A simple pot of soup

Being a Cantonese.. soup is an important staple of my meals. When we go back to my Grand's place every sunday, everyone (almost 30 members) will have individual bowl of soup.

I'm glad that my hubby and son are also soup lovers. So I will try to boil soup every few days.
Few types that I can do is Corn, ABC, Old Cucumber, Peanut and Apple soup.

Today I'm boiling Apple and pork ribs soup and i love the aroma of the apple from the pot.
Recipe from here

My Ingredients are:
Apple (I only used 1 Apple.. should add more)
Pork ribs
Carrots
Red dates
Honeyed dates
Dried scallops
Almonds (Nan xing and bei xing)
Water


The ingrediants varies and you can omit honeyed dates or almond..

Change in Taste Bud..

Dillion used to dislike cherry tomatoes and cheese. So I stopped giving these 2 stuffs directly to him. Instead I added cheese into his cereal and tomatoes onto steamed fish or pasta.

Lately, there seem to be a change in his taste bud. And he started asking me for cheese.
Cherry Tomatoes is another healthy snack to bring out now.

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Cherries are now in season.. ones sold in NTUC are very sweet! I been eating plenty.
I never fancy giving cherries to D because I'm too lazy to cut them. D can now differeniate between Cherries, Blueberries and Strawberries!

Pear Soup + Chix Wings

Boiled Pear Herbal Soup over the weekend using prepacked herbs from EYS.

However the soup taste a tad bitter as its too concentrated. Gotta add more water.


Alternatively a simplier recipe :
Nan Xing, Bei Xing, Shui Li (literally translated as water pear with brown skin), and rock sugar.
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This is currently our favourite staple for supper:
This is very yummy:


This is way too spicy.. comparable to Pizz Hut:


Grill 5 min on each side using small oven toaster. Can be found in major supermarket's frozen meat section.

Bento Meal..

I'm not on a bento frenzy because I don't have the patient and no creative juice in me.
But I always drool when I look at Yu Xiang's blog on the bento made with love by his Mummy.

I bought a rice mould from Daiso to try it out for fun:

Top: Microwaved Potatoes (recipe here)and corn bits and Corn soup

Bottom: Japanese rice with carrow bow cut out from cookie cutter

I trying to create a "kitty" look but obviously failed.

The Orange Rice..

After reading a blog post by my friend- Candy on how to cook Orange Rice supposedly for bento set .. I got inspired!

But mine is a short cut way by grating the carrot using Pigeon's Food maker set then added on to my steamed rice and steamed together for 10 min.
The grated carrots:


Mixing them into the rice that had been steamed for 20 min earlier..


the end result.. colour does not look so uniform. seem like not well-mixed:

Omelette

Being a amateur cook, I'm lousy at frying food because I always do not have good control over the fire.

Anyhow, I saw these photos taken some time back when I was doing house-keeping for my mobile's photo folder.

I tried frying Omelete Egg for the very first time.

Instant Ramen & Seaweed..

New stuffs tried and tested some time ago..

Instant Ramen from NTUC Finest, Organic section:

The soup stock is bit salty so add more water. This is good on days when I'm lazy or in a hurry.

Seaweed from NTUC- japanese section

Super Foods

Came across this when I was blog-hopping..
1. Avocados
High in fats but contain monounsaturated fat which is good for health. Loaded with fiber and a good source of lutein, an antioxidant linked to eye and skin health

2. Apples
Loaded with quercetin and catechin, which protect cells from damage. High in fiber.

3. Blueberries
Loaded with antioxidants, especially anthocyanins, which have been shown to improve vision and brain function.

4.Cabbage
Contains compounds called indoles, which have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer dramatically. The red variety has a healthy dose of anthocyanins, another powerful antioxidant with an anticancer punch.

5.Fish and Fish Oil
Eating fish helps cut the risk of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, stroke, diabetes, and arthritis. AHA recommends two fish meals per week, especially wild salmon, herring, and sardines, because those varieties provide the most heart-healthy omega 3s.

6. Garlic
Garlic lowers total cholesterol and triglyceride (blood fat) levels, helping prevent clogged arteries.Garlic also acts as an antibacterial and antiviral, boosting resistance to stress-induced colds and infections

7. Mushrooms
Has powerful effects on the immune system – especially the maitake, shiitake, and reishi varieties

8. Almonds
Almonds are loaded with fiber and monounsaturated fat, both of which have been shown to lower cholesterol

9. Eggs
The best protein source on the planet, eggs consistently outrank milk, beef, whey, and soy in the quality of protein they provide. In addition to containing all nine essential amino acids, eggs are
loaded with nutrients.

10. Flaxseeds
Loaded with alpha-linolenic acid, an essential fatty acid that helps reduce inflammation

11. Pomegranates
3 times the antioxidants of red wine and green tea – and the juice has been shown to reduce artery-clogging plaque. Long term consumption of pomegranate juice may also help slow aging and protect against cancer.

