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Healthy leftovers? Good or bad idea?…

leftovers
leftovers (Photo credit: Muffet)

i am huge on leftovers! Growing up i watched my mum cook for a battalion – this is always what i tell people and it is absolutely true. My mother did cook large amounts each Sunday and my aunts, uncles and cousins would all come over and eat. Of course, we didn’t have a big house, just a modest HDB (Housing Development Board for my non-Singaporean friends) 4-room flat. So when that many came over, there was no room for all to sit at the same table, at the same time to eat. Whoever came first, ate first and then made room for the next persons. And many times we would just sit wherever we wanted to eat; the kids mostly sat in front of the TV 😉

i loved it! The house was crowded and loud but i loved it. i love being around people and being around family was even better. This is one of the reasons i like having dinner guests. It is also the main reason why it was hard for me to learn to cook just for myself (when i went to university) or just for two (during the first years of my marriage).

Then near the end of the day, when people were leaving, we packed up the leftovers and everyone took their share home and most of the time we still had enough to have leftovers for ourselves as well.

As much as we all liked gathering together, kids grew up, priorities changed, cousins moved to whole other countries to live and these big gatherings also stopped happening.

BUT… my mother still cooked large amounts on Sundays (not battalion-sized though). This time it was more for convenience. My mum worked full-time – she always has and still does. Yet she maintained a lovely home and provided wonderful meals for us. And having the meals already cooked in advanced was a great help to her.

So as you can see leftovers played a big part in my childhood, teen years and even young adult days. i still like having leftovers, some foods just taste better after a night in the fridge 😉 And that’s why the article below stuck a chord with me and why i am sharing it. It has a really tasty recipe at the end of it too.

Healthy leftovers? Good or bad idea? | Newsletters | Beyond Diet.

Do you serve leftovers? If yes, what is your favourite dish to freeze/keep as leftover? If no, why not?

syc

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Perfect Hash Browns…

English: Rösti, the Swiss potato dish.

Mid-Week Blues – so i thought i talk about some comfort food.  My daddy used to make a full English breakfast each Sunday for us – eggs, sunny-side up, sausages and hash browns. Now the hash browns were normally a treat. i do so love a good English breakfast, especially with hash browns.

i had bookmarked this blog entry from the2GoodEggs a couple of weeks ago, with the intention of trying it out myself first before blogging about it. But i haven’t got round to it and from the way my calendar has been marked up for the next week or so, it will be a while till i get round to making this. So i’ll share it with you first.

It’s a simple thing – Hash Brown – yes? Just grated potato squished together and pan-fried – right? i thought so. Till i tried making my own while at uni. Didn’t quite turn out the way i imagined. Of cos, those were the days when it was my first time living away from home and of cos my skills in the kitchen were not as horned as they are now. (That’s not to say i’m an expert now – just improved.)

i haven’t make hash browns since. Then i found this recipe and am inspired to try again (i will get to making it.).

One thing which drew me to this recipe is that instead of trying to make the hash browns MacDonald-shaped, she used the pan to shape it and then cut it into the size she wanted.  My previous attempts failed cos i was trying to get the mess of grated potato to retain a specific shape.

The other thing is that when the potatoes are all in the pan, frying, it looks like Rösti, which is a local Swiss dish, one which has made itself well-known as a typical Swiss dish around the world. When we moved here, i bought myself a recipe book of traditional Swiss foods from the different regions here. The recipe for making traditional Swiss Rösti is a little complicated. It requires one to grate and allow potatoes to sit overnight. Too much work for me.

This recipe from the2GoodEggs however is so simple and hot potatoes are always so yummy. Go it a try.

How to make the perfect Hash Browns | TwoGoodEggs.

syc

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Go Fishy…

i was inspired a few Fridays ago & we had fish – 2 Fridays in a row…
Now is that such an exception? Is that really so special? Fish 2 Fridays in a row?…
Well, not if we were in Singapore or somewhere which has a coast & an abundance of seafood… but we are not in such a place… we live in a land-locked country where seafood is not only limited but expensive as well. So yes, fish 2 Fridays in a row is something to write about 😉

Fishy #1
Salmon & Capers Pizza
Yep, i made… or i should say WE made pizza – Tobias helped 🙂
Everything from the dough to the rolling out to the baking & laying on of ingredients.
No i did not get the order wrong – this was made with smoked salmon so the fish needed no more cooking so the pizza dough was blind-baked & then the ingredients laid on. There is also no tomato sauce on this pizza – it was layered with a blend of cream cheese & fresh cream.
However,… yes there is a “however”,… the recipe called for the pizza to be blind-baked on a clay pizza plate – which i didn’t have – but i did have baking beads, which are normally used as weights for blind-baking pie-crust… so i used those instead. Did not quite work as planned… the pizza turned out to be more of a pita-bread texture that a thin-flat pizza. Also i didn’t know exactly which bread flour was required so i simply picked one of the many available here.
BUT… the family LOVED it 😉

Here’s the process:
Waiting for the dough to raise – i enjoyed kneading the dough lots – very therapeutic as many have told me.

The baking beads.

Little Chef rolling out the dough.

Cooling the baked pizza.

Left, Right, Bottom: Original Salmon & Capers variety, Variation – with tomato, Variation – with tomato, without capers.

Fishy #2
i love, really love, LOVE Japanese food & miss it greatly.
i finally found the right sauce for the cold Soba dish which i have always wanted to make & so i made Cold Japanese Soba Noodles with Cold Japanese Tofu & Pan-fried Red Snapper with Terriyaki Sauce, & Tempura Veggies.
Once again, the family LOVED it 😀

Here’s a picture of the table all set with the food (not very clear as this was taken on my handphone & in a hurry – we were hungry – hehhehee):

Now i dream happily of the next dish i will attempt…
syc