Baby Food - Apple and Carrot Porridge

My babies are fed with savory meat and veggies porridge on weekdays. My 22M girl prefers rice noodle soup than savory porridge. Cooking up a meal for 2 babies pose new challenges, as both have different preference in taste. I was thinking of something else to feed them over the weekend to simulate their taste buds. With the available ingredients, I make a twist to cook up a sweet porridge instead of savory porridge. My girl didn't seem like it, but she still finished up her portion. As for my 11M boy, I fed him the puréed version. Seems like he can accept the taste.

Baby Food - Apple and Carrot Porridge
Serving: 2

Ingredients:
half of a corn, chopped into 2 pieces
5 red dates, rinsed and pitted
2 red apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 8 pieces each
3 ½ tbsp of rice, rinsed half of a carrot, peeled and cut into bite-sized
500ml of hot water

Steps:
1. Add rice, red dates, corn and hot water into slow cooker. Cook for 1 hour.
2. Add carrot and apple. Cook until you get the desired porridge texture.
3. Discard the corn and red dates.
4. Leave the porridge cool down a bit.
5. Mash the apple and carrot and serve together with the porridge.

Baby Food- Fish and Vegetable Porridge

I did a simple statistics on my blog posts. 

My effort on this blog reduced from 120 posts in 2010 to 78 posts in 2011. Then the post dropped tremendously from 78 posts to merely 33 posts in 2012. 

Assume my blogging effort is 100% in year 2010, I sacrificed 35% of my blogging effort on my daughter in year 2011. Again in 2012, additional 37.5% of my blogging effort is delegated to my son. So now at the beginning of 2013, my blogging momentum left only 27.5% compared to 2010. 

In return, I have less readers visiting my blog, I have very less comments in my latest posts. 

Okay, feel free to correct me if my statistic study is wrong. :P 

New year new resolutions. Ahem, my 2013 new year goal is nothing new, but to continue cooking healthy and delicious food for the family of 4. Each meal need to be as simple as possible, and as delicious as possible. Happy New Year 2013 to all my readers! 

To achieve my new resolutions, my first 2013 post is started with this Fish and Vegetable Porridge. It’s so nutritious, right?

 

Baby Food: Fish and Vegetable Porridge 
Serves 2 

Ingredients: 
fish fillet, skinned
4 tbsp of rice, rinsed
carrot, cut into thin strips
choy sum, chopped
hot boiling water

Seasonings (optional): 
half tsp of fried garlic oil

Steps:
1. Add rice and hot water to a small slow cooker. Cook it for 2 hours.
2. Add fish fillet. Once the fish is cooked, dish it out.
3. Add vegetables and cook for 15 minutes.
4. Mash the fish fillet in a bowl. Pour the porridge over the mashed fish fillet. Mix it up with fried garlic oil.
5. Leave it cool for a while and serve warm.

Baby Food - Purple Sweet Potato Millet Porridge 紫番薯小米粥

My girl is facing minor constipation problem. I try my best to add good sources of dietary fiber to her meal. This purple sweet potato porridge may help in digestion, improve her bowels movement and ease the constipation. Don’t panic when you see your baby’s excrement in dark purple color.

Baby Food – Purple Sweet Potato Millet Porridge

Ingredients:
1 ½ tbsp millet, rinsed
50gm purple sweet potato, peeled and cut into pieces
260ml of boiling water (add more if needed)

Steps:
1. Add millet and boiling water to the slow cooker. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes.
2. Add sweet potato. Cook until you get the thickness you want. Add more water if needed.
3. Mash the sweet potato. Leave it cool for a while and serve warm.

Baby Food - Kiwifruit Brown Rice Cereal

This is a scheduled post.

Daddy fed baby kiwifruit while he was having it. Baby kept on approaching her daddy asking for more after tasting it. This is the body language to express her liking to one food. Hence, this weekend, kiwi fruit is added to her diet. It is rich in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, fiber, potassium and folate. It is also contains dietary fiber and antioxidants.

