Tips on making and storing baby food (1)

I was thinking to share on how I usually prepare porridge for baby J. I bought this useful ice cube maker from Daiso some time ago. It is a very good size for freezing puree and easily come off when I broke open the frozen puree. Important thing is it has a lid to cover the puree. Hygiene is a big thing in baby's food. You don't want to contaminate baby's food with other frozen  meat/fish/chicken in your freezer.

The green puree is zuchinni. 1 zuchinni yields 4 cubes. I just steamed zuchinni  (cut into smaller pieces) for about 10 minutes and process in blender. Then just pour the puree into the container to freeze.

Here is pumpkin puree. I only have 1 of the Daiso container so I transferred the pumpkin cube out into plastic container to keep. I remove the skin of 1/8 local pumpkin and cut into smaller pieces. Then just steam for about 15 minutes. Remove from steamer and mash the soft pumpkin with a fork. After that just transfer the pumpkin puree into ice cube maker to freeze. I usually will finish up these puree within 2 weeks.

Sometimes I cook the porridge in normal pot on stove. But it required constant stirring to avoid the "small" amount of rice from sticking to the base of pot. If I am busy or need to attend to other work in the house, I will throw everything into a slow cooker and add hot boiling water to shorten the cooking time. Even with hot boiling water, it requires about 2.5 hours to get a smooth consistency so sometimes I wish to just use the pot to cook it. Haha! Anyway, I will process the rice into smaller pieces in blender if I use the pot. I usually made and keep a batch of the processed rice to make the cooking express.

Mini express pizza

Facebook is such a powerful tool. I learnt a lot of new stuff , received quick information or news and connected with friends in Facebook. When there was the earthquake early this year, we logged onto Facebook and watched everyone else giving us live update on the situation. Here's one of the new stuff I have learnt. I called it mini express pizza. It's mini because of the size and express because it's so quick to prepare. It took about 20 minutes for the whole process.

I made a serving for 2 person. 

Ingredients:

4 pieces of sandwich bread

2 huge sausages of any flavor. I used black pepper sausage

Oregano/basil/parsley flakes -optional

ketchup

fresh parsley

1/2 onion

4 cheddar cheese

Instructions:

1. Heat the oven for about 5-10 minutes at  150 degree celcius. You can turn on the oven first then only start assembling the ingredients

2. Spread ketchup on only one side of  all the 4 breads

3. Slice onion and spread on the bread

4. Cut sausages and place on top of the onions evenly

5. Sprinkle some oregano/basil/parsley flakes if you wish

6. Put a cheddar cheese on top of each bread

7. Place the mini pizza on pan and shove into oven

8. Bake for about 10 minutes

9. When they are done, take out from oven and spread some fresh parsley on top.

See how easy to make a simple yet filling breakfast for weekend morning?

California handroll

We have 2 avocados left from the box because baby J now refuses to eat avocado. We introduced him to this super fruit earlier when he started solid however when he already tasted other sweet fruits like pear and apple plus my tasty porridge, now he knows avacado is not the best tasted food. I used up 1 avocado to make california handroll for lunch last weekend. However I made a mistake by assembling all the handrolls before eating because the nori sheets sort of damp off after being exposed to the air for too long. I should have make it one by one after finish eating each. It's fairly easy to make California roll but some of the ingredients are quite pricey like avocado and caviar. Even the short grain rice is also higher in cost than the normal grain rice.

I assembled roughly about 12 rolls. The ingredients:

6 nori sheets, cut half each.

1 avocado, sliced

6 imitation crab sticks

caviar

1 zuchinni

1 cup short grain rice

sushi vinegar

Japanese mayonese

Steps:
Cook rice in rice cooker according to your rice cooker manual. When the rice is done, pour 2 tablespoon of vinegar and mix with wooden/plastic laddle. Try to use a fan to chill down the rice when you mix. Then cover the rice to avoid the air from drying the surface

Place nori sheet on clean surface

Spread about 2-3 tablespoon of rice on the lower left of the sheet

Squeeze some mayonese on top of the rice , then 1/2 teaspoon of caviar

Place the sticks of zuchinni, crab stick, and avocado.

Roll into the shape of handroll

Use about 2 grain of cooked rice to stick the end of nori sheet to secure the shape

Put a little caviar on top (optional)


The steps here sound a bit hard to follow. Easy, just google. There's plenty of recipe out there. I am just merely putting down the steps to remind myself on how I did it this time.

Stew pork with braised nuts

I can't recall if I ever post this food before but I made it many times before. I have no time to go back and search my  blog if I ever did this post so anywhere, I added new ingredient to it.

This dish is remarkable simple to cook. Just throw all the ingredients into the claypot and let it simmer for 1 hour or more. 

Ingredients
Pork - soft bones, about 600g
Dried water chestnuts, about 20 pieces and break the bigger ones into half
5 shitake mushrooms, quartered
1 can of braised peanuts
10 tau hu pok, cut the bigger pieces into half
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
3 tablespoon soy sauce
water just enough to cover all ingredients
salt
pepper


.... So easy. nom nom

Baby J eats porridge + broccoli + pumpkin + fish

After introducing anchovies to baby J 2 weeks ago, today I gave him 2 new ingredients. They are fish and broccoli. He is used to pumpkin so I just keep the pumpkin in his meal for the familiar sweet taste. This time I added half a teaspoon of virgin coconut oil into his porridge for dinner. He finished up the porridge and dessert. His dessert is pear puree. I know pear can relieve constipation for babies however it works extra efficient for baby J. I worry the new ingredients will cause constipation problem to him so gave him pear today. I gave  him pear or apple puree at least twice a week.  He loved his dinner!

Chocolate ice cream

I still have half whipping cream left from making red bean ice cream. Cream is expensive so I am not going to let it go to waste. I went forquick groceries pick up for a few ingredients during lunch break, things like cocoa powder and semi sweetened chocolate. I planned to make chocolate ice cream. I use this recipe

The ice cream turns out very chocolaty, the real chocolate indulgence. The texture is perfect just like how I imagined it will be. I am stopping the ice cream marathon after this or else I am doing to gain extra fat in no time.

Red bean (azuki) ice cream

When my ice cream maker arrived at my mother's house, I was excited and at the same time feeling desperate to get hold of it. I waited until I go back to my mother's house and saw the gadget, I still try to withhold my excitement until I took it back home with me. I already got this recipe ready to use anytime. I made lemon ice cream before (manual way) and I wanted so much to try out the red bean ice cream. Recipe from here: http://userealbutter.com/2010/02/14/red-bean-ice-cream-recipe/

I didn't use exactly the recipe that's given . I made the ice cream paste myself by cooking red beans in very little water then processed half of it into paste and left over half-processed so I can get the small pieces of red bean in my ice cream. I am happy ;)

Thanks to the ice cream maker now I do not need to freeze the mixture and break the ice my hands and repeat this many times. :D I let the mixture churn in the maker for about 30 minutes and that's what I got like in the picture above. Fat, I am coming. Slim, please hold me back!

Lime sorbet

This is the second trial with my ice cream maker. I made the lime sorbet using this recipe. It is very easy and required only minimum ingredients. Mix the following.

Lime zest from 4 limes
Lime juice from 8 limes
Syrup (simply combine 2 cup of water with 2 cups of sugar and dissolve in a pan)
1 cup of water

Chill the mixture in fridge overnight and churn in ice cream maker as directed by the manual.
Overall the texture is soft and the taste is nice however the sorbet melts quicker than those I eat in shop. I need to check out how to keep the sorbet/ice cream last longer