Foodie Fridays: How to enjoy your kway teow (and an easy risotto!)

Step 1: Make the discovery that kway teow sticks beautifully to the back of your hand.  Layer them nicely...

His hands were slimy from soup btw, not saliva!

Step 2: Then slurp them off the back of your hand...

Step 3: Repeat again and again, until most of your dinner is in your tummy.  Meanwhile, ignore all protests from Mama about using a spoon like a regular human being, but do show her how the kway teow sticks beautifully when she takes out the camera...

Step 4: Then when you get really full and bored, try a physics lesson and dangle them off the edge of your bowl.  If they drop, its due to this thing called gravity...

Kway teow always tastes better if you get to savour it.  Finger-licking good, yes?

(Lest you go tsk tsk at the boy making a mess at the table, he is usually much neater, and I did lecture him about eating properly.  However, properly to a 2 year old seems to have a different definition!  He finished his dinner though.  And I realize the photos may be a little gross to some, sorry... guess to someone who used to teach boys who thought the coolest thing on earth was to smuggle out a pig's heart after a dissection practical and throw it up at the classroom fan, a little mess from a meal is nothing. :p)


Ah yes, what was I supposed to write about?  Oh, yes, the meals.  This week has been a good one for the kitchen (in terms of usage, but not in terms of grime):  

Last Friday's beef soup (I call it our beta-carotene juice since I just stew beef with a can of plum tomatoes, carrots and corn to yield this sourish beefy soup), Sunday's shepherd's pie (the recipe says "easy" but I find it quite troublesome!), Tuesday's chicken with shitake mushroom soup, Wednesday's herb-baked salmon and pumpkin risotto (recipe below), and Thursday's kway teow soup with spinach and mince pork.  

5 home-cooked family dinners, out of 7 days... I guess its an improvement?  At least I still get a huge sense of satisfaction seeing the hubby slurp his soup and lean back with a sigh after a meal. :)  And I finally found a recipe for risotto that doesn't call for a torturous 45 minutes of stirring at the stove:

Oven-baked pumpkin risotto 

(Adapted from a tomato risotto recipe from Annabel Karmel's After School Meal Planner)

Serves 4

Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp ground sea salt
- 185 g Arborio rice
- 375 ml chicken stock
- 250 g pumpkin, chopped into chunks
- 60 g grated Parmesan
- Black pepper

Steps:
1. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Saute onion and garlic for 4 minutes with salt.
3. Add rice and stir for 5 minutes.
4. Add stock and pumpkin, bring to simmering point, stirring occasionally.
5. Sprinkle with Parmesan and black pepper, cook for 2 minutes.
6. Cover and bake for 30 minutes or until rice is cooked (do open the oven periodically to give the rice a stir, or the top might burn).

(You could also stir in some butter right at the end, which was mentioned in the recipe, but I left it out as I was in a hurry.  If you do, cover for a few minutes before serving.)

I loved how this turned out, since you get your creamy risotto, without having to slave at the stove for a long time. :)  The actual recipe used tomatoes and courgettes, but I ran out of tomatoes and used pumpkin, which turned out quite nice with the rice.  Happy weekend everyone!