Foodie Friday: Sausage monster

There was this picture that was making its rounds on Facebook, where you stuck raw pasta noodles into cut sausages and you boiled them and there you had it! A meal that the kid would eat. It looked like a whole lot of fun.

There was just one problem.

I am averse to feeding JED processed food, as much as I can help it. So I couldn't in good conscience give them this even though they would polish it up and ask for seconds. But then, I really wanted to do this with them.

I am in the midst of what I call my nightmare 14 day work week. I have to teach for 14 days without a break. It is crazy ridiculous, downright exhausting and I miss JED and JED miss Mommy being home in the evenings. That made me want to do this with them even more.

So I went out to hunt for sausages I would approve of. NTUC would not have anything unless it was a Finest. We have one Cold Storage nearby and I prayed that they had a better variety for me to choose from. Packrat later informed me that I could have gone to the gourmet butcher across the road. It.Did.Not.Occur.To.Me. Noted for the next round of these guys.

Anyway, there wasn't a lot of choice.

Things I realised, trying to find 'kosher' sausages.
1. What I realised was that not only did most sausages have loads of nitrates, most have monosodium glutamate. The stuff that makes you thirsty and rumoured to make your hair fall out. Present in most Asian food. I had no idea that made in the USA sausages had them too.

2. Sausages that didn't have any of those things quadrupled in price.

3. I really wouldn't know if there was horsemeat in any of the sausages I bought. 

What I eventually ended up with were sausages that cost $10 for 4 that were raw, pure pork meat, no filler, low sodium, gluten free sausages. On the ingredient list, it listed 'lean pork, white pepper, black pepper, salt' and I can't remember what else but nothing with numbers and nothing that wasn't already present in my kitchen. Unfortunately, our helper ripped the sausages out of the packaging before I had an opportunity to take a photograph of it.

I would have loved to use wholemeal spaghetti but Muffin can't swallow the stuff so the regular spaghetti had to do.

JED had a great time stealing cooked sausage slices as they impaled the spaghetti into the sausages. A word of warning, the noodles break off so it would be wise to teach the kids to be gentle yet firm with the noodle. (What an  allegory for bringing up kids!) Evan, whose fine motor skills resemble that of an elephant trying to do embroidery broke a whole bunch of noodles but had a lot of fun chucking them into the pot to boil. 

The result looked like something we could do for Halloween. In fact, with a bit of tomato sauce and a lot of imagination, it would be great Halloween food. Muffin and Evan called them Sausage Monsters and Jordan called hers Sausage Jellyfish. Whatever it was, they wiped the plate clean. I kept some for them to eat cold the next day in school as a snack. They wanted to know why there were so few in their snack box.

Being the crazy food mom, their eventual dinner comprised of this topped off with a lot of carrot and spaghetti with home made baked fish nuggets on the side. No pictures unfortunately because JED inhaled the food too quickly for me to move.

We're toying with other derivatives of this.

Meatball Monsters
1. Boil the pasta first
2. Make meat balls, press in the cooked pasta
3. Pan fry them.

Bleeding Sausage Monsters
1. Same thing
2. Pasta sauce with vegetables cooked in.

Bleeding Brains.
1. Pan fried meat balls with pasta (assuming our Meat ball monsters work out)
2. Douse meat balls in pasta sauce and they'll be dripping blood! (sauce)

The kids are into zombies and monsters now, hence the gross food names!

We had fun. I think it justified my $10 sausages and seeing it fed all 3, it didn't come up to all that much. As long as I don't have to do this every day.

And since it's Friday and Dinomama has a foodie Friday, I'm linking to it!



Technorati Tags: JED, Healthy Eating, Kids Food

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Amazing Muffin

Muffin will be three in about a month's time. And my, has he grown! We aren't just talking in terms of developmental milestones although thankfully, he seems to be speaking a bit more. What is impressive to us is that he has finally grown physically too! That should be the first thing that occurs to anyone. A child growing physically. But then again, I've always had small sized children. The twins were small because they were born small and had lots to catch up with. Muffin was born smallish for a single baby too and was actually of concern to the doctors because his weight seemed to be increasing at a decelerating speed. But in the recent months, his appetite has grown in mammoth proportions; to the point that he out eats Jordan and equals Evan on some days.

This in itself has led to some remarkable developments.

The little one has figured out the 4 wheeler and cycles as quickly as his two wheeler siblings.

He has acquired a bit of a barrel belly which thrills me to no end because all I have had to this point were skinny kids.

His cheekiness has hit new highs. Our helper is convinced he is eating more because he is speaking more and that takes up more energy. I am not sure about the correlation but she is right about the speaking more and with that comes amplified cheekiness.

He tattles on his siblings. "Mommy, Che Che/ Kor Kor naughty."

