Slime Industry

Since the exams ended, JED have been on a high. As they go up in the years and the exams get harder, the relief is dizzyingly palpable. It drives us adults batty because they are bouncing off walls and occasionally that high energy becomes destructive. So it became a compromise of what we were willing to put up with and how to channel that energy into something that didn't involve beating each other up.

Packrat had a dinner and dance and his department wanted to go as Ghostbusters. So he decided to commission the kids on our floor to make him a litre of slime. He told them to come up with a business plan. They had to

1. Come up with a break down of costs and how much they need to charge to make a decent profit. Profit enough to pay all their
workers ( the head honcho being our neighbour and the workers being JED)

2. Create a prototype of the slime and get approval from buyer (Packrat). They ran through 3 prototypes because each suffered from the Goldilocks syndrome. One being too watery, one being too opaque and one being just right.

3. Once the prototype was okayed, they had to figure out how to multiply the materials in order to create the required one litre.

4. Even with the prototype, they had several failed batches and it took a large part of the day for them to complete it; just in time for Packrat to pack it up and bring it to the function.

5. They had to split the profits in an equitable fashion and since Muffin did the least amount of work, they wanted to pay him the least amount of money. Eventually, there was some under the table payment for Muffin to pay him off so that he would not disturb the peace by chucking a fit and demanding fair wages. 



For those who are late to the game and need a recipe, this is our neighbour's.

What you’ll need

Half bottle glue (Elmer's if you want it opaque, Chunbei if you want it transparent- They can be bought at Popular) (that’s 50-60 ml based on a 120 ml bottle)

Baking soda (1/4 tsp)

Contact Lens Saline Solution (Add in little amounts till the consistency is right- too much saline makes the slime hard!)

Food colouring (optional)




At the end of it, they were pleased. They made a bee-line for the mama shop where they spent their wages on ice cream and junk food. A true case of one hand in-one hand out and nothing for the bank. I guess that's the next lesson they would have to learn about being entrepreneurs. If they spend everything they make, they aren't going to have anything to help them make more money.

They haven't quite figured out how to spend money to make money yet, just to make money to spend. 

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Muffin bakes cheese buns

It's the 3rd week of the school term and I've finally got enough of my bearings working to actually start baking again for JED. The twins have been going to school with sandwiches, fruit or Pocky. While they don't mind, I'm not quite sure my conscience allows me to let them bring Pocky every day.

So, this morning, I baked. Or rather, Muffin baked. JED all love playing with flour and dough so to Muffin, this was nothing more than an extended play dough session. He saw me get out the flour and asked immediately to play with dough. Since he is soon to be 5, I figured it could be a collaborative effort to bake 40 minute cheese buns.

I prepped all the ingredients and kneaded the dough.

He proceeded to roll, flatten or rather pound the dough and then spooned the cheese onto the dough.  He wanted to seal it together by gathering all the ends and crush it shut.

And that's when I had to step in.

I told him it wasn't a good idea so I pinched it shut and he did the egg wash and the cheese garnishing.

Then we waited.

But what fun he had and how chuffed he was to be able to make cheese buns for Kor Kor. Evan loves, loves, loves cheese and what an act of love on the part of Muffin when he spooned a mountain of cheese onto the dough. When I told him it was too much, he told me that Kor Kor loved cheese and it wasn't too much for Kor Kor.

True that.

10 minutes later the buns came out smelling divine and oozy. Muffin, who had earlier elected to bring Nutella rolls to school (same bread recipe essentially!) changed his mind, took out his Nutella rolls and carefully stuffed an oversized cheese bun into his lunch box.

The only thing I want to right is to get the buns smooth rather than little erupted volcanoes. But that's just me. The little people eating them wouldn't really give two hoots about how it looks. In fact, if it had lava of cheese flowing out from it, Evan would not stop eating it!

Yet another reason to love The Domestic Goddess Wannabe   because a recipe doesn't get anymore dummy proof than a 5 year old succeeding in using it to make cheese buns for his beloved big brother. All in 40 minutes with enough time to shower, change, put said bun into his bag and get onto the school bus!

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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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Favourite Foods 3- Fried Rice Paradise

Rice is a staple in the house. The kids like it. Packrat sees it as a comfort food. Steaming hot rice. Most of the time, the kids eat plain rice with steamed something and soup. But we do variations because I figure that if I can't eat plain rice every day with dishes, I shouldn't expect that of the kids.

So, one of the variations is fried rice. Even though fried rice is usually a dish to help clear the fridge of left over food, the kids' fried rice is cooked fresh. The first time we did it, we had grilled lemon grass chicken and used that. That was a hit. Evan had 2 plates and Muffin polished off one bowl by himself. Jordan was blase about it but Jordan is not a good gauge of what is good food.

Anyway, we've repeated it a few times since and it has always been well received. The trickiest bit is doing the lemongrass chicken. This is the chicken that we use to make Vietnamese baguette sandwiches from scratch.

To make the chicken.
Chicken fillet
Kikkoman Light Sauce
Oyster Sauce
Lemongrass
Garlic

*For children, I'd go easy on the Kikkoman and Oyster sauce.
Once chicken is marinated, grill at 180 degrees till cooked. (This is about 20 minutes)
Leave it to cool and then dice. Whether the skin is left on depends on how healthy the dish is meant to be. :)

Before even cooking the chicken, rice should be cooked and cooled. We use a mixture of brown and white rice for this. This is regular rice in our house unless the dish specifically asks for white rice.

Anyway, on top of the rice, what goes into the fried rice is really up to the individual. I enforce the 3 vegetable rule here, even with fried rice.

