preferred.



As my darling's not really a soupy girl (yet), I gave her the noodles without the soup. Although she didn't drink the soup, the soup's a crucial ingredient as it makes the noodles tasty! And most importantly, in her bout of fussiness about food recently, she ate this dish!

It's really a very convenient dish to make since it's something that the whole family can eat for lunch/dinner so there's no need for additional work! Hurray! :)