Salmon with cheesy garlic mashed potatoes

I got bored of giving BabyS porridge and decided to give her 'western' food..

This is a good dish becos you can use the same ingredients to create a dish for the whole family to share..

Baby's version:

finely chopped broccoli

finely shredded carrots

potatoes

salmon

garlic

cheddar cheese

milk (fresh or formula/ breast milk)

Unsalted butter (small amount)

Pepper

Boil the potatoes till soft. (i put in one small clove of garlic at the same time)

Steam broccoli and carrots till done.

Steam salmon till done.

Mash potatoes, garlic, milk, unsalted butter, pepper and cheddar cheese and mix well.

Put potato onto plate and assemble broccoli, carrots and salmon on top.

Or you can mix all the potato and vegetables together and serve it this way

Adult Version:

Broccoli

Carrots

potatoes (Can boil together with baby's portion)

salmon

Garlic clove (to boil with potatoe)

Sliced garlic

cheddar cheese

milk (fresh / powdered milk)

Unsalted butter

Teiyaki sauce

Prepare potatoes in the same way as you would for baby's portion but you may add in more salt according to taste. (I added in bacon bits for mine)

Wash salmon and pat dry. Then pat corn flour onto whole surface and pan fry. If you leave the skin on, pay fry the skin side first. Leave it till cooked (when the fish is sufficiently cooked on one side, it will detach from the surface if u move it gently. If not it will stick) Then turn it over to other side to finish cooking.

When you turn the salmon to the other side, throw in some slices of garlic to let it carmalise and add more flavour to the fish. When fish is cooked, add in teriyak sauce and dilute it with a tiny bit of water.

Remove fish and garlic and place on plate.

Using the same pan, add in more garlic and vegetables. leave till cooked. You may wish to add in more sauce if you prefer.

Accidental Mui Fan

Our usual Sunday routine usually involves waking up early to go to church. Sometimes i wake up late and dont have the time to cook BabyS's porridge in the slow cooker. So in times like these, i resort to cooking it over the pot.

I just meant to cook porridge but i used too strong a fire over the stove and the stock evaporated b4 the rice had a chance to become mushy.. And when i cracked in the egg, it accidentally became mui fan!

Accidental Mui Fan

Rice

Stock

frozen mixed veges (i prefer to remove the outer skin of peas and corn kernels)

chicken meat

whole egg (or just egg yolk if you havent exposed ur child to egg white yet)

a dash of pepper

one drop of sesame oil

one/ two drops of soya sauce (i was cooking two portions so i used two drops)

Cook all items (except egg) till rice is soft enough, then crack egg in and stir (in one direction)

Potato, carrot & chicken soup!

I like variety.. so I dont like to serve BabyS porridge all the time..

Occasionally i'll cook one dish meals and soups like this for her.

Potato, Carrot & Chicken Soup:

Chicken stock

diced Carrots

diced Potatoes

1/4 onion

garlic

chicken meat

dash of pepper

1 drop sesame oil

Boil all of these items in the stock till cooked and veges tender, mash to size appropriate for child and serve. You can serve it with rice, but I let the potato take the place of carbo for this dish..

Quite a simple refreshing yet tasty soup because u get to taste the natural sweetness of the onion and carrot. You may add in sweet corn if you like too.

This is a dish suitable for the whole family. You may wish to remove baby's portion b4 you proceed to season the portion for other children & adults.

Fish Porridge

Fish, tomato and wolfberries porridge.

Sorry I realise I only have one pic of a fish porridge..

When I make fish porridge, i prefer to steam the fish separately with a slice of ginger over it. This way i can mash the fish up and remove all the bones instead of risking the bone disappearing into the porridge.

Notice the big piece of garlic in the porridge? It makes such a difference to add in garlic.. oh the fragrance and taste difference it makes.

I prefer to throw this in right from the start. By the time porridge is cooked, the garlic will be soft and u can mash and mix it into porridge and serve it to baby.

I also boiled a egg and added in the eg yolk..

POrky POrky POrridge!

If you dont take pork, feel free to swap the meat for chicken.. works just as well..

Pork, broccoli and wolfberry porridge

Pork, spinach, egg yolk and wolfberries porridge.

pork, broccoli, cauliflower and carrot porridge

For all veges (except potatoes, carrots, etc. all the hard veges), i usually put it in midway or when it is almost cooked.. i also like to put in a clove or two of garlic into the porridge right from the start. adds taste, fragrance and boosts immunity..

different styles of chicken porridge..

