The slow cooker is one of the most used kitchen appliance in my home.  I loved the simplicity of use and also the resulting favour extraction from the slow low heat cooking.

This is one of the easiest recipe I have for the slow cooker that looks complicated to make but really it is a dump and leave recipe. 

I took this recipe off Real Simple so all credits to them.  Here for the original recipe.  I have done it first with way number 1, minus the chili powder, and got such rave reviews even from my kids, that I took it to the next level.  With the papadelle, you get a delicious hearty pasta dish that is great for large gathering since you can easily double the recipe.  You can also make more and reheat for lunch the next day with no loss in favour.  However, during the times I have made it, even the excess was lapped up!

Ingredients
2 cups store-bought salsa, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons chili powder (optional if you have kiddies) 
2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 2 1/2-pound boneless pork butt or shoulder, trimmed of excess fat

Way Number 1 – With Tacos

Extra Ingredients
18 corn tortillas
1/2 cup fresh cilantro sprigs
3/4 cup sour cream
1 lime, cut into wedges  
salsa to serve

1. In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine the salsa, chili powder, oregano, cocoa, and 1 teaspoon salt. Add the pork and turn to coat.
2. Cook, covered, until the meat is tender and pulls apart easily, on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 7 to 8 hours.
3. Twenty minutes before serving, heat oven to 350° F/180° C.
4. Stack the tortillas, wrap them in foil, and bake until warm, about 15 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, using 2 forks, shred the pork and stir into the cooking liquid. Serve with the tortillas, cilantro, sour cream, lime, and extra salsa.

Way Number 2 – With Papadelle Pasta

Extra Ingredients
600g papadelle pasta
shaved parmesan cheese to serve

1. In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine the salsa, chili powder, oregano, cocoa, and 1 teaspoon salt. Add the pork and turn to coat.
2. Cook, covered, until the meat is tender and pulls apart easily, on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 7 to 8 hours.
3. Before serving, cook papadelle according to package instructions.
4. Meanwhile, using 2 forks, shred the pork and stir into the cooking liquid.
5. When the pasta is hot, mix in the luscious meat sauce and strewn all over with the parmesan.

Serves 6 greedy family members

 
I am starting a series of my favourite recipes, or recipes that have been given raving comments by family and friends.  Every Friday, you will be introduced to the diet of the Leong family.  Trust me, these will be recipes that are simple (alright occasionally I might do a finicky one) and quick to make.  Remember the 4 kids that I have? 

This first recipe is roti jala, paired with the family favourite of curry chicken.  You can use any curry of your choice.  It is not easy to find this dish in Singapore, although it is widely available in Malaysia.  Google “roti jala” and you will find pictures of the mould, videos of how it is made and even different versions of the recipe.  I found this 2 links very helpful and I took my recipe from Rasa Malaysia, with some of my own modifications.  Still turned out divine!  The videos and tips from The Mini Sam Tan Kitchen was great for those who need something more visual!

Rasa Malaysia – Roti Jala and Malaysian Curry Chicken Recipe
The Mini Sam Tan Kitchen - Roti Jala (Malaysian Lacy Coconut and Tumeric Crepes)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup water
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1. Sieve the flour and set aside.
2. In a big bowl, mix all the ingredients well together (except the oil) and strain the batter.
3. Add in 1/2 tablespoon of oil and set aside.
4. Heat up a pan with medium heat and grease it with some oil.
5. Pour some batter into the mold and transfer the mold to the pan.
6. As the batter flows through the holes of the mold, make circular rounds around the pan to form the netty patterns.
7. After the top is set and done or when the bottom turns light brown, transfer the Roti Jala out and fold it into triangle shape.
8. Arrange a few Roti Jala on a serving plate and add some curry chicken on the side and serve immediately.

Some personal notes :

1. I skipped the coconut milk as I did not really like it when I used it the last time.  This recipe is healthy but the coconut one is more fragrant. 
2. I ran our of tumeric so I did not add it, but if you like, you can add 3/4 teaspoon of tumeric powder to the mix to get a nice yellow colour on your roti jala.
3. If you find the mixture too thick, you can dilute with more water.
4. I used olive oil since that was what I had in stock.

Like Nigella, I am a proponent of child labour in the kitchen so this is also a great opportunity for for a daughter and mother bonding session!

