Monday, September 2, 2013

Baby Food: Baby First Food (Part Two)


A few more pictures capturing all the First Time.


Baby Cadence holding a slice of pear
Baby Cadence enjoying her slice of pear
Yumzz
First food - Apple purees
Her first mouth
Her reaction - wondering what is this that I just ate
Processing the taste of apple
Deciding if she likes it or not

Baby Food: Baby First Food - Purées

This is long overdue lol. When Ezra my first born turn 6 months, I was so excited about introducing solid to him. BUT as a first time mom, I'm almost anal most the time about everything and particularly how I want my boy raised, from A-Z, so the subject of feeding solid was not something I fare well. Not really keen on relying on my mom or MIL for advice because they were formula moms, I had this thought implanted in my head that their methods are just so different from me as a breastfeeding mom that I gotta do my own reading and research, which is sorta true for some matters. Not like they're inexperienced. They are, but with a formula fed baby, but when it comes to breastfeeding, the do's and don't's is also something new to them, it's a learning process to them as well. SO I read that the first food that I should introduce rice and breast milk as their first food. I did just that but unfortunately, Ezra gagged and clearly didn't like it. Why would he when I didn't even like the taste. Assuming he wasn't ready, I delayed his solid intake to about 8 months. Till this day I believe Ezra is a picky eater because of me. I was lousy and unadventurous and the food I made was so limited that he didn't enjoy a lot of other yummy food out there. So when I had Cadence and after chatting with many many moms on what they've introduced and done for their little ones, I made sure that I didn't repeat the same mistake I did with Ezra. My experience with Ezra became my learning curve to Cadence. So when Cadence hit the 6 months mark, I went on full speed mode to prepare purées in batches to freeze. A week before 6 months, I actually let her hold slices of pears and apples to suck on just so she can get an idea there's more to breast milk in this world. She was a lot easier to feed and she seem to enjoy her food, almost all of her food that I've made for her. It could be she was very prepared for solid, I don't know but I would like to think I didn't do a good job with Ezra. The first food I introduced to her was apple purée. She gave a very positive response to her first food and I couldn't be more glad. I can safely declare that she loves her food because she would open up her mouth every time a spoon full is offered to her. And by 6 months is also when I started to introduce water to her to ease the intake of fruits purées.

To date, for fruits, I've made apple (red delicious), pear (packham), plum, peach, mango, banana (I use pisang berangan) and avocado. While for vegetables I've made, sweet potatoes (orange & Japanese yellow sweet potato), pumpkin (American & Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin/winter squash), green bean, baby corn, baby carrots and parsnip. For some reason, whatever that's from Japan always taste so much better like the Japanese sweet potato and kabocha. It's always so much sweeter naturally. Not to mention, for grains, instead of rice cereal, I've opted for oats. I bought a packet of roll oats and blended them myself. It was well received by Miss Cadee when the oats was cooked with breastmilk.

Anyways, to prepare myself for the whole process of preparing her solid food, I had a few items on my 'to-buy-list'. I made sure I bought a packet of labels so that every time I prepare her food, I could actually label the purées of what the ingredient is and the date I've prepared it. It is important because as you start to purée the food, the colours of sweet potato, pumpkin and carrots is almost similar that it's best to just put a label on the food storage compared to having to spend the few minutes to guess, followed by the date because you'll want to practice first in first out just like how you do it with expressed breast milk. Next up was I made sure I stocked up on the food storage container. As you can see from the picture, I bought 3 boxes of the Baby Food Storage Cups which is really handy when you first introduce purées to baby of 6 months onwards. The quantity you feed is about there, you start with a tablespoon then two and you gradually increase to an ounce to two during the introduction stage and it stores the perfect amount of purées required. So for every box, it comes with 8 storage cups on a tray that can store for a maximum of two ounces. It cost about RM 20-25 for each box. I really love this storage cups because not only does it store the perfect amount of purées, it comes with a tray that you can easily stack up on top of the other one, saving more space for other stuffs you might need to keep frozen. Like in my case, my expressed breast milk. Having enough of space in the freezer is crucial. So this storage cups are highly recommended. And thirdly, for the whole purpose of JUST preparing her food, I bought a new pot that comes with lid and a separate steamer insert for easy steaming. I just wanted a pot that is specifically just for making baby's food. While this was not in my to-buy-list, the last important item is having a blender for the sole purpose of puréeing. My mom got this blender/juicer that's from China, it's a 6 piece set. She already have blender and a juicer so she gave me so that I can use it just to make baby's food. The blender served us good. Still is.