Kiwifruit Brown Rice Cereal

Ingredients: 

5 tbsp of brown rice cereal
hot water (add accordingly)
half of kiwifruit flesh, mashed

Steps:
1. Mixed up brown rice cereal with hot water.
2. Leave it cool for a while.
3. Top up the cereal with kiwifruit.
4. Serve warm.

Spinach and Meat Porridge

This is a scheduled post.
A good way to add iron to baby’s diet is by feeding her spinach. The iron content in this green leafy vegetable is the richest among the others. From the info I got from a program, a newborn baby is having iron in her body through her mother. The iron will be used up for red blood cell production by the time the baby is 6M. So, it’s necessary to add this element to baby’s diet after you start feeding baby solid food since the source of iron in infant formula is no longer able to fulfill her needs. 

Spinach and Meat Porridge 

Ingredients: 

1 tbsp of white rice, rinsed
1 tbsp of millet, rinsed
5 pieces of soft lean pork (you can substitute it with another type of red meat or white meat)
spinach, chopped
200ml hot boiling water

Steps: 

1. Put all the ingredients into a small slow cooker, except the spinach and meat.
2. Add the meat when the porridge starts boiling.
3. 15 minutes before the porridge is ready, add spinach. Stir to mix up all the ingredients. Continue the cooking.
4. Off the power and leave it cool for a while.
5. You can either remove the meat from the porridge before feeding, or retain 1 or 2 pieces of the meat and puree the porridge before feeding.

Baby Food - Blueberry Cereal

Blueberry is suitable for baby who is above 7 months. High in antioxidants, vitamins and fiber, it is referred as "super-food". I introduced blueberry to my girl last week, when she was 10M2W. Blueberry cereal suits her taste buds. The color of blueberry cereal looks attractive too.

Tips for new mum: Introducing one new food at one time. You will need to monitor if your baby is allergic to it. My practice is introducing one new food to baby by weekly basis.

Baby Food - Blueberry Cereal

Ingredients:
4 tbsp of cereal
2 tbsp of infant formula
2 oz of hot water
12 blueberries, rinsed

Steps:
1. Mixed up cereal and infant formula with hot water.
2. Pour the cereal in a blender to blend with the blueberries.
3. Serve warm.

Baby Food- Organic Pumpkin Millet Porridge 金瓜小米粥

This millet porridge was introduced by Wendy. She is very creative in preparing nutritious baby food. I'm a new mum who is still in the progress of discovering food that suits my baby's taste buds. So far, I know she loves red apple, banana, and carrot. She hates potato, yes very much indeed.

My girl at 10 months plus, still not ready to consume the normal savory porridge which is not pureed. She prefers smooth puree that is not too thick. For this pumpkin millet porridge, it is pureed before feeding.

Now a days, my baby is fed on savory meat and veggies porridge on weekdays by my mum, while on weekends, I'll introduce new ingredients to her diet.

Organic Pumpkin Millet Porridge

Ingredients:
2tbsp of organic hulled millet
20gm organic pumpkin flesh
2 cups of water or more (I top up additional water when the water reduce throughout the cooking)

Steps: 
1. Bring water to boil in a saucepan.
2. Add pumpkin and millet. Bring to a boil.
3. Leave it simmers under medium flame. Top up additional water if needed.
4. The porridge will be ready after cooking for about 40 minutes.
5. Leave it cool a bit before feeding baby.

Optional:
Blend the porridge into smooth puree.

Sesame Oil Chicken Rice with Mushroom 麻油香菇鸡饭

This is a recipe I learnt from a Chinese cooking show. The original recipe just consist of sesame oil, ginger, mushroom and rice. I added chicken cube for my version. Sesame oil, ginger, chicken and mushroom are perfect combinations....makes the rice is so fragrant.