Being a working mother that loves to cook, I relish weekends. It is a time where I could get some time to cook for my family.  I want to be able to leave a legacy of food; food that warms the heart and makes my family feel that they are home. I was lucky to have a stay-at-home mum.  I want my kids to have what I used to have eating at home with my family.

Thus, to prevent myself from falling into a cooking rut, I told myself, for every Sunday dinner that I cook, at least one dish must be new. No cheating, not changed or adjusted, something completely new that my family have never tried. It was not difficult with my library of cookbooks and my passion for cooking. The only criteria was that it should be easy and quick.

So last Sunday, I took a recipe from an old issue of Donna Hay and made Five-Spice Chicken in Rice Paper. I have included the original recipe and included my own adjustments for ingredients and amount. And Donna, it was delish!

Ingredients
3 teaspoons of salt
3 teaspoons of Chinese five-spice powder
4 chicken breast fillets, trimmed
16 small Asian rice paper rounds
2 green onions (scallions), sliced
peanut old for shallow frying

Dipping Sauce
 1/4 cup (2 fl oz) hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce

1. To make the dipping sauce, combine the hoisin sauce, lemon juice and soy sauce. Set aside.
2. Combine the salt and Chinese five-spice in a small bowl. Cut the chicken into 4 pieces each and sprinkle with the five-spice salt, coating all sides.
3. Place 1 rice paper round in a bowl of hot water and soak for 10 seconds or until soft.
4. Remove and place on a clean tea towel.
5. Place a piece of chicken one-third of the way from the base of the rice paper and top with some green onion.
6. Fold over the base and sides of the paper to enclose and roll up into a parcel, leaving the top edge unfolded.
7. Repeat with the remaining chicken, green onion and rice paper.
8. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat.
9. Cook the parcels in batches for 2 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through.
10. Serve with the dipping sauce and the remaining five-spice salt. Serves 4.

Notes:

• I halved both the salt and five-spice powder as I was using half the amount of chicken.
• I bought the rice paper in a big pack of 22cm rounds, I found it too big, resulting in a thicker skin, thus making the rolls less crispy.
• We call ‘scallions’ spring onions locally, I could not find this in the NTUC I went to so I replaced it with seasoned seaweed, which was in my larder. I keep this as a staple in my larder as it is great on congee and cold cha soba.
• For the hoisin sauce, I found it hard to measure 1/4 cup so I used 4 tablespoons. I did not have lemons but did have a bunch of limes, so I replaced the lemon juice with lime juice.
• Step 2 – I did not bother with using a small bowl. I plonked all the cut chicken in a big mixing bowl and sprinkle in the salt and five-spice to mix.
• Step 4 – I tried to use kitchen paper – the rice paper would stick.  I switched back to the clean tea towel.
• Steps 3 – 6 – My daughter helped me (she is eight plus) and did all the wrapping. Great bonding time!
• Step 6 – It was too finicky trying to leave the top edge unfolded since my daughter was helping. I did it up like a spring roll instead.
• I make an extra dipping sauce with chili padi, lime juice and soy sauce. Delish!
• I garnished it with mint leaves from my own plants!

“Said Aristotle unto Plato,
‘Have another sweet potato?’
Said Plato unto Aristotle,
‘Thank you, I prefer the bottle.’”

Owen Wister (1860-1938) American novelist

I am with Aristotle on that one.

The best food in life is the food that has the least messing around.  No insecticides, no preservatives, no additional processing, no over seasoning. Cooking for my family and friends, I find that the recipes that worked best often are the simplest and has the least amount of cooking.  If you think that by spending a long time in the kitchen, whipping up an elaborate meal is a show of culinary prowess, it is more than further from the truth.  All family and friends want, is really spending time with you.  I have had many meals with just 1 main dish or with half the meal bought, and everyone had loads of fun.

I love chips; potatoes, parsnip, sweet potatoes, yam, lotus root (yes, I tried that and it was heavenly), anything that I can slice (and are root vegetables!) I can make into chips.

I made these sweet potato chips once as a side dish to steak and mushy peas.  The chips became the highlight of dinner and my brood of 4 kids and 1 husband were delighted and gave it more marks than the steak and mushy peas, which took a longer time.  Needless to say, I was surprised as it had not taken much effort.  Here’s what I did.