All the different kinds of combi u can have with chicken in porridge..


Chicken and Apple porridge


It may sound weird to pair apple and chicken in a savoury porridge but its actually quite nice!

I give to BabyS when she has diarrhoea becos rice and Apple are good for stopping diarrhoea. Any type of red apple will do.

Put rice, chicken stock and chicken into slow cooker to cook. Midway, put in chopped vegetables (1 table spoon of raw chopped vegetable per portion of porridge. I used nai bai leaves here) and finaly diced apples. The apples will further disintergrate after cooking.

Chicken and Brocolli with egg yolk (give egg yolk only after 8 months)

Purple sweet potato, green vege and chicken porridge.. the purple sweet potato made the whole pot of porride purple!

Home Made Stock

I remember the first time BabyS had porridge.. Cos it was the only time i ever remember her rejecting food! hee...



My mum had cooked porridge with PLAIN WATER, separately steamed codfish and added it into the porridge. BabyS took 2 small mouthfuls and refused to open her mouth after that. My mum gave up trying for quite a while and even when we made cereal, my girl was still a bit cautious and didnt wanna open her mouth in case we fed her the 'yucky plain white stuff"..

I tasted it, really quite plain, except for the natural sweetness of the fish.

So I googled and read books again and found some sites that advised to cook porridge with stock. So thats what my mum did. She made chicken stock and cooked porridge with it and tadah! BabyS ate it all up!

Again a slow cooker is very useful when it comes to making stock. It saves u from having to keep watch at the stove and this time can be spent bonding with your children instead!

Ingredients that you may use in stock: (you may throw in any of these foods but like with all new foods, make sure the pot is not full of things that you child has not been exposed to, so if there is any allergy , its easier to rule out which on is the trigger.  My advice is to add in one new food item each time u make stock. )

~Chicken bones and meat (I learnt from a cooking show, that there should be some meat when making stock and not all just bones. Using meat in a stock will add sweetness)

~ pork bones and meat (but this stock will be heavier in terms of smell and taste)

~ Onions

~garlic (good antioxidant)

~ carrots

~Corn (adds sweetness! yummy!)

~ Potatoes (surprisingly, stock made with potatoes taste different.. in a good way!)

~ tomatoes (my mum throws them in whole)

Alternatively, you may also choose to put in celery, radish.. some pple put in vegetable roots or parts of the veg that u'll normally cut off and not use in a dish such as the tops of carrots..

Some mummies put in ginger into a stock becos it helps with wind issues and adds fragrance. But I dont advise this becos ginger is heaty. If you use the stock for all the meals in a row, u are going to end up with a very heaty baby. I would suggest adding the ginger into the porridge when you are cooking it instead.

For chicken and pork stock, blanch these in a pot of boiling water for a few secs (until the outside layer changes colour). This gets rid of the smell, the meat wouldnt be bloody and u will not get as much scum.

If you are boiling the stock over a stove, do it over low heat, and ensure it simmers and not bubbling. Heard from a tv show that the bubbling affects the taste.

You may also try adding in ikan bilis or soya bean. We tried ikan bilis b4 but the smell was really strong. And we havent tried soya beans yet.

After the stock is done and cooled, you'll have to filter the stock to get rid of oil and scum.

Oil filter paper from NTUC- $2.14 for 10 pieces

Oil filter paper from Daiso- $2 for 30 pieces (bigger than the above filter paper)

I bought these two filter paper. Used the NTUC ones first b4 I found them in Daiso. My mum (who makes the stock) says the daiso one is better.

In any case, these filters really filter off the scum and oil. U wouldnt wanna serve ur baby all that right? With this filter you no longer need to put the stock into the fridge, let the oil coagulate, scoop out the oil then freeze. I tried putting the filtered stock into the fridge. By the next day, there was no coagulated oil.

Put these paper into a metal sieve, pour the stock thru the paper and into another container or bowl below.

You can freeze the stock in a big container, ice cube, smaller containers or plastic bags and take these out only when you want to use them.

When we used to cook porridge, we will cook two portions at a time, to be eaten for lunch and dinner. So we'll portion out the stock to be frozen in portions enuf for two portions of porridge. This way u dont worry about wastage or if there will be enough stock for the porridge. We also stored them in ice cube trays so if we need smaller amounts, its also avaliable.

Frozen stock can be kept for up to about 2 weeks.