Apple Cinnamon Pancake

Is your tiny human bored with plain pancakes? If the answer is yes, then you might need a pancake upgrade like what I did for Baby V. Haha. This recipe yields about five small pancakes. 

Ingredients:

3 eggs

5-6 tablespoon plain flour

1 small apple, peeled and grated

A tiny pinch of baking powder

A dash of cinnamon powder (I used store bought ones because I have yet to figure out how to grind my own, haha)

Method:

Mix egg and grated apple. Add flour and continue mixing. Start with 5 tablespoon flour. Add more flour if the batter is too runny. Mix in baking powder and cinnamon powder. Scoop batter onto a heated pan. Brown pancake on both sides. Serve warm.

OK, this is not the best looking pancake but I promise it tastes really good. The grated apple and cinnamon powder gives the pancake a nice aroma! Try this recipe and look forward to a moist, fruity and yummy pancake! :D

Oh, and this is cheeky Baby V enjoying her pancake! Hehe.

Quite Book Page: Peek-A-Boo Crab

This is a cute peek-a-boo page that sure delights tiny humans. Let's get started!

1. Draw and cut template. Cut all the parts of the crab. Four pieces of arms are needed because I made each crab arms in two layers of felt.

2. Sew one side of the a snap fastener onto a piece of arm cut out. Cover the stitches by sticking another piece of arm onto that arm. Next, blanket stitch around the arm. Repeat the steps to create another arm and this is what you'll get.

3. Using a glue gun, stick a piece of beige cut-out to the page so that it resembles the seabed. Glue the crab body and eyes to the quiet book page.

4. Sew the other side of the snap fastener onto the crab body. Stitch the smile of the crab using white embroidery threads. I used back-stitch for the smile.

5. Now that the crab body is ready, attach the arms and start playing peek-a-boo! :D

Hand-pulled Pan Mee

Meal time has been a struggle with Baby V lately although I tried to give her a variety of food. She is no longer interested in feeding herself broccoli "trees", sweet potatoes, or cucumber slices. The list goes on, and worst still, she rejects oats and porridge, no matter what I cook them with, be it fish, chicken or pork. All she does is push out all the food using her tiny tongue after taking one or two spoonfuls. I've tried everything possible to make her more interested in her food: meal times together, offering finger food, offering a spoon that she can play with while I try to feed her, and yet, nothing works. The last time I checked, there isn't sign of her 6th tooth erupting yet so I am a bit lost at what I should do for her to take more food. 

Perhaps she is bored with her usual food and is actually asking for a food upgrade? LOL. So this is one of my attempts to upgrade her food. Give this recipe a try if your baby is on a food strike too! Baby V likes her pan mee a lot that she actually open her mouth to ask for more feeds! I usually add a bit of salt to the pan mee dough but since this is a baby friendly recipe, I omitted salt this time. This recipe yields more than enough for two adults and a baby.

Ingredients for pan mee dough:

10-12 tablespoon all purpose flour 

1 egg

100 ml water

Ingredients for soup base:

2 shallots, chopped

A handful of anchovies, soaked and washed
3 mushrooms, halved 

Some minced pork

Some leafy green vegetable

Method:

Make a well in the middle of the flour and crack an egg inside. Mix everything together and add water. You might want to start with 10 tablespoon flour first and knead the dough until it does not stick to your hand. If it is sticky, add more flour. Knead for 10 minutes. Cover the dough with a cling wrap or a damp cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes. 

While waiting for the dough to be ready, stir fry anchovies and shallots until fragrant, add hot water (about 1 litre is enough for 2 big bowls of soup), and cook the soup base over low fire for 20 minutes. Remove anchovies and shallots from the soup by using a colander. Add minced meat and mushroom. Continue cooking for 5 minutes.

Once the dough is ready, divide the dough into smaller portions. Hand stretch the dough into random shape and drop it into the boiling soup. Add veggies and cook for a short while before serving. This is Baby V's version with tiny pan mee and chopped veggies.

Once I am done with Baby V's version, I added salt and pepper to the soup base for the adult version. The pan mee dough is also hand-pulled and cooked in the same way, except in bigger pieces. Bon appetit!

Alternatively, if you are not a fan of hand-pulled pan mee, you can opt to cut the dough into noodle shape. Just dust some flour, roll the dough flat, dust more flour, fold over the flat dough, and cut them up with a knife. Easy-peasy!

Cream Cheese Pancake

Thinking what to make with cream cheese? This is one of the many recipes you can try with cream cheese! Yes, cream cheese pancake! :D

Ingredients:

60g cream cheese (I don't really weigh it, just roughly cut a quarter of a stick of Tatura cream cheese)

2 eggs

4 tablespoon multipurpose flour

A tiny pinch of baking powder

Method:

Mash cream cheese with a fork at leave it at room temperature for 10 minutes or so to let it melt a bit. Add egg, mix thoroughly and mash up large cheese clumps. Add flour and baking powder. Stir until well mixed. Heat some oil and scoop batter onto pan. Brown on both sides. There you go, nice and fluffy cream cheese pancake!

This recipe makes about 4 small pancakes. Adjust ingredients accordingly if you wish to make more. For big humans, sprinkle a bit of sugar, squeeze some lemon juice, and the oh-so-delicious pancake is ready to serve!

Quiet Book Page: Sliding Fish & Lift-the-Flap Oyster Pages

I'm finally back with more updates on my "Under the Sea" quiet book pages! Since this two pages are continuous, I am going to do the step-by-steps here together.

