Apple and Snow Fungus Pork Rib Soup

Baby V basically lives off soups and rice these days, rejecting mushy foods like porridge and oats. On good days she'll take some shredded meat and veggies hidden in the rice. On bad days, she'll spit them all out. I am hoping that this is just a phase that she'll outgrow soon. T_T

If you have a fussy tiny human that loves soups, give this easy-peasy soup a try.

Ingredients:

2 red apples, peeled and cut in large chunks

300g pork rib/ lean pork, blanched (pork ribs make a slightly more flavourful soup though)

Handful of red dates, halved

Handful snow fungus, soaked and washed

2 slice ginger

Method:

Bring water to a boil and add all the prepared ingredients. Simmer for 45 minutes with low fire or until the meat is tender. Season with salt if desired. Try it, the apples give a refreshing sweet taste to the soup that counters the oiliness of pork ribs. :D

Tomato Fish Soup

This is a pretty appetising soup with a tinge of sourness. Have a try!

Ingredients:

500g fish, cleaned and cut into sections (I used red snapper, white promfet is fine too)

1 large tomato, cut into chunks

1 stalk leek, cut diagonally into thin slices, separate the white and green parts

A few slices of ginger

5-8 tablespoon white vinegar (adjust sourness to your liking)

1.5L water

Method:

Heat oil and fry fish on both sides until lightly browned. Add ginger and white parts of the leek slices and fry till fragrant. Add boiling water, tomato and white vinegar. Boil soup over medium fire for 20 minutes. Add the green parts of the leek to the soup a few minutes before serving. Season with salt and pepper (I omitted these for Baby V's portion). Voile! A nice hearty fish soup is ready to serve with hot rice! :D

Black Bean Soup

This is another easy soup recipe that takes minimal preparation time. Let's get started!

Ingredients:

2 handful of black beans, washed

300g pork rib/ chicken, blanched

Handful of red dates, halved

Half bulb of garlic,washed

1.5L water

Method:

Bring water to a boil and add all the prepared ingredients. Simmer for 45 minutes or until the meat is tender. Season with salt if desired. 

Here's a tip to softer black beans: soak it overnight in the fridge with some water  No need to discard water used for soaking, just add it to the soup when cooking. Again, to nursing mamas, this nutritious soup could be your next milk booster too!

Cheese Baked Tomato Rice

This is another simple dish easily made with everyday ingredients in the fridge. If you are thinking of making a different rice variant for your little one, try this recipe! Baby V approves of it and I sure hope that your little one would love it too. What's more? It satisfied my own cravings for cheese too. Haha. :P

Ingredients:

1 small tomato, blended into paste (I use a stick blender, or you can substitute it with tomato ketchup)

5 cloves garlic, minced

Handful of shrimps

2 eggs

1 bowl cooked rice

Some mixed herb

Some Mozzarella cheese (substitute with cheddar slices if you don't have this)

Method:

Stir fry garlic until fragrant. Add eggs, stir constantly until almost set. Add shrimps and continue frying. Add rice, mixed herb, and tomato paste. Stir fry all ingredients until well combined. Fry a little longer if you prefer the rice to be drier, otherwise the rice will turn out just soft enough for tiny humans with limited teeth. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Pour rice into an oven-safe dish. Grate generous amount of Mozzarella cheese on top. Bake at 200^oC for 10 minutes or until the cheese is nicely melted over the rice. Bon appetit!

Lettuce, Cherry Tomato, and Dragonfruit Salad with Honey-Lime Dressing

Here's a super-easy refreshing salad recipe to beat the heat. Anyone? :D

Ingredients for salad:

1 baby butterhead/ romaine lettuce, rinsed, torn into bite-size pieces

1 small dragonfruit, cubed

Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

Ingredients for salad dressing:

3 tablespoon olive oil 

2 tablespoon honey

1 shallot, thinly sliced

Juice from 3 small limes (limau kasturi)

Method:

Mix all ingredients for salad dressing in a small bowl.  Combine lettuce, dragonfruit and cherry tomatoes in a salad bowl. Toss with salad dressing. Enjoy!

"Under the Sea" Quiet Book: Video + Template

Hello again! As promised, this is the video for the completed "Under the Sea" book. Click here for the printable template.

Here are all the related links for the step-by-step guide:

1. What's a Quiet Book: Materials & Tools
2. Surfacing Whale
3. Sliding fish and Lift-the-Flap Oyster
4. Sensory Jellyfish 
5. Peek-a-Boo Crab
6. Tic-Tac-Toe
7. Clown Fish among Seaweeds
8. Fish Puzzle
9. Cover of the "Under the Sea" Quiet Book
10. Page Finishing and Book Compilation

Last but not least, please do tag me on Facebook if you happen to make any quiet book pages of your own. I would really love to see how yours turn out. Hehe.