Mommy: Muffin, let's take a walk.
Muffin: No Mommy, take car.
Mommy: Why take car? Let's go for a walk.
Muffin: I tired. No walk. Drive. Zoom Zoom.

Muffin: Papa, wake up. It's early in the morning.
Papa: *mutter, growl, splutter splutter*
Muffin: Papa, wake up. Muffin vomit! Quick Papa! Wake up!
Papa: -wakes with a start- What? Where!
Muffin: Haha! Papa wake up!

Mommy: Muffin, are you a boy or a girl?
Muffin: I baby!
Mommy: Are you a baby boy or baby girl?
Muffin: Muffin baby. No boy, no girl. BABY.
And proceeds to pout. 
 

And he is becoming old enough to have favourite things.

His favourite books are ones that involve marine life. Sharks (The Scariest Shark). Whales (The Snail and the Whale). Wild Beasts (Where the Wild Things Are).

And his favourite toy is Lightning McQueen. He goes everywhere with Evan's spoilt Lightning McQueen. We suspect his affinity for it comes from the fact that he, like Lightning McQueen are super duper fast.

His favourite Transformer (Thanks to Evan's Christmas haul of Transformers) is Bumblebee and when he sees the yellow and black Lamborghini on the road, he is most thrilled and hollers Bumblebee for all to hear.

His favourite song is a tie between Hakuna Matata and Circle of Life.

His favourite animal is the Lion. He fancies himself the Lion King and tells us so.
Mommy: What animal are you?
Muffin: Lion King! ROOOOOAAARRR!
Mommy: Oh!
Muffin: Are you scared Mommy? ROOOOOAR!
Mommy: What animal is Che Che?
Muffin: Che Che Bear. Kor Kor Dinosaur! Papa Dragon! Mommy Elephant!
Apparently we are all ferocious creatures!

His favourite food is porridge or rice and soup which is effectively porridge; much to his siblings dismay because porridge to them is baby food.

He is a contradiction in himself. He is the cheekiest little one around but is also very shy and is the only one that hides behind my legs. Both Jordan and Evan were happy to walk up to people and make friends.

Of course, he is also old enough to miss me and dreads us leaving the house for work. His mouth turns down on a good day and he goes into hysterical sobs that lead to upchucking on bad ones.

My heart aches a little that even the youngest one is growing up so quickly. But the never ending amusement makes up for it.

Technorati Tags: 3 yo preschooler, development

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Dear Papa: We ate quinoa today, willingly!

Dear Packrat,
Today has been a long day. We had a play date with Godma Cat in the morning, followed by a speedy lunch and then make up and costume for the twins' first stage appearance. To top off all that, it was Hari Raya Haji so Kakak was off. This meant, I was on my own with JED from the point that the concert was over.

Thankfully, it doesn't panic me as much as it would have 5 years ago and in fact, I was actually looking forward to just hanging with them and unwinding after the extremely frenetic day. The only thing was that I wasn't entirely keen on cooking after we got home. Tired kids meant volatile kids which would ultimately mean crying kids. That combination basically meant that cooking at that point was out of the question. In fact, being out of whichever room they were in at that point was out of the question as well.

The 2 options were buy in, which would have meant chicken/ char siew rice or having to cook it early in the day. I picked the latter option. Of late, I have been trying to come up with easy-to-pack meals so that I could start sending packed/ bento lunches to school for the twins; especially these two weeks with dress rehearsals and excursion days. And I've been thinking of the frittatas that we had eaten in Melbourne, pre-kids. The problem was that I couldn't remember the recipe we used then. Thankfully, with Google and Allrecipes.com, I managed to cobble together a recipe that I thought might work. My only worry was whether or not JED would eat it. It would be a first for them.

And by making this, it was a first for me in many ways
1. I added quinoa to adult cooking. JED have had quinoa hidden in the porridge for the better part of the year but I have never cooked a dish that had only quinoa in it.

2. I cooked with bacon. Which sounds like an inherent contradiction with the quinoa. The bacon wasn't really necessary but I do miss the smell of it and I thought that might entice the kids to eat it.

3. I used my HappyCall pan for the very first time. If I use it often enough, I will get very muscular arms. Heavy.

The outcome?

JED loved it. Perhaps it was bacon. Perhaps they were hungry. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was that good. It will definitely go into their boxes next week when they go out with the school.

JED call it ham pie. Fritatta is just too weird a word for them. I'm happy they ate it. It took away a lot of stress from a long exhausting day, especially to see them so happy to eat it and asking for seconds. I made enough for my dinner but I ended up only eating the crusts and bottom bits because all three demanded more.

For posterity, I shall record the recipe here, just so that I won't lose it again.

