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EAT

Becks Kao Ben Kao Bento Attempts Milestones and growing up The Kao Kids

Mealtime wins

November 27, 2012

We’ve been fighting mealtime battles a lot lately.

What went wrong? Strict dinner rules have been laid. No tv. No running around. Eat what’s on your plate. Treats only after you’ve finished. My kids don’t snack. They don’t eat candies either. They should be hungry by dinner time because I never give them anything three hours before dinner, except water.

And yet, I had to send the kids straight to bed without a full dinner a few evenings ago. For a few consecutive days prior to that evening, they’ve been balking and gagging at what they were supposed to eat, taking forever to chew and swallow, and doing nonsensical things with each other, like kicking each other’s legs, laughing for no reason and blowing bubbles in their soup. After a few days of that, enough was enough. I gave my last warning to chew the food that was in the mouth (which wasn’t heeded anyway), marched right into the kitchen, grabbed the trashbin, emptied their plates right before their eyes and sent them straight to bed.

Never imagined needing to do that.

I know reality discipline advocates that. For a while, I’ve always tried not to resort to this. I’ll nag, threaten, cajole, play close-your-eyes-don’t-see-what-you’re-eating game and, of course, when all else fails, spoonfeed.

That night, I stayed up to rethink my strategy. I want them to eat – without me having to feed. I want them to love food. I don’t want to send them to bed with the reality of an empty stomach. I don’t want hunger to teach them anything – for now. I want them to have fond memories of the times we spend at the dinner table.

My new plan is to make food appealing to them and hope it whets their appetite.

I’m getting so inspired by these bento creations and the “bento-mums” I know!

Someday I’ll make all these (and more)!

These days I’ve been cracking my head to see how I can make the food more “picture bento”-like just so they can get excited about eating their dinner. It’s like a project everyday: give instructions to the helper to cook the dishes for dinner, but at the back of my mind, think about how to morph what the adults are gonna eat into fun things on the plate. These were my very humble first attempts.

I’m glad to report that the children look forward to dinner a little more now than they used to, and Ben has been finishing his portions since I tried this out two days ago. He has even made requests to see leopards, pandas and lions in his bento. I’ve much to learn, but am loving every minute of this; and I really hope to announce my decisive win in the Battle of Wills at the Dinner-table soon!

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Motherkao's recipes The Kao Kids

My children’s first year birthday cake

October 26, 2012

I baked this orange-zesty olive oil cake for my children’s first year birthday celebration at infantcare. I don’t really fancy buying creamy, chocolatey, buttery cakes to feed 12-18 month-old babies, so I bake this because this is something I would give to Ben, Becks and Nat at 12 months old. The recipe calls for little sugar, lots of orange zest and no butter at all.

Zesty Olive Oil Cake (Recipe makes 8 huge slices & about 16 small ones)

Ingredients:

2 eggs
160g caster sugar
zest of one huge navel orange
zest of half a lemon
125ml olive oil
185g self-raising flour (add 2tsp baking powder if using plain flour)
60ml milk
60ml orange juice(I juiced the navel orange I used for zest)
 

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Grease a shallow 20cm round cake tin and line base with baking paper.

2. Whisk eggs and sugar in a large bowl using electric beaters until well-combined. Add orange and lemon zest, then stir in olive oil.

3. Stir in sifted flour alternately with orange juice and milk. Stir mixture gently for about 30s. Pour into cake tin.

4. Bake for 45 min. Leave to cool in rack for 5 min.

5. Dust with icing sugar. Serve and enjoy.

Becks’ first birthday cake

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Invites & Tryouts Product Reviews

Fuss-free freezing [Product review]

October 20, 2012

Baby Nat is eight months old and enjoying every minute of eating semi-solids with two budding front teeth. To date, he’s had pureed pumpkin, beetroot, sweet potato, carrot and broccoli. He also loves his porridge cooked with a variety of fish, chicken and veggies boiled in fish or chicken stock.

I used to freeze all that excess food in ice-cube trays; unfortunately, I’ve also broken a few with all the banging and yanking to get the frozen cubes out. I gave up using them because it’s just too troublesome to be scooping baby food into cubed compartments while having to mind two tods and a baby Speedy crawlin’ Gonzales, who’s always toppling dustbins and putting dirt in his mouth. Using those ice-cube trays requires so much effort and precision. Using food cups, on the other hand, takes up just too much space in the freezer.