I just love this kind of one-pot-dish.  With it, I settle our home cooked meal for Sunday lunch and dinner. And it's not time consuming.  I can save more time to spend with my baby over the weekend.

Sesame Oil Chicken Rice with Mushroom 麻油香菇鸡饭
Serves 5-6

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup of rice, washed
3 thumb-sized of ginger, skinned and chopped
1 chicken breast, cubed
7 dried Shiitake mushroom, dehydrated, stalk removed and cubed
3 tbsp of sesame oil
2 3/4 cups of water

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
4 tbsp of light soy sauce
1/2 tbsp of dark soy sauce
3 tbsp of shao xing wine

Steps:
1.Heat up sesame oil in a wok using low heat. Sauté ginger till fragrant. Do this slowly and prevent over-heating as sesame oil has lower boiling point.
2.Stir in Shiitake mushroom and chicken cube. Stir-fry till chicken cube turn white at all surface.
3.Add seasonings, except the rice wine.
4.Add rice. Stir to mix well with the ingredients.
5.Pour in water and bring to a boil.
6.Transfer all the ingredients into rice cooker and sprinkle with rice wine. Cook it like when you cook white rice.
7.When it’s done the cooking. Keep it warm in rice cooker for another 10 minutes before serving.

Tomato Rice 番茄饭

I’ve been thinking of tomato rice lately. Back in university days, my friends and I used to dine in at a stall near the hostel. A Malay uncle was selling nasi tomato (tomato rice) there. His tomato rice was served with a chicken drumstick and few slices of cucumber. It was the only tomato rice I tried.

One day, while chatting with a Malay friend on a cooking topic, I brought up a question to her on how to cook tomato rice. She taught me on the steps and ingredients, I memorized it, shopped for ingredients that evening, and cooked it on the next day. My friend’s recipe calls for evaporated milk and coconut milk, but I substituted it with creamer powder instead. The outcome? I got very fragrant and moist tomato rice to serve with air-fried chicken chop, vegetarian mutton curry and Japanese cucumber slices. It’s delicious!

Tomato Rice

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:

2 cups of rice, rinsed
2 cup of water (add a little bit more if your rice tends to absorb more water)
60g tomato puree
1 tomato, peeled and cubed
1 thumb-sized ginger, skinned and bruised
1 Cinnamon stick
1 star anise
4 pandan leaves, tied in 2 knots
Salt to taste
2 tbsp of creamer powder
Cooking oil

(A)

Blend together:

1 onion, peeled and diced
4 shallots, peeled
5 cloves of garlic, peeled

Steps:

1.Heat up oil in a wok. Add ginger, star anise, Cinnamon stick and (A) and sauté till fragrant. Add tomato puree and fresh tomato cubes. Stir-fry for a while.
2.Pour in rinsed rice. Stir to mix well.
3.Pour in water and bring to a boil.
4.Transer it to the rice cooker pot. Add salt, creamer powder and pandan leaves. Cook in rice cooker. Remark: I cook in under white rice program for 15 minute by using microcomputer rice cooker.
5.Once done, keep it warm in the rice cooker for another 10 minutes before serving.

Roasted Pork Fried Rice 烧肉炒饭

Another fried rice whipped up with whatever left-over ingredients from the fridge. This is my way of savoring simple home cooked meal.

Wishing everyone Happy 2012!

Roasted Pork Fried Rice 烧肉炒饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
half cup of red rice
half cup of white rice
2 eggs
some roasted pork, cut into small pieces
bak choy (only the stalk), sliced into pieces
leek (only the white portion), sliced horizontally
half onion, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
Cooking oil

Steps:
1. Mix up the red rice and white rice. Rinse and cook in rice cooker. Once cooked, cool it down.
2. Heat up oil in the same wok, scramble the eggs. Set aside.
3. Add some oil, fry the roasted pork. Brown the onion and add garlic and leek. Sauté till fragrant.
4. Add cooled steamed rice, bak choy and scrambled egg. Stir fry to mix well. Season with light soy sauce and continue to fry till fragrant.