Thanks for reading and happy crafting! :D

Lotus Root Soup with Peanuts

This is a fairly easy soup to prepare for the entire family. Lotus root and peanuts is the perfect pair of ingredient that creates a sweet flavourful soup, yummy even without any seasonings. In fact, this is one of Baby V's favourite soup since she started taking soft rice with soup, after many failed attempts of trying to feed her porridge. I would normally cook the soup together with dried cuttlefish but I don't have it this time. 

Ingredients:

1 section of lotus root, washed, peeled, and sliced

2 handful of raw peanuts, washed (both with shell or without are fine, shell-on peanuts gives a slightly darker soup)

300g pork rib/ chicken, blanched

1.5L water

Method:

Bring water to a boil and add all the prepared ingredients. Simmer for 45 minutes or until the meat is tender. Season with salt if desired. The soup is now ready to serve!

I've tried cooking this soup with chicken before simply because Baby V's daddy is not a fan of pork. It turns out just as nice, without much different in terms of taste. So I'd say both pork rib and chicken is OK to cook this soup! If you prefer softer peanuts, just cook the soup a little longer. And good news for nursing mamas, this soup might just be your next milk-booster! Hehe.

Happy cooking! :D

Quiet Book: Page Finishing and Book Compilation

There are plenty of ways to finish off the pages: (1) attach bias tape, (2) use a serger or a zig zag stitch, if your sewing machine allows, or, (3) hand sew it with blanket stitch. I use the third method after a not so pleasant experience of trying to attach bias tape on the edges of thick pages using my not so heavy-duty sewing machine some time ago. The stitches would sometimes come out uneven or threads would clump together in a mess. Worst still, I need plenty of time and patience to remove the stitches, and sew it again all over. >.<

And of course, I don't have a serger nor a machine that allows me to do a zig-zag stitch. So until I get a proper machine, I'd rather stick to the good ol' method of hand sewing with a blanket stitch. The bright side of this method? It gives a nice "hand-made" look to the final book! :P

So here's what you do when all the book pages and book cover are ready:

1. Arrange pages to your preference. Blanket stitch pages back-to-back, i.e. sew page page 2 on the back of page 1, page 4 on the back of page 3, and so on.

2. I use a 2-in-1 eyelet plier like this to punch holes on all of the pages and attach eyelets. Here's what to do: punch holes, trim around the holes if necessary (the edges of the cut does not always come out clean due to the thickness of the page), push eyelet through the hole on the right side (i.e. the front of the page), align the plier and place washer on the wrong side (i.e. the back of the page), and lastly, squeeze the pliers together. The size of my quiet book is 25cm x 25cm so I punched 3 holes on each page to hold the book together better. The distance between holes is personal preference but mine is as shown in the picture below.

3. Last but not least, join all pages together with clip rings. Ta-daah! The book is now all done! :D

If you still can't get the hold of applying eyelets, fret not, I have a video coming up on how to apply it! Trust me, it's a nice tool to use for almost any craft and sewing project! Do stay tuned for a video of my completed book too! :D

Egg Drop Corn Soup from Scratch

I bet we are all quite familiar with cooking corn soup from canned corns, no? This recipe is just how we would normally cook, except that I made it from scratch because I don't feel comfortable serving soup from canned corns to my tiny human just yet. Give this a try if you share the same concern. :D

Ingredient:

1 corn on the cob, slice corns off the cob using a sharp knife

1 egg, beaten

2 slice ginger 

Some sesame oil

Method:

Bring water to a boil, add corn and ginger. Simmer over low fire for 15 minutes. Stir egg into soup at high fire. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Add a few drops of sesame oil to the soup when serving. 

Quiet Book: Cover of the "Under the Sea" Book

I'm finally back with my "Under the Sea" quiet book again after more than a month now! >.< If you have been reading my previous posts, you'll notice that I've been busy posting recipes, travelling Japan, and organising my tiny human's first birthday photoshoot. Haha.

Now that all eight pages of the book are ready, it's time to finally make the book cover! The steps are pretty straightforward this time, so here goes!

1. Use a piece of white colour felt as the base of the cover. Cut a wavy piece of blue colour felt as the sea. Cut some sea grass out of a green colour felt.

