Category: Food for toddlers

Here’s yet another bento set lunch for my girls prepared this week, something that’s quick to prepare and does not need elaborate preparation and cooking.  For busy working mums like me, you can cook a big portion and deep freeze in smaller portions for future consumption.  The Terriyaki chicken strips go well along with rice and noodles.

De-boned chicken drumsticks cooked with Terriyaki sauce, garlic and organic cabbage, Japanese style – on top of a slice of low-sugar wholemeal walnut bread spread with Tesco’s mayonaise made with free-range chicken eggs, mango as starter and chocolate cake for dessert, washed down with a mug of chilled Ribena with Refresh.

I had several tries cooking this Terriyaki chicken recently but the texture of the chicken in the earlier rounds were a pretty dry. This time, I cut the chicken drumstick meat into smaller and thinner strips and marinated them with a little corn flour along with Terriyaki sauce, pepper and a dash of Lea & Perrin sauce. And voila, the chicken meat turned out juicy and very flavourful. Another lesson learned – use chicken drumstick to cook instead of chicken breast. My 2 older fussy pots had no complaints this time 😀

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I whipped this up for the kids’ lunch last week. It was so lip smacking delish that they all requested for it again the next day!

Here’s the pot of soup made from lightly pan fried anchovies and chicken bones, boiled for an hour.  While the pot of soup is wholesome, the commercially made fish balls and fish cakes ain’t that nutritionally sound as they are loaded with MSG, salt and food additives… and my kids love these fish balls the most.

A bowl of Udon noodles with fish balls, fish cakes, chicken breast and Chinese cabbage.  The blue bowl of noodles is for Baby.  I didn’t give her any of the salty fish balls but only the chicken meat, which she absolutely loved.

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My girls don’t really fancy porridge, unless the porridge is cooked with tons of ingredients and is full of flavor and tasty like this one:

Porridge with roasted pork ribs, abalone, chicken (marinated with sesame seed oil and sea salt) and dried oysters. 

Even Baby who dislikes porridge and mushy stuff loved this porridge and whacked off 2 full bowls – 1 bowl for lunch and 1 bowl for dinner.  Her bowl of porridge is behind the big bowl of porridge in the picture. I chopped up some stir-fried veggie for her too. 

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I whipped up this meal for Baby last week – fish bolognaise pasta and she LOVED it.  I had only intended to cook this for Baby but it turned out that my 2 older gals loved them too. Next time, I shall cook this for everyone.  Nothing makes me happier than seeing my kids enjoy my creations.

I chopped up 2 medium sized organic tomatoes and 1 medium sized big onion.  Then brown them in olive oil for about 5 minutes in a non-stick pan.  With the spatula, push them to the side of the pan. Then lightly brown the fish which I had earlier marinated with some sea salt and McCormick mixed herbs for about 5 minutes.  I also added 2 teaspoons of Leggo’s bolognaise sauce.

While I cooked the above, my maid boiled the Heinz ABCs, 123s pasta in another pot.

Here’s Baby’s fish bolognaise with ‘tau kok lup’ — one bowl is for lunch and another for dinner….

While my maid and I cooked inside the dry kitchen, my mil cooked  ‘tau kok lup’ in the kitchen outside.  She also cooked a pot of sweet potato porridge.  The ‘tau kok lup’ is to go with the sweet potato porridge. ‘Tau kok lup’ is made up of chicken breast, long beans, carrots, dried mushrooms, preserved dried radish, shrimps – all cut up into small cubes. My mil also toasted some peanuts in the oven to toss them over the ‘tau kok lup’. This is another hit with the kids, me inclusive!

I cooked extra portions, put them into small containers and deep freeze them.  These will be handy on Sundays when I don’t have the time to cook.

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Whenever I run out of lunch ideas, sandwiches and toasts will always be served and they are a great hit with my 2 older gals too. Here’s what we had this week:

Tuna and hard boiled kampung chicken (free range chicken) eggs all mashed up and mixed with a heap of Philadelphia Light cheese spread, in replacement of the fattening mayonaise.  I had forgotten to chop up some raw cabbage to add into the mixture.  Raw cabbage in that tuna-egg-cheese combination tastes good, like coleslaw.

Then splatter the yummy tuna-eggs-cheese spread on 2 slices of walnut-wholemeal toasted bread and cut into triangles. Insert a slice of cheese and some cool Japanese cucumbers. Yums, Alycia loved this and said that it tasted as good as the ones from restaurants.

And this was my lunch on another day :

Bolognaise meat sauce on a slice of multi-grain-seed toast, sprinkled with some grated Parmesan cheese. So yummy! It tasted like a cross between pizza and canape.

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I whipped up a very tasty pasta dish using Campbell’s mushroom soup for the girls the other day. I used elbow macaroni and Disney’s Princess veggie pasta. This is so easy peasy to cook and the girls all loved them, especially rascal #2 who wanted to eat the pasta for 2 days straight and asked for it again and again!

First, cook the macaroni and pasta al dente.

Then, pour one sachet of Campbell’s mushroom soup (I buy the ones without added MSG) into a pot and add water. Bring to a boil.

I also marinated 2 slices of ma yau fish with some mixed herbs and a pinch of salt.

When the soup is boiling, put in the already cooked pasta and elbow macaroni into the soup.  Toss in the fish too.  Stir so that the pasta, fish and soup will not stick to the pot.

10 – 15 minutes later, lunch is ready!

The herbs fish went very well with the pasta and macaroni in the mushroom soup. This is such an easy to cook and tasty dish for kids.  I am glad that Baby and Sherilyn, my 2 very picky eaters loved this dish. 

Next, I am going to post about a new dish that I had whipped up for Baby, which she loved to bits. Even older kids and adults would love it.  It’s so quick and easy to prepare (I only cook easy and quick dishes, no time to fix elaborate meals) and very nutritious too.  It’s steamed fish and pumpkin with mixed herbs and butter.  Stay tuned for this post!

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Sometime early this year, my sil from New Zealand gave me a box of gluten-free buckwheat pancake flour.  Last week, I finally made the pancakes for my girls.

I used 1/2 the packet of pancake flour.  I added 3 eggs, 2 tablespoon of Aly and Sher’s Dutch Lady 456 milk powder and a pinch of salt into the flour and poured water to form a batter.  Then heat up my non-stick pan, put in some President butter and poured the mixture into the pan.

When the pancakes were ready, I used my My Melody cookie/bread cutter and cut them into these:

The My Melody shaped buckwheat pancakes were for Sherilyn. She gets turned on by bread / pancakes / fried eggs / fruits cut into cute shapes, but not Alycia. Alycia only gets turned on by tasty food… appearance doesn’t really appeal to her.

And that’s how Sher ate the pancakes – by slathering kaya and putting cheese on top.

I made extra portions, put them in glider food storage bags and stored them in the freezer for future quickie lunches.   When I am in lazy mood to cook, I just need to thaw the pancakes, put them into the toaster oven and lunch is served!

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Mac n cheese is one dish that my girls will never ever get fed up with. Most of the time, I cook it for them from scratch using their formula milk powder or fresh milk, butter, cheddar cheese and grated parmesan cheese. But sometimes I use San Remo instant Macaroni Cheese (supposedly no MSG).

The other day I cooked San Remo mac n cheese and added 1/2 a can of tuna fish for that added calcium and protein.

Also blanched some french beans for some fibre, phytochemicals and more protein.

Verdict : They loved it and licked their platter clean! Though not quite a nutritionally sound meal but it’s one that would surely bring excitement and smiles to my girls’ faces.

No. of times viewed = 400