Carrots
Spinach
Young corn/ Parsnip/Broccoli
Fried omelette for garnishing.
Minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon of salt dissolved in water.
Dark sauce for colouring

Minced garlic fried with olive oil.
Carrots and young corn or whatever hard vegetable is thrown it and sauteed till soft.
If minced pork or raw meat is used, this is the point where it should get tossed in to cook too.
Once all the ingredients are cooked, rice gets tossed in and fried till loose and in separate grains.

I sprinkle salt water over the rice to wet it and give it a bit of flavour. And then I drip a few drops of dark sauce into the rice and mix it in just because the twins like 'brown' fried rice.

I usually add on soup because I grew up having soup at every meal and a meal feels incomplete without soup. The soup in the picture was simple pork rib, carrot and potato soup. Evan thought the soup was a waste of time because it made him go to the toilet more. His words, not mine.
























I really should not blog about their meal recipes before dinner because I get hungry just thinking about it.

Technorati Tags: child friendly recipes, pre-schoolers

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Favourite Foods 2- Pasta Casserole

This is one of the more sinful meals that I like to make for the children. But the added advantage of this meal is that both Packrat and I like it too so it's a one dish, everyone can eat meal.

I love pasta. There's a comfort element to eating pasta. I can eat mountains of the stuff. So can the kids.

Why is it sinful? The sauce is a tin of Campbell's cream soup of the chicken or mushroom variety. But one tin for a huge Corning Ware pot of pasta with no added salt, I guess is not so bad. But is tasty yummy goodness.

Anyway, what goes in it?

Ingredients (all this is to make a pot big enough to feed about 6-7 people. We keep the leftovers)

Diced chicken (I usually use 6-7 chicken thighs and cut the meat off the bones. Save bones for chicken stock)
Loads of vegetables.
1 whole Zuchinni
Broccoli
2 packets of Young Corn
2 medium sized Carrots
1 packet of Mushrooms
1 stick of Celery (diced thin so that the kids don't complain)
Potatoes (if you want it more starchy. I don't usually do it with spuds though)
Garlic
Big yellow onion
All sliced or diced evenly
Chicken stock (boiled from the bones of the chicken thighs)
Pasta ( I use the tri-coloured spirals or shells for the kids and wholemeal spirals for ourselves. The pot is big enough to do a half and half)
Campbell's Cream of Chicken/ Mushroom soup. Can be replaced by healthier versions if desired.


Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Cook pasta al dente (not too cooked) bearing in mind that it is going to be baked after.
Drain pasta and run it through cold water and set it aside.
Sear chicken (flash cook and have pieces brown- don't need it to be cooked). This prevents chicken from flaking and falling apart when cooked again.
Saute garlic and onions in olive oil.
Add in hard vegetables to saute. Saute till relatively soft- not mushy!
Warm up chicken stock in whatever pot is going to be used to bake the pasta. Once warmed, pour out chicken stock.
Use warmed pot for pasta, sauteed veg and chicken. Mix well.
Slowly mix in tin of cream soup, making sure it dissolves. Slowly add it one cup of chicken stock as well to form moist consistency for the gravy.
If pasta is not wet enough, slowly add in another half a cup of chicken stock.

How much chicken stock is added depends on how wet you envision this dish to be.

Once you are satisfied with the consistency of the dish, put it in oven till pasta is bubbling and chicken is cooked.
The surface of the pasta will be crisp.
























We've had it two nights in a row. Well, Packrat and I, that is. And to make it fiery, we add some dashes of Habanero Tabasco.

We tried it with melted cheese but it made it too rich and lemak and I didn't like it. At all.

Technorati Tags: child friendly recipes, pre-schoolers

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Favourite Foods 1- Shepherd's Pie

A friend asked me to blog about the food that the twins and Muffin eat. It was to give her some idea of what to feed her kids.

It would also serve as a record for the kids of their favourite meals as young kids so I thought that it wasn't too bad an idea.

I'm hoping to be able to come up with 7 easy to cook meals that they like.

This one is Shepherd's Pie. For the record, only Evan and Muffin like it now. Jordan has decided she is not keen on it. The boys like it because of the copious amount of potato and beef in it. Jordan likes her food more Asian and noodle-ly.

Shepherd's Pie is what we make if we need to boys to eat in a hurry. And the added advantage is that it is an easy meal to make as well.

Ingredients:
1-2 Russet Potatoes. (Only russets because they bake well and are not too sweet)
Carrot
Parsnip
Broccoli
Pumpkin/ Squash
Celery
Tomato
(I usually pick what is in the fridge and what needs to be cleared out. Usually it will be 3 vegetables)
Minced beef (100-150gm)
Minced garlic
Fresh milk
Oregano and other herbs (optional- dependent on whether children are open to eating herb-y food)
Shredded cheese (if available)

1. Quarter potatoes and boil till soft.
2. Set aside and use pot to cook the other ingredients.
3. Fry garlic with olive oil and then add in other vegetables to simmer till soft.
4. A minute before the fire gets turned off, add in minced beef to cook. Turn off fire when everything is cooked.
5. Mash potatoes with a fork, mixing in some milk to make it creamy and smooth.
6. Lay ingredients on a baking dish and plaster the potato on the top. Use fork to rough up potato so that there are peaks and it will crisp.
7. Sprinkle the cheese over the potato and bake it in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius till brown.
8. Keep warm in oven till ready to eat.























The shepherd's pie that was remaining in the container after Muffin finished his lunch was polished off by an Evan who eats adult sized portions. He follows his father, in terms of appetite and love for meat and spuds!

Technorati Tags: pre-schooler, twins, food, child-friendly recipes

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