Why is why I was glad the folks at New Baby Singapore sent me Qubies, an upside-down ice-cube tray designed to freeze anything in a totally hassle-free way. Qubies’ dividers are made of high quality food grade silicon so the frozen food cubes are released once you pop open the cover. The tray is made of a new material called Tritan, which is durable and flexible, and best of all, BPA-free. All I need to do to freeze the pureed food for the baby is to pour it into the tray, snap on the divider lid and voila! I get pretty 30ml cubes after the food’s reached freezing point, without having to knock the tray and smash the food out.

It was pretty fun popping cubes out and the two older kids wanted to do it for me. They ended up finishing their baby brother’s pureed beetroot as well!

The people at New Baby Singapore are now giving a 10% discount and free normal postage with every purchase of Qubies. Send Elisa from the New Baby Team an email (newbabysingapore@gmail.com) or leave a PM on their facebook page. Remember to quote “MKQPromo” to enjoy this offer!

 More details:
  • Qubies are available for sale online at New Baby Singapore. They retail at SGD$29.90 and are available in three colours:  green, blue and pink.
  • For a demonstration of how Qubies work, check out this video. You can also join this group for tips and recipes.
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Motherkao's recipes

Lemony cheesy yum

October 19, 2012

One of my favourite combi for cupcakes is lemon and blueberries topped with cream cheese frosting and chopped almonds. It’s healthy and yummy, and something the kids gobble down in minutes.

Blueberry Lemon Cupcakes

Ingredients: (recipe makes 10)

120g unsalted butter at room temperature ( I use Greenfields butter)
125g caster sugar
100g self-raising flour (add 1.5 tsp baking soda if you use plain flour)
2 eggs
lemon zest from 1/2 a lemon and 1 tsp lemon essence
100g dried blueberries
 

For the frosting:

240g cream cheese
200g icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence 
1 tsp lemon essence 
Chopped almonds (for the toppings)
 

Instructions:

1. Gather your little troopers. Prepare measuring cups, utensils and 10 cupcake cups. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

2. Beat together butter and sugar till pale and creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in lemon zest and lemon essence.

3. Sift flour over batter and fold in. Add blueberries.

4. Spoon 2/3 of batter into cupcake cups. Bake for 15 minutes till risen and golden or till skewer comes out clean.

5. Cool cupcakes in a cooling rack. To make the frosting, beat softened cream cheese with icing sugar and vanilla and lemon essence till smooth. Slather generously onto cooled cupcakes and top with chopped almonds.

6. Enjoy.

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Motherkao's recipes

Steamed cakes for breakfast

October 17, 2012

One of the things we make every now and then is sweet Japanese steamed cake, also known as mushi-pan. It’s so easy to make; all you need is about 10 minutes prep time.

Steamed cake (Recipe makes 9)

Ingredients:

150g self-raising flour (add 1 tsp baking powder if you use plain flour)
2 eggs
4 tbsp milk
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
Add any flavour, filling or toppings of your choice
 

You will also need: ramekins and cupcake liners

 Instructions:

1. Prepare all that you need. Gather your little troopers. Fill a large frying pan with water (2/3) and bring it to a boil. Put cupcake liners in the ramekins.

2. In a medium bowl, sift the flour. You can use the shortcut for sifting by whisking 20 times. Ben loves to see flour falling through the sieve, so he helps me sift today.

3. In another bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar and olive oil, and whisk them together.

4. Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture, and mix till smooth.

5. Add toppings and mix well. Becks eats the dried blueberries as she adds them. The children add rainbow sprinkles to personalise their mushi-pan.

6. Pour mixture into lined ramekins and place in the boiling water to steam for 8 minutes. Stick a wooden toothpick into the cake. It’s done if toothpick emerges without wet batter.

7. Remove and cool. Enjoy.

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Going Out! Motherkao loves...

We heart the heartlands

August 15, 2012

If the wet markets ever vanished from the face of this city, I’ll pack up my bags and go for good. The heartland neighbourhoods with the all-too-familiar wet markets and hawker centres reveal such a paradoxical mix of the old and new. They showcase the richness and complexities of our heritage, culture and traditions and what truly is Singapore. It is one place you must visit to see the Singaporeanness in Singapore. It is in the heartland neighbourhood that you will find the original kway chap, wanton mee and fried carrot cake (forget about foodcourts!). Here, you can get a big glass of soybean milk for only sixty cents and order “Michael Jackson” with a straight face without being laughed at, with the same amount of money. “Michael Jackson”, for the uninitiated, is plain grass jelly (known as chin chow) mixed with soybean milk. It’s only in Singapore we find such humor and inventiveness.

