Month: January 2013

Mushroom Pasta With Pan Fried Fish

Mushroom pasta cooked with Campbell’s mushroom soup is one of my kids’ favorite lunch meals.  I normally add in 2 punnets of fresh button mushrooms, onions and sometimes chopped carrots.  This time, I  cooked it with pan fried fish, to pump up their protein and DHA intake.

After briefly pan-frying the fish in a non-stick pan (lid covered as I hate oil splatters), I added water and 2 sachets of Campbell’s mushroom soup powder into the pot (with the fish in it) and let it boil.  Once the powder is diluted and water boiling, I added the fresh button mushrooms. Let it simmer for about 15 mins to bring out the mushrooms flavor.  Then, I added 1 box of whipping cream / thickened cream (you can replace it with fresh milk or powdered milk, which is less costly) and 2 slices of cheese.

Preparation time is about 1 hour. There goes my precious 1 hour but it’s worth all the time spent and sweat. As long as the kids love my homecooked food, time spent is immaterial  ♥

Verdict : kids LOVED it ♥

No. of times viewed = 269

Braised Pork Ribs Egg Noodles

My 3 girls are big fans of noodles, especially #2 and #3.  There is a noodles dish on my kids’ menu at least 3-4x in a week as it is pretty simple and quick to prepare.  My noodles dishes come in a variety of styles.  Braised pork ribs with egg noodles is a new addition in my menu 🙂

The braised pork ribs can be cooked in advance. I normally cook a big portion and store them in a few containers for deep freezing.  The ribs can be heated up and eaten with rice or noodles on days when I am busy with stock check and orders.

I bought the wanton mein aka egg noodles from Tesco, which tasted good and very springy.  The tip to having springy noodles is not to over boil them. I blanch them for about 5-8 minutes.  Once removed from the pot and strained, rinse the noodles in cold filtered water, then add in some sesame oil so that the noodles will not clump together to form a pile of starch when they have cooled down.

The noodles in this pic was seasoned with a dollop of dark sauce, organic soy sauce, pepper and sesame seed oil (this is a fantastic and healthy flavor enhancer which I use daily). Chopped spring onions add lots of flavor to the dish too.

No. of times viewed = 368

Homemade Tomato Chicken Pasta For Lunch Today – 9 Jan 2013

That’s my kids’ lunch today – taken with my handphone, sent from my handphone to my email and from my email uploaded into my blog.

Preparation time + cooking + cleaning up took me exactly 45 minutes.  After cooking this, I rushed off to pick up Cass. She is now happily gobbling down this bowl of pasta while I am chilling out typing this post 🙂

Strips of chicken breast meat  cooked with 4 large tomatoes, 1 large onion, 1 punnet of fresh mushroom, 3 shakes of tomato sauce, a dash of salt, brown sugar, pepper, mixed herbs and dried oregano herbs. Wholesome and super delish.

I cooked a large portion, so the girls will have this for dinner as well.  Alycia the rice pot will probably say she wants to eat the chicken with rice. And I’ll just need to blanch some organic french beans, boil 3 hard boiled eggs  and make a veggie salad for them.

I cooked extra pasta for deep freezing for another day’s quick lunch.

What did you cook for your kids’ lunch today? Love to see ideas for wholesome and easy to prepare kids meals.

No. of times viewed = 974

Happy Sunday – 6 Jan 2013

Woke up at 7:45am on this lovely, sunny Sunday morning — the first Sunday in 2013. It’s a rare occasion that I get to sleep in and see the sunlight  seeping in through the blinds in my bedroom.  I have skipped exercising for 4 days already as the hubs had to leave  the house in the wee hours of the morning to supervise his staff in the kitchen and shop, so I had to be around since I am maidless now and the mil is still overseas. Anyway, the reason why I slept in this late today is because I have not been feeling too well the past 3 days — down with a mild cold with nose congestion and throbbing headache — I think as a result of start of school blues — waking up at 5am everyday and only going to bed at close to midnight, plus orders from my online store have been high too.

Anyway, I feel really fresh and in a  perky mood today. That’s how important getting sufficient rest and sleep is and how  it affects one’s mood and temperament for the rest of day.  This is just a short post and I have to get the 3 dilly dalliers ready for church now.

Happy Sunday peeps! 😀

No. of times viewed = 200

Our Dinner On Xmas 2012

We had a pretty quiet Xmas last week.  The bunch of relatives and friends who usually celebrate Xmas with us were all overseas.  And my hubs had to be at the site to oversee his new project.  In fact, throughout the school holidays, he was very busy at site with his new project. Now that the school holidays are over, he can have a breather as the project is at a well known theme park.  So on Xmas day, at the request of my most pernickety eater, I had to whip up some Chrismassy dishes for dinner.  She suggested homemade whipped potato, roast chicken with roast veggie.   Her wish is always my command and though I felt really lazy, I had to dish out her order.  Since she wanted whipped potato, I delegated the task to the girls.  I took the short cut way out.  After Alycia had finished peeling the skin of the potatoes, I microwaved the potatoes for about 15-20 minutes.  Once they were soft, the girls helped me to mash them up.  Then we added fresh milk, a pinch of salt and some pepper and the result was awesome.  The whipped potatoes were really tasty. I used US potatoes and they were really sweet, soft and had the oomph factor haha!

Roast drumsticks and I threw in some chicken breast so that I could use the breast to make sandwich the next day.

For the veggie (organic french beans, organic yellow and red bell pepper), I mixed them with some olive oil and Balsimic vinegar and roasted them for about 10 minutes.

Our very simple, fuss-free, sweat-free and wholesome Xmas dinner.  I replaced artery-clogging deep fried fries with 7-real cheeses organic crackers from Melaleuca.

My 4YO carnivorous baby girl devouring on the chicken drumstick and licked the platter clean!

Thankfully my part-time maid could make it on that evening to help me scrub the oven tray, wash the dishes and clean up.

How was your Xmas 2012?

No. of times viewed = 315

Quirky Kid

Of the 3 girls, #2 has the quirkiest taste buds.  She dips cucumbers into her drinks (honey, yoghurt drink, juices, etc) before eating them, she uses her fingers (and not spoon) to eat porridge,  she uses a straw to drink soup and the list is endless. It all boils down to her inquisitive mind. She even tried to throw breakable China bowls like a juggler and tried to balance her cup of herbal drink at the edge of the table… just to see what would happen!  During our recent stay in Ipoh, she put her water tumbler on the hand railing of a moving escalator at Tesco and suffice to tell, the tumbler dropped to the ground below – to where the kids’ rides were but thank God for lots of guardian angels watching this rascal, the tumbler did not land on anyone and did not break anyone’s head!

Lately, she discovered that making sandwich with porridge tastes good.  In this pic, this rascal is enjoying her bread with porridge and she chomped down 2 bowls of porridge with 2 slices of Gardenia white bread.  I sure hope she uses her inquisitive mind to invent some breakthrough gadgets in future and make her mommy real proud of her.

No. of times viewed = 488

End Of School Holidays

Finally the 6 weeks of school holidays have come to an end.  We are back to the grunt starting tomorrow — I’ll have to wake up by 5am, get the 2 older girls ready for school, leave the house at 6:20am, jogging and gym for me after sending the girls off,  preparing Cass for pre-school, house work, computer work, cooking and washing and the infinity list goes. But I am not complaining. In fact, I am glad that the school holidays are over as I will reclaim my ME time in the morning with no one to bug me and breathe down my neck haha!

Gotta hit the sack now. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.  Happy new year everyone and I wish that everything will go smoothly on the first day of school for you all.

No. of times viewed = 473

HEALTH FREAK MOMMY