Spinach and Carrot Pork Baby Porridge

Being a full-time working mum really feels like a clown juggling through many tasks, especially after I started baby on solids, and I'm trying my best to delay giving processed foods to her. Sounds silly, but I feel foods prepared fresh are the most nutritious. Wish me good luck in continuing with this thinking!

Started bbtx with puree when she was 6 months old and recently progressed to 1 meal of porridge and 1 meal of puree a day. During weekdays she'll eat porridge for lunch at the infant care center and I'll feed her puree when she's back in the evening. But during weekends, I'll have to prepare both on my own. Hearing from my friend who recently attended Mrs Wong Boi Boi's weaning talk, I try my best not to freeze any food that is meant for bbtx, and that includes the stock that I cooked to make her porridge.

Every weekend I'll buy fresh chicken bones or pork soft bones, clean them and boil them for about 2hrs to get a flavorful stock. Then I'll make porridge with this stock. Sounds like lots of work, but seeing her excitedly opening her mouth and finishing the porridge is definitely worth it.

Ingredients:
1/2 tbsp white rice
1/2 tbsp brown rice
Stock
Spinach
Carrot
1 pc of meat fr soup stock

Method:
1) Combine all the ingredients into the slow cooker pot and switch it on high heat for 2hrs.

2) When porridge is ready and just before feeding, scoop out the spinach, carrot and meat into blender to puree them.

3) Once the ingredients are pureed, scoop the porridge into bowl together with the pureed ingredients.

Chicken and Prawn Sambal Fried Rice

I love spicy food! And when my friend offered to give me some sambal which he made, I'm more than eager to accept it! The sambal is really fantastic for bbq stingray. Wa now I'm salivating as I think about it.

But I haven't really put his sambal to good use since I ended my maternity leave. Coming back fr work everyday, I just wish to cook dishes that doesn't require me lots of cleaning up after cooking. So my menu has been made up of largely steamed or baked food. And finally I was craving for some sambal fried rice that day, so his sambal has the chance to present itself on the dinner table! :p

This sambal that I'm using is very very spicy but shiok, and no seasoning has been added to it. So I added some sugar and salt while frying this dish. My mum has always taught me that whenever you cook sambal, it is important to add some sugar to it to add some "层次" (hmm I'm not sure whether it should be translated as depth) to the taste. If not, the taste will be plain spicy and not as exciting.

As this is also cooked on a weekday, I prepared some Hong Kong kailan to be added to it as well, to make it a balanced one dish meal :)

Marinate:
1tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Hua Tiao wine
White pepper

Ingredients:
200g chicken fillet, cut into cubes
8-10 prawns, shells and veins removed
Hong Kong kailan, the waxy skin on the stalks removed, washed and cut into cubes
1 tbsp oil
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium size onion, chopped
3 tbsp sambal
2 tsp white sugar
1 cup cooked rice, preferably kept overnight in the fridge

Method:
1) Add all the ingredients under Marinate to the chicken fillet cubes and leave to marinate for abt 15min.

2) Heat up the oil in the wok. Stir fry the minced garlic until fragrant. Add in the chopped onion and stir fry until fragrant too.

3) Add in sambal to stir fry until it is fragrant. Add sugar and mix well.

4) Pour rice in and mix well with the sambal mixture. Using a pressing motion and ensuring there's no lumps of rice, and the rice grains are well coated with sambal.

5) Add in the marinated chicken fillet cubes and stir fry on medium high heat until the chicken fillet cubes are almost cooked through.

6) Add in prawns and kailan and stir fry until prawns are cooked through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Huai Shan Chicken Soup

Huai Shan 淮山, also know as Shan Yao 山药 or Chinese Yam, is a commonly used Chinese herb in cooking, mainly because it is quite neutral and is good for the Qi. Before cooking, the light brown skin needs to be removed. Usually I'll give it a quick wash after removing the skin to get rid of the "slimy" feel before cutting them up. But after awhile the "slimy" feel will return again.. haha its just me, I don't like the "slimy" feel on my hands.

The lack of distinctive taste in Huai Shan makes it great for making soups, as the soups usually end up light and yummy..

Oh, and being a working mum, I love to use my thermal pot to cook soup the night before or before leaving for work. Easy, fast and energy saving!

Ingredients:
3 chicken drumsticks
300g fresh Huai Shan
20g dry scallops
800ml water
10 deseeded red dates
Wolfberries
Salt to taste

Method:

1) Add the chicken drumsticks and dried scallops to boiling water. Allow to boil for 15min.

2) Add in the prepared fresh Huai Shan, red dates and wolfberries. Continue to boil for another 5min.

3) Remove from heat source and transfer the inner pot to the outer pot. I left it inside until its dinner time, and season with salt just before serving.

