Of bumblebees and noodles

Things have really been heating up (hur hur) in the kitchen lately, what with the constant stream of cupcakes, cakes and whatnots to make. This week alone I've made 2 wedding cakes, and about 100 cupcakes, including mini ones!!

Phew!

And Aidan's turning 4 in a couple of weeks, and what does he want? A TRANSFORMER-BUMBLEBEE cake, like this one:



The only thing I could say to him was "SIAO AH?!!"

He's been such a great kid lately, helping me with my baking and generally not getting up to too much mischief so I can get work done. And he said, "Mama, you're the best Cooker!" Hmm...a pressure cooker maybe?

Anyways, in light of all this baking, I thought I'd post something different. A couple of weeks ago I made seafood hor fun and it garnered a bit of attention from friends on facebook asking for the recipe, so I thought I'd post it here.

Seafood Wat Tan Hor Fun (adapted from May's Favourites)
1 pkt fresh hor fun - at room temp. at loosened
250g medium green prawns
100g choy sum (chai sim)
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4-5 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp cornflour mixed with 4 tbsp water
2 cups chicken stock
White pepper to taste

Sauce Mix
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp chinese cooking wine
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar

Method
1. Rinse, peel and devein prawns, leaving tails intact.
2. Fry hor fun over a hot wok until fragrant and slightly burned. Use a little (1 tbsp) cooking oil if necessary. Transfer cooked hor fun to a serving dish.
3. Heat wok with 2 tbsp cooking oil and fry garlic lightly.
4. Add prawns and fry til they turn pink.
5. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil.
6. Add choy sum and cook lightly.
7. Add cornflour mixture, then reduce the heat.
8. Add Sauce Mix and stir, then slowly pour in beaten egg and stir again lightly for the "dropped egg" effect.
9. Pour sauce over the fried hor fun, sprinkle white pepper to taste and serve with green chillis if you like.


For more baking hijinks, visit http://www.buttercup-bakeshoppe.com

The Big Three O

Aidan fed himself noodles with chopsticks the other day. CHOPSTICKS. Albeit the kind with handles for training little kids, but he's pretty adept and handling food with it. Impressive!!

We got the Pororo ones from Mama Moo, as well as this thing called the Wean Machine for mushing up baby food, as a baby shower pressie for Ivy, and an anti-bacterial spray (rather than the alcohol gels which are nasty on my dermatitis-ridden hands).

In other news, I had a whole gadzillion of these at my b'day party over the weekend:



which is probably why I fell sick and am still nursing a sore throat. But thanks Candice they were lovely! And she actually gave me the recipe, which I'm dying to try out!




EG has more photos which he'll upload to FB soon!

It was a terrific weekend, I felt so loved! Friday nite out with the girls, a whole day of parties on Saturday with beautiful weather - Ivy's baby shower and Jin's housewarming - followed by a walk around the Flemington Twilight craft markets and dinner (if you can call eating at 5.30pm dinner) at Hellenic Republic where I got stuffed fatter than a Christmas turkey.

Then Sunday with a celebration in the park (great weather again!) with friends. And food prepped by Ivy. Who can ask for more?

Thanks for journeying with me!

Healthy Cookies (yes they exist!)

We've been on the hunt for healthier snack alternatives for Aidan, without too much sugar ('coz he's energetic enough as it is!) So after Googling around, I found a great cookie recipe which we tried this morning!

If you've been following my tweets today, you'd have seen the results as the cookies were being made.

Here's what happened (click on photos to see larger version):

Mash a large ripe banana


Add in butter & sugar


Sift the flour


Add all the dry ingredients to the wet ones and Mix!!


Chop up an apple in the Happy Chopper


Add it into the mixture


Mix it into a dough!


Spoon them and drop 'em onto the cookie pan


Bake for 20 mins at 160 degrees C


Here they are baking...they SMELL DELICIOUS!


All done! Onto the rack to cool...


...and into Aidan's tummy! Yum!!

Here's the recipe, which I got from ChefMom.com. I've tweaked it a little...didn't add the cinnamon or macadamia nuts, 'coz I didn't have any at home!

Apple-banana wholemeal cookies
1 large ripe banana
1/2 cup unsalted butter, really soft (or use olive oil as a healthier alternative)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup of oatmeal
1/2 cup white flour
3/4 cup wholewheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup macadamia nuts, chopped
1 apple, chopped

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Mash banana in a large bowl. Add butter (or olive oil) and brown sugar. In another bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add these to the banana mixture. Add the nuts and apples last.

Spoon onto cookie pan lined with greaseproof paper, about 5 cms apart. Bake in oven at for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Prep time: 30 to 45 minutes. The recipe makes about 30-40 cookies, depending how big you make them!