1. Draw and cut all patterns needed. These include coral, fish, eyes, and oyster.

2. There are four red fish cut-outs and two orange fish cut-outs.

3. Cut short strips of ribbon and lightly burn the raw edges to prevent fraying. Sew ribbons onto the back of the fish as shown in picture. Stick the front and the back of the fish together using a glue gun.   Next, attach the eyes of the fishes. Sew the pieces together for reinforcement if desired. 

4. Glue two piece of oyster cut-outs (beige colour) together and hand-sew the decorative stitches. Glue the inside of the oyster (pink colour) onto the back of the oyster (dark brown). Then, sew a pearl bead (faux pearl, of course, haha) and your oyster is almost ready.

5. Cut two piece of "seabed".

6. Run a ribbon through the back of the fishes to create "slides".

7. Arrange all items for the page to get a rough idea of how the page will look like later.

8. Stick both ends of the "slides" onto the pages, one end on one page.

9. Using a glue gun, stick all other items onto the pages so as to cover up the ends of the ribbon.

10. Hand-sew the bottom of the shell (I sew mine to resemble a mini oval shape as shown in picture) onto the oyster to create a flap.

Yay! The pages is now ready for binding! Stay tuned for my future post on how to bind quiet book pages together!

Annoying Questions over Chinese New Year

OK, this is the 4th day of Chinese New Year. Not that there's anything special about this day, but I figured it's time to congratulate all first time mummies like me for making it this far. And why is that so? Because it's kinda annoying to defend what's good for the little ones when it comes to the so-called Chinese New Year goodies and breastfeeding. Sounds familiar, no? Haha, high-five if you experienced any of the below these few days:

1. "Har? No formula at all ar? She will not be full lar..."

Errr... what makes you think I will starve my kid?

2. "Last time we all wake up very early in the morning to boil water etc and make formula milk for our kids, not like her, she just breastfeed only..."

Errr... it's just 7am plus? It's not like I slept till 10am plus or something on Chinese New Year. Seriously, you really need to make me sound like a lazy mother? And mind you, I can hear you from the room.

3. "Going breakfast with your friend and bringing baby too? See, thats why la, fully breastfeed so must stick with the mummy all the time, other people cannot help to babysit"

Errr...I happily bring her everywhere without any complains, so why should you? Most important of all, leaving her behind to take the risk of her being fed with god-knows-what when I am not around? NO, thank you! LOL.

4. "Har? Cannot have packet drinks meh?"

Errr... no, cannot. Why? Because she is 10 months old, not 10 years old. Make sense right? Sigh~

5. "Give her some cakes la, it's soft what. Why cannot? Must be because the mummy says cannot..."

Errr... yes, the mummy says cannot. So? Does that makes me a control freak or a dictator? Well, you do make me feel like one.

6. "Poor baby! Cannot have any Chinese New Year goodies at all while the mummy happily eats away..."

OK, how many times do we need to go over this? I won't starve my kid. And again, for god's sake, she is only 10 months old! Geez, what am I suppose to do? Feed her prawn crackers? Or bak gwa?

OK la, I didn't answer to any of these questions actually. I can only wish that I did. Haha. But, it won't be nice if I say it straight to your face like "you can feed your kids anything as much as you like, but puh-lease, let me decide for my kid", right? So, I tried not to offend anyone by playing dumb and deaf ALL THE TIME. And, I can't recall how many times I tried hard not to make this face, ya know? LOL.

Image source: memegenerator.net

Let's not treat this as a rant, but funny comments that I bet many of us can relate to. To all mummies out there, you are doing a great job trying to give your babies the best. Chin up, and just LOL to random comments people like to give. Keep calm and have a jolly Chinese New Year! :P

Happy Chinese New Year!

Here's Baby V wishing everyone a new year that's blessed with good health, good luck, and good fortune! :D

5 Healthy Road Trip Snacks for Babies

It's that time of the year again, a.k.a. the Chinese New Year balik kampung season! Today I've pick five of my personal favourite road trip snacks for tiny humans to share with you! Mine is close to 10 months old when we hit the road this Saturday. If you are having a 4-5 hours road trip like me, I hope this post is just in time to give you some idea on choosing snacks for your little ones.

1. Sliced cucumber
This is on the top of my list because all I need to do is peel a cucumber, slice them thinly, put into a container, and I'm good to go! Japanese cucumbers are more preferable since the seeds are smaller and therefore, more baby-friendly. Best of all, the chances of sliced cucumber staining your little ones' clothes, or the car seat for that matter, is close to zero! :D

2. Sliced Sengkuang/ yam bean
I've just learn a new word writing this post because I tried to Google what's sengkuang in English. Haha. It can be sliced thinly as snacks for babies and if you are travelling with toddlers, it can be cut into matchsticks since they can chew better. This too, is a stain-free snack but it probably takes a little more effort to find it in supermarkets (that explains why I don't have it in my photo? I've been searching for days, to no avail, sobs).

3. Steamed Daikon/ white radish
This comes third in my list because it requires steaming. Slice them thinly, and steam it for 5-10 minutes and there you go, another stain-free healthy baby snack! Haha.

4. Banana
If your road trip takes longer than 5-6 hours then the previously mentioned snacks are probably not suitable due to freshness issue and this is where banana comes handy. Peel it anytime, anywhere and your baby's snack is ready!

5. Mandarin orange
With Chinese New Year just around the corner, I bet many of us already have a ton of mandarin orange stuffed in our fridge! So don't miss out this fuss-free peel on-the-go snack for your baby! Just make sure the oranges are cleaned thoroughly before peeling it for your tiny human.

Happy Chinese New Year and happy holiday peeps!