Apple pancake and beet root pancake

apple pancake

beet root pancake 

Phin Zhe loves pancake. So I have tried to make all sort of pancakes, banana pancake, pandan pancake, avacado pancake, sweet potatoes pancake, pumpkin pancake....everything you can think of and you can't think of, I put them in pancake. I have posted easy pancake recipes that does not require flour and baking powder. But this time I am going to share my normal pancake recipe that uses flour and baking powder.

Ingredients:
130g or 1 cup flour
1tsp aluminium free baking powder
1-2 tbsp brown sugar
1 egg
puree of your choice(1 apple blended into juice or 1 beet root blended into juice)
extra water

Method:
1. Mix flour and baking powder together. Sift twice.
2. Beat egg and brown sugar until sugar dissolved.
3. Add in puree and mix well.
4. Add in flour and mix well. Add more water if require. Do not overmix.
The batter should not be too thick or too diluted. Try to scoop a spoon and let it flow back to the bowl. It should be slow but smooth.
5. Let the batter sit for 15 minutes.
6. Heat pan with a little bit of oil.
6. Scoop 2 tbsp of batter into the pan, use the back of the spoon to spread it out. 7. Fry both sides and continue with second piece of pancake.
8. Continue until the batter finish. In between, add some oil to the pan if needed.
9. I like to serve my pancake with manuka honey. :)

Notes:
1. I added 1tsp cinammon to my apple pancake. But it is optional.
2. After I pan fry Phin Zhe's beet root pancake, I added 1tsp cocoa powder and turned our's to red velvet pancake.

Wild mushroom soup and Pumpkin soup

I have cooked these 2 soups almost every week since Phin Zhe is one year old. I started with basic ingredients which are safe for Phin Zhe. As he grow bigger, I have fine tuned the recipes many times and I am quite happy with them now.

Wild mushroom soup:
1. Stir fry 1tbsp of minced garlic in 1tbsp of ghee until fragrant.
2. Add in 1 pack of fresh white or brown button mushroom slice.
3. Cook over medium heat until water release from mushroom and start to dry up
4. Add in 1 medium potato cubes and water to cover.
5. Bring to boil and simmer for 15mins or until the food is soft.
6. Use a handheld blender to blend it until smooth. Add water if needed.
7. Season with sea salt, black pepper and herbs(i like fresh thyme. if not, i will sprinkle some dried italian mixed herbs.

Pumpkin soup:
This is even simpler.
1. Put pumpkin cubes, sweet potato cubes and carrot cubes in a pot with just enough water to cover them.
Pumpkin:Sweet Potatoe:Carrot=4:1:1. Just a guideline, dun have to be exact.
2. Bring the water to boil and add in a medium onion, peeled and cut four.
3. Simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes or until the food is soft.
4. Use a hand blender to blend until smooth.Add water if needed.
5. Season with some black pepper.

These soups are good with everything on the breakfast table. Last weekend, I served it with wholemeal sourdough toast that has home made garlic spread on it. This is what I called good breakfast. ;)

Breakfast plate #3

This morning, I cooked breakfast for the family instead of serving bread again. But Phin Zhe woke up late so I packed his breakfast for him to eat in daycare. Breakfast menu is cheesy scrambled egg, olive oil rosemary potatoes and bell pepper, fresh tomato slice.

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. 

Breakfast plate #2

Every weekend, I will try to do more cookings, especially dishes that I dun hv the luxury to cook on weekdays. Breakfast for this Saturday was avacaodo banana rolls and pink guava.

Crepe - 200g flour, 1 egg and enough water to form the batter.

Avacado Banana Spread - 1 avacado, 2 medium banana

Pink Guava - just wash and cut

Breakfast plate #1

Good morning Sunday.


 Finally I can cooked a breakfast plate that all of us can eat. My boy is 15.5mo now.

The breakfast plate has

 1. cheese omelette
Add Kerrygold cheddar cheese flakes when the egg is almost ready and fold it in pan.

2. steamed baby asparagus

3. Potatoes and white button mushroom side
Stir fry mushroom slices in Purity Farms ghee oil until fragrant, then mix in steamed potato cubes.

4. Dried cranberries
I love sweet treat, so it is more for me. :)

We also have a bowl of papaya cubes which I did not able to snap a photo. Breakfast with toddler is always messy. ;) Nice breakfast always make my day. Lovely sunday morning.

