Spicy Aglio Olio with Garlic Prawns and other weekend Meals

As a working mother, I only cook on weekends. As hubby and daughters prefer home-cooked meals instead of eating out, I will try to cook at least 2 meals, in between our many weekend activities.

Below are the home-cooked meals that we had over the recent weekend.

Spicy Aglio Olio with Garlic Prawns

My daughters' favorite (They are the "spice-girls" who like spicy stuff).

Garlic Prawns

Heat a nonstick skillet pan over medium high heat. Saute minced garlic with olive oil. Then add in the peeled and deveined prawns. Cook until the prawns are pink and just firm. Remove the prawns to a plate and set aside until the Aglio Olio is ready for serving.

Aglio Olio

1. Cooked the pasta (I use Angel Hairs) to al dente.
2. In a pan on medium low fire, saute minced garlic with olive oil until frangance but not browned. Add in chopped chili padi (amount to be adjusted according to your tolerance to spiciness) and the drained pasta. Toss the pasta in the pan with the garlic, chili and oil. Season with sea salt, dried mixed herb, to your taste.
3. Serve with the garlic prawns.

Pan-seared steak with red-wine sauce & Roasted Potatoes

A quick and tasty steak meal without a high price tag.

I bought 3 pieces of good quality thin steak from Fairprice Fineness Supermarket for less than $15.
I prepared a quick seasoning sauce with 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce and some dried herb. Brush the sauce over both sides of the steak just before cooking in pan with some butter. As the meats are thin, it took only a short while to get medium done and tender steak.

For the red wine sauce, I boiled half a cup of red wine in a small pot, cut in some butter to thicken the sauce, season it with sea salt, black pepper and dried herbs. Leave it to simmer in the pot for a while and the sauce is ready. But we ended up actually eating the steak without/with little red wine sauce as the steak itself was very juicy and flavourful.

 

Steamed Bamboo Clams with Garlic, Chili and Glass Noodles

I hardly buy frozen seafood but when bought a packet of this frozen bamboo clams few weeks ago when I was on grocery shopping with my husband. Both of us like to order this dish when we eat in seafood restaurant.

I slightly defrost the clam before giving them a quick rinse and remove the part at one end of each clam that contains sands. Lay some soaked and soften glass noodle on top of each clam before sprinkling generous amount of minced garlic and some chili padi over each of them. Before they go into the steamer, I drizzle some fish sauce over them. They are done after 8 minutes over high-fire. The meat will be tough to chew if they are over-cooked. Best eaten while they are still steaming hot.