Best Sweet Potato Chips in the World

Ingredients

3 large Sweet Potatoes

Method

1. Remove the skin off the sweet potatoes and soak them in salt water as you work.  Sweet potatoes tend to oxidise when cut and turn an unattractive brown.
2. Using any vegetable peeler, slice sweet potato lengthwise into thin slices.
3. Dry them thoroughly with kitchen towels/clean tea towels and place in fridge to dry out for about 1 hour.
4. I used vegetable oil but you could pretty much use any frying oil.  Deep fry them until slight golden brown.
5. Serves 4 as a side and 1 as a greedy craving.

I have used them as sides but you could use them for family movie nights or a starter.  I have never tried them with a dip yet but I encourage you to try with your favourites.  How about also experimenting with other vegetables?  I would love to hear what works for you!

“Life is uncertain.  Eat dessert first.”  – Ernestine Ulmer

 Indeed, life is certainly uncertain. 

So here’s a killer tiramisu for those uncertain days that you are in a Nigella mood, although this is not her recipe.  I have used this in many parties and always a hit.

Tiramisu
1/2 cup (4 fl oz) strong espresso coffee
1/2 cup (4 fl oz) coffee liqueur (I used kahlua but tia maria works just as well)
16 sponge finger biscuits (also known as savoiardi), halved widthwise
Cocoa powder for dusting

filling
1 1/4 cups (310g/10 1/2 oz) mascarpone
1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz) (single or pouring) cream
3 tablespoons icing (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted

1.  To make the filling, place the mascarpone, cream and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk until light and creamy. Set aside.

2.  Place the coffee and liqueur in a small bowl and stir to combine. Quickly dip both sides of half the biscuit halves in the coffee mixture and place in 4 glasses, layer on the filling, and repeat with the other half of the biscuit halves. 

3.  Spoon over the remaining filling. Dust heavily with cocoa and refrigerate until required. Serves 4.

My notes
1.  Dust the cocoa powder only at the last possible moment.  I noticed that if you do it too early, the powder gets wet from the cream.

2.  You can easily double the quantities to fit into a 24 cm springform cake tin. If you do use one, it may leak from the seams.  So a good alternative would be a wide casserole dish or a normal cake tin.  This way don’t have to do it the glasses one by one if you have a large crowd but just serve using a shallow ladle.

3.  After a few trials, you will realise that the amounts of mascapone to cream does not really matter, I just use the commercial packing to approximate my amounts.  Effects are still as great.

Taken with my own notes and some modifications from Donna Hay – Modern Classics 2 Pg 108

“Mummy, I really appreciate you making the effort to make interesting breakfasts for me every morning!”, says my 10-year old son.

Music to my ears really.  While I hardly ever have difficulty coming up with lunch or dinner menus, breakfast eludes me.  For some unfathomable reason, many times at breakfast, I am at a loss at what to serve my hungry family. 

I find myself looking at breakfast cookbooks or the breakfast section of the cookbooks, looking for inspiration.  Although the current repertoire of breakfast foods I have seems extensive, some of these are similar foods e.g. pancakes, french toast and waffles are all served with maple syrup, so you cannot really serve them on consecutive days.  In fact, I am even reluctant in serving them on the same week.  However, my kids does not mind eating pancakes every week.  Funny how they seek the comfort in familiar favourites.

After much experimenting and researching, here are the ways I try to make normal breakfast food interesting.  I am sure you have your own ways too.

1  Oatmeal
Other than serving them plain, I add on raisins, sliced bananas and/or strawberries.  I also serve it once with lightly fried honey baked ham.  I like oatmeal as it is healthy and easy to prepare.

2  Pancakes/Waffles/French Toast
Maple syrup is a staple with these.  I also tried chocolate, caramel and strawberry sauces with success.  After I introduced the kids to eating pancakes with maple syrup and fried ham/bacon, they constantly ask me for the savory sides.  I recently saw a friend’s Facebook post on how to make personalised pancakes and tried them one morning (probably good for another post).  I still have room for improvement.

3  Bread/Bruschetta
Other than butter and peanut butter on bread, I have also tried toasted cheese sandwiches, tuna fish sandwiches, jam spreads (including the local kaya, which is coconut jam).  If I have some rustic country loaf, I would slice them and dry toast them on a dry pan, then top with sauteed portobello mushrooms with garlic or scrambled eggs with salt and pepper.

4  American Breakfast
This one would include an assortment of ham, sausages, eggs (all ways), sauteed button mushrooms with cherry tomatoes, hash, all served with toasted sliced bread on a large plate. 