Pumpkin Steamed Bun

 

Ingredients: 300g unbleached flour, 70g steamed n mashed pumpkin puree, 1tsp active dried yeast dissolved in 70ml luke warm water, 1tbsp brown sugar and 1tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Mix all ingredients, knead until a non sticky dough is formed. Add more flour if too sticky. Cover n leave aside until almost double in size. I left it for 2 hours. Roll out to thin rectagular piece. Roll like swiss roll. Cut into desired size. Leave for another 20mins. Steam with medium heat for 15mins. Turn off heat, keep lid close for another 3mins. Open the lid and you have just made yr family healthy mantou. :) Can easily substitude pumpkin to other ingredients like purple sweet potato etc.



Now we are making mantou almost every weekends. We will freeze some and let baby Phin Zhe have it at nanny's place during weekdays. Will share more mantou recipes when i have time. :)

Easiyo Biolife Fruit Yogurts

I have to admit that I am a super rigid mom. When baby Phin Zhe was below 1 year old, I did not give him any processed food, that includes yogurt, cheese, bean curd(toufu) or even bread. After his 1 year old birthday, I slowly introduce some of the processed food to him, one of it is yogurt.

With enough research done, I have decided to give him home made Easiyo Biolife Organic Yogurt with fresh fruits. One pack of easiyo sachet makes about 1litre yogurt. For small family like us, it lasted about 5 days. One serving size is about the two glasses in the pictures below.

Since the yogurt is unsweetened, each time I will mix with some blended fruits and then top with fruit cubes. I serve it as dessert in the afternoon or evening as I do not want to serve something cold for breakfast at this age yet. We love it, the taste is so natural and fresh. I asumme baby Phin Zhe loves it too because he will stay with me and ask for more. :)


The first day I tried with mango. The texture was very close to the yogurt in the market, not too thick or too watery.


Second day was Phin Zhe's favourite, strawberry yogurt. The strawberries were very juicy so it turned out more like smoothies. But it was still yummy.


The third day we had papaya yogurt. I guess the papaya cubes was too much. So it was more like papaya with yogurt. But again, it was a hit.

The fourth day and fifth day we had banana yogurt and kiwi yogurt which I did not take photo. Will post it next round.

What is your favourite yogurt flavours? Or you have any suggestion for yogurt flavours? Tell me. :)

Oatmeal Banana Pancake

Oatmeal Banana pancake, or I used to call it pancake ABCD which means this recipe only call for 4 ingredients, banana, eggs, rolled oat and VCO. Simple right? If you want some texture just mash everything except VCO, if you want smooth texture just blend everything except VCO. Then brush yr pan with VCO, scoop some of the mixture to the pan, spread out, cook both sides. Repeat until all the mixture is finished. Serve it.

I used 4 bananas, 4 eggs, 3tbsp rolled oat and that served 2 adults and a 14mo boy. This recipe is good because all the ingredients is so healthy. Google for benefits of VCO. And nno milk, no baking powder or baking soda or butter is needed. I can serve this for breakfast or tea break regularly without feeling guilty.

 Updated on 2 March 2013
 This time I soaked the rolled oat in eggs(left in picture), then I mashed the banana, did not blend like last round(right in picture). This time the pancake have more texture. I prefer this texture. :)

Updated 18 May 2013 I still cook this very often, almost once a week. And now I have adjusted it to the texture that we like. Just play with the 3 ingredients, egg, oat and banana. Simple and yet so delicious.

Western Breakfast

What is your favorite Sunday breakfast or brunch? I believe many would fancy a western breakfast, some even wish for a full England breakfast which include fruit juice, cereal, a plate of fry-up, toast and a cup of coffee or tea.

Full England breakfast is too heavy to me. Normally I prefer to cook a plate of all my favorites for a non-working day's breakfast. Yes, the best thing of preparing your own breakfast is you could get rid of what you dislike and cook just everything you like. :)


Starting a lovely morning with fried egg with perfectly done egg yolk(sprinkle some pepper on top), mashed potatoes(russet potatoes mixed with milk, salt and pepper), fresh lettuce, toast with butter, back bacon and jumbo sausage. Get the good quality bacon and sausage. You won't regret. It is going to make the whole plate different.


My plate, with a cup of espresso

Toast with Cheese and Bacon

It was a very busy and contented weekend. On Saturday morning, I went for Jusco Day and spent the rest of the day for rebonding in hair saloon. Then on Sunday morning, I went to Jusco again and later was picked up by a friend to have lunch in town. I also met up with my mum for a few hours. And at night, it was two hours of badminton game. Time flies, but weekend seems to fly faster. :p

I only managed to do some light cookings. For the uncompleted list, I guess I have to push them out to next weekend. Do not worry, I still remember that I need to do a peanut jam post. ;) But now let me share with you my breakfast today. I have toast with cheese and bacon this morning. The melted cheese and the bacon smell are too good that I am craving for another piece. :)

Toast with Cheese and Bacon:
1. Preheat the oven.
2. Spread the bread with butter and top with a slice of cheese.
3. Place the bread into the oven. (I used 220 degree celcious)
4. Grill the bacon(I used back bacon) with a non stick pan.
5. Remove the bread from the oven and place the bacon on top of the cheese.
6. Enjoy.

