Chickpeas Pumpkin Soup

Getting bored with the normal meals and wanted something special for lunch today and at the same time need to finish up the pumpkin before it spoils, and tada... roast pumpkin soup with chickpeas cooked using the pressure cooker.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup chickpeas, soaked for at least 30mins, washed and drain
• 5tbsp of puy lentil, soaked for at least 30mins, washed and drain
• 1 cup of water
• 150-200g of pumpkin, sliced
• 1/4 cup of chopped onion
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 carrot, cut to coarse pieces
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1cup meat broth (mine is the one I had made for ramen, left over, or you can use vegetable stock or chicken stock)
• 1/4 cup chopped bacon

Steps:

1. Place the chickpeas, lentil and water in the pressure cooker and use manual mode to cook for 5mins. Once done, drain off the water.
2. While the chickpeas and lentil are cooking, place the bacon on some aluminium foil and place it in the air fryer. Also line the pumpkin slices in the air fryer. Set it at 180c for 8-10mins.
3. In either a pan or in another pot, saute the onion with the butter. If using pressure cooker, use the high saute mode.
4. Next blend the onions with the pumpkin.
5. Finally, add in all the ingredients except bacon into the pressure cooker. Set it to manual modem KPT for 2mins.
6. Once ready, served with the air fried crispy bacon.

** Note: I have not use any seasoning but if you like, you may sprinkle some cumin powder and paprika in step 5. There is no need for salt as it is already very flavoursome.

Steam Pumpkin Bun

Ingredients

• 85g pumpkin puree
• 35g raw sugar
• 250gram of plain flour
• 3g instant yeast
• 3g baking powder
• 1/8teaspoon salt
• 15g olive oil
• 60g water (including the juice from the pumpkin)

Steps:

1. To make the pumpkin puree, remove the skin and cut 120g of pumpkin to thin slices. Steam over high heat for 5-7mins.
2. Let it cool down and then mashed it with a fork. Use a fine sieve and mash it on it. This will squeeze out the water from the steam pumpkin.
3. Mix half the water to the instant yeast and set it aside. Since it is early winter now, I had mix the pumpkin juice with some hot water so that it is warm.
4. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and pumpkin puree together. Stir it to mix. Then add in salt, olive oil, yeast liquid and the rest of the water and knead.
5. I had knead with hand yesterday coz I wanted some exercise but you can use the mixer to do it. With hand, I had knead for about 5mins till the mixture had turn into a nice non sticky dough.
6. Cover the dough with a cling wrap and set it aside to let it proof for about 20mins. Again, if your place is cold like where I am now, prepare a warm water bath (3:2 hot to cold water ratio) and set the dough on top to proof.
7. Punch down the dough and cut to desire size and shape accordingly. I had rolled mine with some home made meat floss. Recipe available here.
8. Leave it to proof for another 30mins.
9. Heat up a pot of water. Then steam the buns in high heat for 12mins. If your bun is bigger, do steam longer.

Pumpkin Kaya / Jam

Something that's healthier yet taste yummy. This pumpkin jam goes well with bread and it is suitable for vegetarian that does not take egg.

Ingredients:

• 400 grams of pumpkin
• 2 Pandan Leaves
• 50 grams of brown sugar
• 100 ml thick coconut milk
• 100ml thick cream

Steps:

1. Instead of the normal steaming of the pumpkin, I roasted them on the air fryer to give it that extra nice flavour. So cut the pumpkin to small cubes and air fried them for bout 15-20mins on 160C. However if you don't have one you can just steam it till it is soft for the same amount of time.
2. Blend the pumpkin with the cream and coconut milk. I used the hand blender. But if you have one, mash it and sieve thru it so that there is no clump in the mixture.
3. Pour the mixture on top on non stick wok/pan/pot. Then add in the rest of the ingredients.
4. Cooked on low fire (I'm lazy, I want it fast, so I started with slightly higher fire and once it gets heated and before it bubbles, lower down the temperature) till the mixture thickens and when you run a spoon over it, it draws a line on the mixture.
5. Let the mixture cool down before transferring it to a clean, dry and sterilised container.

Chinese Mixed Porridge

Ok, lately I had gone a little crazy with multigrain meals and just saw in the drama they are eating porridge and suddenly, I thought of  cooking porridge.

So, just went to cook some with the left over multi grain rice.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of cooked multi grain (quinoa, millet, rice and brown rice)
• 3 dried mushrooms, cut to small pieces
• 1/4 cup pumpkin, cut to small cube
• 1 piece of Y pork, leftover from braised pork the night before (cooked with minced ginger, minced garlic and preserved beans)
• 1/4 cup of beetroot, cut to small cube
• 1/2 salted egg, cut to small pieces
• 1/2 century egg, cut to small pieces
• a handful of english spinach
• 3 cups of water
• some shredded ginger

Steps:

1. Put all ingredients except for spinach and ginger in the pressure cooker.
2. Cook on high for 10mins and lower down the fire for 20min.
3. Let the pressure cooker release pressure. Once open, stir in the spinach.
4. Served and garnish with shredded ginger.

