The little one has been eating the same solid food as his papa and mama for about half a year now. There are times when I cook red tomato soup and he would refuse to take more than two sips. He seems to dislike red dishes, especially those with a tomato flavour, which is really strange given that tomato paste is sweet and I’ve always had the impression that children everywhere love their spaghetti sauce which is made up of tomato paste. Other times, he could be seen gobbling up his rice and macaroni and then asking for all the soup and carrots and mushrooms so that none is left for his papa. These are the days I look forward to because they bring about a good closure to a busy work week for me. It feels really good to know that my cooking is not in vain at all.
Nowadays, I am constantly experimenting with my two good helpers in the kitchen – the pressure cooker and the slow cooker – to come up with a variety of meals for dinner on weekdays evenings. Every morning, I would switch on both of them, such that the pressure cooker is timed to cook the carbohydrates (e.g. rice, pasta, macaroni) and the slow cooker the proteins and fibers and soup (e.g. chicken, pork, fish, carrots, mushrooms, leeks etc). It’s my current solution to ensuring that both the young and old get to tuck in to healthy home-cooked food every day.
One of the dishes that I have in mind for weekday evening dinners is this lovely dish of ramen with sweet mashed pumpkin gravy. After trying the recipe out for fun, I found it really simple and fuss-free to cook. The sweet pumpkin gravy isn’t as red as tomato paste and tastes nothing like it too. I’m confident the little one would like it as much as I do.
Fingers crossed.
Ingredients:
- Pumpkin: 400g
- Salt: 1 tsp
- Sugar: 1 tbsp
- Water: 150ml
- Instant noodles: 2 packs
- Boiled egg: 2, sliced
- Parsley: 1 stalk, chopped
Method:
- Boil pumpkin for 30min till soft.
- Mash pumpkin with salt and sugar.
- Blend with water till smooth. Set aside.
- Cook noodles for 3min. Drain.
- Pour pumpkin gravy into ramen.
- Serve warm with egg and parsley.
Tricks:
- Processing the pumpkin in a blender would help to make the dish look neater and nicer which is good if you’re intending to dish this out to your guests.
- The good pumpkins are actually very sweet to taste already, so you can forgo the sugar if you’d like to have a more natural tasting bowl of pumpkin ramen.
Serving:
2 persons
