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Bento Attempts Parenting 101 The darndest kid quotes and antics The Kao Kids

A nugget of junk

January 21, 2013

I’m not sure if I’m winning or losing the mealtime battle. It’s getting a little complicated.

Although portions still go unfinished and I end up spoonfeeding almost 99% of all their meals at home, the kids have shown me some things that have shocked me:

They would choose Cheerios over Honey Stars, anytime. (For the uninitiated, Cheerios have no taste. It’s just bland multigrain cereal. Honey Stars are sweet, and taste like, erm, honey.)

They finish cherry tomatoes by the tens in seconds.

They love broccoli, cauliflower and edamame.

They’ve tried curry and like it.

They’ll eat fries, yes they would, but would automatically stop at the tenth or eleventh fry handed to them.

Just last weekend, I thought I’d prepare something special and indulge them a little. I made angelhair aglio olio with salted butter, ham, bacon and tomatoes. I baked salmon with some rosemary and olive oil. I reheated a ready-made pack of clam chowder. I toasted some chicken nuggets and even made a guacamole dip for that.

I’d thought they would gun for the nuggets and ask for more. To my surprise, the cheddar cheese on the pasta was finished first, followed by the cherry tomatoes. The salmon was overcooked so it wasn’t too popular. The clam chowder was slurped in a jiffy. Ben tried the dip and declared he wasn’t a fan. They struggled to finish their portion of the angelhair pasta and they did manage to finish their carbs with the ham and bacon after almost forty-five minutes of spoonfeeding. But what was most surprising was that both of them refused to bite into the chicken nugget. They’ve tried nuggets before and the last was at the Christmas party at their school. But this time round, they were gagging and saying no vehemently. Jamie Oliver would be proud.

I don’t believe it, my kids rejected nuggets.

So tell me, is this battle won or lost? They aren’t eating the variety and the portions I would like them to, but hey, they’re rejecting junk. That should be good news eh?

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Becks Kao Ben Kao Invites & Tryouts Reviews

Hamster food can be tasty too! [In support of Rise & Shine]

January 21, 2013

The Rise & Shine Breakfast Team recently gave me an almost impossible task. They delivered a pack of granola to my home, as part of the Rise & Shine Breakfast Campaign, which is a community effort that aims to promote healthy breakfast eating on a daily basis among children aged 4 to 12.

I say it’s impossible because granola is something my kids think hamsters eat.

My kids, Ben, Becks and Nat, eat their breakfast every day. If they are in daycare (which will continue for only two more months), the school serves a variety of breakfast food ranging from oatmeal to egg sandwiches. Baby Nat gets brown rice cereal every day too. On weekends, we look forward to getting our local fare fix. I take them to the wet market and hawker centres and they get their tastebuds localised to the deliciousness in kway chap, wanton mee, fried carrot cake and kaya toast. They meet Milo Dinosaur and Rose Bandung, and on rare occasions, Ronald MacDonald’s. On rainy days, we stay home and I make them pancakes or mushi-pan.

I assure you they still eat healthy – I trim the fats in their kway chap, add water to the bandung and remove the generous slabs of butter in their kaya toast.

But the Rise & Shine Breakfast Team clearly had a MUCH healthier alternative in mind when they sent me a pack of granola.

In the spirit of eating healthier for breakfast, I got the kids to try some granola last Saturday. It was a rainy morning, so we stayed home and had some hot pancakes topped with yogurt ice cream with granola sprinkles.

The kids were very excited to be having ice cream on a cold day and took their first few bites with much enthusiasm.

The verdict? Fatherkao and Ben went yums and loved the crunch of the granola with its rolled oats, dried fruits and nuts. As for Becks, she announced after three mouthfuls, “I don’t like the beans. Gimme the ice cream.” By beans, she meant the rolled oats. I had myself a hearty and healthy breakfast too, cleaning up her “beans” and eating the leftover pancakes!

More information:

The Rise & Shine Breakfast Campaign is a community effort by a group of final year students from NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information that hopes to raise awareness of healthy breakfast eating among children. Their efforts include ambient installations at libraries, malls and primary schools, storytelling sessions, educational theatre performances and cooking demos. Find out more at breakfast.riseandshine-expo.com. The site also features healthy breakfast recipes you can create for your kids.