We’ve been exploring the wet markets near us lately, mainly because we needed to hunt for shrimps, water snails and tubifex worms for the puffer fish and terrapins in our aquarium. And what better time to show our kids the real Singapore beneath the shiny veneer of our bustling, commercialised city, with this month being Singapore’s birthday month.

During the National Day weekend, we checked out the wet market at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 for brine shrimps to feed our puffer fish. We found an old uncle running a pet stall in the wet market, selling all sorts of tropical fish, shrimps, mealworms, mice and dwarf hamsters. Just next to him is another lady also selling pets. She has goldfish, puffers, terrapins and more dwarf hamsters. There, the kids squealed and jumped around in excitement looking at pets in a wet market. They also drank sugarcane juice, soybean milk and ate soursop ice jelly.

And only in the heartlands do you meet people who think they’ve known you forever. A few grannies smiled at me and approached me (at different times of our stroll there) to check if the two kids running around were mine; and upon seeing another one being strapped to my chest proceed to exclaim in disbelief that I was a rarity on Planet Singapore to have three kids so close together. It is in the heartlands I get a pat on the back for boosting the national birth rate.

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Becks Kao Happy days What to Expect... As a Mother

It’s my party and I cry if I want to

July 31, 2012

The little girl has officially turned two.  Most of you know I’ve been having quite a challenging time with her. Ever since she was born, she was this screamy bundle that wouldn’t give a hoot about the time and place to let her wails out. When she was a baby, at least I had a pacifier. Now that she’s 24 months, it’s hard to stop her from her crying crescendos. At 24 months, she still doesn’t give a hoot about the time and place. Just this week alone, she threw hissy fits in the lift, at the lift lobby at our flat and in the carpark. She also tortured me and the baby at night by crying and kicking hourly, and into the wee hours of the morning. It would have been perfectly fine by me if she whimpered like a baby; but unfortunately she usually yells her lungs out and we end up having to shut the windows to save ourselves from being stoned by the neighbours. Oh yes, she also bit me on my left leg when she got angry with me for trying to put her to bed.

Her turning two has left me feeling a sense of anticipation and dread. I’m hoping things with her will get better soon enough. Or will it?

We had a celebration for her in school on Friday. We got her excited way before this day came and asked her what she wanted for her cake about three weeks before her birthday. She was into penguins then, so she quickly said “Penguin!” and I got Debbie (sweetyendings.blogspot.sg) to customise a healthy, pretty Penguin cake for her celebration (read how she made the cake). We arrived at the school early hoping to surprise the little girl with this gorgeous creation, and pretty colouring-book-and-pencils party packs we had painstakingly packed the week before.

But when she came to the dining area, her royal highness was looking like the grumps. She obviously threw a fit before coming in. Her teachers said she didn’t want to wake up from her nap. She saw me and started sobbing.

Despite the clowning around by her father and brother and cuddles from me, Little Miss Grumpy still wasn’t excited, or even look it. We went ahead with the celebration anyway. A hundred marks for the loveliest big brother of the century who tried to twit around her to make her laugh. Needless to say, our birthday star couldn’t care for it.

Finally, after some time, it suddenly hit her that it was her birthday. And that she was gonna have cake! That was when she finally smiled.

The cake was the best part of the party. It was uber yummy and wholesome. Chunks of banana and cinnamon and generous toppings of cream cheese. Not too sugary. Not too heavy. The children all ate with a smile on their faces. Becks’ bestie, KM, had three helpings! The birthday girl and her brother licked off the penguin’s eyes, nose and pink ribbon.

Finally. At last, my darling was happy.

She also got a party pack for her dainty self that reads “Thank you for being a part of my 2nd birthday celebration“. Thank you, my dear girl, for being a part of your own birthday celebration. I was so afraid you were gonna sulk throughout!

 

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Family life as we know it Happy days The Kao Kids

Two loaves, sixteen cupcakes and a happy weekend

July 15, 2012

The car’s at the mechanic till Tuesday, so we were all home bound this weekend.