I usually opt to steam the fruits and veges and some other that taste better through roasting, I'll opt to roast. The food which I usually steam are apples, pears, plums, peaches, sweet potato, green beans, carrots and corns. The food I roast is pumpkin and parsnip. They taste so much better when it's roasted compared to steam. As for banana, avocado & mango, I purée them as it is. For every food I've made for Cadence, I will always taste the food to make sure that the food I prepared would be something I would eat. If it taste bad or if I can't bring myself to stomach it, then I wouldn't want to give my baby something I wouldn't eat. At least that's the motto I practiced now after learning my lesson from Ezra.

Apple Purées or Pear Purées
 Ingredient:
> 2 Red Delicious Apple
or
> 2 Packham Pear

Method:
  1. Wash the apples or pears. Cut the apples/pears in 4. Remove the seeds & core. Place on a plate.
  2. Steam for 15 minutes or till soft. 
  3. Scrap the apples off the skin. Put in blender together with the juice from steaming.
  4. Blend & store.
 ** The same approach goes to peach & plum and sweet potato.

Baby Green Bean Purées or Baby Corn Purées
 Ingredient:
> A packet of baby green bean
or
> A packet of baby corn
> water

Method:
  1. Wash the green bean or baby corn. Cut the vegetables in half or 2 inches long.
  2. Steam till soft. Approximately 20 to 30 minutes long.
  3. Put in blender and add the juice from steaming. In the event the juice from the steam vegetables is not enough, you can always add water to water down the purées.
  4. Blend & store.
Banana Purées or Mango Purées or Avocado Purées
 Ingredient:
> 2 very ripe banana
or
> One small mango
or
> One ripe avocado
> breast milk or milk or water

Method:
  1. Cut the banana or mango into smaller portion (blendable portion). For avocados, spoon the avocado into the blender.
  2. Add in some water to ease the blending for banana and mango or you can add in some breast milk to reach your preferred consistency. For avocado, preferably add in breast milk or milk so that it comes out creamy.
  3. Blend & store. 
** In the event if the purées are too thick and too creamy for your baby, you may add in breast milk or normal milk even after it's thawed to thin out the consistency.

Pumpkin Purées or Parsnip Purées
 Ingredient:
> Quarter pumpkin
or
> One parsnip

Method:
  1. Wash and clean the pumpkin, remove the seeds. For parsnip, wash and remove the skin.
  2. Cut into ideal size. Place in the oven. Place the pumpkin skin down or sideways, parsnip any way. Place a little bit of water in the oven. (As Cadence was 8 months old, I drizzle a bit of olive oil on the vegetables)
  3. Roast for 40 minutes to an hour long at 175 C. Skin of the pumpkin would be wrinkled and the pumpkin would feel soft when pressed. Parsnip would be tender.
  4. Scrape out the pumpkin "meat" and then blend and store. 
** You may mix the purées after its thawed to your liking or you may store the purées half and half in a cup as you like.

Labels & pen to label the purées and the date.

Baby food storage cups. 8 cups per tray that stores 2 oz each. Cost about RM20-25
My steamer and pot with lid bought for the whole purpose for making her food.
Mango
Mango puréed in blender
Mango purées into the storage cups
Apple & Pear steamed
Steamed apple scraped
Apple sauce purées & pear purées

Avocado
A comb of banana. This is pisang emas which Cadence doesn't really favor. She prefers pisang berangan or Cavendish banana. They don't turn black as fast. And I usually gotta keep it till it's very ripe.
Chopped banana into the blender.
Banana purées
Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin/winter squash), orange sweet potato, japanese sweet potato & baby carrots
Baby carrots
Baby carrots purées
Kabocha (japanese pumpkin/winter squash)
Kabocha (japanese pumpkin/winter squash) purées
Orange sweet potato
Orange sweet potato into the blender
Japanese sweet potato (yellow)
Japanese sweet potato (yellow)
Labelled & dated
L-R: Orange sweet potato, kabocha, baby carrots & yellow Japanese sweet potato purées
L-R: Apple sauce, mango & pear purées
Steamed, puréed, stored, labelled & stacked. Background scene: EBF (Expressed frozen breast milk)


Sunday, June 16, 2013

Thoughts: Adoration

Every parent out there adores their kid irregardless of how they look or how they are. Every imperfections of a baby or a kid that's visible to another parent or human being is every perfection to the parent of the baby or kid simply because we're overwhelmed by love, thus those imperfections are blinded by the love we feel. They become simply perfect in our eyes. This love can only be understood when you are right there at the spot, when one has stepped into parenthood. It's an amazing feeling. So speaking of adoring your own kids, I'm no different than others. I am one of those mom who adores the hell out of my kids. I know they're not the worlds cutest baby but they're adorable as hell in their very own way in my world and I love waking up to see these innocent smiling faces. 

