Cheaters' pasta sauce

Right, as the name suggests, this pasta sauce is gonna be real easy to prepare. Heck, I even used a jar of pasta sauce for it - I did say it's a cheater's pasta sauce!

So what I did was merely to make the sauce taste even better, and I must say this was so convenient and definitely more time-saving than my other pasta sauces done from scratch.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 200g minced beef
• 1 small yellow onion (slice)
• 2 bay leaves
• 3/4 Knorr beef stock cube (dissolve in a bowl of hot water)
• plain flour
• 1 bottle of ready-made pasta sauce
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• mushrooms of your choice (optional)

Marinate beef with:

• oyster sauce
• worcestershire sauce
• ground black pepper
• garlic powder

Method:

1. Marinate beef prior to cooking.
2. Add oil to the saucepan and brown the beef. Remove when done.
3. Add oil and sweat the onions. Add the bay leaves, beef stock, mushrooms (if adding) and return the browned beef to the saucepan. Let it simmer till it's not too watery.
4. Add the pasta sauce and plain flour (and sugar).
5. Toss cooked pasta in the sauce and dinner's done!

Btw, my fussypot loved the sauce! :)

Homemade pasta sauce with pumpkin

Saw this pasta sauce recipe over at The Little Teochew some time back and I knew I just had to give it a try and I must say that both hubby and Alicia loved the sauce!

It's a really sneaky way of adding pumpkin into Alicia's diet coz she doesn't like pumpkin... but she doesn't know that in that delicious sauce, pumpkin is a key ingredient! hee.... *evil laughter* Then again, I don't like pumpkin much either... I like pumpkin soup though!

I modified the recipe as the recipe does not contain any meat so since I wanted to make it a one-dish meal for the family, I added in the usual minced beef and mushrooms... and I made a much bigger batch of sauce to freeze the remainder in small portions for Alicia. :)

Homemade pasta sauce with pumpkin

Ingredients:

• 500-600g pumpkin (skinned and cut into chunks)
• a bottle of passata (you can view the photo of the actual product over at The Little Teochew's post)
• 1 small yellow/ white onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 250g minced beef
• 10 white button mushrooms, sliced
• salt to taste
• basil flakes to taste - I added a generous portion :)

Method:

1. Steam the pumpkin till fork tender, press the pumpkin through a sieve (truly reminds me of the days I pureed food for Alicia!). Set aside.
2. Heat wok and add some oil.
3. Fry the onion and garlic till fragrant and the onions have softened.
4. Add the minced beef and some water if necessary to make sure that the minced beef does not become lumpy.
5. Add the mushrooms. Saute for awhile.
6. After the beef is browned, remove all the ingredients from the wok.
7. Add passata and the pureed pumpkin to the wok. Let it simmer for about a minute.
8. Return the ingredients that you fried earlier back into the wok and mix well.
9. Let the sauce simmer for about 10-20min (to ensure that the mushrooms are cooked and have released their sweetness into the sauce) and meanwhile you can add the salt and basil to taste. :)
10. Pour sauce over cooked pasta or put the cooked pasta into the wok and mix well before dishing onto the plate. (I chose to pour the sauce over the pasta as I wanted to save the remaining sauce to freeze in baby cubes for Alicia)
11. Top with grated cheese of your choice (optional).

Notes:
Passata can be easily obtained from NTUC or Giant.
You can substitute beef with chicken.
Omit the basil if you do not like it or you can add other herbs of your choice. I have a bottle of basil in my kitchen so I just used it... :)

Mushroom and onion gravy

Mushroom and onion gravy anyone? :) I topped my baked chicken thighs with this last night and it was nice! :) hee...

*I've got quite a few posts to update so I'll just keep all short and succinct!*

Ooh.. look at the mushroom!!! :P

Mushroom and onion gravy

Mushroom and onion gravy on the chicken...

Ingredients:

• 5 mushrooms, sliced (choice of white button/swiss brown/shitake)
• 1/2-1 yellow/white onion, sliced (amount depending on your preference)
• unsalted butter (optional)
• 1L water

Seasoning:

• 1T oyster sauce
• 1/3T worcestershire sauce
• 1/3T hua diao jiu
• dashes of ground black pepper

Method:

1. Melt butter in a pot.
2. Fry the onions for awhile till slightly soft.
3. Add the water and let it come to a boil.
4. Add the mushrooms and let the mixture simmer till there's about half the amount of water left in the pot.
5. Add the seasoning and let it simmer some more till it reaches the consistency you like.
6. Add cornflour slurry if needed (optional).

*I'm more conscious about our diet recently so I skipped the butter and went straight to step 3 and boiled the onions together with the mushrooms and it still tasted ok.

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! :)

The newest topping for Alicia's cod

I've been thinking about this for ages. Just that somehow oranges just always didn't seem to make their way into the grocery trolley. Finally, two oranges found their way into my fridge yesterday and so I made this sauce for my darling today.

Don't ask me where I got such an idea, or inspiration, if you may want to call it. I don't know. Wild ideas like these pop into my mind all the time - and I actually entertain them. :D Whatever it is, what's most important to me is that Alicia loves it. At least till the infamous "last mouth of cod (or substitute this with any other food)" - she always seems to leave 1 mouth of food behind. The reason why she does so simply eludes me.

Anyway, here's her newest topping. You may find it unfathomable. :)

Orange (juice) sauce (yields enough sauce for 2 servings of 30g cod - you can keep the other half for use later in the day or the next day)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 orange (mine's one of those big navel oranges)
• a bit of cornflour
• sugar to taste (if desired - if the juice happens to be very sour)

Method:

1. Squeeze the juice from the slice of orange. Be sure to sieve out all the seeds. Remove any lumps of pulp so that the sauce will be a smooth one.
2. Bring the juice to a slight boil in a small saucepan.
3. Add sugar to taste if needed (The sauce should be one that has a sweet and tangy taste - not just sweet or sour).
4. Add in cornflour to thicken the juice so that it becomes like a sauce.
5. Drizzle sauce on top of the slice of steamed cod.

Spaghetti with home-made sauce

Spaghetti with home-made sauce (Serves 2)

Ingredients:

• Spaghetti
• $2 worth of chicken fillet (cut into small chunks)
• 2 cans of Hunt's whole tomatoes
• garlic (diced)
• white onion (cut into small pieces)
• Organic raw brown sugar (I used 2.5 tablespoons)
• Basil
• 1-2 dashes ground black pepper
• Grated/Shredded cheese (Parmesan or Mozarella)

Seasoning (for chicken) - not too elaborate so as not to affect the taste of the sauce:

• chicken marinade
• dash of ground black pepper

Method

1. Set the spaghetti to cook.


2. Blend the whole tomatoes. I dun blend them too finely as I prefer having some tomato bits in my sauce. You can choose to blend the garlic and white onion together with the tomatoes if you do not like to bite into them.


3. Heat the oil and fry the garlic and white onion till fragrant and the white onion is quite limp.


4. Pour in the blended tomatoes.


5. Let the sauce simmer till a consistency you like - in general the longer you simmer it, the thicker the sauce would be.


6. Add basil to taste.


7. Add 1-2 dashes of ground black pepper


8. Add sugar to taste.


9. Once the sauce is of the preferred texture and taste, add in the chicken fillet to cook.


10. Once the chicken is cooked, pour the sauce over the cooked spaghetti and top with cheese.


11. Serve hot.