2. Print the book title in your preferred font. Cut the template, lightly trace the outline of inverse of the alphabets onto a piece of felt, and start cutting out the alphabets. Why the inverse? So that there are no traces of ball pen lines on the right side of the alphabets. :D Some pretty useful tips about alphabet cutting here: thicker fonts are easier to work with and the easiest way of cutting holes for letters like "a", "b", "e" and so on, is to use a hole punch.

3. Draw and cut template for the seahorse. Stick two pieces together using a glue gun. Sew decorative lines on the tummy of the seahorse using back-stitching. Add googly eyes to the seahorse.

4. Glue the blue wavy felt onto the white felt and start assembling the cover. Arrange all items according to your liking and make necessary adjustments before you start glueing everything permanently.

5. Get another piece of felt to act as the inside of the cover. Using blanket stitch, attach both the outside and the inside of the cover together. Ta-daah, it's now all done!

6. Similarly, sew two piece of felt together using blanket stitch as the back of the book cover.

The quiet book is almost complete now! Do look out for my next post on page finishing and book compilation. :D

Baby V Turns One Today!

My little bundle of joy is one today! I can't believe how time flies and how much she's grown from a tiny baby into a young lady of her own now. I've always wanted to do a smash cake photoshoot as a way to celebrate and remember her first birthday. The planning starts from researching photography ideas from the internet, making her tutu dress, making all the decorations, making the smash cake, and finally taking the actual photos! It's a huge relieve that all these are done now and the results of M's photos were actually quite satisfying. Hehe.

The photo-shooting process was tiring but fun. I had to make all sorts of monkey face, together with dancing and singing in order to catch Baby V's attention, while her daddy snaps away photos. All was well except for one thing: Baby V has no intention to smash the cake at all. In fact, she is kinda scared of the cake, making noises EVERY single time I try to move it closer to her. And M jokingly interpreted her reaction as: gosh, she is frightened by the ugly cake! Geez, I was like really? Teasing my effort to make the cake look pretty? Duh...

Anyway, in order for the photos to look nice, I still tried to coax her into tasting the cake. She only started licking frosting off her fingers after I dabbed some on her hand and cheek. And thats all. If I move the cake any closer, she'll crawl away from it, OR cry. You can only imagine how difficult it is to capture nice photos of babies. >.<

The photoshoot was time-consuming since I prepare everything from scratch, but let me tell you, the fun is really worth the effort! Give it a try with your little one! Ah, before I forget, you'll need some pretty hard-core floor cleaner if you plan to do something like this too. I mopped the floor three times to remove the greasiness. Not fun at all. LOL.

Lastly, while M hasn't been kind by saying that the ugly cake terrified his daughter, I still want to thank him for playing along with me to capture the moments of her first birthday! :P So here goes, Baby V's smash cake photos! Happy birthday little one! Mummy loves you to the moon and back! :D

She's got a good mood as we started the photoshoot right after her nap. <3

Mummy was singing the "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands" song. LOL.

Here comes the cake. OK, I know, she doesn't look amused. :P

Baby V: Why is that "thing" so near me? Can someone take it away already?! T_T

Baby V: Umh, OK, so this is something that I can eat huh?

Baby V: Hmm... That tastes pretty decent. :P

RELATED POSTS:
Foolproof Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
DIY No Sew Tutu Dress for Tiny Humans

Foolproof Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Why exactly is the cake foolproof? Because it's so easy to make that the cake batter is ready for baking in no more than 30 minutes. And well, because I was quite satisfied with the pretty decent outcome (or so I thought :P), considering the fact that the last time I baked and frosted a cake was about 2 years ago. Haha. >.< This time around, I made this cake for Baby V's first birthday smash cake photoshoot. The best part of the cake? It's almost sugar-free. The cake itself is sugar-free, but the cream cheese frosting contains sugar. I consider it OK to let Baby V indulge in a little sugar since its her first birthday photoshoot. :P If you are planning to make your own birthday cake for your little one, don't miss this recipe! Trust me, it's not that difficult to pull off!

Before I start with the ingredient list, did I mention that no electric mixer is actually needed to make the cake? One thing less to wash! Hehe. Although you do need it for the frosting later. :P

Ingredients for carrot cake:

250g self-rising flour

350g coarsely grated carrot

300ml vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Ingredients for cream cheese frosting:

250g cream cheese (equals to a stick of Tatura cream cheese)

110g unsalted butter (I didn't weigh it, roughly equals to half a stick of butter)

