Christmas book from grandaunt!

Alicia got this very beautifully-illustrated book about The First Christmas on Christmas eve from my aunty. She has been so in love with this book since Christmas and will keep bringing the book to hubby and I to read to her. When I want to have a change of books, she'd insist on reading the same book over and over again. Toddlers.... Anyway, she's really good at sitting through a story these days and believe it or not, she managed to sit through the whole book before moving off to do something else!

Anyway, she loves to hear us make the animal sounds whenever we point out the animals to her and will imitate the sounds we make. She's gotten quite good at this and can "mehhhhh" like the sheep (this she learned from reading this book), "meow" like the cat (ok, she learnt this from both the book and watching her Sesame Street DVDs) - one wonders why there's a cat in the stable but that's besides the point, and cluck (she goes "pak pak pak") like a chicken. :) When we point to the baby, she'd put her hands to her eyes and pretend to cry like a baby (something she picked up during JG PlayNest last year and reinforced by me at home whenever I sing "The Wheels on the Bus"). She's becoming so cute and responsive to our teaching!

Baked Rice

This is a simple dish that I cook when I don't have much in my pantry and when I don't feel like spending too much time preparing dinner. It's fast, convenient and most importantly, nutritious so you don't feel that you're shortchanging yourself in any way. I highly recommend this dish to full-time working moms who don't have too much time to spend in the kitchen on weekdays! :)

Baked Rice (serves 2 greedy adults + 1 toddler)

Ingredients:

• $2 worth of chicken fillet
• 1 can of Campbell's Cream of Celery
• Mozarella cheese
• 2-3 handfuls of frozen mixed vegetables
• Rice grains
• butter

Seasoning (for the chicken):

• chicken marinade
• ground black pepper
• unsalted all-purpose herbs
• hua diao jiu

Method:

1. Marinate chicken with seasoning. You can do this the night before cooking.
2. Cook rice as you normally do in the rice cooker.
3. When the rice is cooked, mix the butter in evenly with the rice. Add a suitable amount of butter for the amount of rice you have cooked.
4. Mix in the chicken fillet and mixed vegetables till the ingredients and rice are well-mixed.
5. Scoop half the portion of the mixture into a casserole dish.
6. Spread half the can of cream of celery evenly on the surface of the mixture.
7. Place a layer of mozarella cheese on the cream of celery if you want the baked rice to be extra cheesy. Otherwise, skip this step.
8. Scoop the other half of the rice mixture into the casserole dish.
9. Again, spread the cream of celery evenly on the rice mixture.
10. Top with mozarella cheese evenly.
11. Pre-heat oven to 180degC.
12. Place the dish into the oven and bake at 180degC for 20min.
13. Serve hot!
    
    

Well, Alicia ate only some of the baked rice, and without the cheese for that matter. She's just not a "cheesy" gal, I guess. I had to top up her dinner with a mini banana muffin and her usual pan-fried cod... Oh well... I guess she needs time to accept new tastes and new food!

Brownie-licious

Pardon my first attempt at baking brownies. I'm quite aware that my brownie ain't the prettiest or the tastiest that you've ever seen or eaten (not that you got a chance to do so :D). Anyway, I'm quite a novice in baking cakes and such, so I'm constantly picking up learning points each time. In any case, the brownie was nice enough for my hubby (he's not the type that would lavish me with praises if I didn't deserve them) though I thought it could have been fudgier. I later checked with my friend, the baking expert, who enlightened me on how I could have done the job better. Thanks Annie. :D

I got the recipe from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Quick-and-Easy-Brownies/Detail.aspx and referred to Annie's blog too but I halved the amount as I didn't have enough eggs on hand to make the full recipe.

Here's my adaptation of the recipe:

Brownie

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons white sugar
• 120ml melted butter
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• 8 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup walnut halves (I didn't add these as I'm allergic to tree nuts but I just left this ingredient here as an option to those who aren't allergic to nuts)

Method:

1. Melt the butter.
2. Combine melted butter, vanilla essence, beaten eggs and sugar.
3. Sift in the cocoa powder.
4. Combine flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Sift in this mixture last. (I learned from Annie that this is DIY self-raising flour provided you follow the instructions carefully!)
5. Mix the ingredients together (but don't overmix the batter or you'd get hole-y brownies like mine) and pour batter into the cake tin.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 170degC (I used 180degC so the brownie turned out less fudgy... I'd definitely bake it at 170degC in future!).
7. Bake the brownie at 170degC for 25-30min (I baked it for 25min).
8. Remove and let brownie cool on wire rack before removing or cutting the brownie.
9. Serve with vanilla ice-cream on the side (which I didn't have this time!)