The gobbler

At 7 months old, our littlest has quite the appetite.

Sure, we started off shaky with avocado, (see here), but he has since graduated to greater (and yummier) things.

To date, he's tried brown rice cereal, avocados, spinach, pumpkin, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, apples, pears, bananas, plums, carrots, potatoes and broccoli.

I'd steam the veggies/fruits using an electric steamer, blend it using a hand blender, and then freeze it in baby cubes.

(Top to bottom): Spinach, pears and carrots

Sweet potato puree, ready to be frozen

Here's a video of him gobbling up broccoli puree.

Love my little foodies!

Connor's first foods

We gave Connor a taste of his first semi-solid food (avocado) last weekend. The verdict? A mixture of shock and horror! Here's the video!

PS: Yes we were laughing, but it was just too funny ;)

The Adventures of the lizard family... and Kueh Salat

Some time ago, I decided to make Kueh Salat.

I've always loved this Nonya Kueh. The top Kaya layer is especially yummy and as a kid, I always ate the top first, and tried to give away the bottom layer of glutinous rice.

So I found this recipe online, and thought, well, how hard could it be?

Turns out that this Kueh was supposedly quite difficult to make, according to my mom and my boss.

So one Thursday morning, I started out the day by soaking the glutinous rice.

I put the rice and water in the rice cooker, and placed a plastic cover over it. The plastic cover had small holes in it. The recipe called for the rice to be soaked for several hours or overnight, so I left it as it was.

Turned out to be quite a busy day for us.

The contractor came over to help us fix up some stuff in our bathrooms.

By the time everything was done, it was about 3 in the afternoon.

We decided to go for a movie, some shopping and dinner. And I made a mental note to make the Kueh when we came back that evening.

When we got back, Ewan went to shower and I went to check on the rice.

I lifted the cover, gave a squeek and RAN OUT OF THE KITCHEN.

OH MY GOSH THERE WAS A HUGE LIZARD IN THE POT!!

AND A LITTLE ONE ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER, PROBABLY WAITING FOR HIS MOM!

How long the big one had been soaking in the rice I had no idea. I couldn't believe it actually squeezed in through the holes of the cover.

And the little one... oh man I was feeling so sad for it waiting for its mom (I think the pregnancy hormones were playing a part here), but at the same time, it was a LIZARD. I couldn't believe I was feeling that way about a LIZARD.

No pics here cos there was no way I was going back to the kitchen, and Ewan said he thought a photo would traumatize me even more so he spared me that.

So in short, Ewan finished his shower, helped me clean up my pot of rice, saved the lizards and there was no Kueh Salat that evening.

He said the soaking lizard was visibly tired and was using his tail to prop himself up above the water. URGH.

I did try again a couple of days later (with a new batch of rice of course, doubly sealed when soaking) and am proud to report that the Kueh was a success and there were no more adventures with lizards.

Wanton Mee and Mango Pudding!

Made dinner again tonight!

I'm really starting to like cooking. The stuff I try is awfully simple, but there's nothing like the sense of satisfaction when the food starts to look like... well what it's supposed to look like. And even better when it tastes decent :)

If mel can cook...

I recently tried my hand at making Shui Jiao, or Chinese pork, prawn and chive dumplings.

Here's how it turned out...



Ewan said they were great, so I hope it really was!

In other news, here's the beef we bought from our New Zealand trip, together with mashed potatoes, and sauteed onions and mushrooms.


Yum!

Christmas 2010

It's been one of the best years of my life.

2010 was the year we got married, got our first place and found out we're having our first kid.

We also spent our first Christmas together as a married couple.

Christmas Eve, we had a dinner at Aunty Mimi's place, where we had a grand time with the usual Christmas fare (clam chowder soup and roast beef!!), as well as playing with the two cutie kids.


Then we headed for Midnight Mass at our Church. Will probably one of our last midnight Masses for a few years as Christian (yes that's the lil' one's name!) comes along next May!

Following that, we headed to the MSC Christmas party and ate and ate till 4am and almost exploded. Gosh, stretch marks, pls stay hidden!

When we got home, it was time to open each other's presents.

My dear husband had wrapped his camera in a shoe box - loaded of picutres of clues as to where to find my presents!

