Baby Food: Banana Raisin Oatmeal

One of her breakfast. I use frozen banana purée as the banana I bought was ripe and could no longer be kept. So I purée the banana to be kept frozen. If you have ripe banana, you could just use it and mashed it. It's more ideal for babies who prefers a little texture in their oatmeal. Recipe as follow.

Ingredients

1 banana (mashed)

A small portion of raisins (chopped finely)

1 small cup of oats (blended or whole)

Water or milk 

1. Place the oats, mashed banana, chopped raisins and some water or milk, on low fire cook till it's done or raisins are soft enough. 

Thoughts: Bread

Once upon a time, everything used to be homemade and everyone could make everything, then came a time where everything started to be commercialized because men got smarter and figured out how to mass produce to make a profit and then men got greedy and started added preservatives to increase production and make their products last longer on the shelves. I gotta admit, it's a lot easier in terms of money and time to buy a loaf of bread off the shelves. And should a household have limited members of family, then making a whole loaf of bread with no one to consume would just lead to wastage costing more money. I would make it except when it comes to bake, I have really lousy skills, plus the whole idea of needing to make it from scratch just seems so time consuming and troublesome. I still wouldn't attempt to make a loaf of bread from scratch, however if I have a machine that could make it provided I dump all the ingredients in, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it. If it was not for social media, I would still continue to opt for commercially made bread made like Gardenia or Massimo. But a good couple sharing is good enough to freak me out and cause some paranoia to me about bread. Someone once shared that they left the bread for a whole month and despite the expiry says 5 days after the date it was bought, there was not a single mold on the bread. Now that freaked the crap outta me that I decided to try for myself to see. Indeed, two weeks long, not a single thing could grow on the bread and the typically freshly baked bread could ONLY last for 3 days. Imagine 2 WEEKS to 3 DAYS. Imagine the horror to my discovery, sick to my stomach knowing I fed my child bread that has THAT much amount of preservatives. And that was the end of the commercialized bread I've ever bought unless I was desperate for bread. But rarely do I give into buying commercialize bread. I made a vow from then on that I would only buy freshly bake bread from bakery store. It was either freshly baked bakery store bread or no bread at all. I even brain washed my in laws into giving up commercialize bread!

What's the point if it's cheap but comes with lousy quality or no quality that could contribute to cancer? I'd rather pay more for more quality and healthier option. I started looking around, trying freshly baked bread from a couple bakeries. There were some really good ones and some so so and some bakeries that has added preservatives too. One fine day I came across a bakery store called Freemori and decided to give it a try. And boy, did they win the first spot in my list. They have a variety of bread like wholemeal, white, chocolate flavored, sesame flavored, marbled flavored and a couple more other flavors and the best part is that their bread is just so so soft. One of the best I've had. I highly recommend to anyone who wishes to buy bread that's freshly baked. Give Freemori's bread a try. Priced at RM5.50 for wholemeal bread (8 slices) and RM4.50 for white bread (8 slices). Money worth paid for the quality I'm getting. I've been getting my bread from Freemori ever since. Although, a Gardenia whole meal bread cost RM3.20 for about 10-12 slices, while a freshly baked bread would cost around RM5 for 8 slices, it's all about quality and healthier lifestyle in today's world where cancer rates have been increasing primarily due to an aging population and lifestyle changes in the developing world. People are more vary of cancer and people are opting for a healthier lifestyle. While quality lifestyle is such a bitch to the pocket, but for the sake of our health and beating cancer's ass, we're just gonna have to bite the bullet for paying more. Long term wise, it would be a lot beneficial. 

Freemori Cafe at Shah Alam

The inside of the store.

Wholemeal and White Milk bread

Baby Food: Chicken Porridge

As Cadence turn 8 months old, I decided it was high time I introduce porridge to her. Super super excited as this would be considered my first time preparing home made chicken stock and to be frozen for her daily consumption. I've never done this for Ezra since he's a fussy pot. And he always settled for all the teething biscuits like Rusk whereas, Cadee would never take Rusk. But nevermind that. Cadence took porridge well and loves it. I couldn't be more happier about it.

To kick start, I bought Avent food storage cups as I had to make a batch and to freeze it. I do not have the luxury of time like some SAHM (stay at home moms) where I could prepare her food fresh on a daily basis. I envy those moms that could coz I really wish I could do it. But since I can't, freezing them up isn't so bad after all. Homemade to me is the key here. I decided to make my chicken stock in advance and freeze them up. My stocks made are usually for a week's worth. It's fairly simple to make and ingredients can be of anything that you like, so you can add more or omit ingredients as you like. Like onions, celery, tomatoes, potatoes or pumpkins. I choose turnips and carrots and they're usually sweet by nature. And the key to turnips is that you've gotta boil them for a certain time in order for the taste to be in the stock. I avoided onions as I worry it might cause some her to be gassy. But I did introduce much later when she was a year old. Another story then. Here's the recipe and pictures.

Homemade Chicken stock
 Ingredient:
> 1/2 chicken or 1 whole chicken bones and a quarter chicken
> Baby corn
> Turnip (cut into cube)
> Carrots (cut into small chunks)
> Chinese spinach (Bayam/Yin Choi)

Method:

1. Place the chicken, baby corn, turnip and carrots. And simmer for about 2 hours.
2. 30 mins before turning off the fire. Put in the spinach and boil till soft.
3. Once chicken stock is done. Let cool.
4. To store, minced the carrots, spinach and chicken to small pieces. I do not keep the turnip and corn as it'll be too tough for baby to chew.

Avent storage cups for chicken stock

Chicken Stock

Frozen chicken stock

What's needed. A slow cooker, a double boiler ceramic pot, chicken stock

Blended rice

Chicken stock and a cup of rice

Blended rice washed and cleaned

Rice washed and cleaned, chicken stock, all dumped in the double boiler ready to cook.

My double boiler ceramic

Tadah! Cooked! After 2 hours

Up close Done

The result: Chicken porridge with carrots, chicken and spinach bits