Rise & Shine is a nationwide campaign supported by government agencies and prominent partners aimed at helping parents raise healthier and happier kids.

The Rise & Shine Carnival is happening on 3rd March 2013 at The Lawn @ Marina Bay. There are grand plans to set the record for the Largest Breakfast Picnic Event in Singapore! Check out carnival.riseandshine-expo.com for more details.

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Becks Kao Ben Kao Bento Attempts The real supermom

More bento meals

January 3, 2013

I still try to make the kids bento as often as I can. They are still not eating much and remain as picky as ever. But I am a persistent mother who would very much like to win this long drawn battle of wills at mealtimes.

These were prepped during Christmas. I taught them the song “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” one day and made them a little Rudolph with a cherry tomato nose. I used fried wantons (meat and shrimp dumplings) as his antlers.

I made these when my goddaughter came over for dinner some evenings ago. I used a little ketchup to make the rice a little orangey in colour and cut nori (seaweed) to make the tiger cubs’ stripes and ears. I used a craft punch for the mouth. The cubs sit on some baked chicken wings, tomato-scrambled eggs and broccoli.

And this was how I shaped rice just to get them to eat when we had some roast duck. The brownish black bit is the roast duck sauce.

The kids always prefer pasta to rice. For pasta meals, I would usually cookie-cut some cheddar cheese slices to add to their pasta. I tried to make the shape of a bone using flying fish roe some time ago but it was an epic failure.

Kids: Wow, look! Dogs! Mama, erm, but what’s that thing? (referring to the roe)

Me: It’s roe. The stuff you love in your sushi.

Kids: Oh yay! Pok pok pok! We like! (they refer to roe as that cos’ of the fun they have trying to bite into each one)

Didn’t connect to any “bone”.

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Becks Kao Ben Kao Bento Attempts Food, glorious food! Parenting 101 Re: learning and child training The Kao Kids

Mealtime woes: an update

December 19, 2012

So far, I’ve made some crabs, two snowmen and even a frazzled mother (that is me, yelling “PLEASE EAT!”). I’ve even attempted to make a stegosaurus with macaroni to join my son in his dino craze this month.

Have we made any progress? Ben is appreciative and eating better, and I’m really happy my efforts paid off. As for Becks, she’s still picking the bits she likes and refusing to eat most of the mains in her bento.

My conclusion? My kids don’t like chinese food; or rather, they’d much prefer soba, seaweed, pasta, cheese and ham anytime. Rice is always the tricky one to get them to eat. And oh yes, they absolutely dislike bread. The good thing is, they love fruits of every sorts and cherry tomatoes, and these will have to be the mainstay of all their bento meals for a long while.

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Ben Kao Food, glorious food! The darndest kid quotes and antics

Things you didn’t know about a dragon fruit

December 16, 2012

Ben: Mama, how do we get dragon fruit?

Me: Erm, I think I bought it from the supermarket?

Ben: No, how does it grow and grow?

Me: From a tree?

Ben: No, I tell you, they kill those dragonflies and make them into dragon fruit!

~~~

A while later…

Ben: Mama, I finished my breakfast and all the dragon fruit, bread and cheese.

Me: That’s good.

Ben: But I didn’t eat those black black things.

Me: You mean the dragon fruit seeds?

Ben: Yes. I’m scared that if I bite them, they will burst out baby dragonflies.

~~~

What the kids had for breakfast today!

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

Mealtime woes

December 7, 2012

I’ve been busy making picture bentos for the kids for almost every meal they have at home, but it’s been quite futile.

They.are.still.not.eating. They just go “yay”, pick the bits they like and very much leave a large portion of the box untouched.

So every day I try, and hope that more gets finished today than yesterday. Very humbling for the mommy ego indeed.

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Motherkao's recipes

Breakfast staple

December 7, 2012

Pancakes are what we have on weekends if we’re not eating out. This is so easy to make you can do it in ten minutes.

Pancakes

Ingredients: (recipe makes 8 small ones)

100g plain flour

A pinch of salt

1 egg

300ml milk

Instructions:

1. Add flour and salt in a bowl (I usually sift it). Make a hollow in the centre and crack egg into this

2. Stir and add milk gradually until batter is smooth

3. Add salted butter or vegetable oil to a frying pan and place on medium heat. When it smokes, place 3 tbsp of batter in it.