So at 5 something in the morning, I was hunting and digging in living room, bedrooms, bomb shelter, you get the idea. And I was grandly rewarded for my efforts. Thanks for ALL the presents dear, I loved them!



We slept a few more hours and then headed to Aunty Lillian's place for Christmas Lunch! More eating! And the kids went crazy with Ewan, as they suddenly decided he was Satay and they 'barbequed' him on the grill, chopped him up and served him to the rest of us. Yummy!




After that we headed over to the club to pick up the 4.5kg Turkey for our Christmas dinner with my Mom's side of the family. It was cool cos my grandma and aunts were coming over to our new place for the first time, and they really liked it. We also opened the rest of our presents and I'm really glad we got something for everyone - just made the whole season of giving feel so nice and warm.















































Boxing day came and after chilling and lazing around in the afternoon, we went for Evening Mass and then to Shireen's place for some INCREDIBLE Indian food. Goodness, I think I had never tasted such awesome Nasi Bryani, Butter Chicken and Naan in my life. To top it off there was also Lasagna and Mudpie.



The food was great, but most of all, it was the joy and love shared among family and friends that makes Christmas what it is.


The best way to celebrate the birth of our Lord. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Pasta and Other Yummy Things

Some time ago I cooked Seafood Marina Pasta for dinner.

It's kind of similar to the previous Aglio Olio post - used the same seafood of mussells, fish and prawns.

Oh and don’t think I’m using one of those bottled Prego sauces... I can actually hand-make sauces from scratch now =)

For the Marinara, I threw in tons of diced tomatoes, stired it up with onions, garlic, and a bunch of herbs like basil and parsley.

Put in a bit too much chilli flakes, but I guess if you like things spicy it'd be okay.

Next up... Chicken Teriyaki Pasta!

Well that's what it was supposed to be anyway.

The chicken was marinated through with the teriyaki sauce, but there was too little sauce left for the pasta.

So I just cooked it with Olive oil and garlic, mushrooms, and some capsicums.

And there you have it, Chicken Teriyaki... plus pasta!

Finally, some thing which I absolutely love - Cheese baked Mussells!

I buy the frozen ones from New Zealand, they usually cost about 12 bucks for a box of about 50.

Dump a little tomato pasta sauce on it, coat with grated chedder cheese, and bake.

I usually baked it till the cheese gets crusty cos that's how I like it, but recently I tried baking it for a shorter period of time, and I find the results even better.

The cheese is chewwier and the mussells aren't as tough. Delicious!

Aglio Olio Seafood Pasta!

I absolutely love it when my boyfriend tries something I cook and says, "Mmm I could eat this everyday!"

That's what he said when I cooked this pasta dish some time ago.

The recipe's a combination of several I found online.

Here are some pics!









What you see is actually the remnants of the dinner.

I actually forgot to take photos, till Ewan reminded me, and we quickly tried to arrange whatever was left so it wouldn't look too measly.

I'm not that much of a cook, so this was really easy to whip up.

• First heat some olive oil and garlic with chopped parsley.
• Add some pepper and salt and chilli flakes.
• I also threw in some sliced shitake mushrooms.
• Then dump the seafood in - I used fish fillets, prawns and mussels. Would've used squid if I had some!
• Squeeze about half a lemon into whatever's in the pot.
• Then add the pasta - which should've been cooked earlier. Fettucine or Linguine's great!
• Mix it all up and serve!

Yummy! My parents said it was good too! =)

Going to cook some Seafood Marinara tonight, so I'll blog about that soon.

Jogging Seems Easier Now

I've been jogging these past few weeks.

Typically I'd start around 8 or so in the evening, when the weather's nice and cool, jog for about half an hour, then head back to cook a yummy dinner.

I remember how I hated doing my 2.4km runs in Secondary school and JC. It was always THE item in the NAPFA tests that I dreaded the most.

2.4 km = 6 rounds around the track, which never seemed to end.

So much to my surprise, I found out that my current favourite jogging route is just about that same distance!

This pretty cool tool on google helps map out distances - which is particularly useful for joggers.

It can be found at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

Such a great motivation to go jogging!

Only thing is, I made a slight detour tonight, which led me past Chomps... ahh the wonderful wafts of oh lua and fried hokkien mee! =)