Weekly Recipe Planner: How to use fresh fruit in main meals
With an abundant supply of fresh tropical fruit in Singapore, it’s easy to pump up the dosage of vitamins, antioxidants, and fibre in our children’s diets. But did you know that besides munching on fruit as a snack or dessert, it makes great ingredient for main meals as well? The natural sugars contained in fruit can help to add a dash of sweet, refreshing flavour to an otherwise heavy, savoury dish – which is great for kids since a child’s palate develops first for sweet flavours ahead of savoury. Dinner-time battles solved!
Pickled Feta with Olives and Strawberries
Mixing greens with fruits in a salad is nothing new, but adding in strawberries? That’s a good one. This recipe combines baby spinach, coriander, tangy pickled feta cheese, savoury olives, and juicy strawberries to create a tantalizing, full-flavoured salad.
Soba, Cauliflower, and Blood Orange Salad
This Asian fusion salad, made from Japanese soba noodles, cauliflower (or broccoli) florets, and slices of blood oranges, is nothing short of refreshing. We especially like it for its unusual dressing, a creamy ginger sauce that complements the salad incredibly well. You can even prepare the creamy ginger sauce in large batches and store them in the fridge; it makes a good dressing for roasted vegetables too!
Snapper with Grilled Mango Salsa
As one of our favourite tropical fruits, we couldn’t resist including this mango themed recipe. The trick here is grilling the mango and onions to bring out that extra sweetness. Then all you have to do is chop them up, and mix with diced avocado, mint, fresh lemon juice, salt, and pepper to get your mango salsa. You can choose to follow the recipe with a side of orange-scented couscous, but white rice or a side of salad works fine too.
Chicken and Pineapple Skewers
Brimming with vitamin c and natural juicy sweetness, pineapples are one of the best fruits to pair with grilled meats. Here is a fun way to serve up chicken and pineapple chunks, alongside a sweet and sour sauce for dipping. Start by marinating chicken chunks with chopped onions, soy sauce, vinegar, honey, and grated ginger. While that infuses, whip up the pineapple sauce by blending cubed pineapples, lime and lemon zest, honey, and the remaining ginger. Once that’s done, it’s just about skewering the marinated chicken and pineapple cubes and grilling them till golden brown. Drizzlw with your delicious homemade sauce.
Mushroom & Blueberry Balsamic Pot Roast
What’s the easiest recipe of them all? The answer is simple – a pot roast. The recommended cut of beef for pot roasts is chuck steak. Lightly sear the meat on both sides till evenly browned then set aside while you stir-fry the onions, carrots, and mushrooms. Bring a mix of tomato sauce and blueberries to the boil and cook for three to four minutes till the sauce thickens. Pour your roast and vegetables back into the pot, and then pop the pot into the oven to slow roast till the meat is fork tender.