12. Red Wine
Helps increase HDL cholesterol and reducing the risk of blood clots. Also contains powerful antioxidants, reservatrol and saponins, which may provide additional cardiovascular benefits

13. Dark Chocolate
The benefits of chocolate come from flavonols and antioxidants.Only real cacao contains flavonols, 60 percent or more cacao content. Dark chocolate has fewer calories than other varieties, and when eaten in moderation, it lowers LDL cholesterol and prevents plaque from accumulating.

For more info.. click here

Korea's Strawberry..

Bought this box of strawberry imported from Korea from Cold Storage.

Poor photo quality was taken by my handphone so it does not do justice to the yummy strawberries

These strawberries are very sweet.. Dillion loves them too!

Buttered Pan-Fried Salmon..

I never did a pan-fried fish before because I have no confidence in frying and also not very experience in marinating or handling fresh fish.

So with Gastro Mama's recipe.. its my virgin attempt on this Buttered Pan-fried Salmon which turn out surprisingly tasty and smell good!


1. Heat up the butter in the pan. I use a small lump, slightly bigger than 20cent coin
2. Stir fry the garlic
3. Place the salmon. Cook both sides for about 3-5min.

This piece of salmon cost $3 from NTUC.

Slight improvement..

Many thanks to those of you whom have left me messages and sms-es to comfort me on D's poor eating appetite..

D is having slight cough hence this could be one of the reasons affecting his appetite.
And also I'm hoping that it could be due to teething of his Cuspid which is long over due!

His appetite improved yesterday and ate a few more mouthful before he starts his spitting antics.

Whats for lunch:

Bought 8 pieces of Yong Tou Foo from the market for only $1.60. And threw in spinach, mushroom and mince meat into the ikan bilis stock, served with rice:


And steamed fresh threadfin fish using light soya sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, white pepper and tomatoes (recipe from Gastromama):

Lunch: Rice + Soup + Steamed Egg..

All along, i pride myself for not adding soya sauce or salt when i cooked for Dillion.
When i cooked porridge, i tend to add in more stuffs like carrot/corn/ chicken breast/wong bok to sweeten the soup base.
I made an exception for the meal i prepared as I'm also eating the same stuffs as Dillion.
I added a tiny bit of soya sauce into the steamed egg :

This is what we had:

rice with puree corn

New Food introduction..

Did this for his breakfast:

2piece Bread with spreaded cheese cube+jam using the biscuit cutter. Nice bor?? quite dainty right! Ideas from GastroMama. This way it save time as its bite size and Dillion can self-feed.
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New item:
Macaroni

New stuffs that i tried:
Using Garlic and Green Pepper in chicken stock.

Fast to cook meal..

Learnt this from my friend- Arabelle..

Macaroni/Pasta with Milk and Cheese:
Boil Macaroni/Pasta, Drain and set aside.
Heat up full cream milk and cheese for few mins.
Throw in Mac/Pasta to cook together.

Whip up this meal in 15min when i came back home late.
I added some canned tuna in it so that D will not detect cheesy taste in it.

Did not manage to snap a photo of it..

Organic Somen..

Bought this upon recommendation from the people at Vitakids:

Its similar to mee sua .. this should be the western and healthier version.

Food: ABC Pasta with tomato sauce..

With recipe from Brenda.. I did my own tomato sauce by steaming the chopped tomatoes and minced pork and then blend them.
And added John West canned Salmon on it:

Food: mashed potato..

Did a mashed potato meal for lunch as I was thinking of trying something different:


Did not follow any recipe but it was a failure as D only took a few bites as its either he not that hungry or he does not like the cheesy taste. As he had been rejecting cheese for the past few days.

Anyway this was how its done:
Steam the potato for 30min but its still not soft for me to mashed it so i got to blend it.

Big mistake!! should have boiled the potato instead and used Russett potato.

Food: Udon

First time cooking Udon with frozen chicken stock from this recipe by Brenda. Do refer to her blog if you need some ideas on preparing your todd's food menu.

And i successfully made a poached egg:).. although it does not look as good as Brenda's.
I will not be giving Udon to D anymore as i find that the noodles its too thick and soak up the soup.. i wonder if this will cause indigetion to their lil' tummy. Perhaps mee tai bak will be better choice!

ABC pasta with finger food..

Eversince I'm in charge of Dillion's food menu 24/7, I been racking my brain on what to prepare for my lil' boss.
So i whipped up this fast and easy meal for him:



1. Steam the Apple, Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes for 10min, later
2. Threw in Broccoli to steam with the above for another 10min
3. Boil ABC pasta for 10min
4. Drain the pasta then steam it with 1/2 slice of cheese on top of it
5. Ready to serve!

Dillion was able to self-feed 80% of the meal.. I was there assisting him in scooping up the pastas and the rest..

Snack treat..

With the idea adapted from Faith's mummy.. I gave Dillion a snack treat:

Top right: slices of apple
Bottom left: slices of bread and cheese
Bottom right: bits of blue berries and cherry tomatoes

The boy thinking hard on what to eat first..


Tomatoes for you.. mummy:


Blueberries are my favourite fruit of the month. It cost $5.50 per punnet. Sometimes I will pack some of it and give D as snack when we are out. They are bite size and read about their health benefits here.