The curious cat walking

Today is Hari Raya Puasa, a day off and  just nice for cooking something new. It is such a pleasant day and we had nice cool weather since it looked like raining, I chose the menu to be mushroom soup, lemon yogurt pasta  and pumpkin pie.

Everything is new for the first time.  I invited my close Japanese friends to be my guests. Hopefully they are so nice and wouldn’t complain about the experimental cooking :)

My principals of cooking are simple. First of all,  the recipe must not have a long list of ingredients and the actually cooking time had better not exceed 30 minutes.

When I got home, I had around one hour to cook.

First, preheat the oven for pumpkin at 250 C for 10 minutes. Then I started preparing the pasta. This is served as cold dish. Boil the pasta and leave it cool naturally for 10 minutes. Then just put it in the fridge to cool down further.  Nothing needs to be done, just wait till the guests come.

While boiling the pasta, I started to prepare for the mushroom soup and pumpkin.  Simple scoop out the pumpkin seeds and put the pumpkin in the oven. For today’s soup, prepare 4-5 button mushrooms and chop them in to very small pieces. Do the same for a halve of onion and 3 garlic cloves. Put a spoon of butter into the colander and melt it – be careful not to make it brown. And put all the chopped veggies into the colander and stir them consistently with medium heat.  sprinkle some flour on the mushroom and keep stirring. Add a cup of milk and a bowl of whipping cream when the veggies are cooked. Add a bit of water if the soup is too sticky.  Add salt and pepper.  Mushroom soup done.

When the veggies of mushroom are cooked in the colander, I also needed to move the 1/3 cut pumpkin into  the oven after the oven was preheated. Then turn the temperature to 200C and set the time to be 20 minute.  Then just leave it until the pumpkin fresh gets soft.  To check if the pumpkin is ok for the next step, use the fork to stick in the pumpkin. if your can easier stick into the fresh then it is done.

Once pumpkin is baked, remove it out of the oven and use the spoon to scoop out the fresh. I use a smasher to make pumpkin puree. (I don’t have any hand blender or proper blender).  The recipes I checked all saying that you must drain the puree and remove the excess juice. I don’t think it is necessary since I believe I can adjust the water by the volume of whipping cream and butter.  So that’s what I did, smashed it but no draining.

Beat 2 eggs and whisk with a table spoon of butter. Add them into the puree. And whip the whipping cream a bit. ( I adjust the volume by intuition—about a cup? ) Finally, add a big spoon of multi-floral honey. Mix all the ingredients well, and our them into my hand-made crust pastry. The pastry is my first try as well. Hopefully it will be success.  I used 3 cups of plain flour, butter and very little honey, half cup of  milk to mix all and knead with hand. When the dough is done, leave it on the table for 10 minutes and then start rolling the pastry. Before rolling the pastry,never forget to sprinkle some flour on the work surface to prevent the pastry sticking on the surface.  Rolling the pastry is a big job, good exercise before eating!!!

My guests informed me that they would be 30 minutes late, which gave me more time to finish all the clean-up and bake the pie.  Spread little butter on the tin, and lay the pastry nicely on the it.   Pour the mixture on the pastry and put the tin in the oven. Turn on the oven again at 200C, 30 minutes.  Just in time to serve the guests.

My friends came with delicious tomato salad. My friend made it with grape tomatos, basil, sunflower seeds, virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt and pepper. Simple,fresh, yummy!!

Finally I have to serve the pasta. Since it is cold dish I need to make the dressing right before serving. The recipe is shared by a HK friend who has not made it ever herself, When she told me this recipe, I knew it must taste good.  So this is the very first time for everyone of us.  Use 100% natural pure yogurt,squeeze half of a lemon and take the juice, a pinch of salt . Whisk them with plenty of wholegrain mustard and pepper – I love wholegrain mustard. Mix the pasta with the freshly made dressing and the cold dish can be served. 

Another nice day off with nice food and good friends. Everything is made for the first time. Luckily it seems that the guests were happy with them.  Well hopefully they were not just be polite :P



A summary of today’s recipes

Mushroom Soup

0. Button mushroom 4-5


0. Half Onion


0. 3-4 garlic cloves


0. Plain flour


0. Whip cream


0. Butter


0. Salt and pepper

Lemon Yogurt Pasta

0. Pasta


0. Half lemon – the juice


0. Wholegrain mustard- plenty


0. Salt and pepper

Pumpkin Pie filling

0. 1/3 to Half of the pumpkin


0. Whipped cream  2 cups


0. Milk half cup


0. Unsalted butter


0. A table spoon of honey


0. 2 eggs

Pumpkin Pie Pastry

0. Plain flour 3 cups


0. Butter around 2 table spoons


0. half cup of milk


0. a tea spoon of honey

My friend’s Tomato Salad

0. Grape tomatoes


0. Basil leaves


0. sunflower seeds


0. Virgin olive oil


0. salt and pepper


0. Viniger


0. Oregano