My bike!

My exercise bike arrived on Saturday night and I've used it twice since, while Alicia napped - that's my me-time! :) It helps me keep fit and stay healthy while being able to be at home to ensure that Alicia's safe and well!

Here's Alicia trying to play with the foot pedals

I've told her she's not supposed to play with any part of the bike except the pedals and absolutely NO climbing. So far so good. :) In fact, she tells me she will fall and hurt herself if she climbs. hehe... that's my clever girl!

New PJ from Bt Tinggi

Alicia loves this new suit and she refused to take it off after she woke until she was sweating buckets during her meal... :P

She kept stroking the print and saying 'nice nice!' How adorable!

It's just so difficult to get a proper shot of her!

Baby kailan with prawns

Look at the lovely greens!!!

I remember it was a rainy morning when I went to the market and naturally, I was greeted with an abundance of vegetables at the stalls since their business is always adversely affected by bad weather.

Sometimes I just feel so bored... you know... staring at the same range of veggies and all... I don't repeat my dishes for at least a week so sometimes it kinda bothers me that I may have to cook the same veggie again. haha...

Anyway, it's been a long time since I cooked baby kailan and the auntie told me that that day's baby kailan was in top-form and I was sold on the idea immediately. :P

Well, you can stir-fry or just parboil baby kailan... this time, I chose to parboil them! :)

Baby kailan with prawns

Ingredients:

• $1 worth of baby kailan (yes! only a dollar for a full plate of veggies! Sometimes I really can't bear to order veggies when we eat out coz it's like daylight robbery....)
• 6 small prawns
• a few cloves garlic (minced - amount up to you)
• a few shallots (sliced thinly, amount up to you)
• water
• oil
• salt/sugar
• fish sauce to taste

Marinate prawns with:

• hua diao jiu
• dash of ground black pepper
• dash of sesame oil

Method:

1. Pluck the kailan into appropriate size/length (cutting veggies causes some loss in nutrients so if possible, pluck em), separating the leaves from the stalks. Rinse leafy veggies thoroughly as leafy veggies usually have lotsa particles.
2. Shell and devein the prawns, leaving the tail intact. Marinate the prawns.
3. Heat some water in the wok (add a little salt/sugar and oil to the water). When the water comes to a boil, add the stalks of the kailan followed by the leaves as the stalks will take longer to cook.
4. While waiting for the veggie to cook, heat a pan with oil and fry some of the garlic till golden brown. Drain and set aside.
5. Using the same oil and pan, add in the shallots and fry till golden brown. Drain and set aside. Reserve the super aromatic shallot and garlic oil for the last step.
6. Once the veggie's cooked, drain and set aside.
7. Heat a little oil in the wok and fry the remaining garlic.
8. Add the prawns. and fry till prawns are cooked before adding in the veggie to mix. Don't fry for too long since it's really just to mix the ingredients together before adding the seasoning.
9. Add fish sauce to taste.
10. Dish and top with golden brown shallots, garlic and the OIL used to fry the shallots and garlic! :)

For toddler's consumption:

Depending on your toddler's ability to chew, this veggie may or may not be suitable. Try cutting the leafy bits into smaller pieces to aid the little one's chewing.

Wa wa cai (娃娃菜) with canned stewed pork (红烧排骨)

I usually cook this dish using wongbok (白菜) but since wa wa cai looks like mini wongbok, and shares the same natural sweetness, I find it a suitable candidate for this dish.

Here's the canned stewed pork I use

(available at supermarkets like NTUC)

The canned stewed pork is well, oily. Hence, I removed the oil from the gravy using oil filter paper and I get tasty gravy without the floating layer of oil, which I personally find gross.

Wa wa cai (娃娃菜) with canned stewed pork (红烧排骨)

Ingredients:

• 1 can of stewed pork
• 1 packet of wa wa cai (they come in a pack of 3 small bunches)
• water
• salt/sugar
• oil

Method:

1. Open the can of stewed pork and separate the pork from the gravy.
2. Filter out the oil from the gravy using oil filter paper. Set aside.
3. Shred the meat.
4. Tear the leaves of the veggie into bite size and cut the stems into appropriate length.
5. Heat some water in the wok (add a little salt/sugar and oil to the water) to parboil the veggie.
6. When the water is boiling, put in the stems first and when they are almost cooked, put the leaves in.
7. If there isn't a lot of water left from the parboiling due to evaporation, simply add the gravy and let the veggie simmer on low heat in the gravy for about 5min before adding the stewed pork. (If there's too much water, discard some of the water so that the gravy won't be too diluted)
8. Let the dish come to a boil before turning off the heat.
9. Dish and serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• Serve only the vegetable and preferably only the leaves as not all can handle the fibers in the stem. :)

Bak chor nng (minced pork with egg)

This has to be my favourite dish since I was a child! It goes way back to the time I was a young child and my grandma would prepare this for our lunch to go with our Teochew porridge. When I was in primary school, I even helped to prepare this by mincing the pork with the cleaver (yes, I was entrusted with the cleaver!), beat the eggs.... all except flavour it since I knew nuts about it then.