For the first time, we didn’t have to crack our heads to think of where to go for breakfast / lunch / dinner, or where to head to so our kids can have their energies expended. We told the kids the car’s not available, so we’d have to make the most of the weekend at home.

And so they did. They played with toy cars, rowed imaginary boats, blew soap bubbles, clowned around with Nat’s rattles, read books, solved puzzles (we finally got down to using the Grolier Logico Primo system) and watched the terrapins chomp down all the fish in the tank (yes, by Sunday there was zero fish). They also played peek-a-boo with their baby brother and hide-and-seek with each other, and helped me crack eggs, mix batter and measured flour. I churned out a total of two loaves of bread, one with whole wheat and one with organic wholemeal, using the bread machine, a dozen lemon muffins and four more with Koko Krunch, and a loaf of bluberry yogurt sponge. And since we couldn’t go to Pasta Mania at Terminal Three, which we do every weekend to satisfy Ben’s creamy pasta fix, I also made kickass angelhair Alfredo with pure cream, cheese and lots of streaky bacon and honey baked ham.

Very satisfying, for a mother who relieves stress by baking and cooking.

But what made the weekend a truly happy one was that I was eternally grateful we spent it as a family; and that Daddy came home. The reason why the car’s with the mechanic was because the car skidded on a puddle of oil while fatherkao was making the bend on the e’way on a rainy Saturday morning. The bumper crashed into the barricade on the road shoulder and the car spun three-sixty. But God’s angels protected fatherkao and kept him snug in the car. He was unscathed and unhurt despite the damage.

You have no idea how thankful I was to be able to snap this at bedtime:

Thank you, Jesus.

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Food, glorious food! Motherkao loves... The real supermom

Stressed is desserts spelled backwards

July 8, 2012

What do you do when you’re stressed out?

Some people go for a run. A friend of mine does yoga. My husband shuts himself out from the world and takes long baths.

I scrub toilets with a toothbrush. And bake.

It usually has to follow this order: I’ll need to vent my frustrations so whenever I feel stressed, I’ll typically be found scrubbing the tiles on bathroom walls and floors with an old toothbrush. I see grime, I begin cleaning with sheer brute force. Then I’ll feel much better. To complete the de-stressing, I ransack the larder to see what I have and bake something. Anything. There’s something calming about throwing butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a mixer and seeing batter turn into something pretty and yummy. It takes the edge off the stress, at least for me.

Now, with three kids, it’s much harder to perform this ritual. I’ve been so wound up lately. And it’s been so hard to move on without scrubbing the toilet and baking a cake.

So with the Youth Day holiday being a good break for me, I did what I needed to. I scrubbed. And I baked a cheesecake.

The cream cheese was left to soften at room temperature for three hours. The preparation took one hour and the baking took another. Then I left the cake in the oven to cool for another six; after which, the cake was refrigerated overnight. The recipe I used was easy to follow and the result was a mouth-watering slice of dessert everyday for the next one week.

Now to burn off the calories. Perhaps I could do with more toilet scrubbing.

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Food, glorious food! Going Out! Reviews

Wild honey yum

June 24, 2012

I’m the sort who can eat breakfast for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Actually, I am the sort who can eat eggs, butter and toast any time of the day.

So I heard from friends who raved about this restaurant that serves all-day breakfast. And I got the husband to indulge me a few days ago to have breakfast for lunch.

Wild Honey serves different possibilities of breakfast. We went to the one at Mandarin Gallery. The European Signature ($19) I had featured Eggs Benedict, prosciutto ham and mushrooms on a thick slice of toast. I’m not into food reviews so the best word I could use to describe what I ate is “yum”. I could use the toast to soak up all the oozing egg yolk from the eggs Ben and that, was very satisfying for me. Becks had forest berries in a bowl of bircher muesli, which they call their Swiss breakfast ($12) and my husband had a generous portion of spinach salad with slices of sweet potato and pumpkin ($16) and a cappuccino ($6).

It was a pleasant experience. The wait staff was chatty and friendly. The ambiance of the place was cosy and lovely. It wasn’t crowded but that’s because we went on a weekday. The breakfast was scrumptiously worth every cent I paid for.

Would definitely go again to try their version of a Tunisian breakfast. I heard the tomato stew with fried eggs and chorizo sausages are to die for.

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