Baby Cadence in blue ensemble
Spiky hair like her dad
One early morning
The kid eating his dinner like a boss. There's something about fries that kids love. He finished his fries but NONE of his fish. Cadence sucked on the broccoli and loves it. You can see how she's trying to reach for her brother's fries.

Recipes: Dry Loh Shee Fun

OD-ed on outside food that I decided I had to cook lunch last weekend. Couldn't bear to go through another 'What to eat?' weekend so I figured I'll make something simple and since my hubs isn't a big fan of yellow egg noodle, I had to forgo making fried noodle and opt for loh shee fun or otherwise known as rat tail's noodle. Sounds disgusting I know and no, it's not made from rat's tail. It's just the look of this noodle kinda resemble rat's tail thus the name. Loh Shee means rat in cantonese while fun means starch? Well wiki has a better explanation, so here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_needle_noodles. Recipes are all based on estimation, as usual.

Kon Lou Loh Shee Fun

Ingredients:
  • 1 packet of loh shee fun or rat tail's noodle
  • 200 - 300 grams of minced pork
  • A packet of porkball 
  • 10-15 small shallots (sliced thinly)
  • 6 pips of garlic (minced)
  • 1 bundle of baby Kai Lan (optional)
  • 1 packet of Kuey Tiau (Flat Rice Noodles)
  • 1-2 stalk Spring Onion
  • Chillies
  • Oyster sauce
  • Light soy sauce
  • Dark soy sauce
  • Pepper
  • Sugar
  • Water
Method:
1. Boil water and add in the pork balls to cook it. Or if you have clear chicken broth or is making soup, you can cook the pork balls in the soup. Once cooked, remove the pork balls. 

2. Marinade the minced pork with oyster sauce, light soy sauce, pepper and sugar. In a pan, heat oil, stir fry a generous amount of sliced shallots and minced garlic. Before it starts to brown, put in the minced pork and stir fry till cooked. Taste along, add oyster sauce, light soy sauce and sugar if more is needed. Put in the pork balls for a quick cook, so to coat the pork balls with flavors. 

2. Fry the shallots till golden brown. Remove and put in aside. 

3. Boil water to cook the noodle for 5 mins long. Drain once cooked and set aside. 

4. If you are opting for some vegetables like I did for a balance diet, boil the vegetables of your choice. To make the sauce, in a pan, heat some oil, stir fry minced garlic and sliced shallots till before brown, add in oyster sauce and light soy sauce and mixed immediately and turn off fire. Pour over vegetables. 

5. To make the sauce, dark soy sauce, water, sugar and light soy sauce mix and heat for few mins in a pan or pot just to thoroughly mix it. 

6. Sliced spring onions and cut chillies. Serve.

7. Assemble. First take noodle. Add a bit of black sauce, put the minced pork on top followed a generous amount of fried shallots (thats the secret ingredient!), spring onions followed by pork balls.


Thursday, May 30, 2013

Thoughts: Positivity

"Happiness depends to some extent upon external conditions, but chiefly upon mental attitudes. Essentially, conditions are neither good nor bad; they are always neutral, seeming to be either depressing or encouraging because of the sad or bright attitude of the mind of the individual concerned with them."
Why so? My entire life growing up, I've always felt like a very negative person. Whenever something crappy happens, my negativity will soar above the sky making me feel even more negative about the situation. Not to mention my negativity has often played games with my mind that sometimes it does affect my self esteem. It's a lot easier to be negative than to be positive because positivity just takes that much more effort off a person. While I know this isn't healthy but old habits die hard. I've always admired a friend of mine that's very positive in life. I gotta say she's one of the most positive person I know and I like what I see and hear. Could it be her faith in God that contributes to her positivity in life? Is it? I don't know. I would assume so and I would like to believe so. :) I'm truly inspired by her positivity in life and I've always wanted that positive energy she gives out. While I don't have that kind of faith in God like she has, whatever it is, I believe positivity stems from within, from the mind and effort. I for one would like to move towards having a bit more positivity in life. Already there's just so so much negativity in life and around the world, a little positivity wouldn't kill and in fact it can be good and it could run a long way. I wouldn't want to go home and channel all the negativity aura to my kids, especially when the negativity within affects our actions and expressions we show whether we realize it or not.

