Baking time! Brazilian Cheese Bread!

Weekend is finally here! School has started for two weeks and I feel like it has been two months. So glad to just chill with the kiddos finally!

Actually, when I say chill I don't mean just sit around and laze... Yes yes yes I am a momzilla. Time with kids is precious for us working parents! So I like to plan what to do each night with my kids so time is more meaningfully spent. :)

So for today, we decided to make our own dinner! Brazilian Cheese Bread it shall be!

Ingredients are easy to find and most of then steps are kid-friendly.

I started with laying out what is required so I can introduce the items to the children clearly. Also, I would not need to run in and out to get items. :)

Ingredients:

(1) 125g of butter

(2) 250ml of full cream milk

(3) 1 tsp of salt

(4) 300g tapioca flour

(5) 2 eggs

(6) 100g of Parmesan cheese

(7) sausage or ham

Step 1:

Melt butter, milk and salt and mix them well. You can bring it to boil but after switching of the fire, keep whisking to cool it.

While the adult goes into kitchen to boil the mixture, let the kids do some cutting to keep them engaged.

Step 2: 

Add in the tapioca flour and whisk to mix it well. Keep whisking till mixture cooks further

Step 3:

Now whisk in the eggs and beat the mixture vigorously till it cool further

(This was phoebe before her crushing the egg in her hands. Her fingers poked through the egg!)

Step 4:

Now whisk in the cheese and beat it fast until the mixture is well mixed. 

Step 5: 

Fill mini muffin tray with mixture to 3/5 full. 

Do not worry about the consistency. Tapioca flour or tapioca starch is different from normal flour. With heat, it is watery and when cooled, it will be more solid. If watery, the difference is just it will take longer to bake. :)

Step 6:

This is optional but I just wanted to have the kids participate more. Put one piece of sausage in each hole.

Step 7:

Bake at 180 degrees C till golden brown. YUMZ!

The portion here can make 50-60 mini tart sized pieces. If you don't have a muffin tray, just let the mixture cool further so that it can be scoop into balls and just put on a baking tray. Just make sure there is a 5cm gap in between. :)

 Simple and delicious! 

Breakfast Time!!!! :)

Breakfast Time!!!

One of the common topics among mummies is what we can feed our toddlers, especially for breakfast when they are still in dreamland. (ZZzzz….)

Breakfast time is usually quite a rush, be it on a weekday or weekend. Weekdays, we are either rushing for school or work and sometimes kiddos are being dragged out of bed and you can experience grumpiness in a new level each time. Weekends, if the child is not sleepy, we may also be facing an active child, who is assessing the taste, looks and even plating more stringent than usual. (Life of a mother is so tough! ARGH!)

A quick survey among some mummies showed that we hope that the breakfast offered to our kids can be:

(1)  Healthy

(2)  Tasty

(3)  Attractive

(4)  Filling

(5)  Easy to prepare (FAST preferably)

Eight (Huat!) dishes I prepare for my kiddos’ breakfast are:

**: Very Good		* : Good				- : Neutral
			Healthy	Tasty	Attractive		Filling	Easy / Fast
1	Cheese Omelette - Fry the egg, put a slice of cheese. Done!		*	*	-		*	*
2	Cereal with milk - Fruits can be added, OR just given after We usually buy cheerios because it is not too sweet and healthier.		*	*	*		*	**
3	Sandwiches - can be quite dry if you use spread, hence have to compensate by making it attractive. Please purchase sandwich shape cutters.		*	-	-		*	*
4	Steamed Man Tou - These are frozen and come in so many flavours. My kids love the chocolate and yam man tou. Nice purple swirls! - You can steam it using a wok or steamer. Otherwise, wrap the man tou with slightly wet kitchen towel and put it on HIGH for 2 min in the microwave.		-	-	*		*	*
5	Prata with fruits/cheese/chocolate rice/egg - Frozen prata is always in my freezer as it has so much potential to become all sorts of meals! - I use to pan fry it when some butter previously. However, pan frying means you have to watch the fire which limits me to prepare other things. Hence, nowadays I just pop it into the oven toaster with a bit of butter and set the timer.		-	**	- (unless you use rainbow rice)		*	-
6	Yam and Sweet Potato rice balls (小汤圆)  - Frozen again! Colourful (Yellow and purple) and easy to prepare. - Bring the water to boil, let the kid participate by letting him/her put the rice balls in and together wait and watch them float. - For the soup base, you can just prepare some warm honey or warm milk. We used strawberry milk before and the colours were lovely and the kids had fun scooping the rice balls!		*	*	**		*	*
7	Omelette cups - You need a cupcake tray and the attractive value will increase immediately! Especially the small bite-size kind. - put in the ingredients you like and pour in the egg mixture, top it with some cheese and bake it till cooked! - ingredients I put in are chopped onions, mixed vegetable (frozen kind), ham/sausage and crashed frozen hash brown.		*	**	*		*	-
8	Oven Baked Donut Balls ¶ Special introduction for this dish! Read on and try making these!		**	**	*		**	**

Oven Baked Donut Balls

Oven Baked Donut balls are a lighter and easier alternative to traditional deep fried donuts.

Steps:

(1)  Combine the ingredients

(2)  Put them into donut tray or mini cupcake trays or simply cupcake sleeves

(3)  Bake them till golden brown. (5-8min? Just observe for the first time then adapt accordingly)

I usually sprinkle some icing sugar on top to make the balls/cakes prettier. You can even put those sugar shapes before you send them into the oven. J

 

You can even make cupcakes with this recipe! Last minute birthday celebration is no longer difficult!

