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.

Capsicum, Eryngii Mushroom and Chicken Stir-Fry

This is another quick and easy one-pan-meal. It is something similar to one of the earlier dish – Capsicum, Shiitake Mushroom & Chicken Stir-fry. I found that chicken, mushroom and capsicum are a delicious combination that suits my taste buds. The quick stir-fry just required fermented bean paste, soy sauce and oyster sauce as seasonings. The dish is full of flavors and one dish is good to go with steamed rice. Never the less, it is a balanced diet too.

Capsicum, Eryngii Mushroom and Chicken Stir-Fry
Serves 4-5

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast, skinned, deboned and cut into strips
1 red capsicum, cored and cut into strips
½ carrot, skinned and cut into thin pieces
1 onion, skinned and diced
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
5 Eryngii mushroom, cut into strips
Cooking oil
4 tbsp of water

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

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
1 tbsp of fermented bean paste (mashed)

Steps:
1.Marinate the chicken strips for 5 minutes.
2.Heat up oil in a wok. Fry the chicken trips to golden yellow. Set aside.
3.In the same wok, stir-fry the mushroom till it turn soft and moist.
4.Add a tbsp of oil. Fry the onion and garlic.
5.Stir in carrot.
6.Toss in fried chicken strips and capsicum to mix well. Add seasonings and few tbsp of water. Stir-fry for 1 minutes.
7.Dish out and serve hot with steamed rice.

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.

Fried Noodle with Minced Pork and Fungus 碎肉木耳炒面

I’ve been cooking this for a couple of times. It’s definitely a simple and delicious meal to warm up your tummy. What’s more is it can be made in less than 30 minutes. I just learned to add more healthy ingredients in our daily meal. In this case, I have black fungus added. For a healthier version, I would suggest you to substitute yellow noodle with organic wheat noodle. In this way, you won’t feel guilty of consuming yellow noodle.

Fried Noodle with Minced Pork and Fungus 碎肉木耳炒面
Serves 5

Ingredients:
600g yellow noodle, blanched in boiling water
bean sprout
200g minced pork
5 stalks of chives, cut into 1.5” length
2 florets of black fungus, soaked, drained and cut into strips
5 leaves of napa cabbage, cut into strips
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 Shiitake mushroom, soaked, drained and cut into strips
cooking oil

Seasonings (Mix-up):
2tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
2 tbsp of chili paste
4 tbsp of light soy sauce (or adjust to taste)
dashes of white pepper powder
150ml water

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok.
2. Add minced pork and leave it to fry for a while before stirring. Fry and get the minced pork separated.
3. Add onion sauté for a few minutes, stir in garlic to sauté till fragrant.
4. Add mushroom, black fungus and napa cabbage. Stir-fry for few minutes.
5. Toss in yellow noodle and bean sprout. Add seasoning to mix well. Stir-fry for a few minutes.
6. Add chives to mix well with the noodle. Stir-fry for another 2 minutes before done.

Capsicum, Shiitake Mushroom & Chicken Stir-fry

Time flies. I have abandoned my blog for quite some time. I’m away for good happenings. Officially, I’m a full time working mummy for two now. What a challenging role. What’s more the two little ones are just one year apart. Life is hectic, but very fulfilling. Despite the 2 kids, my life still goes on with cooking. However, I rarely have time to dress up my home cooked dish for photography. I will blog less till the situation allows me to do so. 

This dish is a complete dish and balanced diet to serve with steamed rice. Just a quick stir-fry all the ingredients together, and our meal settle. Nonetheless, it is flavorful.

Capsicum, Shiitake Mushroom & Chicken Stir-fry

Ingredients:
half of chicken breast, cut into strips
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
3 fresh shiitake mushroom, stalk removed and cut into strips
cooking oil
4-5 tbsp of water

Seasonings:
1tbsp of fermented soy bean, chopped
1tbsp oyster sauce

Chicken Marinades:
1tsp light soy sauce
dashes of white pepper powder

Steps: 
1. Heat up oil in a wok. Fry the marinated chicken strips till golden yellow. Set aside.
2. With the remaining oil in the wok, stir-fry the onion and garlic.
3. Add mushroom and fried chicken strips to sauté with the seasonings and a few tbsp of water.
4. Stir-in the capsicum and mix well all the ingredients.
5. Dish out and serve hot with rice.