Singapore Spice | My Kids Really Eat This

I was so excited to share these recipes I couldn’t wait to have the time to sit down and write. On our first real warm day, after my kids had a fun and muddy playdate with some friends’ children, I had one boy wanting to stay for dinner. He seemed especially keen when I said I was making fish. He said he loves fish and seafood and got so excited to not only to stay to eat, but continuing to play with my sons. I’d bought some Haddock and decided to make a variation of a recipe I’d created a month or so ago. He loved it! But besides that I knew I had to make the kale chips. So many people I follow (SC, FER, SK) have been blogging about them lately and I’d never made them before. But I thought I’d change it up a bit by making it similarly to the roasted seaweed chips my sons adore. Sort of more Asian-style. And, it not only worked, it far exceeded my expectations! Woo-hoo! When my friend came to pick up her son she tried them and although she was full, she couldn’t stop eating them and took home what I had remaining for her husband. I love that. I love to see kids and people I care about eat well, enjoy food that I’ve served them. It’s such a great gift to give them pleasure.

Roasted Kale Chips

1 bunch kale
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp sesame oil
sea salt to taste

Strip the leaves of the kale off the stems and tear them into smaller pieces. Put them in a mixing bowl and add the oils and salt. Toss well then place on cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven at 350º F* for about 10 minutes until crisp. You might want to turn them halfway through. They are so light and crisy, you’d be surprised how thin they become. *I found recipes that had higher temps but I found this worked well.

Roasted Haddock with Singaporean Spices

1 pound Haddock
1 large handful cilantro, chopped
2 spring onions (scallions), chopped
1-2 tsp Penzy’s Singapore Spice blend
¼ cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp grape seed oil (or canola)
juice from ½ lemon
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350º F Cut haddock into serving-sized portions. Put 1 Tbsp oil into bottom of oven-proof pan. Place haddock in pan, skin side down and sprinkle spices over tops of fish. Pour oil, wine and lemon juice over fish. Cover with herbs and put in oven.

Bake for 10-15 minutes (depends on thickness of fish) until flaky but not dry.

Now, my friend’s son wasn’t as into the kale as the fish, he did eat all his broccoli and most of his coleslaw. All my sons liked the kale chips but funnily enough my eldest was the only one who didn’t care for the fish.. Friend’s son’s plate after he’d devoured the fish!

The coleslaw I made was very simple with just Savoy and red cabbage, carrots, lemon juice, mayonnaise, sugar, salt and pepper. The whole dinner was perfect for a warm spring-like day that started with shirtless mud making and ended with sharing good food.

A snowy Winter’s day seems like the perfect day to make soup. The boys were home because of a “snow day” but they would have been home anyway since they had strep throat. We were expecting 7-11 inches and got somewhere on the higher side. I had wanted to make a curried cauliflower soup for the first time but since I had less than a complete head, I figured I’d add some carrots, potatoes and a couple of parsnips to the pot. Make it more of a curried vegetable soup.

Curried Winter Vegetable Soup

1 small onion, minced

1 head (or there about) cauliflower, cut into pieces

3 potatoes, diced

4 carrots (use fewer for a more rounded flavor)., sliced

2 small parsnips, sliced

3 cups vegetable stock

1 Tbsp oil- vegetable, canola, peanut, safflower

Water—enough to cover vegetables after stock is added

Sea salt to taste (add towards the end)

Curry spice mix— I used 2 tsp Penzy’s Singapore Spice blend (black pepper, lemon peel, garlic, onion, turmeric, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, ginger, nutmeg, fennel, cinnamon, white pepper, cardamom, cloves, cayenne) with some extra:

¼ tsp garlic powder

¼ tsp turmeric

¼ tsp cumin

¼ tsp ginger

Cream (optional)

Saute the onions in the oil. Add the curry spices. Mix in the cauliflower so it’s well coated. Add stock, rest of vegetables and any needed water. Bring to a boil. Simmer until all the vegetables are tender. Add salt to taste (Important to add salt towards the end, because as the water/stock boils away the salt becomes more concentrated and you can’t undo it). Blend with an immersion blender. Add cream if you’d like… or not.

I really liked it but will make it with fewer carrots next time; they were the predominant flavor. As far as the kids: my middle son said he didn’t like it even though he tried it and ate half of it without any fuss. Actually, he was quite keen to try it. My youngest refused and the eldest wasn’t interested at the time (he wasn’t feeling well). We’ll see if I can get any of them to like it. It might just be a my kids really won’t eat this one! Or maybe I can blame it on the strep. I’ll try again with the leftovers tomorrow.

At least my middle son had a little bit of energy to play in the snow.

My Kids Really Eat This

getting kids to eat well in the real world

Tag Archives: Singapore spice

Asian Style Kale Chips and Singapore Spiced Haddock

A Winter’s Soup