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Thursday, May 7, 2015

Easy and tasty Chicken Macaroni Soup

Was inspired by cooking this from my church food volunteers who prepares breakfast for all the helpers for that week. When I tasted it, I just knew I had to cook it because its so comforting, especially during a cold and rainy day.

Hope you will enjoy this dish as much as I do..

Ingredients
- all 3 types of carrot (orange, white and green- 1 each.) Picture below just in case you are not sure what I am talking about. The normal orange carrot probably needs no introduction.


- 1 whole chicken
- 1 big onion - diced
- spring onions (optional, garnish)
- fried shallots (optional, garnish)
- 2 slices of ginger
- few pieces of garlic
- macaroni

Steps
1) Diced up all the carrots into small squares
2) Add water to the pot. Have a pot big enough to have the whole chicken in. Add enough water to cover the chicken.
3) Throw in everything- onions, all the carrots, ginger and garlic and boil
4) Once the water is boiling hot, put the whole chicken in
5) Let it cook and boil
6) After about 20-30 mins, check the chicken to see if cook. Once its ok, I would bring it out and when cool down, I would shred the chicken meat and debone it and throw the bones back into the soup to continue boiling.
7) Boil until the veggies are soft enough and you add salt, soya sauce to taste. Most of the time, I don't add as its tasty and sweet on its own already.
8) Cook the macaroni separately in another pot
9) To serve, just add the cooked macaroni, topped with chicken meat and pour the soup with veggies over.
10) Can garnish with spring onions, fried shallots and slices of chilli padi if you like

Simple, nutritious and good for the soul!


Easy-bake Lasagna

Making Lasagna is quite simple. The main ingredient is getting the tomato, beef mixture right. Its a bit like cooking pasta and adding the sauce over, but just one more step to it - adding the cheese.

Ingredients (for 4-5 people)
- minced beef ( I bought 2 packets frozen from supermarket). You can substitute with minced chicken/pork if you don't eat beef.
- 2 cans of whole/chopped tomatoes
- 2 cans (6 oz) of tomato paste
- finely diced big onion (1-2 depending on your preference)
- minced garlic
- mozzarella cheese and cheddar cheese (About 2-3 packets of cheese in total)
- dried basil
- dried parsley
- dried oregano
- carrots (optional)
- bell pepper (optional)
- one box of instant oven-ready lasagna sheets

Tray for 2 people
Tray for more people


Steps
1) Put oil into pot and fry the onions , carrots and bell peppers. The carrots and bell peppers are optional as it depends on your preference. If you want your family to have some greens, but they may not like it, I suggest, finely dicing it..so fine that they wont even notice its there.

2) Once the onions is translucent, you can add the minced garlic and beef. I add the garlic late because I do not want the garlic to burn as it gets black easily.

3) After tossing and frying the beef for a short while, throw in the canned tomatoes and paste all in.

4) Add in the dried herbs...about one teaspoon each. Add salt, sugar and black pepper to taste.

5) Don't try to save on the paste until you add a can full of water.. For spaghetti, you can do that. But for Lasagna, you want to keep the paste as dry as you can. So just use your spoon to scrap as much from the cans and don't add extra water at all as the canned tomatoes have water in them already

6) Let it simmer until the whole thing is thick and does not have so much water/juice.

7) Once the main stuff is taken care of, you go prepare the rest

8) Get ready your tray and spray with oil first at the base.

9) Put the lasagna sheets in the tray. Lay all on the base.

10) Scoop the tomato beef mixture onto the sheets, covering all of it
11) Then put the cheese on top of the tomato beef mixture.

12) Then repeat the process by putting the lasagna sheets on top of the cheese.

13) So the order is basically lasagna sheets---tomato beef mixture---- cheese

14) You create about 4 layers if possible, ending off with the cheese on top

15) Put into the preheated over at about 180C for about 20-30 mins.

16) Check at about 15-20 mins to see if the cheese is brown. If it is, I suggest putting a piece of aluminium foil over the tray just to cover it, preventing the top from becoming burnt.

Enjoy!