Happy Birthday to Me......

Hehehehee.......today is my birthday, and yes I'm getting another year older...sigh

Well, Grace was unwell during the weekend, but we still managed to squeeze in a birthday dinner on Sunday night.

The dinner was at Suffolk House Restaurant....a last minute arrangement, and by the way, was by myself....sigh again....

The dinner was superb, good food, good ambiance, err....let's not talk about the price....

Grace was being very nice that night. We got through the dinner (it was a set dinner) without any fuss from her, that being mummy was prepared with papers and pen for her to get busy on. She even got a compliment by a foreign couple for being so well-behave.

Thanks dear, an undisturbed dinner (or meal time) is all I want nowadays.....no need for expensive gifts, a good and well-behaved daughter is the best gift!

Calling for ideas!!!

Like I said before, I am not a very creative cook, or baker...even worst with this little bump getting in the way all the time. But, I seriously need some idea and recipes here...

You see, there are numerous parties held by Grace's school, and parents need to let their kid bring in some food for those parties....

So far, I've made my best ever product, Banana Muffins and Egg/ Tuna sandwiches for Christmas and CNY pot luck party respectively. And, in another 2 weeks, I need to make something for their teacher's day pot luck party. But, I don't know what to make! Furthermore, I don't have an oven now! Oh dear.....

Any ideas? Easy and delicious ones.....

Lunch headache....

I don't know about others, but for me, thinking of what to cook for lunch, sometimes really give me headache.

Grace is a picky eater and I'm not a very good or adventurous cook, thus the problem.
Our weekly lunch menu will almost always looks like this:
Monday - Spaghetti
Tuesday - my off day, at my parent's place
Wednesday - Porridge with 2 dishes
Thursday - fried rice or noodle/ or sometimes noodles with soup
Friday - Rice with 2 dishes or eat out

Boring....right? I too feel bored......and I think, the little girl too!

And so, last week, I decided to have sandwich for lunch and here's Grace's reaction.

Eat, eat, eat....

Well....thank God that Grace is beginning to accept food now, except that she's mostly vegetarian now.....

On Saturday night, she had McDonald's for dinner and ate half of the chicken burger I bought her. She was extremely happy to be able to eat......

Then on Sunday, she almost finished off the remaining burger and at night she was eating rice.....

Well today, I made homemade pasta for her and she love it. And for dinner, she could eat rice. I'm relief now.....

One thing that touched me was when she say this....
"Daddy, please pray to God for me. Ask God to heal me and protect me."

Crepe for lunch

I'm tired of cooking the same old "rice+dishes" for Grace's lunch. Everyday, there's 1 soup, 1 vegie and 1 egg/meat (pork or chicken)/fish. Although we have different dishes everyday (but repeat in the other week), I've grown tired to preparing the same thing day in day out.

Today I woke up thinking of making something different. To be frank, I'm not very adventurous/ creative when it comes to cooking. I'm better in scrapbooking..... anyway, I look up my book of "Cooking with kids" in search of something special. Now, there's one more problem that I have. My household is also very conservative when it comes to cooking, so you could expect minimum "special" ingredients available in my kitchen. And, don't know how to find substitute.

Now what? I flipped through the pages and I saw this recipe for Basic Crepe. Now this is simple and I have all the ingredients. But, a growing toddler can't be having only crepe for lunch! So I flipped the pages again, till a recipe for some Fajitas came to sight. Then I was inspired and I knew Grace will love these.

And so I made the crepes and roasted some pork and chicken meat. Those meat are marinated first with soy sauce, garlic oil and pepper.

Grace enjoyed making a mess while I was preparing the crepes and later enjoyed making the wraps. And most of all, we had a balanced and tasty lunch. I will leave you with some photos.










After lunch, Grace flipped through the same book and said, "Let's find something to make for daddy."

Happy Birthday to ME!

Today is my birthday, I'll cry if I want to ?!? No way! Who's crying on one's birthday? Definitely not me. Though my birthday was not as planned, I'm still accepting it with a big smile and feel blessed.

Grace was not feeling well for the pass few days, cough and running nose. She'd recover from her earlier fever, but then continue with cough and running nose. On Friday I started her all over again on the medicine. Then this morning, she'd got slight fever and we decided to take her to the doctors again. What a way to start your birthday!

Initially it was planned that Moses take leave on my birthday so that he could help care for Grace while I can scrap till I drop. Now, with Grace not feeling well, not a chance! So, my day continued with cooking lunch for Grace and trying to make her sleep the whole afternoon.

During evening, we headed out for shopping in Gurney Plaza. I wanted to get a handbag. Window shopped and found nothing. Worst still, I get scolding, from hubby? Nope, get scolding from Grace when I make any attempt to enter a shop. Sigh....then the moment I step inside Toys R Us, Grace was running ahead of me into the shop...sigh sigh sigh...