6 eggs (for those who worry about cholesterol, this isn't a recipe you  to try)
Diced up grill meat (Chicken thigh fillets, thinly sliced beef, ham, turkey, crocodile if so desired!) 
1 bowl of Shredded zuchinni (We shredded the yellow ones and there was enough for 2 different frittata occasions)
1/4 bowl of shredded carrot
1/4 bowl of chopped up broccoli
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/3 cup quinoa grain (boiled in water separately till all the water has soaked into the quinoa. That takes about 15 minutes)

50g (3 slices) of streaky beacon (if you don't intend to eat it, the back bacon type if you do!)
Chopped up garlic and onion

Topping
Mozzarella Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
Parmesan Cheese

Instructions 
In a bowl, using a fork or whisk, beat eggs, olive oil, diced up meat and the shredded vegetables altogether.  Heat pan, add olive oil, fry the onions & garlic till fragrant, add bacon. Fry for a bit till smell of bacon wafts!
Add the egg mixture to the pan. Don't add in the cheese till the mixture is almost cooked.
Close pan. Shuffle pan every 3 mins to left, right then centre. Once the egg mixture has firmly formed, flip pan. Shuffle pan again but a minute each position. Flip pan again. Open pan, insert toothpick to check for doneness.
Sprinkle the cheese on to the top of the cooked frittata and then DO NOT FLIP the pan anymore.
Allow cheese to melt and brown before turning off the fire. 
To take egg frittata out of pan, hold down a large enough dish onto the egg. Flip it out (you probably need 2 people to do this).

Without the pan, the oven works as well too. Just heat oven to 200 degrees C and put the fritatta in. But sprinkle cheese on before putting the whole pie in!

Of course, Evan had to be weird and ask to eat it with ketchup and tartar sauce. It is his new sauce of choice. He eats everything with tartar sauce.


Technorati Tags: lone parenting, healthy eating, Child Friendly Recipes

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Crazy food mum

I wrote this for Bottoms Up but I thought I would post it here as well. 

One of my favourite websites is TED. One of my favourite talks on TED is by Jamie Oliver. It’s about food. It’s not food porn but it’s worth spending 20 minutes on. It’s inspired me to feed my children well and to not rely on what is convenient for me.





The temptation is always there, to turn to what is convenient. I have always been weird about food. From the point I was 13 and started running competitively and had track coaches who taught me not to mix carbs and protein. These same coaches taught me about red meat and the uric acid deposits in red meat that collected in our joints. On the same token, I learnt that bananas were great and coconuts not so much. My mother worried about me during that time. She freaked out the year I was 15 because I decided to go vegetarian and went through nary a piece of meat for the year. It took me years to eat pork and beef again.


 My thoughts on food aren’t so fanatical now but having had that sort of background and always being so aware of what goes into my body, it comes as no surprise to me that I am careful with what my children eat. At the same time, I am horrified by the food options that are available to children, and even in places that claim to be child-friendly. How can a child-friendly menu comprise deep fried fish sticks, nuggets, deep fried chicken wings, and pasta in tomato sauce without anything else? And all this served with fries and sweetened juice or soda?

 For the first few years of my twins’ lives, they never ate out. I tried to buy organic vegetables and fed them only wholewheat or vegetable pasta. I came home with nine-grain cereals that had to go into their porridge and would watch over my helper like a hawk to ensure it went into the porridge. I fought an uphill battle. The older generation who helped with the children begged me to stop. “They couldn’t digest it!” “They painstakingly remove bit by bit from their mouths!” “It makes them throw up!” “You grew up on white rice, you turned out fine!” No one understood my Nazi approach to food as I stoutly refused to give them what had traditionally been seen as children’s food.

Food on my enemy list included:

1. Sausages and other processed meat. 
2. Sweets, lollipops, biscuits, and chocolate. 
3. Anything from MacDonald’s. Until today, the twins have only ever had hotcakes at McDonald’s with us. 
4. Fish balls because of the salt and the MSG. 
5. Deep fried food. I remember how much I suffered as a child with tonsillitis; I couldn’t bear to put the children through that much pain. 
6. Salt, colouring, and preservatives in general. 
7. Soda or sweetened drinks of any kind. 

The problem with this was that I was fighting a losing battle against the rest of the world. Once the twins (and now Muffin) started school, it was difficult to control who ate what. Once the rules got broken by others and the children had tasted forbidden fruit, it was difficult to go back. Jordan very often tells me that she likes lollipops and sweets. Evan tells me he loves “soyty” (read: salty) food. Muffin can’t tell me what he wants but I know he likes tasty food as well.

I have had to make concessions. Primarily because I am not with them all day and because I would go crazy if I tried to police every single thing that they consume. Someone very wisely told me that I couldn’t fight all the battles. I had to choose the rules I wanted to stick with and the rest was fair game. So, in the case of food, I had to figure out a way of still getting healthy food into the kids’ tummies, and also to accept that there were going to be some situations that I would have to watch, albeit in horror, as they consumed something or everything on my “No” list.