5  Store Bought Baked Goods
This one is used a lot by my husband.  In Singapore, other than finding a cafe or coffee shop at every turn, is a confectionery shop.  This is usually a bakery that sells bread of every kind, cakes and even local snacks like curry puffs or kueh (sweet usually steamed cakes).  This is great for variety when we are tired or if we have run out of ideas what to serve.

6  Local Favourites
I have also done the local favourites like “ju gwei” (steam rice cakes with minced stew preserved radish) and ”chee cheong fun” (steam rice rolls with sweet sauce and toasted sesame seeds).  These are bought cold and stored in the fridge until needed.  They don’t keep so I have to use them within 2 days of buying them.  I would steam them for 5 mins in boiling water, then served with the appropriate condiments.  Sometimes I would also include dim sum items like “har gao” (prawn dumpling) and “siew mai” (meat dumpling) that could be bought from the chiller section of the supermarkets.

7  Sliced Fruit
My family loves fruit.  I would cut a variety of fruits and serve them during breakfast as a side to the main breakfast dish.  This is also my favourite item should I be travelling for business and eating at the hotel buffet.

These are some of the more common items on our family’s breakfast menus.  Some of the other items I have tried with some success are breakfast burritos (scrambled eggs and cubed sausages wrapped in tortillas), quesadillas (shredded roast chicken with mozzarella cheese, toasted on dry pan between 2 tortillas), brie slices on plain water crackers, although they prefer the latter 2 items for supper.

All in all, my kids love their breakfasts and are always challenging me to make something different.  So, I will continue to go where no working mother has gone before on the breakfast frontier.  Who’s with me?

I love food and thus, cannot remember a time in my adult life when I was thin.

I would love to be dramatic and say that I have a love-hate relationship with food; but I don’t.  I simply love food.  That’s all.  I don’t hate food, I am always wanting to taste new food and cook new food.  And of course, the old ones too.

In Singapore, there are 2 favourite pastimes – shopping and eating.  You already know I am not that big a fan of shopping (unless it is food), but I am a HUGE fan of eating, despite struggling with my self image.  Food in Singapore is readily available 24 x 7.  Be it the fine dining restaurants in hotels, or the coffee shops in Geylang, you can always find food almost anywhere and at anytime.

As a child, with my father being the sole breadwinner, money was carefully budgeted and used.  My mother was and still is, a fairly frugal person.  However, when it comes to food, they never stinge.  They put the best quality food they can afford on the table.  I was never hungry and even tasted lots of fantastic dishes that my mother cooked.  It was the best cut of threadfin fish to steam or the freshest chicken parts for the curry.  Even the condiments in my childhood home was of the best quality they can muster.

Fast forward, I am now a mother.  I learnt from my parents’ great influence and get the best food money can buy for my family.  My children eats the most interesting food along side the traditional ones.  They love the chicken curry I cook and also the new recipe for Mexican Pork wraps that I made one Sunday.  They get roast chicken with mushy peas lunch or they traditional Cantonese double-boiled soup with dinner.  My husband, who is my equal in loving food, joins the children in giving me feedback on what works for them and what does not.  The result is a repertoire of dishes that are refined and requested frequently.

As a working mother, I often have to come up with quick and easy meals for my large family of 6.  Any recipes that require less than an hour to prepare and serve are favourites.  Stay tuned as I share some of my experiences in managing that area of my home life in future blogs.  For a start, here’s a perennial favourite with my kids – tuna fish sandwiches, served with chips and chocolate milk.

Tuna Fish Sandwiches
1 can tun fish flakes (I use chunks but I break them up with a fork)
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
1 and 1/2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/4 lemon, juice of
a pinch of salt
a dash of pepper (or as much as you like)
margarine/butter for bread (depends on which camp you are on, optional)

1.  Mix everything except margarine/butter in a container with a cover.  The cover is important as you can then refrigerate unused portions for later.

2.  Cover and chill in fridge for at least half hour.  Sometimes the kids cannot wait so we eat it unchilled but it taste better if left for a while to cool off in the fridge.

3.  Spread a thin layer of margarine/butter on sliced bread, topped with a layer of the tuna mayo mixture.  Serve with regular chips or tortilla chips and a glass of milk.  Another good tip is to toast the bread first before layering.

There you go.  I have done this many times for lunch with great success.  To make it a bit more sophisticated for the adults, you can add in lettuce and sliced tomatoes and serve it with a green salad instead.  Change the milk for juice/your favourite beverage, and voila, you have a nutritious and delicious lunch!  Enjoy!