If you can assemble things, anything, you can put this recipe together! You get to choose the vegetables you like on top of the mandatory potatoes and carrots. I normally choose broccoli and peas, and if you have some leftover roast chicken, add them to your pyrex dish, along with some cheddar or mozzarella. Then bake til vegetables are done, top with crushed Ritz or Julie’s butter crackers (or breadcrumbs drizzled with butter) and pop it back into the oven for just a bit, til golden, for a great meal!

Makes 8 servings

What I used:

2 potatoes, peeled, cubed
1 carrot, peeled, cubed
A handful of broccoli
A handful of peas
Some green, red and yellow peppers, cut into small chunks and coated in some olive oil
2 slices cheddar cheese (you can use shredded mozzarella)
1 can Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup
200 ml milk
Black pepper
Half teaspoon salt
2 packets Julie’s crackers, crushed
Roast chicken, optional, shredded (don’t over do it) those bbq spring chickens from Cold Storage will be great for this dish!

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius.
2. Combine the soup, milk and black pepper in a soup pot. Simmer for a bit on your stove and set aside.
3. Lay out all the vegetables and sprinkle salt over. Add roast chicken if using. Spoon soup mixture on top and add the sliced cheese.
4. Bake for 35 minutes until the vegetables are tender, then take out the dish from the oven and sprinkle the crushed crackers. Add mozzarella cheese if you have some. Bake for 5 minutes til cheese is melted. Keep watching because the crackers burn easily! Alternatively, combined mozzarella and breadcrumbs and drizzle melted butter over. Bake for 10-15 minutes until breadcrumbs are crispy.
5. Enjoy!

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I didn’t have mozzarella on hand so I just baked this simply. You can also do a cheat version by boiling all the vegetables (except the bell peppers) beforehand. Fry the bell peppers in some olive oil. Separately, heat up the soup and milk in a pot before adding the black pepper. Spoon the soup over the vegetables (sprinkle salt!), top with cheese, and sprinkle the crushed crackers over. Bake for 5 minutes til crackers are golden. If you choose this method, you’re basically just heating up the vegetables and melting the cheese since everything’s already cooked. It saves much more time, but be warned that the taste is not gonna be as good as when you allow the sweetness of the vegetables to come together in a slow, bubbly bake. The choice is yours!

The post Vegetable Bake in Cream of Chicken Soup appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Most people learn many things from their mother. How to sew a dress, how to “choose” a good husband (I don’t think this is teachable), how to be a good wife, how to live. From my mother, I learnt how to make soup.

I don’t know my mother very well and mostly see her once a year during Chinese New Year. This year I will see her more than once because of my wedding in November. I am not close to her but we do have conversations going when we do meet. We talk about cooking most of the time. She is a brilliant cook and baker.. her roast leg of lamb, roast pork with crackling skin, mixed vegetables (yes, even that!), steamed fish in HK style, sambal prawns and scallops, and her BUTTER CAKE, ohhh that butter cake, as Gary would say (hi!), is da bomb.

She taught me how to make a basic veggie soup with four core ingredients: onion, ginger, garlic and ikan bilis stock cube. From there you can add some noodles (I love spaghetti in soup. it is good, promise!) and turn the soup into a simple lunch, add some veggie variations and some fishballs/ crab sticks/ cheese tofu (like I have done above) and eat it just like that or with rice. This soup played a huge part in my life when I was on my no-carb diet. I looked forward to eating it everyday because it is so good and comforting.

Makes 3 servings

What I used:

One red onion, wedged
4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed/pressed with the back of your knife
A piece of ginger, about 2 cm thick and an inch across
1 ikan bilis stock cube (I used Knorr’s)
1 carrot, cut into chucks
1/3 of a cabbage
1/2 a tomato, wedged
Green leafy vegetables
Cheese tofu or what you like!

1. Place carrot, onion, garlic, and ginger in pot and fill with water. Bring to boil then reduce fire. Simmer 15 mins then add tomato.
2. Cook 10 mins then add cabbage, cheese tofu or other yong tau foo pieces, and stock cube. Bring to the boil (I usually add broccoli at this point. I ran out of them that day), turn off fire and you’re done.

