Pasta Again

Last weekend was pasta day again.  This is really my favourite dish.  I still have some left overs animals pasta and thought of cooking it for the kids and also mummy (daddy was not around).  I also added some macaroni.  I love to cook pasta as it's simple, fast and most important is the kids love it.  Less headache during meal times when the kids ate pasta.

This time I use ham, bacon, sausages for my pasta.  I simply loved the taste of the bacon in my pasta..  I also bought a pack of thickened cream (wah....so fattening :P).  For a quick and easy way, I opt for the Prego Mushroom Carbonara.  It was really a quick lunch as I only had to boil the pasta, chop some garlics and onions, fry the ham, bacon followed by the pasta sauce.
 

Ta-Da!  Here comes our simple lunch on a Sunday afternoon. Hope all of you had a great weekend!

Konnyaku Jelly

 A friend of mine introduced me to this brand of Konnyaku Jelly Powder.  She bought it from a sundry shop in Klang and she told me that this was one of the first few brands that offered in the market when Konnyaku Jelly was a hit.  So far, I haven't come across this brand.  Most of the time I got mine from either Jusco or Giant but they don't really turn out nice.

This brand (Happy Grass) offers a few flavours and my friend bought me the apple flavour.  I don't have to add any colours to my konnyaku jelly as the mixture is already green in colour.

The instruction was also slightly different as  I need to mix the powder and the water before boiling.  Unlike the others brand that I bought, we normally boil the water and add in the powder.  After boiling, I need to add the malic acid and still till it dissolve.  Here's a snap shot of the instruction at the back of the packet.

I also added a can of longans for my konnyaku jelly.  I didn't use the syrup as I thought it would be too sweet since the mixture had sugar added in it.  Here's the outcome of my Konnyaku Jelly.  A lil bit too greenish but it was GOOD!  Really " kenyal-kenyal" !

I am definately going to settle down with this brand.  Planning to buy other flavours and try them out again.  I absolutely love the taste!  As for my two lil ones at home, they have been asking to eat the konnyaku jelly after every meal ^_^.  The kids simply adores this dessert!

Homemade Hello Kitty Ping Pei Mooncake (2nd Trial)

Last year I tried making my own ping pei mooncake but it didn't turn out nice.  This year I gave it another try again.  As usual, lazy mummy like me prefer to do everything cepat-cepat (fast), so I bought the ready made snow skin premix and the lotus paste.  Nowadays, you can get this snow skin premix from any bakery shop.

This year instead of getting the red bean lotus paste, I opt for tiramisu lotus paste as I wanted to try something different.  For this recipe, I just need to add water, shortening, colouring.  I didn't want to use any artificial colouring this round, and since I only have red cherries in my fridge, I chopped them into pieces and mix together with the dough to get the 'pink' colour.  You can still see some tiny bits of cherries in my dough. 

The instructions were written on the pack.  First - pour the mixture into a bowl, add in water, stir and add shortening.  After adding the shortening, I added my red cherries and knead the dough.  Let it rest for 15 minutes to 50 minutes.

While waiting for the dough, I took the tiramisu paste and make them into small round balls.  After 20 minutes, I rolled the dough into small balls.  Next, flatten the skin, put the paste in the middle and wrapped around it.  Lastly I put them in my hello kitty cookie cutter and here comes my hello kitty ping pei moon cake :P

I think my mooncake was a bit thick, I still need lots of practice on how to wrapped the filling inside as I found it so difficult to wrapped it and also to make the shape of the hello kitty look nice.  I felt that my snow skin is not smooth.  Still haven't figured out why....hmmmmm.....Well, next year I guess I should go for mooncake making class!

Overall, I do enjoy the experience of making my own mooncakes ^__^.   Here are some of the hello kitty snow skin mooncake and also some traditional ones :P.

This is how it looks like with tiramisu lotus paste.  Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Merryn’s Eggless Nutty Chocolate Brownie Recipe

After reading about Merryn’s Eggless Nutty Chocolate Brownie Recipe, I was so tempted to give it a try because it sounds so easy! No baking was required and I can even ask my lil prince to be my assistance.

Here are the ingredients (recipe from Merryn’s blog)

22 Marie Biscuits
20gm cocoa powder
40gm roasted nuts
200gm condensed milk

I bought the tiger marie biscuits, cocoa powder, condensed milk and for roasted nuts, I also use cashew nuts and almond nuts as these are my favorites!

The instructions are pretty easy to follow too.  I placed the marie biscuits in my zip lock bag so that it’s easier for  me to break them into pieces.  I gave the bag to my lil prince to break the marie biscuits into crumbs while I chopped the nuts.  Boy!  He had fun breaking those pieces of biscuits and he almost broke my zip lock bag!   

 

Next we added the cocoa powder, nuts and lastly the condensed milk.    Simple right?  Just mixed everything together and pour into your baking tray.  Let it chill for at least 4 hours in the fridge or overnight.  I pour the mixture into my star shaped silicon molds and the left over I put them in a round plate. 

Here’s my star shaped chocolate brownies.