Nevertheless, Grace somehow got into a better mood during dinner. We had dinner at a seafood restaurant, Bali Hai, which let you choose live seafood. Grace decided to feed herself throughout the dinner. And she enjoyed the dinner too. Phew.....

Well, here's some photos of the food to share. Then a photo of my birthday present, jointly presented by my sister, brother, parents and mother-in-law. I did had a great birthday after all.

Scrumptious Mother's Day Dinner

Wow! Really a very good dinner for us on this very special day of the year. We had black pepper steak, pork ribs, terriyaki steak and then fruity pancake with ice cream for dessert. Where did we had our dinner? Take a guess?

Well, we had it at home. Who's the chef? They are brother and sister - in law, Moh Herng and Phaik Sim. Bravo both of you. We really had a good dinner. Delicious.

We had a good time during dinner with Auntie Mei Lian and Uncle Long Aun with us. Then later we had Alex and Siew Kean joined us for dessert. Then we had David (another brother-in-law) and family and Maurice (yet another brother-in-law) and family joined us via video conference. We had whole lot of fun laughing and talking. A fun, economy, and most of all heart-warming way of celebrating this special day!

Once again thanks to our chef for taking the effort!

Our chef for the day preparing the dinner.

Us before "going after" our delicious dinner.

Grace enjoying her pork ribs.

The food.The yummy pancake.

My Favourite Great American Seafood

COME stand a chance to WIN a trip for two to New Orleans, United States. Prize package includes two Southwest Airline roundtrip tickets, hotel accommodations, dining experiences and many more. All you need to do is to VOTE for your favorite American Seafood Cook-Off recipe. This chance of a lifetime is in conjunction with the 5th Anniversary of The Great American Seafood Cook Off. The Great American Seafood Cook Off is presented by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. It features top-chefs from around the nation cooking with domestic, sustainable seafood from their home state.

5 finalists had been named for the 2008 Great American Seafood Cook-Off and were given several challenges in completing their final dish in the competition. First, their recipe must contain either one of the two mystery ingredients, Southwest Airline peanuts and selected brews from Michelob Brewing Co. Next, keeping it healthy and simple. This means that their dish should include ingredients from all five food groups (grain, vegetable and fruit, milk, meat and bean, oils) and be a dish that even the most harried home chefs could prepare. Not forgetting that they should use domestic seafood. You would ask, why domestic seafood? It’s for their freshness, great taste and most importantly it’s local!

Now, the voting process is just as simple as 123. All you need to do is to (I’ve included print screen for even easier identification):

First, visit www.GreatAmericanSeafoodCookOff.com.

Secondly, click on the red box (see below) “Vote and Enter to Win a Trip to New Orleans: RECIPE CONTEST”.

Thirdly, browse through the top five recipes listed and then make a pick.

Fourthly, Click on the red box (see below) “Enter to Win”.

And finally, fill up the simple GASCO Recipe Contest form (see below) and click Submit.

It’s just a 5-step process to give you a chance in winning a trip to New Orleans.

As for me, I had just casted my vote for "Pan Roasted Glazed Rockfish with Peas and Carrots" by Chef Tafari Campbell from Maryland. By looking at this dish (though it is just a photo), it gives me a mouthwatering impression. Besides, it combines 2 types of seafood in a dish, rockfish and crab or shrimp. All these are my favorites and my daughter’s too. Delicious! A study through the recipe and I noted that the ingredients can be easily acquired and it looks simple to prepare, meeting the “healthy and simple” requirement of the competition. Although, I may want to alter a little of the recipe if I were to try out this recipe. May want to exclude or substitute the Shock Top beer with something else, because both my daughter (just 2 years old) and I (breastfeeding) could not take alcohol. What’s the substitute? Can’t think of it right now, will update further when I try out the recipe.

So, why wait and loose a chance? Take action NOW. Visit www.GreatAmericanSeafoodCookOff.com

Long Live Bento Tools!

I really want to thank whomever that have invented the bento tools, particularly the cookies/vegetable cutter. Long live bento tool!

Grace used to hate bread. Grace's menu for breakfast for most of the days would be bread, milk (just a little) and yoghurt. Then she will take porridge for lunch while dinner she will have rice. As she hates bread, she will take only a little in the morning. I was worried that she has not had enough food.

Through tv advertisement and also from browsing friend's friend's blog, I learned about this bento tools where we as parents could use moulds to make interesting looking food for our kids. So I decided to give this a go. I search in ebay and some other sites to purchase some of this tool. It cost quite a bit but I think it was worth the price.

I bought a pair of Hello Kitty vegetable cutter (which can also be used on bread/ toast) and a few other shapes like star, tree, house, elephant and etc. I started using these tools 2 weeks ago. The result: Grace just love it. She will say “猫”(means cat) everytime she wants to eat bread.

Now every morning she will at least eat 4 two-layered hello kitty face. Which is approximately 1.5 slice of bread. I think that is a good start. She would even have the bread without jam or butter!