Easy enough for kids to participate!

Ingredient List:

1 Cup of self-raising flour

1/3 Cup of Icing Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

1 Cup of Low Fat Blueberry Yogurt

(I always have cups of yogurt in my fridge as they serve as good tea break or after meal dessert. You can change the flavour depending on what you have in the fridge.)

1 Egg

Some Fresh Blueberries/soft fruits (optional)

Hope this post is able to help you to welcome every morning with more confidence and joy! Do share with me more breakfast ideas that I can try out!

Say with me now, “I Love Breakfast Time! ”

What to do for teacher's day?!

It's Teacher's Day again!

6 years as a teacher, I have to say that I totally love Teacher's day! Students saying thank you and putting their heart and energy into making little tokens, it has this little magic of making one year of hard work seems very worth it. Hahaha I know this sounds superficial but who doesn't like to feel appreciated!?

Anyway, since that's how a teacher feels, it is important that we as parents take this special occasion to be a teachable moment for our children to learn about being thankful with action.

With this, let me introduce to you our family's way of appreciating the childcare centre teachers for year 2015!

We decided to let the children bake some simple sugar cookies. Something smaller (cheaper) as we are going to give the school a paper cutter, after observing the teachers always cutting papers with a pair of scissors. 

From experience, I always prefer cookies coming in air tight containers, because:

(1) they won't be crushed easily and make a mess in my bag

(2) they will stay crispy longer and I can slowly enjoy these sweet treats

(3) I can reuse the containers

Hence, we got small square containers at 3 for $2, from Japan Home.

The children started with cleaning the containers and alphabet moulds with food grade dish cleanser.

We were very impressed with Nathan's ability and patience to complete the task properly. Other than washing carefully with the sponge, he also changed the water a few times to ensure that the soap was rinsed off well.

Phoebe did well with the mould too, with Elvin's guidance. She had fun identifying the letters hence able to last longer on the job.

We lay a clean towel on the floor to let the kids dry the items. 

Left the containers to dry under the fan while we had dinner. It is very important that the containers are fully dried so that the cookies can stay crispy longer. :)

Ok! Time to make the cookies!

We did the cookie mix by a bit of gut feel, mixing self raising flour with icing sugar, butter, egg and vanilla essence. Simple and nice. But if you are not so garang and gung-ho like us, we recommend the Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix. Please remember to add that one more tablespoon of flour for cut out cookies!

We wanted to make alphabet cookies but they didn't turn out defined enough so we decided to go original and rustic. AUTHENTIC. (All sorts of vocabulary just so I can justify how the cookies looked like in the end)

TADANG! Kids just roll the dough into balls and flatten them! Then we put some cute little red sugar hearts and send for bake!

Aesthetically not the best but sincerity 100%!

While the cookies were baking, we started to decorate the containers. I pasted scripture tape on the containers. You can get them from http://www.projectencourage.net MY FAVOURITE ONLINE SHOP for Christian craft items!

The kids pasted stickers on the lids and it is really interesting how they decided what to put and which should go to which teacher.

Time to pack!

"Stop stealing the cookies, Phoebe!"

"Nathan! I saw that! Stop licking your hand!"

These are the end products! 

Simple and presentable and most importantly, very manageable with the kids. :)

I hope this little tutorial is in time for some of you! :)

HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY! :)

Just in time for Mother's Day! (Potted flower craft)

Okok! Counting down to Mother's Day! 3 more days!

Have been so overwhelmed with work that I haven't really found time to think of what the kids should prepare for their grandmothers. (And one for myself) I rely on my faithful friend, Pinterest. She is all knowing and all reliable. :)

Anyway, this whole project didn't take us more than 30min but the result is beautiful! (Quoting phoebe: Niceeeeeee!)

These are the materials you will need:

- styrofoam cups for POT

- plastic spoons for STEM

- scissors for CUTTING petals

- double sided tape to secure petals on SPOON

- glue to STICK the petals

- super glue to secure the POM-POMS on flower

- permanent oil base markers to COLOUR the pot (u can use paint but it's too much a mess for me)

- pipe cleaners (optional) for LEAVES (the original post didn't have leaves but I like mine with)

- colour papers for the PETALS

What are the steps?

(1) design the pot! 

For older kids, it would be designing. Younger ones, merely colour and smearing is good enough. (Rustic look, I love it!)

Phoebe has been into stickers so I let her paste some stickers on the pot.

2) Cut the petals

For me, I traced the lines of the petals for Nathan to cut. He is a little too young to cut from imagination and visualising.. 

To save time, you can fold the paper into half. One round of cutting, two petals! 

3) Paste the 6 petals together to form a flower

Do not worry about the center not overlapping nicely because you will eventually put a pom-Pom over. Also, *puts on my auntie voice* a bit off then got the feel mah!

4) paste the completed paper flower on the spoon (pre-taped with two short strips double sided tape)

Be daring to press and secure the flower properly. 

5) Apply super glue, press pompom down on the center of flower. 

I counted ten with Nathan while we pressed it down with strength.

6) Colour the "stem"

7) Poke the spoon into the bottom of the cup

8) *optional* Add the leaves

Poke one end of pipe cleaner into cup, near the stem, twist and form leaf.

Twist one round around the stem and poke the other end of pipe cleaner into cup and twist to form flower. 

9) TAKE A PHOTO WITH THE END PRODUCT!