4. Turn and cook the other side when golden brown underneath.

5. Serve with maple syrup, strawberry jam, honey or bananas. Enjoy.

I usually double this recipe and make extra-large pancakes so I can use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes

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Motherkao's recipes

The lovers, the dreamers, and me

December 5, 2012

I’ve been reading a lot about parties and cakes with rainbows and it’s making me want to try baking a rainbow cake. I looked up the web and found out that it can be really easy making one. Just two packets of Betty Crocker’s and six types of gel colour paste, and voila!

I would have loved to make it from the scratch but unfortunately I only had the luxury of two hours. Even with premixes, it took me slightly more than two hours to bake, mix, wash and repeat the process six times! I can’t imagine if I had to make the batter from scratch; it might probably take the whole day!

Rainbow Cake (Recipe makes 1 with 6 layers)

Ingredients:

2 packets of Betty Crocker’s white cake mix (I couldn’t find white so I bought yellow and lemon and it worked just fine)
1 pack of premix requires: 3 eggs, 1/5 cup of veg oil & 1 cup of water
Gel colour paste in your favourite rainbow colours

For the frosting, I didn’t want it to be too sweet (knowing that premixes can be very sweet!) so I whipped 240g of cream cheese with 180g of icing sugar.

You will also need: round 9″ baking tins (the more the better!), baking paper and small bowls

Instructions:

1) Follow the instructions on the premix. Divide batter evenly. One box of premix can be divided into 3.

2) Add enough of each colour of food colouring to each bowl, whisking, until desired shade is reached. Transfer each colour to an individual cake pan. (The whole time when I was baking I was reciting “Richard of York Gains Battle in Vain”! I skipped “Indigo” though!)

3) Transfer to oven and bake until a skewer inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean, about 15 minutes (working in batches if necessary).

4) Remove cakes from oven and transfer to a wire rack; let cool for 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto a wire rack; re-invert and let cool completely.

5) Start ordering the layers reciting ROYGBIV backwards; the first layer on the cake tray should be purple. Slab on some cream cheese frosting and repeat process with other layers.

6) Place last red layer on top, bottom-side up. Using a spatula, cover the top and sides with a thin layer of frosting (also use any of the excess frosting visible between the layers). Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes.

7) Gather kids and prep the camera. Slice the cake and hear them say “waaa!”. Enjoy! (La da da dee da da do…)

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Bento Attempts Food, glorious food! Invites & Tryouts Product Reviews

Boxing the kids’ dinners [Product review]

December 3, 2012

My new hobby of making picture bentos for the kids have been keeping me busy lately, both in the kitchen and online (shopping and learning from other bento blogs!), and it was timely that JED Packs! sent over a set of Tyrrell Katz Working Wheels Snack Boxes. Ben was into construction vehicles since he was two years old, and it’s been more than a year now since his love affair with trucks began. It all started with observing the multiple construction sites springing up all around us in car rides, and many trips to the library to learn the functions and purposes of each vehicle and how each truck works. By two half, this boy could name every construction vehicle he sees in books and at work sites, knows the difference between a steam roller and a backhoe loader, and can explain to us what excavators do and how cement is mixed in a concrete mixer.

So you can imagine how happy he was to receive a set of these. Opening these snack boxes of different sizes like Russian dolls certainly made his day.

These snack boxes are pretty and handy to have in my stash of bento boxes for the kids. Yesterday, the kids were a little under the weather. Becks was having a cold and a fever, and Ben didn’t seem to have much of an appetite.

I made the children some soba with a happy lion in these snack boxes and that cheered them up a bit.

*JED Packs! will be having their Christmas sale this Tuesday (10am-7pm) and Wednesday (9.30am-5pm) at the Orchard Hotel. You can find more Tyrrell Katz lunch accessories and snack boxes, and other pretty stuff there. Check out their fb page for more details.*

**Disclosure: We received a complimentary set of 3 snack boxes for this review. All text and opinions are our own.**

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Christmas happiness Food, glorious food! Motherkao loves... Product Reviews

Eat well this Christmas: featuring Preparazzi [plus a giveaway]

December 1, 2012

[Product / Service Review]

It’s hard enough to be juggling a full-time job and minding three kids. It’s even harder if you expect a mother like me who’s trying to get her juggling act together to serve up piping hot homecooked food for dinner every day or host a party with homemade meals. Or ask me to plan how to celebrate Mother’s Day / Father’s Day / Mom’s birthday / Dad’s birthday / In-law’s birthday / whatever Day for the extended family.