10-grain rice(十谷米）

I have been drinking 10-grain rice these day, mostly for breakfast. The 10-grain rice, oat and brown sugar were from the organic shop. Nowadays I go for organic food whenever it is possible. I am kind of lazy to explain the benefit of 10-grain rice. When I restock, I will remember to capture the package and post it. By the way, if you do not have such blender, you could also cook it as porridge.


10-grain rice, oat and pandan leaves.


Place all ingredients in the blender and add brown sugar according to your taste.


2 minutes of blending


In 2 minutes time, a very healthy glass of drink is ready for breakfast.

Banana Pancake

Original recipe is from Home Cooked Recipe, but I did make some notes after the cooking session. I did not mean your recipe is no good, ok? ;)

1. I do not keep self raising flour. Most of time I substitute it with normal flour + baking powder. Ratio is roughly 150g flour and 2 tablespoon baking powder.

2. Do not cut down quantity on the banana. If you think your banana is smaller than medium size, use 4 bananas to be safe.

3. No need to worry about the sugar. If it is not sweet enough, serve the banana pancake with honey. It is a perfect match.

4. I used non stick pan instead of griddle. It worked as well.

5. This recipe can make 5 normal size pancakes, good enough for 3-4 person.

Bak Gua Sandwich

Last two pieces of CNY Bak Gua(BBQ Pork)....

Prosperity Bag

For 4 days in a row, it was on my breakfast table.
The pita bread was sold 5 in a pack.
Luckily it was good.

I enjoyed filling the bread pocket with all my favourites.
Since I was not preparing for a big group, I could not have a lot of different fillings.(I love varieties.)
The bread pocket was filled with chicken sausage cubes, onion cubes, cheddar cheese and mozarella cheese.
Was it obvious that I tried to finish the cheese in my refrigerator?
I still have parmesan cheese and the Kraft cheese slices in my refrigerator.
Emm...what am I going to do with them?

I placed it in the Oven for 5-10minutes as I like to have it warm, slightly crispy bread and with melted cheese.
Nice breakfast.
But I am not going to have it again any soon.

Turkey Sandwich

I was curious what is the cost for a home made sandwich.

Continental Bakery Grain Bread RM5.50 2 pieces --> RM1.10
Turkey Breast one piece --> RM3.00
Cheese one piece --> RM1.00
Onion --> RM0.10
Boiled Egg 1/2 --> RM0.20
Lettuce --> RM0.60
Butter

RM6.00 for sandwich breakfast. Expensive or cheap?

Taiwan Egg Pancake

As promised, I will post about my second breakfast learnt from 小小米桶.

Not bad. The taste was similar to local pancake and a bit like roti telur.
But I think the pancake was way too thick though I used a lot of pork floss to compensate it.
Drink suggestion is soya bean.

I still have half pack of pork floss left. Will make improvement next time.

Updated:
I made this breakfast again this morning, pork floss and cheese pancake. This round, I made a thinner pancake skin. Taste a lot better than last time! :)

Banana Toast

First, I had to admit that I got this breakfast recipe from 小小米桶. She posted 25 selected breakfasts and they are very tempting. I marked down 2 recipes to be tried last weekend.

The good thing about this recipe is the ingredients can be easily found.
And, I do not need to wake up early as it is very simple to prepare this breakfast.
The bread was pan-fried with eggs and milk while the banana was pan-fried with sugar and butter. Drink suggestion is orange juice.

If you like banana, you will like this banana toast.

Will post the other one tomorrow.

Resident Inn's breakfast

When I wanted to take out my camera from my hand bag, it was not there.
Again, I left it on my office desk.
So, I had no choice but to take photos with my handphone.

I learnt to eat Quaker Oatmeal during my stay in Resident Inn, US.
It is a very healthy breakfast that I want to share with everyone.
Oats contain soluble fiber that binds with and helps remove some of the cholesterol which can clog your arteries and lead to heart disease.
So, why are you still waiting?
Hurry to the hypermarket nearby and grab yourself a pack of Quaker Oatmeal. :)

I prefer the Quaker QuickCook compare to the Quaker Instant even though I need to spend more time cooking the oat.
And, I like to prepare it the way I had it in US.
Fresh milk, brown sugar, raisin, walnut and banana.