And trust me, they were REALLY yummy. I usually gravitate towards chocolate, but these weren't too sweet so I just kept popping them into my mouth! WARNING: 1 or 2 cookies might be a healthier alternative to chocolate; pop 6 or 7 of these babies like I did, and you'd need to swim 10 laps!!

For the love of beeswax! And other random stuff...

Lots have been happening lately with us over the last few days, so let's get right into it! In reverse chonological order...

Today (Wednesday):
We just made banana and choc chip bread together, and it's baking in the oven. How cute! Aidan helped me pour the ingredients into the bowl. He also helped mash the bananas too! Then we chanted "mix mix mix" (he's SO clever at repeating words now, even the 'S'-sounds which are typically hard to master) as we stirred the batter, and poured it into the loaf pan. Mmmm....the smell wafting out of the kitchen is delicious! All right... shan't be a food flirt, here's the recipe! It's really easy, got it off May Q, no butter!

Banana Choc-Chip Bread
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 C sugar
1 1/3 C self-raising flour
50 ml milk
50 ml olive oil
2 eggs
chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts)
chocolate chips (or chopped choc pieces)

Mix them all up in a large bowl, pour into a greased loaf pan, bake at 180 degrees C (160 if using fan-forced oven) for 20-40 mins till outside is golden brown, and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Serve warm and eat! (If you're really indulging, add a scoop of vanilla-bean ice cream. TO DIE FOR!)

(Sorry if the pictures are a little fuzzy...took it on my 2MP camera-phone.)

Er...the Ribena doesn't go into the cake...it's for the baker's stomach...

He tried to lick the wooden spoon, and got a face full of batter...

The cake should look like this. If yours doesn't, well, maybe baking isn't right for you... ;p

Yesterday:
It was time for childcare again, and neither of us was really looking forward to it particularly. It's always so hard to leave, watching him cry, but necessary. I do believe he needs that interaction with other kids, and plus I need some ME-time! So for the sake of both our sanities (and development), he goes in once a week, while I'm at class.

Turns out, he's adjusting a lot better - less crying, and getting better each time, say the people who work in his room (Pre-kinder one). I can't remember if I've blogged about this, but, he was bumped up to the Pre-kinder class 'coz of some admin error (they thought he was still in Babies), and seeing how there wasn't room left in toddlers, he got bumped up (plus he was close to the right age anyways).

Last week, he was such a little scrapper, pushing back against this other big kid who kept pushing him (in a 'duh...i'm a big giant, hello little thing. Whoopsies, you fell! Duh...whad happened?" kinda way). He kinda reminded me of a feisty chihuahua who won't stand at being bullied, the way he barked back and flailed his arms about as if in a girlfight. This week when the other kid came by, A just ignored him. Haha... well, you gotta preserve yourself somehow when you're smaller and younger than everyone else in class!

As for me, I learnt "i bicchieri va nel'armadio" and "no, non gioco mai tennis". I think I conjugated that correctly...


The day before:
We went to the Collingwood Children's Farm! It was great, we got to see sheep, goats, pat horses, watch chickens cluck and geese and ducks, and a big fat black pig with her little piglets. Aidan had a ball of a time, even though he fell over into the dirt, which got into his nose and mouth. Eww. But other than that, no real anima poo incidents that I had to clean up. Although A seemed more interested in dirt and rocks - kept picking one up after another and wandering around with them. Funny boy! Pictures will come soon in FB.

Another milestone - he's really able to feed himself with a spoon now, quite accurately in fact. He's quite adept at spooning yoghurt into his mouth, although rice, porridge and pasta tend to me messier.

He's also developed a fondness for the blue Ikea kid's chair I've been using to sit on while bathing him. He can actually carry the whole thing, and has been doing so from room to room. He'll even turn it upside down to sit IN it. It's just like how instead of sitting on his Pooh-bear walker, he STANDS on it! Quite proudly too, with a ta-daaaah face! The things toddlers do...

New words spoken: eyes, nose, ear, mouth, amen, chicken!!

As for me: Another celebrity dream - this time, John Mayer called me up, we had a great conversation, and he invited me over to hang out! EG came home and helped me pick an outfit with whatever I had there and then (a black top and a puffy skirt which did NOT go together), and I got into the car. Woke up before arriving. Dang!


The day before the day before:
Aidan found a Forever Sharp knife on the edge of a table in church (& if you've seen those knives, they're really long and serrated at the edge, with twin prongs!), which we had used for cutting a cake. He'd actually reached over and above to grab it. Started wandering around brandishing it, which thankfully a horrified friend discovered and removed before A hurt himself. Or worse, stabbed the Pastor (although at the rate his sermons have been dragging on...doodeedoodeedooo... nahhhhh.)

Pretty eventful first half of the week!