Oven Grilled Salmon Head

Since late last year, I was introduced to this online website that sells fresh fish. Cool right! I never thought that I'll be able to get fresh fish online. Its not only fresh, but also cheaper than buying from markets and supermarkets. And if I buy whole fish, I can let them know how I want the fish to be cut up, and they'll do it accordingly and wrap each piece of fish meat individually! I was impressed to the max, and there's no turning back. I'm a happy and regular customer of theirs. :)

So since I've been buying whole fish right, my orders will always come with the bones and head. And I've been cracking my brain what to do with the salmon head. Haha. And thats how last night's dinner came about!

Ingredients:
2 halves of salmon head
Salt and black pepper to taste
4 cloves Garlic, minced
Broccoli
Lemon wedges

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 180c.

2) Pat the salmon head dry. Season with salt and black pepper on the cut side.

3) Mix broccoli with minced garlic well. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

4) Place the salmon head directly on the oven rack, with the skin side up. Put broccoli mixture on a deep baking tray and place it directly under the oven rack, so that any drippings from the salmon head end up on the broccoli! No wastage at all. Heehee..

5) Bake for 15min. Switch on the oven top grill function and grill for 10min, or until the salmon head is sizzling.

6) Serve hot with rice. Squeeze some lemon juice over the salmon head just before eating :)

Haha, my baby was throwing tantrums while my dinner was cooking in the oven so I had to carry her to take this photo. Can see her litle hands and legs?

Dinner is served!

Steamed Cod with Chicken Essence

All my life I'm never a person who drinks chicken essence. Didn't really believe in its benefits and not a great fan of its taste either. But having just given birth 7 months ago, I've SO MANY boxes of chicken essence at home! So I started cooking with them to clear stock while I was on maternity leave. And its only recently that I finally managed to tweak the seasoning so that it tastes so yummy that not a single drop of the chicken essence was wasted. Heehee..

I also made it a balanced meal by steaming some Hong Kong Chye Sim with the fish. All in 1 plate, healthy and minimal washing up :)

Please bear with my "agak agak" (estimated) recipe for the time being. I need some time to get used to having to measure my ingredients before pouring them in! :p

Ingredients:

Cod steak (or any fish fillets that you prefer)
Handful of Hong Kong Chye Sim
Light soy sauce
White pepper
1 bottle chicken essence
Wolfberries

Method:
1) Marinate fish with light soy sauce and white pepper. (Usually if I need to prepare this beforehand and leave to marinate in the fridge, I'll use lesser seasoning as there'll be time for it to absorb the seasoning so I don't want to risk it being overly salty by the end of the day!)

2) Lay the Hong Kong chye sim at the bottom of the plate, then lay the fish on top of the vegetables. Pour the bottle of chicken essence over the fish. Sprinkle the wolfberries over the fish. Steam for abt 15min (depending on how thick or how big is the fish steak).

Ta-dahhh we are ready to tuck in!

Important note: when steaming any dishes, it is important to only put in the food when the water is already boiling and start timing from there.

Yayoi Japanese Restaurant

Last Friday nite we decided last minute to eat out after picking up our baby from the infant care center. So the easiest and fastest way is to head to the nearby Star Vista. I decided to try out this relatively new Japanese restaurant called Yayoi on the second level, after walking passed it on a few occasions during dinner time and it was always rather packed.

When we first stepped in, I was impressed with their good service. Most of the service staffs who served us were prompt and served with a genuine smile. Not many places make me feel welcomed in this way.

Thinking that their good service is going to cost us a bomb, I was then surprised by the reasonably priced menu! Most of the food items are in the range of $9.90-$20 :) fantastic for a no fuss weekday dinner.

I had the Pork Wafu Hamburg Set ($15.90) while hub ordered the Saba Shio Set ($9.90).

Pork Wafu Hamburg Set

The pork patties in my hamburg set were juicy and flavorful, but I find the bread crump coating on fried ebi was a bit too thick.

Saba Shio Set

The saba serving was very generous and fresh! Thick and big piece :) But oops, I just realised that my photo didn't do justice to it ;p it wasn't dry like some that we've tasted, but not the juiciest too.  Overall, this is still good value for the price of it.

I was pretty happy with the new dinner place! I must say Yayoi is a value for money dinner place that has relatively good food, reasonable pricing and good customer service :)

My first post! :)

Cooking and baking has been my hobbies for the longest time, and I've never really tried to keep a food blog. Erm, mainly due to being a serious lazy bug, so I'm always lazy to regularly update my blogs :p secondly, I don't think I'm a good writer with an extensive vocab to wow readers (so I hope u won't be bored to death by now). Thirdly, as I picked up my cooking skills mostly from my mum, I like to "agak agak" (which means estimate) when I cook, and this makes it particularly hard for me to document my recipes. Unless its recipes that I've adapted from some where.

However, with a new 7 months old baby now, I feel the need to document my recipes so that I can replicate them again in case she loves the dish! N who knows, maybe I can pass down this online recipe collection to her next time :)

I would also like to have a place to document the foods that she grows up eating (reads: you know mummy spent a lot of time and effort on your diet? :p), and the activities that I would like to do with her, or our time spent together.

I really hope I've the time and energy to keep updating all these! wish me luck and perseverance!  :p