Toddler menu #4(at 17mo)

It could be as simple as this, and yet my boy could finish everything in the picture. :)

5 grain porridge - I have changed to another type of 5 grain recently. Previously was 5 grain for babies which have pearl white rice, long grain rice, millet and black rice.  Now it has brown rice, sweet brown rice, millet, barley and buckwheat.

Steamed egg with chicken stock - Whenever I buy and debone DQ clean chicken, I will make chicken stock with the bones or carcass. Chicken stock to egg ratio is 2 to 1, sieve and steam over medium heat for 5 minutes.

Steamed pumpkin cubes - This australia pumpkin is nice even on its own.

Chicken cake - pan fried minced chicken and black fungus with a bit of grape seed oil. The meat portion looks a bit small in the picture as I usually try to cut down meat and fish during weekends, as nanny likes to rotate between fish and meat on weekdays.

Toddler menu #3(at 17mo)

 

Here is an example how I used the same ingredients to cook for both adults and toddler.

Old cucumber chinese red dates soup - no extra seasoning at all

Stir fry carrot and siew pak choy with garlic - toddler version is sliced thinner and cooked longer. Both uses extra virgin olive oil, simmer over low heat. Adult version is lightly salted.

Stir fry shimeji mushroom with minced pork - No seasoning required  for toddler version because ghee is used. For adult, I added some pepper, organic light soy sauce, organic thick soy sauce and simmer with some water. It is also lightly thickened with corn flour before served.

Super soft bread - plain white loaf, cranberries white loaf and raisin wholemeal loaf

My new toy, Panasonic Bread Maker BMS105-T. I will have another post on this Panasonic latest model, hopefully. And in this post, I will share my bread maker recipes experiments.

The first recipe that I picked was super soft white loaf, programme 2, without milk and egg.

Ingredients:
250g unbleached high protein flour
1 tbsp ghee
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp sea salt
180ml cold water
1/2 tsp yeast

And you can see that it turned out to be a very nice loaf! The smell of freshly baked bread filled the entire house.

We waited for 30 minutes(for it to cool down) and cut it into 6 thick slices. Sorry for the lighting. If you see yellow lighting, the bread was done at night. :p It was very soft and fluffy, with the fragrant of ghee. It was even good just on its own. I passed one to the friend who helped me to purchase this bread maker. She likes it and she said she is going to get one bread maker too. :)

Next, I tried white loaf with cranberries, using the same super soft white loaf programme. The ingredients are the same, except I placed 30g of dried cranberries in the dried fruits/nuts dispenser. I was not too generous with the dried cranberries(the dispenser can hold up to 100g, but I only put 30g). But it was not too little too, as you can see from the picture. I passed 1 piece to my colleague and she said it was nice. I hope she was not trying to be polite. :)

Then I tried wholemeal raisin loaf. Same recipe same programme, just substitute 50g unbleached high protein flour to unbleached wholemeal flour. I put more raisin this time, 50g. As expected, wholemeal loaf turned out to be smaller.

The texture was more dense. If you do not like soft fluffy white loaf, then this might suit you. With the raisin, again it can be eaten on its own. I passed 1 piece to my colleague too, but did not receive any feedback from him. Will try to make this wholemeal loaf again as I still have big pack of wholemeal flour.


Next, I will try black sesame loaf and pandan loaf. Wish me luck!

Toddler menu #2(at 16mo)

Just realise that I have only blogged one toddler meal menu so far. It is not easy to take picture with an active toddler around. Even I have decided not to use better camera, but just snap with tab and then make a simple post, it just don't work most of the time. For example today, my boy saw the meesua and he couldn't wait at all. He wanted to grab the plate while I was trying to take picture. :)

So here is a healthy one dish meal for toddlers, and also adults.  The two main ingredients: Alaria and Dulse. These are sea vegetables which have high calcium and iron. I bought Maine Coast which have been tested for chemical, heavy metal and bacteriological pollution. To reduce the cooking time, they need to be soaked. I soaked them for about an hour.

Other ingredients are radish, tofu and shimeji mushroom. Simmer radish, sea vegetables in a bowl of water for 20 minutes. Add in mushroom, simmer for another 5 minutes. Add 1 tbsp of miso paste and tofu. I used Eden organic aged miso. Miso is fermented soy, which is good. But then most non organic soy is gmo. So it is better to get organic miso. Simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes. Serve with cooked meesua.

I always feel good when I am serving healthy food to my boy. My boy loves meesua and soup. So it is not surprised when he kept asking for more.

Purple Sweet Potato Mantou

Well, I am not sure how I am going to blog about this. I don't do measurement when making mantou now. I just remember the dough texture I need to achieve. Then why am i blogging this? A record of my mantou experiments?

Perhaps you can refer to my pumpkin mantou earlier and substitute the pumpkin to purple sweet potato? :) The taste is totally different compare to pumpkin mantou, less sweet and more fragrant. I want to try purple sweet potato bread too, to complete my purple sweet potato series. :p But the problem is I don't see organic purple sweet potato on shelf very often.

Love the light purple color of the mantou. Picture above is the dough waiting to be rolled out and formed into mantou shape. Have been thinking of making duo color mantou, but...I am just lazy.

Purple Sweet Potatoes Steamed Cake

 

 

Normally I can only find orange sweet potatoes in organic shop. It is very rare to have purple sweet potatoes here. So when I spotted it on the shelf in Aeon, I grabbed one pack without a plan what to do with it. After that I started to worry if it can last until weekend. So on a weekday morning, I woke up earlier to make this purple sweet potato steamed cakes for breakfast.

 

Ingredients:

12 tbsp organic unbleached low protein flour
1 tsp organic aluminium free baking powder
1 organic free range egg
2 tbsp organic brown sugar
40ml milk(i used water as I have not introduced dairy to my boy)
1 tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp purple sweet potato puree

Pumpkin seeds for deco

(But then I think white sesame seeds will be nicer. Will try next time.)

 

1. Sift flour and mix with baking powder in a bowl.
2. In another bowl, beat egg and sugar until thicken.
3. Fold in flour mixture and sweet potato puree.
4. Mix in milk and oil
5. Steam over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes.


 

 

 

I love this steamed cake. It has the natural sweetness and fragrant of purple sweet potatoes. Those with pumpkin seeds on top are for adults and those without pumpkin seeds are for my boy(I haven't introduced seeds yet). He woke up quite late and was not ready for breakfast. So I put them in his bento box and let him bring to daycare.