One of the nights, my hubby was going to pick his dad up to get his car from elsewhere, seeing that he would be going over, I told him to take a box of Expressed Breast Milk over for his mother to be stored in their freezer as my own freezer was running out of place. The next morning, he took out that box of milk from the car and told me he has forgotten to pass it as the box was placed at the back seat of the car. I let out a long 'Noooo'. Clearly, I was very upset because by then half of the EBM was already defrosted and I can no longer put it back in the freezer and that would mean, 13 packets of 5 ounces of EBM is going to waste, getting thrown away. I couldn't utilize it because I know my mother in law would've taken out 4 packets the night before for the day. While the expressed breast milk is free but BECAUSE it is free that the pain I felt was even more intense, more agonizing, it is indescribable. I felt like crying. It basically feels like I got stab in the heart because of all the effort I put in to express, all the midnight 2-3 AM in the morning pumping session, my 3 days worth of supply was gone just like that. If I have to pay for milk, I probably wouldn't feel so bad because I could purchase it. Already I had to throw away 8 packets of EBM earlier because of the antibiotic I took that cause the episode of Cadence's rash and now this. Obviously, my hubby apologized for it. I knew he felt really bad. I couldn't get angry at him even though I was upset but I knew it was an honest mistake, a mistake I knew nobody wants to make. My face was so sulky, I couldn't hide it. I had all sorts of thoughts. I thought for a moment my whole day was going to be ruin, and I wanted it to remain that way, sulky till the end of day. I thought nobody cared about all the effort I took to express my milk, the extra hours I put in to make sure I have enough of stocks to last no matter how tiring it was to wake up in the middle of the night to pump. I had to take another box of EBM over for my MIL to keep, that added to the pain simply because I had to take another box over when the box I took out the night before went to waste. What made it worse was that, the second box I took out fell when I was taking a corner while I was on the way to drop the kids and the container broke. That added to my frustration, my volcano of emotions erupted in the car where the kids were present. Being a little OCD, my container to keep my EBM was THAT important. While on the way to work, I had to gain my composure and told myself what's done is done. I can't undo what has happened, all the more when I knew it was an honest mistake made by my hubby and how bad he must have felt. It's pointless to get angry at him when it was an honest mistake. It's pointless to turn his day into a lousy day as everyone would end up being sulky. I don't wanna be sulky the whole day long. I don't want to go back to see my kids in the evening with a sulky face and ruin everybody's mood. It will be pointless. So I just have to let it go and not think about it. And I just have to take extra effort to stock up again and I can always buy the container to store my EBM. So I thought of what to do with the milk. I figured I would make a milk bath for Cadence for those milk that has already fully defrosted and turn those still frozen EBM into home made breast milk ice cream. Upon reaching my office, my hubby texted me again to apologize, by then I was feeling much better not wanting to dwell in what just happened. And I'm glad I took the effort to not ruin his day and to forget what just happened and look forward. It paid off and it felt good. And I really hope it made a difference to him, I hope he was a little comforted. So I made the milk bath for Cadence and did the ice cream as planned though the ice cream sucks big time because of the weird lipase taste, I threw it all away.

The funny thing is I shared my story with breastfeeding moms and non-breastfeeding mom. The reaction I got was just so different! Clearly a non breastfeeding mom was not attuned to the kind of emotion I felt or could not comprehend the what the big deal was, and the reaction I got was just 'Oh ok.' whereas when I shared my story with breastfeeding moms, they all went 'Aaaaaahhhhh!!! What a waste or sayangnyaaaaaa' and I got a lot of suggestions on what I could do with the milk. The power of breastfeeding. It connects all the moms together.

That said, it doesn't mean changes happen in a day's time. Clearly, it's a trial and error process for me. There are days where I see myself being a little positive and there are days I revert to being very negative about everything. There are still days when one "bad" news happens after another that seems to paint the sky dark at that very moment in life, but it's important to remember that there's always light at the end of every tunnel you take. When the sea is calm, we must expect storms to hit and beyond the stormy seas, the calm sea lies ahead. And for every dark moments in life, nobody else can determine how to feel about it, how you look at it and how you react to it and how bad the situation is, BUT yourself. So it is entirely up to you whether to be positive or negative even though it might seem as if there's nothing to be positive about.

