Recipe: One Pot Cheesy Ranch Meatball Pasta

I'm going to start compiling recipes of the things I've cooked that are husband-approved, or daughter-approved, or both.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 - 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1. Unsalted Butter
2. 1 pack Beefballs
3. 1 Cup Fresh Milk (prefer Full Fat)
4. Chicken stock (soup form) or water.
5. 1 Beef Stock Cube (optional)
6. Kraft Buttermilk Ranch dressing (Kraft brand)
7. 4 tablespoon cornflour

Steps:

1. Boil your pasta as pasta pack instructions - keep to al dente. Mushy pasta no good. After cook, strain and keep just a little of the pasta water.
2. Heat two tablespoons of butter over low heat in a pan.
3. Brown your beefballs in the heated butter, remove once cooked.
4. In the same pan, add five spoons of butter. Wait until melted.
5. Add cornflour (tepung jagung) to the melted butter. Mix well.
6. Add in the fresh milk.
7. OPTIONAL: Add beef stock, stir well.
8. OPTIONAL: Add chicken stock (soup form) if you have any.
9. Add the pasta water from the pasta you strained earlier.
10. Add in the Kraft Buttermilk Ranch Dressing and stir well.
11. Add in your cooked beefballs and pasta, stir well.
12. Season well.

Notes: I added some steamed broccoli for some freshness because this dish is really really fattening. Shouldn't eat this every day as the sodium from the dressing and frozen beefballs can be alarming but memang finger licking good la haha. The Kraft bottle looks like below.

66. can cook, will cook.

Lately, I've been going on a health and fitness frenzy, by swimming, and making meals at home. The sad thing is, I don't have a stove yet (since I moved houses). In fact, I only have a rice cooker and microwave. The Asian in me has never been so thankful for the rice cooker. If you don't have a stove, the rice cooker is ideal for cooking rice (uh duh) and other complex carbohydrates like pasta. I have been dying to eat healthier meals so I started by making....

A. Chicken and salad with broccoli

Ingredients:

• Honey, salt, black pepper, garlic and light soy sauce (chicken marinade)
• Salad leaf - iceberg, cherry tomato, baby carrots
• Broccoli

Recipe:

1. Marinade the chicken with the chicken marinade, leave for 5 - 10 minutes
2. Place the chicken in a microwave-safe container
3. Whack the chicken into the microwave for 4 - 8 mins, depending on the size, skin side down
4. Turn it the other way, pour the sauce all over the chicken, and microwave it for another 4 - 8 minutes
5. Leave to chicken to cool while you cut your salad
6. Pour the chicken gravy/sauce all over your salad (you can add olive oil a little if you want to)
7. Place chopped broccoli in microwave-safe container with just a bit of water (like maybe 1 cm of water height) - add a pinch of salt to the water
8. Whack the broccoli in the microwave for 1 minute
9. Serve chicken, broccoli and salad on a plate.

B. Chicken pasta in tomato sauce with side salad

Ingredients:

• Honey, salt, black pepper, garlic and light soy sauce (chicken marinade)
• Salad leaf - add rockets, buttercrunch, cherry tomato, baby carrots and Japanese cucumbers
• Tomato pasta sauce
• Pasta - preferably tube-shaped ones
• Salad dressing - olive oil, mustard, brown sugar, lemon or apple cider vinegar, salt

Recipe:

1. Cook pasta in a rice cooker - make sure to add a little salt in the water, and put a lot of water - might take a while.
2. Cook the chicken following the instructions for the chicken from recipe A - once it's cold, tear apart chicken meat with fingers
3. Heat up tomato pasta sauce - any one, preferably with basil-based (if you can't find a sauce with basil, just buy the normal one and add fresh basil leafs, even better) - in a microwave-safe container for 1 minute and a half.
4. Bung in cherry tomatoes (with just a bit of water) into the microwave for 40 seconds
5. Chop up the salad leafs
6. Make the salad dressing while you're waiting - just bung everything into a bowl and whisk it using a fork
7. Drain the pasta water - add in olive oil and mix it around the drained pasta
8. Add in the heated tomato pasta sauce
9. Add in chicken
10. Add in microwaved cherry tomatoes
11. Stir and mix the food
12. Garnish with chopped rocket leaves
13. Serve salad with dressing on the side

I know people have said that microwaved food is dangerous from the radiation, that nutrients of veges disappear when you microwave it etc etc. In reality, I don't have a stove so I'm hoping to get one this weekend and depend less on the microwave.

As for the lack of nutrients, it all depends on how much water you place in the vegetables when you microwave it, and how long you microwave it for. I don't recommend microwaving vegetables any longer than 1 minute because that's when it becomes all limp and probably depleted from the nutrients.

Anyway, most of the vegetables here are raw and fresh, which is good for you. If you cook a whole chicken, you can keep the balance to make a salad, sandwich, or pasta for your lunch/dinner the next day. The pasta tasted amazing overnight. If you guys have any thoughts about microwaved food, leave it here :)