Pumpkin Rice (4grains)

Yesterday we had nutritional pumpkin rice that consist of four different types of grains.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rice, pre soaked for an hour, can soak longer if got time (jasmine rice, brown rice, tri colour quinoa and millet)
• 2 lap cheong (waxed sausage), sliced
• 1/2 onion chopped
• roughly bout 400g pumpkin cubed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoon dried shrimp, pre soaked
• 2 cups water
• 3 tablespoon oil

Steps:

1. Sauté the lap cheong with dried shrimp and onions till almost crisp. 
2. Add in garlic and pumpkin. 
3. Stir fry for bout 2mins, add in grains and water and cooked under low fire for bout 15mins.

Savoury Pumpkin Muffin

Yes, another muffin recipe again. This time, it is savoury with lots of healthy goodness in it. It has pumpkin, spinach, cheese and onion. This is so yummy... taste better than the sweet version I think.. hehehe...

Ingredients:

• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 large egg (beaten)
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 1.5 cup of milk
• 1/8 cup of julienned mini red radish
• 3/4 cup of shredded cheddar
• 1/2 cup of chopped pumpkin + 1/2 cup of shredded pumpkin
• 1/2 cup of shredded spinach

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. Mixed all the ingredients together except the flour. Mix till it is well blended.
3. Then add in the flour and give it a quick fold.
4. Scoop batter into the muffin pan, 24 minis here... (I lightly oil the tin)
5. Bake for 25mins at 180C.

Salad Craze

Recently, I'm on a little salad craze after watching too much MKR. So decided to do some. Here there is two different salads, roast chicken with roast sweet potatoes salad and rump steak with roast pumpkin salad.

For the roast chicken salad:

Ingredients:

• 5 pieces of chicken drumstick, minus the bottom part (that's how it was sold)
• 1 piece of medium size sweet potato, skinned and cut to cubed of roughly 2x2cm
• 2 pieces of medium size red onion, wedged to roughly 2cm size
• 1 medium size potato, cut to cubed of roughly 2x2cm
• olive oil, salt (use less coz the olives are rather salty), pepper and curry powder
• a handful of sweet peas, removed the sides and cut diagonally across
• 5 pieces of mini radishes with the leaves (washed and sliced thinly)
• half a avocado, sliced to wedges
• spinach
• a handful of crumbled feta cheese
• a handful of black olives
• half a lime juice (for the dressing)
• 1 tablespoon of honey (for the dressing)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (for the dressing)
• juices from the roast chicken (for the dressing)

Methods:

1. Arranged the first four items in the baking tray, lined with baking paper.
2. Drizzled with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly grounded black pepper and salt.
3. Sprinkle the curry powder on the chicken only.
4. Roast in the oven at 200C for about 20mins.
5. Add in the sweat peas at the last 5mins.
6. Let it rest in the oven for about another 5mins after turning off the power/fire.
7. Mixed all the ingredients for the dressing together till the honey is dissolved.
8. Mix all ingredients together in the mixing bowl along with the dressing and served.. yum

For the pumpkin salad:

Ingredients:

• Roughly 300g pumpkin, skinned and cut to cube, approximately 2x2cm
• 2 pieces of medium size red onion, wedged to roughly 2cm size
• olive oil, salt, pepper
• a handful of crumbled feta cheese
• a handful of spinach
• quarter a lime juice (for the dressing)
• 1/2 tablespoon of honey (for the dressing)
• 1/4 tablespoon olive oil (for the dressing)

Methods:

1. Similar to the above, lined the baking tray with paper and arrange the pumpkin and onions in it. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
2. Roast in the oven, 200C for about 20mins.
3. Mixed all the ingredients for the dressing together till the honey is dissolved.
4. Mix all ingredients together in the mixing bowl along with the dressing and served.. yum

Pumpkin Muffin

Last weekend when I was at my mom's place, I saw her bought a big pumpkin and asked her for a slice of it. After some googling, I found this nice steamed pumpkin muffin recipe and thought of giving it a try. Due to preference of taste, there are some modification to the recipe.

Make: roughly 8 normal cupcakes mould size

Ingredients:
125g pumpkin (I'm not sure how much I used coz I didnt weight mine)
1 egg (large) – i think mine not big enough
85g castor sugar, I reduced mine to 65g
½ tsp salt
100g thick coconut milk (canned or fresh) – I used normal cream instead and add bout 10g of milk
30g salad oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
200g cake flour (which is roughly 185g flour with 15g of corn flour)
1.5 tsp double acting baking powder 

Methods:

1. Mix cake flour and baking powder together. Sieve and set aside.
2. De-skin pumpkin, cut into small cubes, steam and mash with a fork. Set aside.
3. Preheat steamer – Fill a cooking pot/ wok with water and bring water to a boil. Place a steaming rack (it’s optional).  For half the portion, I actually try steaming them in the oven to test the different and I think it is better tasting.
4. In a mixing bowl, beat egg until foamy with a hand whisk.
5. Add in sugar and salt. Continue beating until well combined and the sugar and salt are dissolved.
6. Add in cream, milk, oil and pumpkin in sequence. Mix until well combined for each addition.
7. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture from step (2). Pour the wet mixture from step (6) into it in 2-3 batches. Use a spatula to fold in the wet mixture until blended and no traces of flour.
8. Spoon the batter into the lined pudding moulds until 80% full.
9. Steam on high heat for about 15 minutes.
10. Once it’s done, remove the pudding moulds from the cooking pot/ wok and transfer to a cooling rack.
11. Best to serve warm.