"Life is like a restless sea, full of wonders and always in a state of perpetual turmoil caused by the waves of events. No one is secure from the violent waves on the surface of this deep ocean. Pleasure and pain in this world, like positive and negative forces in nature, together perform their function everywhere. Opposed to joy and delight are grief and sadness and opposed to youth and vitality are old age and weakness. Everyone who is alive must bear the burden of affliction and suffering. Everyone who sets out on this sea is bound to be drenched by its waters and encounter in the course of his life a series of unpleasant and painful events: failure, privation, the death of dear ones and many other afflictions of the kind. Who is it that has remained unscathed by the arrows of time and secure from the tempests of events? The type of hardships and calamities, it is true, is different in every age, but the universal principle of hardship and suffering is intertwined with man's life in all its stages"


The box of 65oz milk I had to say buhbye to.

Cadence in her milk bath
The earlier 40 oz milk tainted with antibiotic which I had to throw away.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Recipes: Kuey Tiau Soup

One of my favorite food to prepare over the weekends because it's easy peasy and everyone will definitely chow this down even kids because it's soupy and non spicy. You can't possibly go wrong with soupy noodles. My mom made this all the time, so I've grown to love having 'DIY' my own Kuey Tiau Th'ng. And by DIY I mean I can determine what are the sides and the amount of sides to put in my bowl of noodles. Like I can be very generous with the shredded chicken I put into my hubby's bowl of noodles and elsewhere for me, I love my veges and it's super crucial that I have some form of veges in my diet for each meal, so instead of the typically served taugeh (bean sprouts) by hawker stalls because taugeh's are dirt cheap with probably little nutriets, I can opt for some green vegetables. I usually add onions and carrots to my soup because these two will sweeten the soup and I will cube the carrots to add to the bowl of noodles. So all in all this recipe is the type of recipes where it's really flexible and you can improvised according to what you have in the fridge or as you like or you can copy exactly like what hawker sellers normally serves and you can substitute the type of noodles according to your preference.

Kuey Tiau Th'ng or Kuey Tiau Soup 

Recipes enough for 4-5 pax
Ingredients:
  • 1/2 Chicken
  • Pork (perhaps the size of your palm)
  • Fish Cake
  • Fishball
  • 2 small carrots (whole)
  • 3 bulbs big red onion (whole)
  • 1 bundle of baby Choy Sum (optional)
  • 1 packet of Kuey Tiau (Flat Rice Noodles)
  • 1-2 stalk Spring Onions
  • 2 big Chillies
  • 10 small cili padi (bird's eye chili)
  • 5 shallots
  • 8 pips garlic
  • 2 cubes of chicken stock
  • Tong Chai & Tua Tao Chai (optional for flavors)
  • Water
  • Oil
Method:
1. Clean all the ingredients. Rinse the chicken, pork, fish cake, fishball and choy sum. Peel the carrot and big red onion and leave it as whole. Sliced shallots thinly and minced the garlic.

2. Boil a pot of water. Once boiled, put in the pork, carrot and onions. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes and turn down the heat to continue to simmer it for 30 to 40 minutes.

3. Put in the chicken and fish cake to cook once the pot of soup has turned color. Add the chicken stock and tong chai. Boil the chicken for about 20-30 minutes. Do not overcooked the chicken. The fish cake will float once it's cooked.

4. Removed the chicken, fish cake, pork and carrots (once it's already soft). Shred chicken, pork and fish cake thinly. Cube the carrots. Return the chicken bones to the pot of soup for more flavors. Add the fish balls last.

5. Boil or steam the choy sum or vegetables of your choice. Cut into two or three portion. 

6. Boil the noodles of your choice.

7. In another pan, heat some oil and fry the shallots and garlic till golden brown. Set aside.

8. Cut spring onions for garnishing. Cut chillies and add light soya sauce for dipping.

9. Assemble your noodles with the sides. Add the soup. Bon appétit.

* If you do not want to put chicken stock cubes, you can always omit and just go for just salt for healthier choice.


Carrots, Onions, Pork, Chicken, Fish cake and Fish balls.

Sliced shallots and minced garlic.

Pork, carrots, onions and tua tao chai into the pot of boiling water.

Chicken, fishcake and fish ball into the soup. Removed once cooked and to be shredded.

Boil choy sum

Preparation done. Shallots and onions fried till golden brown for garnishing. Spring onions cut for garnishing. Kuey Tiau boiled. Chicken, pork and fish cake shredded. Carrots cubed, choy sum cut.

DIY or assembling the noodles

Tadah! Ready to savour.

For the little boy.