I cut the remaining chocolate brownies into heart shaped using my cookie cutter and packed them for lil prince snack box yesterday.

My lil prince absolutely loves this chocolate brownies and kept asking for me for more.  I will definitely make this again as it is really simple and the kids love it!  As for the process of making the brownies, I personally enjoyed the mother & son bonding time together in the kitchen.  I was so surprise that my lil prince was so eager to help me out in the kitchen right till the very end and even offer to wash the plates for me. 

You may hop over to Merryn's blog for step-by-step instructions on this recipe.  Thank you Merryn for sharing this lovely recipe!

 Last assignment for the day was to wash the utensils :P

My Experience : Jelly Mooncakes

I like to eat agar-agar, jellies and anything soft and sweet. As the Mid-Autumn festival is just round the corner, I saw a lot of mooncakes on sale.  Recently I saw a stall selling jelly mooncakes and I remember eating this jelly mooncakes when I was young and I really love them.  I was surprised that nowadays, they are selling at RM 8.00 per piece!  I was really shocked with the price.  

Last weekend, I tried to make my own jelly mooncakes.  I did make them last year but didn't turn out nice.  This year, I thought I wanna give it a try again.  Hmmm....outcome...not really successful in terms of taste but presentation wise, they do look like jelly mooncake ^__^.  

Got the looks but not the taste.....

I need to search for step by step recipe for jelly mooncake for improvement.  Nonetheless, my lil prince did give me a lot of support because he finished these two stars jelly mooncakes!  Mummies out there if you have any step-by-step recipe do let me know,ya! 

Butterflies and Flowers for Breakfast

I am currently in the process of training my lil prince and princess to eat more GREENS :P and also introducing some new fruits to him.  I always wonder why kids just don't eat anything that is green in colour? Is it because of the taste or because of the colour? 

Last Sunday, I make a simple breakfast for my lil ones. 

For lil prince
I boiled some broccoli, decorated with some crab meat on top as flowers.  I also make a small portion of mix vegetables that consists of carrots, green peas and corns in a small food cup.  Instead of having veges only, I added some ham and also eggs (the butterflies are made out of ham and egg).  The yellow spots on the butterflies are cheese sauce.

I make another attempt to get my lil prince to eat yellow kiwi.  He rejected it the first time.   This time I cut the kiwi fruit into flower shape.  The top flowers shape are kiwi fruits and strawberries.  I also get to use two of my food pick for my cherry tomatoes ^__^.

Outcome....successful!!!  My lil prince ate everything on the plate and left only one cherry tomato.  He also ate the yellow kiwi fruit!  To me, it is really an improvement.  It is a good start and also it gives me motivation to continue my GREEN project with my lil ones!

For lil princess

I also made a small bowl for my princess but too bad, she only eat the cheese and the mix vegetables.  She didn't know how to bite the broccoli.  I need to make it softer the next round.  Anyway, no harm in trying because there's always the first time.  Lesson learn today, don't give up.  Just keep trying...one day, we will succeed!

I'm starting my GREEN journey....:P

Breakfast with L-O-V-E

Do you think if you woke up one morning and see this plate of breakfast being serve on your dining table will put a smile on you face?  The smile on my lil prince face was absolutely priceless!  Last weekend, I woke up early and thought of preparing a simple breakfast for lil prince.  I only had sausages, eggs and crab stick in my fridge.  I remembered seeing the heart shaped sausage from one of the mummy's bento website and thought of trying it out. Hmmm...it was pretty simple, cut and assembled them together.  I was supposed to put a food pick to make them stay together but I totally forgotten about it :P.

After frying the heart-shaped egg, I thought it look a bit plain, so I added the crab stick and some cheese on top.  I also boiled a small cup of mixed vegetables and added two strawberries. 

The greatest satisfaction was to see my lil prince finished his food and not to mention the priceless SMILE! 

Have a great week ahead!

Express Pudding

I always have a sweet tooth.  I like eating jellies, cakes, ice-cream, chocolates and anything that is sweet.  Yeah, I know it's not good for health at my age but sometimes, just can't help it :P.  Last night I wanted to eat pudding and luckily I remembered that I bought a packet of 'express pudding' mix.  All I had to do was just to boil a cup of hot water and mix with the mixture inside the box.  I added some sweet cream corn in my pudding too.  For lazy mummy like me, these type of ready mix really come in handy when you needed them :)

I use some of my small silicon food cup to put the pudding so that I can add them into lil prince snack box too.  It will serve as a dessert for him ^__^.

My Baking Project

Last weekend I tried my luck again on baking.  I have often failed in most of my baking project. *sigh*...I almost wanted to give up.  I think I'm really a dummy when it comes to baking with the oven.  That is why most of the time my oven is sitting inside my kitchen cabinet instead of on top of my kitchen top!  I guess I really need to attend some baking class ^__^.