How much I spent:

$0.20 for onion
$0.40 for cabbage
$0.15 for tomato
$0.30 for carrot
$0.50 for cheese tofu
Everything else from my pantry

Total cost per serving: $0.52

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If this isn’t easy I don’t know what is. There is no need to add any oil, salt, sauce, as the vegetables become really sweet after simmering and the onions, garlic, ginger and stock cube really do their job very well. This is also a great way to add more lovely vegetables to your family’s diet. You must use ikan bilis stock cube though. I have tried using chicken stock cube but it just doesn’t bring out the flavour of this soup.

I usually cook this with cabbage, carrots and broccoli (and crab sticks!) and leave out the tomato because it adulterates the soup. But that day, I decided a hint of tangy tomato flavour would be great for a change. I break the rules of this soup (and of life) sometimes, and why not? You probably should too.

Thanks mom!

The post How to cook a basic soup appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Guess which component of this dish I grew up eating? The fried chicken? Yes in a way, I’m such a fried chicken fan, but it is the salad prawn with Heinz salad cream that hits home here. This was a childhood dish. Ah mm used to make portions of chilled salad prawns with just three ingredients: cooked tiger prawns, cucumber and Heinz salad cream. Not mayo, not miracle whip, not just any salad cream, but Heinz salad cream.

I always looked forward to this dish, i.e, eat up all the prawns and leave the cucumber to everyone else cos I hate cucumber. Just kidding, though I secretly wished I could do that. My version for yesterday’s lunch was with the addition of crunchy Fuji apples- they really do go well together. This was also a way to sneak some fruits into Ah-mm’s diet- the only fruit I’ve seen her eat in a long time is the durian, so I try to cook with fruits if I can. Sometimes I add grapes, sometimes pear, but we had apples in the fridge yesterday.

The vegetable medley is delightful and very easy to whip up. I am addicted to broccoli and can polish off a whole head (or more) by myself in one sitting. The best way I like to enjoy my broccoli is have them boiled or steamed to just the right crunchiness, plain. Bliss, to me, is just me and my broccoli, for lunch or dinner. Unfortunately, my aunts don’t really fancy lightly cooked vegetables. I still cook the broccoli and cauliflower cautiously though, but add a pat of butter and saute some sliced onions for flavour whenever they need some florets in their diet.

The fried chicken? I don’t deep fry things but once in while (after I got the most amazing kitchen appliance in the world- the Airfryer), I buy pre-cooked packages of fried chicken and serve them with lots of greens as a treat for my family. With the Airfryer, I don’t have to cook them in hot fat a second time, and additional fat actually gets forced out from the fried stuff. The evidence is collected at the bottom of the Airfryer everytime I reheat something deep fried. Trust me, I reheated a Cronut in there on Monday. The amount of oil collected was more than this fried chicken.

Serves 2

What I used:

1/3 broccoli
1/3 cauliflower
1 tsp butter
1 onion, sliced
4 tiger prawns
1 Fuji apple, cubed
1/2 cucumber, cubed
1 tbsp Heinz salad cream
1/2 tomato (optional, for added vitamins)
2 precooked chicken drumsticks

For the salad:

1. Boil prawns in hot water til just cooked.
2. Mix with cucumber, apple and salad cream, then chill.

For the vegetables:

1. Heat butter in pan, then add onions and saute til soft.
2. Add lightly blanched broccoli and cauliflower, mix well and cook for 2 mins.
3. Add a pinch of salt to taste. (you can leave this out. I didnt use soy sauce for this cos I needed this to be dry)

For the fried chicken:

1. Buy this, then airfry at 180degrees for 12 mins:

How much I spent:

$1.75 for drumsticks (2 packets of total 16 drumsticks- 1 for 1 at Giant for $13.50)
$1 for broccoli and cauliflower
$0.15 for tomato
$0.20 for cucumber
$0.40 for Fuji apple
$1 for prawns
Everything else from my pantry

Total cost per serving: $2.25

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I usually serve a protein and a vegetable dish for every meal, but more vegetables are good for you and I have cucumber I wanted to use up. If it were just me eating, I’d leave out the rice, since the broccoli and cauliflower are really filling enough. I made this for my aunts yesterday when Jason was at work and they loved their lunch. Cant say the same for Jason as he cant/ refuses to eat/ has a phobia for chicken drumsticks. I know right, he’s just really strange like that.

The post Fried Chicken with Vegetable Medley and Salad Prawns appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.