"Baby" Risotto

I can't believe I made this! This looks exactly like a risotto, but it wasn't meant to look like this. Everything was rather "accidental". And it's unbelievably healthy. It's 90% vegetables, virtually fat-free, and you feel so full you won't believe there's hardly any meat in it (again, another accidental thing - I just didn't put in enough meat).

In fact, I think it beats those awful dishes I tried at the only organic restaurant I ever went to.

The original title of this dish is "Tasty Rice with Meat & Vegetables" and was taken from Annabel Karmel's cookbook for toddlers.

As usual, I modified it with whatever vegetables I had on hand, and everything was done "to taste".

Here's how I came to be dishing out these "accidental" dinners:

Lately, I have been getting very frustrated with having to make frozen dinners for Little Pixie, rush to feed, bathe and put her to bed before 7pm each night, and then rush to the kitchen to make dinner for Tin Hang Zai and myself. My main quibble was that if I made stir-fried greens for Little Pixie at 5pm, they would turn yellow by the time Tin Hang Zai reaches home each night at 830pm. Not to mention I have to wash dishes till 10pm each night thanks to this routine!

So I have been trying out these one-dish meals that just one-time cooking at 430pm, and then a 5 min reheat once Tin Hang Zai returns home late at night. 90% of the dishwashing is completed before 7pm. No more dishes to wash except for 2 serving plates, 2 sets of cutlery and a tiny pot.

This is one of them.

Directions (Original Recipe) (My modifications in Blue)

Rice

1/3 cup white rice (3/4 cups white short-grain Calrose rice (that's all I had at home!))

4/3 cup chicken stock (3 cups water)

1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped (1 red and 1 green bell pepper - just felt like buying more at the wet market!)

1/2 cup peas, fresh or frozen (no peas at home, just lots of supersweet frozen corn)

Others

1/2 onion, finely chopped (used 2, because we love onions)

1 carrot, finely chopped (skipped, used leftover shitake mushrooms which I'd soaked for another dish but hadn't used)

1 cup lean ground beef (used pork slices cut up finely with scissors, cuz that's all I had in the freezer, seasoned generously with salt)

1/2 tablespoon ketchup (Just poured in as much as I felt like it, plus some Prego's Pasta Sauce)

a few drops Worcestershire sauce (just poured in as much as I felt like it)

Oil for sauteing

Spring onion (my favourite vegetable seller gave me lots this morning) - this is what gives the dish a bright cheery green because the green pepper loses its bright-greenness after prolonged cooking.

Directions

• Put rice into saucepan, cover with chicken broth. Bring to boil, cover & simmer for 15 min (please monitor carefully, my rice sputtered all over the stove!)
• Add red bell pepper and peas and cook, uncovered, 6-7 min, or until rice is tender and no liquid left (ditto above - but I had to add salt to the rice and some Prego's sauce at this stage to give the rice a bit more taste)
• Meanwhile, in a separate saucepan, saute onion and carrots in a little vegetable oil for 5 min. Add ground meat & cook, stirring, till browned. Stir in ketchup and Worcestershire sauce and cook over gentle heat for 10 minutes.
• When ready to serve, mix desired amount of rice & meat and cook over gentle heat for 3-4 min.
• Cut up spring onion into small bits and mix into rice just before serving, for unsuspecting guests
• Freeze the rest.

Our First Day at "School"

I titled this as "Our" because it was equally 'traumatic' for me. Being a bit unrealistic about timing as usual, I thought I'd be going jogging after dropping Little Pixie off at her first day at Flexi-Care. (Beats me why they call it "flexi" since there is nothing flexible about it. You turn up from 0900-1200 every day, is there anything flexible about this!?!?!). And then have a leisurely breakfast, followed by grocery shopping at the wet market, and then prepare a "lunch from scratch", maybe even do some quiet time alone (peace! silence!) and come to pick her up. It couldn't have been further from reality!

For some months now, she has been displaying signs that she was 'ready' to socialise. Always the first one to say "hi" or to hug stranger kids on the streets, I thought it was time for Little Pixie to get to know more kids. (That was my only goal for this programme - other than that, I have no intention of hothousing her, and would like to try my hand at home-schooling, after my dear friend Clare pointed me to her friend who is homeschooling FOUR kids!!)

Little Pixie was overwhelmed by the number of new faces around her. Especially since it was her nap-time and she was outdoors at a time when she was supposed to be happily snoozing at home. And the fact that other kids were wailing and crying their hearts out (one girl cried for more than 2 hours straight after her mother left her there and was still crying when I left) seemed to make her think that there really was something to cry about. And cry she did! There was no way I could leave the centre to do all the aforementioned errands! (Hey I didn't even eat my breakfast!! And forget about the dinner I'd planned to cook!)

Bringing her her Linus bolster was a bad idea. Some rogue kid (who punches every other child in turn) snatched it from her and she cried. And didn't stop till I took her home half hour before time. After a quick trip to the market to buy lunch and leftovers at the butcher, feeding her, I was BEAT. I didn't know that listening to 4 kids crying for 3 hours can be so tiring and I have a newfound respect for those childcare teachers. They are indeed overworked, underpaid!

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better....

I miss Hong Kong Food!!!

The one thing I really miss about the holiday is eating at this very tiny but cheery, orange-hued Cha Can Teng called the Happy Kitchen. What attracted us was the owner's claims that their street fare had no MSG.

And did we keep eating there for our 5 day stay! Everything I ate there was fantastic!!! And if you knew just how critical I am about food, you'd want to go there too!

There was a dish which stuck in my mind, but no search on the Internet would find me any recipes for anything remotely labelled "Hong Kong cuisine". Back home, I could not stop thinking about the Curry Beef Ramen I ate at that fantastic shop! (it's so tiny, their shop space is probably the size of my study, not a very big space).

I found a useful substitute at Happy Homebaker's Blog , and this is what I also used. Of course this dish above looks very gross compared to hers - it's not the Curry Beef Ramen I fantasized about, but a last-minute throw-together using S & B curry sauce mix from Cold Storage, potatoes, carrots, fresh shitake and onions, to be eaten on rice. It was good, but I think I'll try making my own sauce next time. Better still, it doesn't cause any fumes in the kitchen - where my laundry hangs. Definitely a keeper. (Meantime I have conveniently downloaded the remainder of the curry sauce to the Veterans).