Bacon Peas Mushroom Quiche

For Easter lunch last Sunday, I decided to make a quiche.This was, believe it or not, my first time baking a savoury tart. I have, in the past, made quite a few frangipane tarts and what else. This was certainly in my to-do list. I'm glad I chose to make it on this particular feast day because we all enjoyed ourselves.

For my filling, I went for bacon, peas and mushrooms. I made my shortcrust pastry from scratched the night before. I believe what makes a good tart is most importantly the pastry- I want a nice light, crumbly and melt-in-the-mouth texture. For this I always follow the rules of thumb- 1 part butter, 2 parts flour and a couple drops of ice-cold water. This time I also added an egg yolk, since I had in on hand. I firstly blind-baked my tart shell. I then cooked my filling and prepared my egg-cream custard (3 eggs and 200 ml cream). Once the pastry is baked, I laid my cooled filling and poured the cream mix over. To finish off my tart, I grated some cheddar cheese and put it in the oven until I have a nice golden brown surface. This was definitely tasty and suited for a perfect lunch. You should, of course, pair the tart slice with some greens or salad, to balance it all out. 

Happy Weekend. It's been sunny so far- great weather!

Creamy mushroom fettuccine with salmon

This was for our Saturday lunch. Alright so for the fettuccine, nothing too difficult because I used the sauce jar; I only added some fresh button mushroom with it. This is a great dish. Also, we had some salad on the side: lettuce and carrot, idea of making it a whole meal. Simple and easy.

 

By the way, I know we are eating a lot of salmon lately- okay not so much- but still compared to before it is like a huge improvement, and this is simply because seafood is very healthy for you and salmon  is especially nutritious owing to its heavy content of omega 3. So do not be afraid of eating seafood (way of speaking); they are good for you.

Ravioli

Hehehe I'm back with ravioli again. This time I did not make the sauce. We simply bought it ready made (as well as the ravioli). I however did add some garlic and mushroom to it, idea of making it more flavoursome. Maybe I will make my own someday. I just think that there are food items which are easier bought pre-cooked because it is a life-simplification, and I'm sure we can't but make good use of these handy things. So I add one whole avocado with it. I love avocados so much. They goes so well with anything. Anything.

 

 

 

Tuna pasta bake

I love pasta. Last week I made tuna pasta bake which is a great dish I must admit. Easy to make. So simple and of course delicious.  For my recipe I used zucchini. So basically, I cook some garlic, onion together. Add the zucchini and button mushroom. Then mix in tuna, cream and finally the corn. Season with pepper and salt. Sprinkle with parsley, basil, any herb you like. That’s it. Then fold in a baking dish. Top with grated cheese and breadcrumbs. Spray with cooking oil and pop into the oven for 15 minutes at 180 degrees or until cheese is melted and golden.  Let rest and dig in. I like the sweetness that comes from the corn. Well all you have to do now is to try it.

Other night for dinner

Two of those dishes that I like to eat. Healthy, tasty, delicious, colourful, balanced. Pure goodness.
I kind of like to cook those because they combine the ingredients that I like a lot and it is fairly easy for me because I have cooked them so many times. 
I'm of course talking of my chicken, bok choy tofu dish and brocoli dish.Yummm

'Green' Risotto (recipe)

This was my first time cooking and tasting Risotto. I have heard of it tremendously lately and I was like why not giving it a try as something new.  I looked up for some recipes and finally chose the one I found easier and it was on the rice packet itself. I bought Riviania arborio rice. In the recipe it says bacon, but instead I used snow peas and zucchini. I kind of wanted a really ‘greeny’ risotto.  The dish turned out great. Well for a first time, it tasted good. I really think that it is a  really nice dish to try because you can make up your own risotto in terms of ingredients.

Recipe (adapted from the Riviani recipe):

Ingredients: 

2 tsp olive oil

30g butter

Garlic (I love garlic so I put about 3-5 cloves)

1 lg onion chopped

2 cup arborio rice

1 zucchini grated

A  bunch of snow pea,chopped roughly

1/4 cup of white wine

4 cups chicken stock, simmered

2 cups button mushroom, sliced

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Chopped parsley

Groud black pepper

Procedures:

Heat olive oil and butter in a large heavy base saucepan.

Add garlic and onion and cook for about 1-2 minute.

Stir in rice and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until rice slightly colours, stirring frequently.

Add wine and simmer to absorb liquid, stirring constantly.

Begin adding stock, a cup at a time, allowing each adittion to be absorbed and stirring well before each addition.

After first cup, add mushrooms. Adjust consistencies with extra water/stock, if necessary.

After third cup, add zucchini and snow peas. When all stock is absorbed, remove pan from heat and stir in cheese, parsley and pepper.

Pasta bolognese

Alright I know we are having a lot of pasta lately but it's alright. Pasta bolognese is one of the simplest and yummiest dish ever. I always add carrots and mushroom (button/canned) with my sauce, way to turn it into a healthier option. Carrot is in fact. one of the sweetest vegetable. So adding it to this sauce gives it a sweet flavour which goes well altogether.

I kind of mixed everything, instead of putting the sauce on top, resulting in a melange-tout.

Fooyang

This is another typical Mauritian dish. It is called fooyang (forgive my spelling- I am writing the way it is pronounced). It is basically an omelette-like dish, with carrots, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushroom and seafood. I think that it is fairly easy to appreciate this plate. To create the dish I used seafood mix (you can find them from the deli). As for bamboo shoots, I use winter ones.