So this is how I rationalised it and learned to bear it:

1. If they get sweets in school and eat them, I cannot stop them. All I can do is ensure they brush their teeth before they go to bed. But I will not be party to their teeth rotting or them going hyper so I will not buy the sweets. 
2. They get to eat at McDonalds and have processed food on school outings and at parties. I wish their school wouldn’t feed them fast food when they are out on excursions, but the logistics of feeding so many children often makes the Big M the only available option. When that has to happen, I remind the teachers to ply them with extra water and I make sure that their next meal is filled with vegetables. I have friends who refuse to allow their children to eat what the school provides as meals. They send the child to school with full meals. I thought about doing that. But the school gently reminded me that if I were enrolling my children in the school, I should trust that they would feed them relatively healthily. While I still have my doubts about that, Fridays being ham/jam and bread day in school, I have left it at that. My consolation is that every day, the children go to school with a snack box full of fruit. They have been so accustomed to it that they automatically take it out after lunch and munch through it like Hungry Caterpillars. 
3. The children get two fish balls a week and taste in their food now. It would be hypocritical for me to ban them from fish balls seeing that as a child, I ate nothing but. Mindful of the salt and preservatives though, I limit it to once a week, in their noodle soup and on the condition that every sliver of vegetable in the soup is eaten up.

So have I sold out? I don’t feel that I have. I am still a Nazi food mommy at heart. I have just adjusted my ideals to the reality of living in Singapore. If I were living somewhere else, where organic food was much more readily available, perhaps I wouldn’t need to make these concessions. But I’m not. I live in Singapore, land of deep fried food and MSG. And there are some other reasons too, why I decided that I couldn’t be 100% strict with my kids’ diet: I have learnt from Jamie Oliver that feeding my kids good, wholesome food most of the time is more important than fretting over the occasional hot dog or nugget. I would like the children to learn that the things I encourage them not to eat are for their own health. For me to do that, I have to give them space to absorb what I nag them about and internalise it. I intend for the children to grow up and have normal experiences. This means eating what others eat in school and eating food that is not prepared the same way as it is at home. It would not benefit them in any way if they ate healthy at home but gawked at food from school or camp or wherever because they grew up with rigid ideas of how food was supposed to be prepared. The reality is that they will have meals away from home. They also need to learn that junk food/unhealthy food exists and if they get to eat it, it is a treat rather than the norm. They can look forward to the times that they can eat it, but it won’t be something that is going to happen on a regular basis. Most pragmatically, feeding three kids organic and totally healthy food would mean that I would need to stop work to bake and prepare everything myself. At the same time, I would go broke from buying all the stuff!

Having said all this, just because I concede doesn’t mean I am okay with it. I am not. So, to offset whatever they might eat outside of my rules, I make sure their subsequent meals are more wholesome.

Generally, these are the food rules that our household lives by:

1. Vegetables: Each meal has to have at least three vegetables in it. The magic number is three. The most common ones we use are spinach, carrot, broccoli (Australian), and celery. Peppers and mushrooms get thrown in if it is stew or meat sauce. 
2. Fruit: The children get fruit first thing in the morning. They get fruit in their snack boxes. They get fruit sometimes in the afternoon when they come home from school. They get fruit on the weekend when they are home with their dad and glued to the telly. 
3.  Eggs: Jordan especially is sometimes erratic about her meals. But she doesn’t mind eggs. So, she gets eggs in the morning in various forms—French toast, half boiled, omelette with ketchup, or fried into her roti prata. 
4. Cheese + Fresh Milk: Muffin is still on formula but we’ve weaned the twins off it. So they get a cup of fresh milk in the morning and slices or cubes of cheese as snacks. I buy out enough of the dairy department every week at the supermarket. 
5.  Olive Oil: Most of our meats that the twins request to be fried are grilled. To make it crispy, the trick is to slather olive oil and some salt over the meat before grilling. This makes the skin crispy without all the extra oil. 
6. Water: They drink water. Ribena is only given to them when they are sick. As a treat: Cold water or ice cubes. No soda, and almost no juice. The occasional bottle of Vitagen (Vitagen because it’s lower in sugar than Yakult). 

If I thought really hard about why I am particular about the children eating well, I couldn’t go beyond the cliched reason of “healthy body, healthy mind.” I wouldn’t be able to say for sure that the children don’t fall sick as much because they eat healthy. But I do know the converse. I do know what happens to the body when it isn’t fed well and what goes into much of the processed, pre-packaged food out there. And I cannot, in good conscience, after knowing all that, ply my children with the ground-up snout, ear, and hoof of a random animal that is passed off as meat.

Incidentally, Evelyn of Bottoms Up is running a contest as to how to make the world a better place where those who take part stand to win a Fluf! Sandwich bag from JED Packs!

Technorati Tags: Pre-schoolers , healthy eating,  Singapore

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