Sausages Rice 腊味饭

I learned this recipe from a Taiwanese cooking show. I memorized the cooking steps and finally tried it myself last Saturday. I omitted the soy sauce per the original recipe since the sausages were already very salty. With lots of fried shallots, leeks and juices from the sausages, the rice tastes so delicious! Beware that the liver sausage is very salty. Luckily I added just one.

Sausages Rice 腊味饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Chinese sausage
1 Chinese liver sausage
3 chicken cocktail
1 cup of rice
1 stalk of leek, use only the white portion
10 shallots
1 tbsp of oil
water

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of Shao Xin wine

Garnishing:
some chopped spring onion

Steps:
1. Rinse the rice. Pour it into the rice cooker. Add water up to 1 cup level as per the indicator. Drain water into a bowl and set aside for later use.
2. Make a few shallow cut on the Chinese sausage skin.
3. Put all the Chinese sausage in a non-stick pan. Pan-fry to remove excess oil from the sausage.
4. Add some oil to the pan. Add the shallots. Half way of doing this, add chicken cocktails to pan-fry together till you brown the shallots. Off the flame.
5. Mix the fried shallots to the rice. Arrange Chinese sausages and chicken cocktails on top of the rice. Select the quick cook mode and start the rice cooking process.
6. 3 minutes before the rice cooking is done, mix up the leek with the rice and let the rice continue to cook.
7. When the rice is cooked, sprinkle a tbsp of Shao Xin wine and stir the rice. Remove the sausages. Keep the rice warm for another 5 minutes.
8. Slice the sausages. ( I remove its external skin).
9. Serve the rice with sausage slices. Garnish with some chopped spring onion.

Fried Red Rice With Minced Pork 红米肉碎炒饭

A simple way to whip up a balanced meal is to combine all essential source – carbohydrate, protein, vitamins & minerals and fats. Fried rice is one example. I cook quite a lot of it recently, and I haven't get bored of it yet.

Fried Red Rice with Minced Pork 红米肉碎炒饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of white rice
1/4 cup of red rice
3 heaped tbsp of minced pork, marinated with a tsp of light soy sauce and dashes of white pepper powder
2 eggs, cracked in a bowl
1 Romaine lettuce, root discarded, rinsed under running water and cut into strips
100g Enoki mushroom, root discarded, cut length wise into half
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
Cooking oil

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce

Steps:
1. Mix up the red rice and white rice. Rinse and cook in rice cooker. Once cooked, cool it down.
2. Heat up oil in a wok. Scramble the eggs and set aside.
3. Heat up oil in the same wok, fry minced pork and get it separated.
4. Add garlic and sauté till fragrant. Add Enoki mushroom and the scrambled egg. Mix up all the ingredients.
5. Add cooled steamed rice. Add light soy sauce and fry till fragrant. Toss in the lettuce, mix well and of the flame.

Mushroom and Char Siew Fried Rice

My husband brought back a packet of fresh Shiitake mushroom instead of dried Shiitake per my shopping list. Not knowing what to do with it, I just add it to the fried rice. It was not bad at all. It’s quite tasty with the combination of char siew (Chinese roasted pork), egg and fresh Shiitake mushroom with rice. Here comes our simple lunch on Sunday. 

Mushroom and Char Siew Fried Rice

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 cup of rice, rinsed, cooked in rice cooker and cooled
2 eggs
1 piece of char siew (about 8cm length), sliced and chopped into small pieces
8 pcs of fresh shiitake mushroom, rinsed and sliced
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped
cooking oil
light soy sauce to taste

Steps:

1. Heat up oil in a wok. Scramble the eggs and dish out.
2. Heat up oil in the same wok, saute the char siew. Add mushroom and garlic. Stir-fry till fragrant.
3. Add cooled steamed rice. Sprinkle the rice with light soy sauce to fry till fragrant. Toss in the scrambled egg. Fry till you observe the rice is "jumping" in the wok. Dish out.

