When it comes to preparing meals for cbb, there’s one method I especially like: Throw everything into the rice cooker, press ‘Cook’, and walk away!

This is another of those one-pot rice cooker recipes that satisfies all nutritional needs in a meal: meat, vegetables, rice. To ramp up the flavour, I like to use chopped up leeks (the white part) and a bit of ginger-garlic paste. I often cook this for dinner for the entire family… I don’t add salt to our portions also, but you could if you wish.

I’ve got many pms asking me which rice cooker I am using. I can’t live without our Tefal Spherical Pot Rice Cooker. It’s super easy to use and practically fool proof. I can cook one-pot meals like this, or make a comforting porridge or congee. The included steamer rack also means that I can steam fish/meat/eggs while cooking rice. Saves me so much time! I reviewed this product last year, along with a recipe of multi-grain rice. Click on this link to read more.

It’s not a super-must to add leek, but I had some in the fridge that day and used them. I must say it really enhances the flavour a lot. This recipe also calls for ginger-garlic paste. You can make your own by blending 2 cloves of garlic with 3 slices of ginger in the food processor, or simply smash the garlic and grate the ginger. It’s more work but it means less things to wash. Or you could use store-bought paste, preferably with no salt added.

Tip: Click here to see my other baby food recipes. Will be adding more soon :) Like my Facebook page or follow @budgetpantry or @chuabeebee on Instagram to be updated on new recipes!

The post Toddler-friendly rice cooker mushroom chicken rice appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Innovative spherical pot technology exclusive to Tefal

Inspired by traditional methods of cooking rice over the fire, Tefal’s innovative spherical pots are orbed at the brim and bottom to encourage even heat circulation. It swirls rice grains circularly rather than vertically, with 2D spherical heating technology that emits heat from the sides and bottom of the pot. I’ve never seen this anywhere else before so it’s pretty interesting to me.

Key features of the new Advanced Spherical Pot Rice Cooker

My experience
I decided to make an easy one-pot mushroom cabbage rice with chunks of chicken thigh. Saves me the time and one pot means lunch for the aunts and dinner for Jason are all settled!

All I did was layer the ingredients on top of the rice and multi-grains, press the ‘Brown Rice’ setting and ‘Power’ button, and wait for our meal to be ready! What’s really important to me is that the functions are idiot-proof – I really don’t have the patience to read instructions and this rice cooker is easy enough to figure out in 2 minutes. Thank you for thinking of people like us when you design your products, Tefal!

And… done! Just fluff up the rice and it’s ready to serve. And yes the chicken was cooked perfectly in the cooker too.. there’s no need to cook it separately, although it would taste better if first fried briefly with garlic before adding to the rice cooker. You know what I think I will leave out the chicken next time and add chestnuts instead.

I added multi-grains to the brown rice for even better goodness. It is available at selected Cold Storage and Fairprice supermarkets, Mustafa, selected Sheng Siong outlets and Redmart.

About the rice: The aunt, who is really anal about the texture of her rice cos she’s got a gastric problem, didn’t make any bad comments and even said lunch was yummy so I think all is good. But if I had told her it’s brown rice I’m sure she would have complained of imaginary stomach discomfort by now. I love this rice cooker and can’t wait to explore the rest of its functions. Thanks Tefal for sending it my way, just in time for our new home!

Availability
Priced at SG$179, the Tefal Advanced Spherical Pot Rice Cooker (model number RK8115) is available at leading electrical and departmental stores. For more information about Tefal, please visit the website and follow Tefal on Facebook for its latest news.

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Recipe

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Disclaimer: I received a Tefal Advanced Spherical Pot Rice Cooker for review purposes and received no monetary payment for this review. All opinions and comments on this blog are my own, but you can consider bribing me with a lot of money! Please?

The post Multi-grains mushroom cabbage rice with Tefal Spherical Pot Rice Cooker appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

I love pumpkin rice! Whenever I order 老火汤, I always ask for pumpkin rice instead of white rice. Their pumpkin rice is really basic, just pumpkin steamed with rice I think, but I always finish the entire bowl even if I try to avoid carbs as much as I can. Imagine what will happen if I cook my own version which is chock full of ingredients? One month no need to eat rice! *faint*

My version of pumpkin rice is similar to those Hokkien version that some stalls still sell today. I like to add sliced shallots to enhance the fragrance, and loads of Chinese mushrooms, dried shrimp and shredded chicken so you get all the wholesome goodness in one pot.

When I first said that I will be cooking pumpkin rice for Saturday’s lunch, the husband made a face (don’t think I didn’t see it!) and said pumpkins are strange (don’t ask). I was so confident that he will love it that I told him, “You just wait and see.” 你等着瞧吧你! Come on, he is a yam cake, chwee kueh, carrot cake, glutinous rice, yam rice person.. how could he not love my pumpkin rice? Just not possible.

And indeed, when I was done cooking, I kay-siao told him to try one mouthful as a ‘test-drive’. He ended up eating two large bowls before we went out and kept wishing that the aunts wouldn’t finish the rest, so that there will still be some leftover for his supper!

This recipe is pretty simple. Basically, just fry shallots, mushrooms, dried shrimps, for a few minutes before adding uncooked pumpkin and cooked shredded chicken along with the seasonings. Add the uncooked rice grains, dry-fry til everything is coated with the sauce, then transfer everything to the rice cooker to let it do the work. I used shredded chicken for this (boil chicken fillet or chicken breast til cooked, then shred by hand) instead of chicken pieces or roasted pork and I loved it. Don’t use bite-sized chicken pieces for this.. I don’t think it’ll be as good, but roast pork is always yummy.

This is similar to my yam rice recipe but I made some ingredients and proportion changes. Note that because it is easy for pumpkin to turn mushy, we can’t add too much water to the rice. I simply let the water level come up to the same level as the rice and that’s it.

Oh and one pointer about rehydrating dried Chinese mushrooms: Always soak your mushrooms in room temperature water instead of hot water. Mushrooms soaked in hot water are less flavourful than those soaked in room temperature water. Using hot water takes less time, yes, but doing so extracts the flavour of the mushrooms *from* the mushrooms straight into the soaking water. Thekitchn.com did an experiment to compare.. you might be interested to read about it. Something new for most people?

I love how easy it is to put this together.. I think this is almost fool-proof. Have fun trying this! :)

The post Traditional Pumpkin Rice 南瓜饭 appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.