This time, I wanted to get lil prince involvement in the kitchen for my baking project.  So, I actually used the express cake mix that I bought from Giant.  It was the Pillsbury Lemon Cake.  I only had to add oil, water and 3 eggs.  Sounds pretty easy, right?  The preparation part was easy but the baking part wasn't so easy.  I was not sure how to estimate the baking time because I didn't follow the instructions on using the correct type of baking pan.  They had different baking time for different baking pan.  So, just 'agak-agak' only :P.

The first portion, I tried is with my teddy bear silicon mould that I bought recently from the bakery shop.  I bake it for 15 minutes under 180 degrees celcius.  I kept a close watch just in case I burnt the cake!  Luckily, it turn out well except for some burn section on the ear.

As I only have one silicon mould, I poured the rest of the batter into another cake pan.  Overall, the cake didn't really turn out perfect but at least this time it is edible!

The teddy bears lemon cake does looks cute and lil prince told me that they look like Winnie the Pooh to him.  Well, I still have a  long long way to go for my baking skills....

Snax Box # 059 Nemo & Friends

The first time I saw this fish (the fish with orange and white stripes), it reminds me of the cartoon Finding Nemo.  I am not a fan of cartoons but I must admit that I do enjoy watching this cartoon movie.  The fish was so cute.  Cute things really can't get away from my eyes.  That is why I name today's snack box as Nemo & Friends as today's theme is Fish!  Everything inside the box is fish shaped except the cherries :).

I also made lil prince a 'fish' egg and added some fish biscuits.  The fish next to 'nemo' is also another type of fish cake which we used for steamboat.  This is an easy to make snack box whereby I just need to boil everything.  You will be seeing a lot of 'nemos' in my snack box as I just bought a packet of 'nemo' fish ^__^.

TGIF!!

Have a nice weekend!

Snax Box # 058 - Bear Shaped Fish Ball

It's Monday again....How I wished we can have three days off for weekend :P.  There are so many things that I would like to do.  I packed this snax box for lil prince today (sorry the photo is a bit blur).  I bought the bear shaped fish ball from the market (this is the ones that they use for steamboat).  I find these fish ball very useful in packing my snax box as they are really cute!  I also bought other shapes such as fish and star shaped.

Lil prince request for his baby carrots and mayonnaise.  He said mummy have not been packing baby carrots for him for quite some time.  Yesterday we went to Tesco at Paradigm Mall and I bought a packet of baby carrots.  This time they came out with new packing, all peeled!  So convenient for me! I find it a bit difficult to peel baby carrots previously, coz they are so tiny.

Here's lil prince snax box for today :P

Happy Monday ^__^

Lil Prince Dinner Plate

I do have a few food picks (unused) in my kitchen.  I didn't dare to use these food picks to pack food for lil prince as I was afraid that he might play with the picks and will accidentally hurt his friends.  The other day his school teachers also advised parents not to use these food picks as they were afraid that the kids will get choke.

Well, I guess these food picks can only be used at home or during party (which we don't have often).  While I was preparing for his dinner last week, I took the opportunity to use these cute little food picks.  Basically, anything cute will just get my attention.  So, you can imagine I have a few of packets of these food picks!

Here's my dinner plate for lil prince.  Fried  fish with baby carrots and 'star' fish balls accompanied by some cherries and mayonnaise sauce.

Have a nice weekend!

Father's Day

*Delayed Post*
I've read so many blog about Father's Day celebration.  Really enjoyed reading all the activities that you planned for your fathers and hubby.  I made my so called jelly cake for Father's Day for hubby.  This is my second attempt trying to make my jelly cake. I wanted to try using the coconut milk as they taste nicer.

Here is the outcome of my teddy bear jelly cake.  Slight 'accident' at the right side of the paw ^__^.  I wanted to make layered jelly with different colours but it was too time consuming.  Hence I was only able to make three layers.  But the ones with all the smiling faces was not daddy himself but my two lil ones!  Lil prince was so excited when he saw the teddy bear and asked me 'who's birthday is it'.

We had dinner at Tai Thong restaurant with my in laws and ordered some nice dishes.  Luckily we had RM100 discount voucher.  We ordered toufu, steamed fish, mix vegetables with scallops and fried meat.  Overall it was a nice but rather expensive chinese dinner. I guess any meal with fish will be expensive :P

Here's what lil prince made for his papa from school.  A simple Father's Day card :)

Snax Box # 055 Lucky Stars

I saw this lucky stars fish ball from the market last week and I bought it immediately!  They are so cute.  I thought that it would be a good idea to pack for lil prince snack box as I'm running out of ideas to pack food for him.  Besides, they are also good to use if we are cooking soup or porridge.



Today I packed lil stars for him.  I made some star shaped from the left over cheese bread and boiled three of the fish ball 'stars'.  Assembled them together in the box.  I realized I didn't have space to put his biscuits, hence I just put in a few in between.  Only managed to put in two food cups to cater for the fruits and vegetables.  I gave him some cherry tomatoes, peaches and grapes.


 This weekend is Father's Day.  Wishing all fathers, daddy, papa ---> Happy Father's Day.  Hope all of you will have a good time celebrating father's day with your dad and your hubby :)   Enjoy your weekend!
Picture credit : glitter-graphics.com