Vegetable and Prawns Fried Rice

Nowadays, I used to cook something simple for dinner, and prepare extra portion for the next day's bento. This is one of the example. Basically I just fry rice with whatever ingredients I have in the fridge. Not only that, the seasonings is pretty versatile too. It can be adjusted to suit your own taste buds.

Vegetable and Prawns Fried Rice
Serves 5


Ingredients:
2.5 cups of rice, rinsed, cooked and cooled
300gm long bean, chopped
2 sweet corn, use only the kernels
100gm oyster mushroom, tear into strips
30 small prawns, shelled, deveined and cut into pieces
2 tbsp of chopped garlic
cooking oil

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce (optional)
Chili paste (optional)

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok. Saute garlic till fragrant. Add prawns, corns and long beans. Stir-fry till half cook.
2. Add a tbsp of light soy sauce to mix well.
3. Add cooled steamed rice and oyster mushroom. Add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and chili paste to fry till fragrant. You can see the rice is "jumping" in the wok. That's perfect!

Century Egg and Chicken Porridge 皮蛋鸡丝粥

I'm not used to prepare breakfast at home. Our breakfast on weekdays are usually bread or cream cracker with oats or coffee. Breakfast during the weekend is usually fried koay kak or nasi lemak. Sounds boring? Last Sunday, I felt like want to have some simple home cooked breakfast. Hence, I cooked this century egg and chicken porridge. It's so fulfilling to have a bowl of home cooked porridge to kick start a day. I like smooth porridge, hence I get the rice blended up front. I'm glad the porridge texture turned out as per my expectation.

Century Egg and Chicken Porridge


Ingredients:
3/4 cup of rice, rinsed and slightly blended
1.2 liter water
250gm chicken ribs, skinned
salt to taste
sesame oil
dashes of white pepper powder

Garnishing
1 thumb-sized ginger, peeled and cut into thin strips
hand-pulled chicken (from the chicken ribs)
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped the green portion
1 century egg, peeled and chopped

Steps:
1. Bring water to boil in a pot or kettle.
2. Add chicken ribs to the slow cooker pot. Pour in the hot water. Cook under high for 1 and a half hour.
3. Remove chicken ribs from the chicken stock. Leave it cooled and keep it in the fridge.
4. Add rice and cook under low for 8 hours. (I cooked it over night)
5. Return the chicken ribs to the porridge to warm it up. Remove from the porridge. Off the power.
6. Add salt to the porridge.
7. Hand-pull the chicken into strips.
8. Serve the porridge with ginger strips, hand-pulled chicken, century egg, spring onion. Drizzle sesame oil on top and add few dashes of white pepper powder.

Chicken Rice

The rice is infused with aroma of fried ginger and garlic. Also, the pandan leaves add fragrance to the rice flavor. It's best served with steamed chicken or fried chicken. Enjoy~

Chicken Rice

Serves 5

Ingredients:

2.5 cups of long grain rice

650ml of water (this amount is based on what type of rice you use, adjust accordingly)

2tbsp of cooking oil

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

2 shallots, peeled and chopped

30gm of ginger, skinned and cut into thin strips

1 tsp of salt

3 pandan leaves, tie into knot

steamed chicken or fried chicken

Steps:

1. Heat oil in a wok, sauté ginger and shallots till fragrant. Add garlic. Sauté till golden yellow.

2. Add rice to stir-fry for 3 minutes. Off the fire.
3. Transfer the rice to rice cooker pot. Add salt, water and pandan leaves.
4. Cook under "white rice" program using micro-computer rice cooker.
5. When the cooking is done, leave it in "keep warm" mode for 10 minutes or more.
6. Serve hot with steamed chicken or fried chicken.