150g powdered sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180^oC. Grease a 7 inch springform cake tin (I used an 8 inch but the cake came out not tall enough >.<) with some oil and dust it with some flour. Shake off excess flour. I prefer this method over lining-the-cake-tin-with-parchment-paper method because I find it difficult to actually cut and line "curly" paper around the cake tin. >.< But its entirely up to you, so long the cake comes off easily later. :P
2. Mix flour and cinnamon powder thoroughly in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk egg and oil together. Stir in grated carrot.
4. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, stirring it until just combined. You don't want to overdo it as this will cause the cake to rise less later.
5. Pour cake batter into the prepared cake tin. Bake at 180^oC for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
6. Once the cake is cool, scrap the sides and remove the cake from the tin.
7. To make the frosting, beat cream cheese, butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. The amount of sugar I added was sweet enough for me, but you can adjust it to your liking. Just taste it while you beat the frosting. Hehe.
8. It's frosting time! Cut cake into 2 layers. Spread frosting on top of a layer. Then top it with another layer. Spread one smooth layer of frosting on top and on the side of the cake. 

If you are only doing simple frosting as mentioned, the amount of frosting created from the recipe above is enough. However, if you plan to kononnya (can somebody tell me already what's this Malay word in English? LOL) do a "rosy" frosting like what I did, you'll need at least 1.5 stick of Tatura cream cheese and 1 stick of butter. Why? Because I did not make enough frosting and ended up only frosting half the sides of the cake. LOL. >.< But it's still OK, one side of the cake is all that is needed for photography purpose. Haha. Anyway, if won't be nice to serve a cake like that in an actual birthday party with guests, no? LOL.

This is how the cake looks like from the outside.

Busted! Note the side of the cake that is not frosted with roses! LOL. :P

Now if you plan to do a "rosy" frosting, you'll need some extra tools, including a piping nozzle, a piping coupler and a piping bag. You can get all these from your local baking supplies store. Here's the thing about frosting, it gets all soft and runny after a while of piping due to the warmth of our hand. So what do you do with it? Pop the entire bag into the freezer for 15 minutes! The frosting is now cool and firm enough again for piping! :D

Most importantly, don't forget to buy a cake base, a.k.a. the aluminium wrapped thingy to place the cake before you start frosting the cake. I DIY the decorative banner using disposable chopsticks, coloured paper, string, and cellophane tape. Happy baking! :D





RELATED POSTS:
Baby V Turns One Today!
DIY No Sew Tutu Dress for Tiny Humans

Buttermilk Prawn

This is my all-time favourite prawn dish! Give it a try if you are a fan of buttermilk prawn too. Hehe. 

Ingredients:

10-12 large prawns, deveined

5 clove garlic, minced

2 stalk curry leaves

2 bird's eye chili

3 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon sugar

Half a can of evaporated milk

Method:

Season prawn with salt and pepper. Heat some oil and fry prawns until it changes colour. Dish prawn and remove excess oil. In the same wok, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic, curry leaves, and chilies. Stir-fry until fragrant, add sugar and prawns and continue frying for 1-2 minutes. Add evaporated milk. Add salt to taste. Once the gravy comes to a boil, the buttermilk prawn is ready to serve with hot rice! Yums!

Sugar-Free Banana Bread Pudding

This recipe is really simple that it takes no more than 10 minutes preparation time. This recipe yields a small banana bread pudding (the diameter of my baking dish measures only about 5 inch, with a 2 inch height).

Ingredient:

2 eggs

250 ml milk

1 tablespoon butter

2 piece sandwich bread, cut into bite size

1 large banana, cut into bite-size

A dash of cinnamon powder

Method:

Grease ramekin/ oven-safe dish with some butter. Place bread and banana in dish. Whisk milk, eggs, butter, and cinnamon powder together until well combined. Pour mixture into dish to coat bread and banana. Bake at 180^oC for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Enjoy! :D

Shrimp Spaghetti with Cream Cheese Tomato Sauce

Hello again! I have not been writing about food for a month now, so let's start with a simple tiny human friendly spaghetti. This time I skipped baby pasta altogether because my almost 1 year old Baby V has recently become a noodle lover, or any food with similar texture. Haha. This recipe yields enough for an adult and a baby. I added a tiny pinch of salt for mummy's portion. :P

Ingredients:

3 clove garlic, minced

1 shallot, minced

3 large tomatoes, chopped into tiny pieces

3-4 tablespoon cream cheese

Handful of shrimps, peeled and deveined

Some mixed herb

Some black pepper

Some olive oil

Spagetti

Method:

Cook spaghetti until al dente. Sauté garlic and shallot in some olive until fragrant. Add shrimps, tomatoes, mixed herb, and black pepper. Add some water if the sauce is too dry. Stir cream cheese into the sauce until melted. Pour sauce over cooked spaghetti. Bon Appetit! :D