Mini Muesli and Apple Muffins

I made mini muesli and apple muffins for Alicia yesterday while she was taking her nap. A close friend of mine whose daughter liked the eggless apple muffins I baked last time asked me to post the recipe here so that she can make the muffins in her own time. Well, this recipe's found on the packaging of the Heinz Muesli and Apple Cereal (for 10-15mths) so I think it's ok to share it here. :)

Mini Muesli & Apple Muffins

Ingredients

• 11/2 cups self raising flour, sifted
• 1/2 cup Heinz Muesli & Apple Cereal
• 1/2 cup light brown or raw sugar (I used Origin's organic raw sugar)
• 2T sultanas
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 3/4cup full cream milk (I used breast milk)
• 1/3cup canola oil (I used olive oil)
• 1 x 120g can Heinz Apples (I used 8T of homemade applesauce)

Method

1. Combine flour, muesli, sugar, sultanas and cinnamon.
2. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.
3. Stir in the milk, oil and apples, until just combined.
4. Spoon into lightly greased mini muffin tins. (I used mini silicon muffin cups I bought at Daiso and the muffins came out so easily!)
5. Bake at 180degC for 12-15min, or until golden. (I had to bake it for 20-25minutes before they turned slightly golden.)

Freeze for up to 3 months.

I made 28 mini muffins (I told my friend 32 - mis-counted) but I ate 2 coz they tasted so yummy so there're just 26 mini muffins left for her. She's eaten one yesterday and one today... 24 left! :D

Here're a couple of pictures of the muffins:

The first batch fresh from the oven!

Yummy!

Feeding at 13 months (and beyond)

When Alicia turned 13 months, we brought her for her pneumoccocal booster jab. When I asked the doctor about her weight, he said she was at the 10th percentile and he advised me to either increase her food intake or supplement 1 milk feed with formula milk. Very reluctant to supplement her milk intake with formula (which she hasn't had any for the past year), I decided that we had to increase her food intake (which really isn't easy, but we had to try somehow). My hubby said that we should start giving her a bit of everything that we had (unless it was seafood or nuts) in the hope that she'd be a less picky eater. I agreed to do so, so Alicia started eating table food from this month onwards. This means that from this month onwards, there's really nothing much to blog about since she's just eating what we eat :) I'd only blog about the food that I make specially for her from now on...

Eating table food also means that from this month onwards, she gets to taste the condiments used in our food. As long as the taste's not too extreme, we let her try it. Has letting her try everything we eat worked in making her a less fussy eater? I would say that it has to quite an extent because she does seem more keen to try out our food every time we eat something. Whether or not she actually accepts what we're eating is another issue altogether but well, it seems that she's becoming less fussy this month. The best part this month? It's gotta be her eating and loving rice! On a good day, she can eat up to 8-10 tablespoons of rice (more than what I used to eat during pre-preggie days!). I'm also quite sure that amount's more than what my 21-year-old cousin eats... haha...

Here's a picture of a typical dinner:

In the picture: rice, broccoli, cod with applesauce, quail egg, sweet potato (orange and yellow), a small piece of salmon and chicken without the sauce (from our dinner - I cooked stir-fried salmon in black pepper sauce and baked chicken that night)

The frustrations of taking care of my ill baby

I just need to vent my frustrations a little. My darling has been fussing since Tuesday night. For two nights in a row, she cried and refused to (and couldn't) sleep properly. On the first night, we thought we heard a little bit of phelgm but other than that, she was perfectly well. I had to nurse her almost every hour just so that she would calm down and rest for awhile. She was still alright on Wednesday morning but when night came and it was time for bed, she cried and fussed again. Thursday morning, the phelgm got worse and I detected a slight cough so I brought her to the doctor. He said she's got flu symptoms but there was no fever and her throat was alright (thank God!). He prescribed three types of medicine: one for her cough, one for phelgm and the last one to clear her airway. That afternoon after she took her medicine, she nursed to sleep and slept for five hours straight. I thought she was feeling better and would be able to sleep better at night but she refused to sleep till it was almost 4am. I'm so very tired because I can't seem to rest in the day even when she's taking her nap. I can't get to sleep even though I'm so wasted and groggy. I hate that feeling! It reminds me of my confinement month when I was practically a walking zombie.

Finally, I got some proper rest last night and am more sane today because she could sleep properly from 2am till 9am this morning. Oh, but we were rudely awoken at 4am because she fell off our bed (she was sharing our bed and was sleeping between us - we usually let her share our bed when she's ill). She rolled off the foot of the bed (we don't really know how) but we think it was a pretty bad knock because it was really a very loud thud. Poor darling! After that, we placed her back into her cot for her own safety - she cried for awhile but fell asleep on her own and we had our much needed sleep till 9+am today.

It's not just the lack of sleep that gets to me whenever she's sick. Her lack of appetite worries me too because I hate to see her lose weight (because she takes so long to put on weight)! Recently she's put on weight because she's been eating better and just when we were so happy about it, she had to fall ill. Obviously, her appetite's bad because of the flu and there's nothing we can do about it. I even tried to give her Pediasure to make up for the 'lost' meal yesterday when she hardly ate her dinner! She drank 50ml and refused the rest. Today I tried again when she refused lunch but she tasted it and decided that she'd give it a pass. It's the first time I've given her formula milk since she was 1 month old. Maybe she's just not used to the taste of other types of milk other than mine (which I'm not sure if it's a good thing because I had been hoping that she'd at least accept Pediasure so that we could feed her a bit of that when she decides to be fussy and skips her meals, even on normal days). Anyway, the only things she's agreed to eat today and last night are apple and muesli muffins (which I just baked yesterday) and Gerber stars. And fortunately, she still wants my breast milk...

An ill, fussy and crying baby really tests the limits of one's patience... and sanity. Fortunately, I have my hubby to go through this with me... if not, I might be mad by now...