Risoni with homemade pasta sauce

Tried a new recipe: Risoni with homemade pasta sauce. Bought risoni at NTUC when I chanced upon it cos it's not as 'kiddy' as ABC pasta but yet small enough for RaeAnne to swallow so no need to cut unlike elbow macaroni.

Checked out the ingredients of pasta sauce bottles and reverse engineered from there cos I don't dare to let RaeAnne take bottled pasta sauce yet. Tried out the recipe on Tues and decided to cut down on the onion used and increase the tomato puree from 1 tablespoon to 2 tablespoon. Thought she might like it since she loves the stir fried macaroni, which is also ketchup based.

Ingredients (Serves 3 adults & 1 toddler)
1 teaspoon of oil
1 teaspoon of garlic (chopped)
Half a white/yellow onion (chopped)
3 ripe tomatoes (cut, scald and remove skin then chop)
2 tablespoon of tomato puree (for taste and colour)
3 fresh mushrooms (chopped)
1 sprig of fresh parsley (chopped finely) (Can also use dried italian herbs or dried parsley instead)
3/4 chinese bowl of minced chicken
1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese (can add more if desired)
2 chinese bowls of Risoni (pasta that looks like rice bought from NTUC)

Steps
1) Boil the risoni with water with a few drops of oil (can add salt if you want). Drain the risoni and put into the serving bowls.
2) Use a thick base pot, use low/medium fire, add 1 teaspoon of oil and fry the garlic until fragant
3) Add the chopped onion and fry until it softens.
4) Add the chopped tomato and tomato puree, then turn to med/high heat, cook until onions and tomatoes soften.
5) Add parsley and mushrooms and stir.
6) When mixture boils, add the minced chicken until it is cooked
7) Add the parmesan cheese and stir through until melted.
8) Pour the pasta sauce over the risoni and serve. :)

Verdict:
i) RaeAnne ate enthusiatically initially but lost steam after the 5-6 spoonful. Maybe she's not very used to the sour taste? :P Interestingly, after hubby started feeding her muffin, she started to pick up the spoon and eat the risoni herself on her own. Maybe the muffin was sweet so she prefers 1 mouthful of 'sour' followed by one mouthful of sweet stuff, more 开胃。 At least she ate more risoni than the cheese baked pasta but maybe can try adding some sugar to the pasta sauce next time. :)

ii) Hubby as usual was not very encouraging. He said he doesn't like the texture of risoni (found it too hard). Duh, it was cooked aldente and each risoni's so small, how hard can it be? And that he prefers a thicker sauce (that can be easily remedied with more tomatoes and cheese but I'm afraid RaeAnne won't like it too cheesy and tomatoey). In fact, he joked that we should feed RaeAnne muffin for lunch and muffin for dinner next time. She'll eat faster. Sigh, so demoralising to cook sometimes. I had to take time/effort to plan the weekend menu, buy ingredients, cook and try out the risoni recipe on Tues first, then improvise and cook again for RaeAnne today. Sometimes, I wonder if I just stop cooking and tapow food or order tingkat for all the meals next time. Save my efforts and time. :(

Oh ya, when she wanted to eat the sweet muffin instead of the pasta, hubby said you so smart ah, want to eat the sweet stuff only and she mimicked and said 'mart'. The 's' sound dropped as usual. :) Just now, she pointed to my feet and said 'big, big', I was wondering why she thought my foot was big. Then remembered that I had taught her about her 'big toe' last time. Haha.