This is my cooked seafood mix

Mushroom, carrot and bamboo shoot cooking

Serve with rice

Ta-da, ready to be served

More picture

Meefoon soup (recipe)

Sometimes after having a copious meal, you would rather like your next meal to be light and healthy, not oily but tasty. Solution is to have a soup. However, I reckon that some soup are time consuming to make and other too rich. The dish I am proposing today is this: meefoon. It's a typical Mauritian dish, easy to prepare and cook. It is basically a combination of bok choy, shiitake mushroom, carrots and chicken, and rice noodle. It's usually accompanied with a fried egg. I can say it's almost oil-free except for the fried chicken and egg. Some people like to add soy sauce to give colour to the dish. Personally I am not fond of soy sauce because it contains lot of sodium and quite salty. So I usually have to avoid or put as little as possible where I can. Simple and delicious.

Recipe
Ingredients:
500g chicken breast, sliced and cooked
Half a pack of rice noodle
2 carrots, chopped (see picture)
10 shiitake mushroom (I used dried ones- tip- put them in hot water about 5 min to soften them and then sliced them)
1 bok choy, washed and chopped roughly
Soy sauce
A small amount of preserved chinese vegetable (see link for more info)
Salt

Method:
Put some water, about 2 litres in a heavy pan. Put your carrots, bok choy in until the water boils. Then add the preserved vegetables, the mushroom, and the chicken. Add soy sauce, and salt per tasting. After which add the rice noodle. Let simmer about 10 minutes until the noodle is tender and smooth.
Here you go, simple as it looks.

Chicken broccoli & snow pea sautee

After reading and coming across so many articles taking about eating green vegetables, I felt obliged to cook some. I have not been cooking broccoli for a long time, so it was about time to rectify this mistake. Health benefits of broccoli include strengthening bones, protecting your heart, controlling blood pressure,  saving eyesight and combating cancer. I also added snow peas, which is also a super veggie.
The dish is a complete meal, vegetable, protein, fibre and carbohydrates (accompanied with rice). My advice is to try having at least one green vegetable in your meal daily. It is definitely worth it.

I come across this picture which I took after cooking a vegeterian version:

Chop Suey (Chicken)

One of my favourite dish to cook: Chop Suey. It is an asian dish. What I like about it is that it is delicious and healthy. It's all about balance. It is full of colours and look great.

It's a rather simple dish, the only hassle is about the ingredients, having everything prepared beforehand.

My recipe is simple. You need about 1 bunch of bok choy, carrots, mushroom, 1 canned baby corn, 500g breast chicken, oyster sauce and cornflour.

It is so much better to cook home rather than take away or dining in restaurants. Anyway cooking home is always a healthier option. I'm a real pro-home cooking. Make me remind that I shall expand my cooking skills over this short break. This is something I really look forward to because this is one skill that will be of use for your entire existence. So don't be afraid to cook. Another thing, the excitement of eating her/his own dish. It's an enjoyable experience.

Pasta Dish

One of the simplest thing to cook like ever should be pasta. Surely, it does not require great skills to put up a plate, edible and tasty one.
I like bolognese pasta or carbonara sauce. It's simple and filling.

The most recent one we cook is that one (see picture). This was quite a troublesome day in the kitchen. This makes me remind to say that we should always prepare before cooking; I'm obviously taking about having the right ingredients before hand! The original plan was to use the 'readily-made' bolognese sauce as they are mostly handy. However, we did not have any (and realised this only too late *sigh*). So we had to improvise and made use of what we had on hand. We therefore use a 'normal' tomato puree tin and mixed them with herbs. Added with it mushroom and avocado.
It turns out to be a hasty but edible dish hehe. A success :)

Steamboat

My brothers and I usually do steamboat at home. It's one of my favourite meals. I like soups in general and this is yummy. Alright, I'm unusually lack of words today, but like the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words. So I'll be generous with the photos.

These are definitely cute stars

I like the mushroom balls, their shape is like mushroom and they have mushroom filling. Okay it's official now, I feel hungry, despite having dinner just recently :O

I love the tofu and the 'enokitake' or 'golden needle mushroom' as well -->the long one
So delicious

With green veggies of course :p

Ooooh mushroom fish ball, one of the best fish balls everrrrrr

Chicken with mushrooms and zucchini

Dinner time. I had a few sliced chicken breast in the fridge and decided to go for this easy dish. You know I like simple. I absolutely like eating mushrooms, especially shiitake mushroom. I absolutely love the taste and even better, it helps to fight against cancer. I'm starting to like zucchini now. It actually is a nice veggie. The dish tastes divine (or is it that I was starving and like the saying goes everything tastes good when you are hungry...well well well).

Just cooked

Can't wait to try

To be served with rice

Some leftovers---> in the fridge you go

 Recipe: (Okay you'll have to be nice to me, I don't usually write recipes, so forgive me if I don't follow any rules)

Ingredients:

1 breast fillet, sliced (or more to your liking)
1 zucchini, sliced in julienne
8 shiitake mushrooms (I had the dried one, so put them in hot water and leave for abt 5 min-to soften them- and then sliced them)
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
 Oyster sauce
Cornstarch
Cooking oil

Marinade for the chicken (to be mixed with the chicken and leave aside  for about 10-15 min)
White pepper
Rice wine
Sesame oil
Dark soy sauce
Cornstarch



For the sauce:
I'm simple so I usually mix some oyster sauce with cornstarch...as per taste.

Instructions:

Stir fry chicken. Remove from the wok.
Stir fry garlic and onion, then add mushroom. Let stir fry for about 1-3 min.
Add back the chicken and mix well.
Remove all from the wok.
Cook the zucchini for about 2 minutes.
Add back the chicken mix.
Let cook and then add the sauce.
Let it to boil and dish is ready to be served.

Okay so I hope you like the dish. As you see, it is a really easy and fast dish to cook. Enjoy :)