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!

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! :)

Perfect chicken wings for the toddler!

I think it was last Monday that I gave Alicia this meal... a very simple meal consisting of rice, baked chicken wings and steamed peas with a cup of water chestnut drink should she get thirsty during the meal. Well, it's nothing to rave about but it's a balanced meal to say the least. :) For variety, I usually change the veggie and mabbe throw in a bowl of soup in place of the drink.

She didn't finish up all her food ... as usual... what's new? :(

She found it amusing to pick up the peas though and she had her usual fun tearing apart the chicken wings... hehe.

Anyway, if baking only 2 midwings for the toddler, here's the recipe:

Baked midwings for the tot

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken midwings

Seasoning:

• 0.5-1 teaspoon Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• 0.5-1 teaspoon oyster sauce
• 0.5-1 teaspoon sugar
• dash of black pepper (optional)

Method:

1. Marinate the wings with the seasoning for at least 2 hours.
2. Preheat the oven to 200degC.
3. Place the wings on the baking tray. drizzle some seasoning left in the bowl on the wings and bake for 10min at 200degC.
4. Turn the wings over. drizzle the leftover seasoning and bake the other side for another 5min at 200degC.
5. Serve with fluffy rice and veggies.

Alicia's food intake

Recently, I received an email from a reader of my blog asking how much Alicia eats.

Well, her food intake fluctuates more than the stock market so it's really hard to quantify how much she eats.

Here's her dinner last night:

She was served rice and 1 baby bowl of spinach soup (not in pic) with:

• left: baby spinach (from spinach soup)
• middle: braised chicken with potato (cut into bite-sized pieces)
• right: steamed broccoli with baby corn

So the question now is: how much did she eat in the end?

Well, considering her terrible (eating) behaviour lately, I would say last night was quite a good night of eating for she ate:

• all the rice (left 1 mouthful)
• all the baby spinach plus another serving of it coz she loved it and wanted more
• all the chicken
• all the potato (left 1 morsel)
• 2 mouths of broccoli
• 1/2 bowl of soup

I think she must be tired of broccoli and baby corn already so she hardly touched them. But she made up for the veggie intake by eating an extra portion of spinach so I'm fine with it... :) Anyway, I took 1hr+ to feed this amount, just in case you're wondering how my little gal can wolf down so much food in 10min. :P

I've seen the portion of what one of my forum-mates' son eats (and he's just 2 weeks younger than Alicia) and I feel so stressed... haha. He can really eat... and isn't picky. I'm still waiting for the day that feeding will be smooth for me!

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.