So it’ll be great if someone could deliver healthy gourmet food to my doorstep (sick of pizzas and curry chicken in a bun already!); or better still, prepare the food, semi-cook it, and let me do the last minute heating up and garnishing so I can look good and get all the credit.

Enter Preparazzi. I’ve been calling them for help every time I need to have gourmet food delivered to my doorstep.

For Father’s Day last year, as of every year, the extended family stayed in the comfort of home and feasted away. Preparazzi did all the slicing, dicing and seasoning. All we needed to do was to pop the chicken and the accompanying sides into the oven. We ate healthy, fuss-free.

The birds were seasoned and the vegetables were prepped for us

There was also glutinous rice stuffing in the juicy chicken!

For my mother’s birthday last year, we had their signature roast pork crackling with caramel apples, specially seasoned with Preparazzi’s very own spice. For that one, we just reheated when we were ready to eat. Didn’t work up a single drop of sweat in the kitchen at all. Mom loves Asian flavours and this dish had the whiff of it fused to the aromas of the roasted pork and spicy apples. Absolutely mind-blowing.

Preparazzi’s Signature Roast Pork Crackling, photo courtesy of Preparazzi

When I lost my appetite in the first trimester while preggers with Becks, Preparazzi’s home delivery service brought me gourmet tingkat for a while every day. I could even make special requests – like if I didn’t want to have spices added to the mains that particular day, or when I preferred to skip fish and have chicken instead. It was like having a personal butler, and it was nice to be pampered this way, at least for a while. The only work I ever did was to pop the food into the microwave as instructed.

Chicken Rendang, photo courtesy of Preparazzi

Preparazzi offers a service that deals with all the fuss and mess so that you can enjoy the fun bits of cooking and entertaining. They prep the food in cooked or ready-to-cook options, just so you get to impress. Their goal is to help people cook, eat and entertain better, which is perfect for busy people! What’s even better is that they scour the region for the freshest produce and choicest gourmet foods, and blacklist preservatives and additives, just so you can be assured that every bite you take is of the highest purity. I can attest to that: I’ve had their food on many occasions and so far, I’ve not been disappointed. So if you’re hosting a get-together this festive season, or any celebration, big or small, you can just give these folks a call and they will show up with great food at your doorstep.

~~~

*Yay, it’s time to do a giveaway!*

This Christmas, be the star at your dinner party. Preparazzi’s bespoke culinary services include a well-appointed delivery service, an indulgent bar and bistro dining experience and of course, a luxurious private chef service for a plush night in. Check out their Christmas party packages and other festive goodies here.

Gula Melaka Caramel Glazed Ham (1kg) $58

Roast Turkey with Traditional Sausage and Walnut Stuffing, Gravy and Cranberry Jam (4kg) $220

Specially for the readers of this blog, order from Preparazzi’s Gourmet Delivery Menu and get a 15% discount for your orders. Quote “KAO” at the voucher portion when you check out.

Preparazzi is also doing a giveaway just for Motherkao’s readers! Win their 2kg Signature Roast Pork Crackling (worth $80), redeemable only in January 2013.

This is how you can stand a chance to win in 4 simple steps:

1) LIKE Preparazzi’s Facebook Page

2) LIKE Motherkao’s Facebook Page (if you’ve not already done so!)

3) Leave a comment on this blog telling me how you would define eating well.

4) Leave your name and email address (only if you want to be contacted if you win!)

Giveaway closes on 16 December 2012. A winner will be picked at random.

UPDATE: And we’ve picked a winner at random! Congratulations to Dominique! Preparazzi will be in touch with you shortly. Enjoy the roast pork crackling!

**Disclosure: I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post. All text and opinions are solely based on my experience using Preparazzi’s gourmet home delivery service and dining at their bistro.**

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