Years down the road, this dish hasn't been forgotten by my family and I was reminded to cook it for Alicia only lately when she had it at my mum's and showed her fondness for it as well. I'm pleased not because she shares my tastes but her acceptance of this dish means that she gets the goodness of both egg and minced pork! I've been having problems getting her to eat egg for a long while and this is the only egg dish thus far that she's ok with!

See the little holes I poked in the centre?

They're to check if it's done!

HOT!

Bak chor nng (minced pork with egg)

Makes 1-2 toddler servings (depending on how much your child can eat!)

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons minced pork
• about 1 tablespoon water

Marinate minced pork with:

• 1-2teaspoons oyster sauce
• a couple of drops of dark soy sauce
• a dash of ground black pepper
• a couple of drops of hua diao jiu
• a dash of sesame oil

Method:

1. Add about 1 tablespoon of water to the minced pork. Using your fingertips, run through the mixture to ensure that there are no lumps and no tendons etc.
2. Marinate the minced pork with the seasoning. Set aside for awhile.
3. Crack the egg into the small bowl containing the minced pork and mix well.
4. Steam for 20min.
5. Serve with porridge (ideally) but it's ok with rice too!

My new purse! :P

Ordered a custom-made purse online from sugarfringe shortly after I came back from Bt Tinggi and it arrived this week! :P

*happy*

Small things like this can make me happy! teehee...

Hubby's birthday celebration

Wasn't in any mood to blog earlier this week so there are quite a few backdated posts coming up... hee.

Anyway, we celebrated hubby's birthday this week and here are some of the photos!:

The surprise birthday cake... :)

Alicia blew out the candle before we could stop her! :)

Examining the cake... :D

Helping herself...

Cutting cake with Daddy!

Mmmmm... yum yum... :D

Alicia's first experience with TCM

Alicia was fine and well and showed no signs of falling ill at all but she suddenly came down with a runny nose on Monday night - right after my mil commented that she is a very healthy baby. Honestly, I'm not superstitious in general but when it comes to commenting on Alicia's well-being, diet, and for upcoming events, I have to admit that I am, no matter how foolish that may come across to you. It happens every time my mil says something good about Alicia or if she tells her about some upcoming function. Alicia will surely fall ill. It's been too many times to brush it off as a coincidence but anyway, things have been upsetting enough lately so let's just leave it at that. In any case, I do not wish to have any unhappy, whiny posts on my blog so lets just keep it that way. :)

This is the TCM Alicia took from the range of products formulated for toddlers from Eu Yan Sang: ba bao san

The reason why I decided to let Alicia try TCM instead of bringing her to the Western doc this time? Actually I'm not sure why I made the decision. Perhaps it's because Alicia's phelgm always doesn't clear fast with western med. Perhaps my understanding of chinese herbs has improved of late so I have greater confidence in chinese med...

Anyway, so I brought Alicia to Eu Yan Sang at Tiong Bahru Plaza on Tuesday to ask for advice. I read up on the products before going so at least I knew what was available should the assistant turn out to be not so helpful. Turned out that the supervisor there was extremely helpful and knowledgeable about the products :) So all I needed to do was to tell her what symptoms Alicia had and when the illness started and my part was done! hee.

Well, by the time that I upload this post, Alicia has already finished the box of TCM (there are only 6 tubes of powder inside and 1 tube of powder counts as 1 dose for her age; to be consumed 3 times a day) and most importantly, just 1 day of taking the TCM, she was feeling and looking better! :) Isn't that what's most important and what matters most to a mummy?

Father's day gift for the hubs! :)

Did you notice that the card is in the shape of a footprint too? :P

Made this little card on behalf of Alicia for hubby for Father's Day 2010. Got the inspiration and the poem from notimeforflashcards.com.

Not having the appropriate materials to transform Alicia's footprint into a keychain (as shown in the link), I decided to make a little card instead so that hubby can place it at his cubicle at work. I told him it's to motivate him when he gets tired at work! :P

Anyway, that was Alicia's footprint when she was a couple weeks' old - we had a very squirmy baby already back then as you can see from the footprint (not the exact size as I took a photo of the footprint). Wanted to get her current footprint while she was asleep this morning but the footprinting tool which we used back then was spoilt so I had to make do. It nevertheless made hubby very happy and when he came home today, I made Alicia pass the card to him and that of course made his day :) And she even took the initiative to hug him after passing him the card (she told him 'hug hug' after giving him the card)...

