Spaghetti in simple tomato sauce

I tried giving Alicia spaghetti in simple tomato sauce today (and yes, I forgot to take photos again). She didn't quite like the tomato bits but I think she enjoyed the taste.

Ingredients:

1 tomato
1 tablespoon of Maggi less-salt tomato sauce
A dash of all-purpose Italian herbs
Garlic (sliced)
Pasta
Olive Oil

Method:
Set pasta to cook. Make a few gentle cuts on the tomato skin. Blanch the tomato and remove the skin. The skin should come off easily. Remove the seeds and dice the tomato.

Heat the olive oil. Add in the garlic and fry till fragrant.

Add the finely diced tomato. When the tomato's cooked, add in the tomato sauce and a dash of herbs.

Toss the pasta in the simple tomato sauce.

Serve with side dishes or simply toss in some veggies and cooked meat to make a complete meal for the toddler! :)

Aglio Olio - the toddler version

Her pan-fried cod's missing from this picture coz she ate it already!

I made spicy aglio olio with prawns for dinner for my hubby and myself a couple of weeks ago and I prepared a non-spicy version for Alicia and it was a hit with her.

Baby Aglio Olio is really easy to make.

Just have:
lots of garlic
some olive oil and of course
your choice of pasta
a pinch of salt (optional)

Method:
Slice garlic into thin slices. Set the pasta to cook.

Heat the oil (but not too hot such that garlic will burn immediately).

Put in the garlic and fry till fragrant but not browned as it will become bitter. Once the garlic oil is done, remove the garlic slices and pour the oil over the cooked pasta.

Toss to coat the pasta with the garlic oil evenly.

Serve with side dishes or simply toss in some veggies and cooked meat to make a complete meal for the toddler! :)

A tale of two utensils

Alicia has decided that she wants to be independent recently and insisting on self-feeding is one of the most obvious ways of demonstrating this desire. Fortunately I had the foresight that this day was nearing and I bought a set of utensils for self-feeding from Toys R Us on the same day that I bought the reindeer hairband for her. I thought that it would be expensive but it's really a great buy coz it only costs $1.90! The fork and spoon are angled so that the toddler can get the food into the mouth easily.



Here's a pic of the fork and spoon:

Alicia has amazed me by being able to self-feed some meals so far. Her best attempt thus far I must say was the day that she self-fed a bowl of noodles for dinner when we came back from Cameron. She sat herself on the edge of the sofa at my mum's place and ate skilfully: there was hardly any spillage despite the fact that it was the first time she was using a fork! And after she was done, she just put down the fork and went to pick up the newspapers to read. Toddlers are really amusing!

The milestone chart I got from babycenter states that a handful of kids at 14mths will be able to use a spoon or fork, 50% of toddlers would be able to use a spoon or fork by 16mths and most kids at 19mths will be able to use a spoon and fork. Well, so far it seems that she's already able to use both the spoon and fork and honestly it's quite a surprise to me because I don't actually let her self-feed all that much!