Potato & Egg Salad

Baby FAN seems to be going into the fuzzy eater phase. She simply refuse to open her mouth for her porridge or puree. So feeding her becomes a struggle nowsadays. So decided that instead of forcing her to eat her puree, maybe I should just step back a little and think about what else I can cook for her to make her eat willingly. Baby FAN now loves to pick up her own food and eat, maybe I can try making some food that can be eaten with hands. The easiest I can think of is Potato and Egg Salad. Well, I glad I did that, it was a hit, my Baby Girl everything. Am going to try out more finger food stuff. Well, here's the recipe:

Potato and Egg Salad

Ingredients & Directions

• 1 potato
• 1 egg
• 1 cube of spinach puree
• 1 tbs of evaporated milk
• a pinch of salt and pepper

1. Wash potato and boil it in a pot of boiling water until soft.
2. Wash egg, place egg in a pot and bring it to boil, then switch off the heat and let the egg simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Thaw or warm up the spinach puree.
   
4. Peel and cut potato and egg into bite size cube.
5. Mix the potato, egg, spinach, evaporate milk, salt and pepper together and served.

Verdict: Baby FAN loves it, here's a vid of her happily chomping away.

Homemade Milo and Banana Ice Cream

SMALL FAN loves Milo Ice Cream, he says that he can eat ice cream and drink milo at the same time. So instead of buying him some more commercial ice cream, was thinking of making it myself. After all, how hard can milo ice cream be? Just Milo and cream loh... Well, knowing me, will always want to make the food I cook more nutritious, so decided to add banana into the ice cream. So tried searching the web for Banana Ice Cream recipe that doesn't require me to buy an ice cream maker and stumble upon this site: Ireland Ice Cream. A cool site so, I took his Banana Ice Cream with Chocolate Shaving recipe and modified it. Wa la...here's my final product:

Homemade Milo and Banana Ice Cream
(original recipe here)

Ingredients & Directions:

• 50g sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 120 ml cream
• 100 ml milk
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 4 small ripe bananas (I used "pang jiou")
  
• 4 tbs of Milo
  

1. Combine the bananas with the lemon juice and blend or mash until smooth.
2. Place in a small saucepan, add one tablespoon sugar, and cook over low heat, stirring all the time.
3. Don’t over-cook. Once it has warmed, it should release a strong banana aroma, and that’s enough!
4. Beat the rest of the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.
5. Bring the milk to a low simmer in a small saucepan, add in milo and mix. Remove from the heat.
6. Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.
7. Pour the mixture back into the pan and place over low heat.
8. Stir continuously until the custard thickens slightly (around 65-70C) and just coats the back of a spoon. Don’t over-heat, though, because at around 76C you will scramble the eggs!
9. Immediately remove from the heat.
10. Mix in the bananas.
11. Transfer the custard into a small container, cover, and refrigerate until cool (5C). 12. Whip the cream until it has doubled in volume (you should have soft peaks - don’t over-whip).
12. Fold the cream (gently stir) into the custard.
13. Pour mixture into a freezer proof container and freeze for 2 hours.
    
14. Then take the ice cream out and break up the ice crystal, then place it back to the freezer. Repeat this process twice.
15. Place it in the freezer, and continue to freeze until it is solid.

Verdict: The product turns out quite nice and really tasted like ice cream, the only thing with it is that I think I added too much banana, so the banana taste was really strong. Next time, I think I will cut down the banana 2 or 3 instead of 4.

My son and hubby don't like the taste of banana in the ice cream, so I made another version without the banana and I also cut down the sugar as I find the previous one too sweet. So here's the no banana version:

Milo Ice Cream

Ingredients & Directions:

• 2 tsp sugar to taste
  
• 2 egg yolks
• 120 ml cream
• 100 ml milk
• 4 tbs of Milo
  

1. Beat the egg yolks until thick and pale yellow.
2. Bring the milk to a low simmer in a small saucepan, add in milo and sugar to taste. Remove from the heat.
3. Beat the milk into the eggs in a slow stream.
4. Pour the mixture back into the pan and place over low heat.
5. Stir continuously until the custard thickens slightly (around 65-70C) and just coats the back of a spoon. Don’t over-heat, though, because at around 76C you will scramble the eggs!
6. Immediately remove from the heat.
7. Transfer the custard into a small container, cover, and refrigerate until cool (5C). 12. Whip the cream until it has doubled in volume (you should have soft peaks - don’t over-whip).
8. Fold the cream (gently stir) into the custard.
9. Pour mixture into a freezer proof container and freeze for 2 hours.
   
10. Then take the ice cream out and break up the ice crystal, then place it back to the freezer. Repeat this process twice.
11. Place it in the freezer, and continue to freeze until it is solid.

Steamed Pumpkin Kueh

I always have a lot of remaining pumpkin that I don't know what to do with it. So decided to try making Steamed Pumpkin Kueh so that I can let Baby FAN eat it for her snack. Can't really find a good recipe on the net but I do manage to find quite a few on Steamed Yam Cake, so decided to use the recipe for Steamed Yam cake and modified it a little for the pumpkin. Here's the recipe:

Steamed Pumpkin Kueh
(original recipe from Rose's Kitchen Blog)

Ingredients:

• 250g pumpkin (skinned, cut into cube)
• 250g rice flour
• 1 tbsp tapioca flour
• 800ml water
• 3 dried mushrooms (soaked & diced)
• 75g pork (diced)
• 50g dried chay po (soaked, chopped)
• 50g shallots (sliced)
• 2 Tbsp cooking oil

Seasoning:

• 1/2 tsp light soya sauce
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• a pinch of five-spice powder (optional)

Garnishing:

• 1/2 stalks spring onions (diced)
• Fried shallot crisps
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Method:

1. Mix rice flour and tapioca flour with 350ml water. Strain mixture and set aside for 15 minutes.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in wok, fry the sliced shallots until golden brown. Remove and set aside for garnishing.
3. In the same oil, stir-fry the chopped chay po until aromatic.
   
4. Add pork and mushrooms and stir-fry for a while. Add in the pumpkin cubes, seasoning and some water and let simmer for a while. Dish up and set aside.
5. Boil the remaining 350ml of water with 1 tsp salt. When water is boiling, turn off heat immediately. Add in the mixture from (4) and the flour solution and keep on stirring till mixture becomes thick. Pour batter into a greased 23cm steaming tray.
6. Steam mixture over high heat for 30 minutes or until cooked.
7. Garnish with chopped spring onions. Sprinkle with lightly toasted sesame seeds and fried shallot crisps.
8. When cold, cut into serving pieces and serve with chilli sauce.