Mini Cottage Pies (II)

Ooh, look at the golden brown pies! :)

This time I used red potatoes instead of purple ones so no purple pies! haha... and yes, these brown nicely as you can see from the pic. :)

Waiting to be baked...

Close-up! Look at the smooth texture of the potato prior to baking! :P

Cottage pies usually require the use of ground beef (and in the case of of the English, they use lamb or mutton). In my previous recipe, I used minced chicken because I didn't have ground beef on hand. This time, I had extra ground beef (leftover from the making of spaghetti sauce) and so I immediately thought of making some cottage pies since Alicia had finished the last lot quite a while ago.

If you or your child do not consume beef for religious reasons or simply detest the taste of beef, you can always give my previous recipe a try instead - not as authentic but nevertheless yummy! :)

Mini Cottage Pies (II)

Ingredients:

• 3 egg-sized red potatoes
• 3 tablespoons minced beef
• 1/3 yellow onion (minced) - I ran out of onion yesterday but would have added it if I had some
• 1/2 small carrot (minced)
• 2 tablespoons frozen green peas
• unsalted all-purpose herbs
• unsalted butter

Marinate beef with:

• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1-2tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• dash of black pepper

Method:

1. Marinate minced beef.
2. Peel potatoes and cube them. Boil them till they are soft.
3. Mash the potatoes with about 1 tablespoon butter, herbs and a pinch of salt.
4. Heat wok and melt butter.
5. Fry the minced onion and carrot till onion is soft.
6. Add the minced beef. Continue frying so that the chicken doesn't clump together.
7. Add the peas when beef is almost cooked.
8. Dish up the filling.
9. Fill the silicon mini muffin cups with the filling to about the half-way mark.
10. Add the mashed potato on top and shape them like little muffins.
11. Preheat oven to 200degC.
12. Bake mini pies for 20-25min at 200degC. (Usually 20min will do for mine)

These mini pies can be frozen and defrosted in the fridge.

Because of the mini size, these can serve well as snacks or even breakfast. Just give more for lunch or dinner! :) Or pair them up with another western dish such as spaghetti - that's what I do sometimes!

Herbal soup to rid pimples...

I dunno why I've been having little pimples lately - my hubby says those aren't considered pimples coz they're too small, but I hardly have pimples so it really upsets me to see those little spots on my face.

I happened to chance upon this recipe from a cookbook my mil bought and it says the soup helps to rid pimples so I thought oh well, might as well give it a try. What have I got to lose? Hehe. Anyway, the ingredients are rather similar to my ginseng root chicken soup just that the emphasis found in this soup is the Solomon's seal.

See the overwhelming presence of the Solomon's seal? :P

The clear soup after removing most of the herbs which can't be eaten and get in the way!

Solomon's seal (herbal) chicken soup

I didn't follow the recipe exactly - I just used my own estimation... :P

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (skin removed, visible fats removed) - the recipe used black chicken
• 4 large seedless red dates
• 4 dried longan (this wasn't added in the original recipe)
• 40-50g Solomon's seal (yu zhu)
• 10-15g ginseng root
• 1 slice ginger
• 1/2 tablespoon hua diao jiu
• salt to taste
• 500ml water

Method:

1. Blanch the chicken thighs. Remove and place in the bowl for double-boiling.
2. Rinse the herbs and place them in the bowl as well.
3. Add the ginger, water and the hua diao jiu (Note: the hua diao jiu was added only at the point of serving in the original recipe but since I'm still nursing, I decided to add in the wine in the early stage of cooking so that the alcohol content would have evaporated by the end of the cooking).
4. Double-boil the soup for about 1.5h to 2h. (The original recipe cooked the soup on the stove for 1.5h but I decided to double-boil instead).
5. Add salt to taste.
6. Remove herbs before serving for easy access to chicken meat and soup. :)

Alicia loved the chicken meat from the soup as it was sooo tender and sweet. She took a bit of soup too but wasn't so keen - probably due to the slight hint of bitterness caused by the ginseng root.

For toddler's consumption:

• Tear off the soft chicken meat from the chicken bones for the tot.
• Do not serve too much of the soup as ginseng root is considered to be quite 'cooling'.

Sardines!!!