Vegetarian Curry Mutton One-Plate Meal

Some time ago, we were fancy over a local vegetarian restaurant's one-plate meal. However, their food quality have deteriorated over time. Hence, we no longer dine in the vegetarian restaurant. According to my previous dine in experience, I used to order their one-plate meal with rice, vegetarian curry mutton, and some veggies.

The one-plate meal concept interests me. So, I apply the similar way for my home cooking in preparing our meatless meal. I always have great appetite whenever I see this type of one-plate meal. Funny! :-)

For the vegetarian mutton curry recipe, please refer here.

Leek and Chicken Drumstick Fried Rice

I just got a good quality pro-metal non-stick pan from hubby as a reward to my home cooking. So, it’s more convenient for me to pan-fry meat and seafood from now on with little or without oil. Today, I tried to pan-fry chicken without oil. The natural oil released from chicken throughout the frying process was retained for the rice frying process. That’s our chicken fragrant fried rice for lunch.

Leek and Chicken Drumstick Fried Rice
Serves 3


Ingredients:
1 stalk of leek, chopped (separate the green portion and the white portion)
1 chicken drumstick, deboned
2 eggs, beaten
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3 bowls of cool rice

Marinades:
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
Dashes of white pepper powder

Seasonings:
light soy sauce to taste
oyster sauce to taste
1 tsp of sesame oil

Steps:
1.Marinate the chicken drumstick and leave for 15 minutes.
2.Heat up a non-stick pan. Pan-fry the chicken drumstick with skin facing down. Brown the chicken skin side and follow by the other side. Set aside the chicken and leave it cool before cutting it into cubes.
3.Mix the rice with beaten eggs.
4.With the chicken oil in the pan, stir-fry the leek (the white portion). Add chicken and garlic to mix. Pour in the rice and fry till golden yellow.
5.Add light soy sauce to taste. Drizzle sesame oil over the rice before dish out.

Dried Scallop and Chicken Congee

I found dried mini scallops on sale when I did my weekly grocery shopping. Suddenly, this congee popped up in my mind. I couldn't stop the idea, so I brought back a bottle of dried mini scallops to accomplish my goal. :P

Dried Scallop and Chicken Congee

Serves 2


Ingredients:
2/3 cup of rice, rinsed with water
6 cups of chicken stock
20 pieces of mini dried scallops, soaked and drained
salt to taste

Garnishing:
1/4 chicken breast, skinned, cooked in chicken stock, hand-pulled
chopped spring onion
fried garlic
sesame oil
white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Add rice and chicken stock to rice cooker, and select the program to cook porridge. (I used micro-computer rice cooker).
2. Add dried scallops in the middle of cooking.
3. When the porridge is done, add salt to taste. Let the porridge keep warm in the rice cooker for a while.

4. Serve the porridge in bowl and garnish with hand-pulled chicken, spring onion,fried garlic, sesame oil and white pepper powder.

Basic Fried Rice

Fried rice is a good choice when it comes to lunch box. And, there's no worries on the ingredients, as I can use little bit of this and that. The outcome can be still be seductive. Like always, I like to add egg and prawns to my fried rice. I had some fresh leftover leek in the fridge, so I added in  little bit of that too. Just seasoned it with light soy sauce, and I'm done with my bento of the day.

Basic Fried Rice
Serves 1

Ingredients:
1 bowl of cooled rice
8 small prawns, shelled, vein removed and cut into pieces
1 egg
1 chicken sausage, diagonally sliced
Leek, sliced (just the green portion)
Cooking oil
Light soy sauce to taste

Steps:
1. Heat up the wok with some oil, scramble the eggs and set aside the wok.
2. With the balance oil, saute garlic till fragrant. Add prawn and sausage to stir-fry till fragrant.
3. Add rice and stir-fry with all the ingredients including the scrambled egg. Add light soy sauce to taste. Continue to fry for few minutes until the rice is evenly coated with seasoning. Off the fire. Add leeks to mix well. Dish out.