Sardines are more often than not overlooked when it comes to menu planning, especially in my home as hubby isn't a great fan of sardines. He's always complaining that sardines have a 'fishy' smell and taste. Come to think of it, I think this is the first time I've cooked sardines for him since we got married! It's only because I said that I think it's good to introduce sardines to Alicia that he relented the other day. :P

Anyway, sardines are jam-packed with goodness so really, there's no reason not to eat them. And with my home-made sauce to go along with the sardines (there's a pathetic amount of sauce that comes together with the sardines so I have to make my own), the sardines aren't 'fishy' at all! :) Even hubby had to agree! :) and he finished up the sauce together with the rice...

Alicia's response?

Well, she ate one whole sardine (including the bones of course) as one of the courses of her dinner that day! *happy mummy* The last time she had sardines was when I made sandwiches for myself and that was a super long time ago!

Goodness of sardines:

• high concentration of omega-3-fatty acid (sardines are considered to be one of the best sources of omega 3’s around, surpassed by only a few other fish such as Salmon).
• a naturally good source of vitamin D
• high in calcium which can work with the vitamin D to help promote stronger bones
• contains Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Vitamin B3, protein, tryptophan, selenium and phosphorus.
• The fish is considered to be one of the healthiest of the world’s foods, especially with its high concentration of Vitamin D which is found in few foods in such amounts.
• There are no carbohydrates in sardine, yet high in protein

(Sources: healthandnutritiontips.net and healthmad.com)

For more info, you can read this.

Sardines in tomato sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 can of sardines (I use Ayam brand)
• 1 red onion (sliced)
• 3-4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 chilli (cut into pieces, deseed)
• about 4 tablespoons tomato sauce (I use Maggi)
• 1 tablespoon assam (mix with a bit of water) or use lime to taste
• 100-200ml water

Method:

1. Heat oil in a wok. Add the onion and chilli and fry till fragrant. Add the garlic.
2. Add the sauce from the can of sardines (but don't place the sardines into the wok just yet).
3. Add some water (gauge for yourself, depends on how thick you want the sauce to be) and the tomato sauce.
4. Add the assam water (without the seeds of course - use a sieve).
5. Let the sauce simmer for at least 10min. (By then, the onions would have softened and the sauce would have been sweetened by the onion so there's no need for extra sugar)
6. Add the sardines and simmer for another 5min or so.
7. Dish and serve with hot fluffy rice.

This is the way I brush my teeth...

Alicia loves to brush her teeth on her own and she'd always ask for her toothbrush before her nap and before bedtime. :)

If I have time, I'd let her brush her own teeth first then I'd brush for her, with her, again. If we are short of time, I'd just brush for her and of course, she'd be very annoyed.

She's quite a copycat so she knows how to brush the upper teeth downwards and the lower teeth upwards! (though not apparent from the video.. and she usually doesn't move around so much when she's brushing her teeth... probably just trying to escape from my camera.. lol)

Advance birthday gift - birthday cake set

Alicia's birthday's coming up next month and my mum has already bought her her present and given it to her! Alicia loves to play with this birthday cake (her cousin has the same set). There are two birthday cakes in it: one that she can 'cut' into slices and the other sings a birthday song when activated and even cheers and claps after you 'blow' out the candles. The two cakes actually contain small parts so that kids can decorate it in the manner in which they like. Alicia doesn't put things into her mouth anymore so it's safe for her! :)

Alicia loves the toy sooo much she was still playing with it before she slept last night... carrying it with her everywhere she went. I know where she's going just by listening to the sound of the singing birthday cake... lol.

Oh, and she sings along with the birthday cake sometimes... so cute... :) the 'birthday' bit is a bit muffled but I always hear the "to you" loud and clear... LOL.

This is the set!

Helping to open up the packaging

Here's the cake for 'cutting'

The set comes with little teacups, saucers and spoons too!

*Someone's so distracted she's keeping food in her mouth again*

Here's a video of Alicia playing with the birthday cake that sings!:

Sands

Alicia woke up early from her nap on Tuesday so we brought her out in the evening. We decided to bring her to Sands since we've not gone there before... anyway, here are some of the photos I took that day when we were out!

Btw, the parking fee's exorbitant! $10! eeks...

Off we go! :)

The mischievous one...

Mummy, I wanna swim here...!

The interesting landscaping within the shopping area - not many shops are opened yet but the concept is intriguing nevertheless... especially for Alicia!

Wow!

Special feature at the top floor of the shopping area

Scenery taken from the top floor

What the resort's supposed to look like upon completion...

The view of the hotels... stellar eh?

Trying to capture a proper photo of her with her hat...

obviously I failed.

The lobby of the hotel

CAR CAR!

This can really move! Saw the hotel staff driving guests around the hotel in it...

Just had to take a picture of these lights at the lift lobby...

Playing peekaboo... :)