湘颖想当啤酒妹

Let me see so far what have we done for our most precious little girl...
Mama quits a good paying job to stay home to be a 黄脸婆. Daddy works extra hard to earn more $ to feed the family. The family forgoes all luxury indulgences. And what is her aspirations? Answer: To be a 啤酒妹. Pls see context below for affirmation.

While mama was busy at the sink area (again!!! Yes, it happens a few times a day), she ventured into the service yard despite mama shouting, scolding and threatening her NOT TO! Ok nevermind, let her wander for a while. As usual, the carton of Mug Rootbeer got her attention. So she dug and dug into the carton like gold-digging. You should see her triumphant look when she finally managed to get hold of 1 can and walked out to the living room to entertain herself. Well, mama just let her have some fun with it.

The cheeky girl who thinks it's very funny to hold a can of Rootbeer (根啤酒).



Pretending to drink it from the can.

Having the last few moments of fun while mama is on standby to take it back anytime.

Recent cooks

Quite a lot of pics this week. But it doesn't mean I did lots of cooking. I've included some pics of my Bean Bean's meals since they are more "interesting" than before. No more boring, unseasoned old porridge. *Yeah of behalf of Bean*

Rare chance that K was home at dinner time so I tried to make something interesting. Ok, maybe you think 鲁肉饭 is sooooo boring and uninteresting but hello, pls take a closer look. The way of presentation is different so I can say it's interesing!

Ah more interesting stuff to come...
Crepe-wrapped smoked duck breast.
Obviously all were bought in the frozen section of the supermarket but still it requires some good skills to make it right you know? Ok, not really but it sure made me oily everywhere man. The duck breast was super oily and it had super thick oily skin.



Poor duck breast kana cut by me and my unsharp knife. Some more cut too thick. Why AJ still haven't buy the knife at Fairprice? Ya still procrasinating after I got my 12 stamps ages ago. Seriously I thought they were packed SLICED instead of whole piece.

This is the final product. Sorry no good shots. My hands super oily from doing all that wrapping.

Peking duck wannabe. *Ding ding ding: Christmas potluck alert*

Fried Mee Siam. Inspired by 1 of the mummies from SMH July thread. Of course hers (cooking and photography skills) much better than mine but I think I fared well too. Used Woh Hup Mee Siam paste which was super difficult to get. Got it at the 5th supermarket I attempted including 1 search by my Novena spy. My late mum used to present her fried bee hoon this way and see how quickly I learned :)

I love this dish while K kept complaining too dry. He didn't squeeze lime juice. Oh btw I used 新竹米粉 which really isn't that great but much more expensive. Maybe because it's not from native 新竹?

*After the ordeal of slicing the prawns, I am officially hating those ppl who can slice or half prawns without difficulty and yet beautifully. My passing rate was only 1 in 10. Only 1 prawn was donely nicely well the rest were "koyak".*



Baked rice with cream sauce. Yeah my poor isolated oven is back in action.

Ingredients: chicken sausages, canned mushrooms, canned pineapple with canned creamy mushroom soup and lots of cheese (mixture of mozzarella, cheddar and parmesan).

I took a small portion to try before feeding Bean. Yes, she had the same food as us for dinner but there was some problem feeding her eventhough this is NOT porridge cuz she kept wanting to self-feed using her toddler fork but this is rice how to self-feed with fork? So the clever mama used fork to pick up pineapple cubes and mushroom bits so that she can self-feed some portion. K said it was "Ok and so-so" but he ate most of it and leaving me only minute portion (minute for my standard) and I felt hungry even after dinner.

Food for the little one:
These days I cook plain or pumpkin porridge with 1 or 2 side dishes for her. No more mashy porridge all in 1 bowl. No more plain, unseasoned food.

Steamed egg custard with minced pork. She loved it. Maybe because that's a novelty? Nope. I made this 2 times and 1 more time without minced pork but I added soft tofu. She loves it all 3 times :)



Steamed threadfin with wolfberries. 2 slices ginger underneath the fish. She didn't quite like this. Not sure is it because of the ginger smell too strong. I did another variation - with soft tofu and without ginger. She seems to like it better.



Fried long beans. Ok I know it doesn't look like baby food but I'm trying to give her new variety to make her interested in eating.



Long bean omelette. Same food as what I would be having for my lunch. No longer need to cook separate dish. 1 dish, mama and daughter can eat together.



Baked star-shaped potatoes. Ultimate junkfood that the little one gets as a treat. Well, those were too hard and dry for her poor little throat. Although she enjoyed using her toddler fork to self-feed, I think she won't be getting it anytime soon. She had 4 pcs.



Bird's Eyes' vegetable fingers to accompany the star-shaped potatoes (Farmland). Well that completed 1 of her dinner meals. No struggling to keep her mouth shut. K was concerned this kind of food too dry to swallow and suggested I cook bee hoon soup for her. I did, for the next meal, using freshly boiled chicken stock and she loved it. No pics of bee hoon soup cuz of the badly sliced red snapper (by me of course) I don't know how to shoot a pic.



Ribbon pasta with chicken soup (pumpkin and soft tofu in case you were wondering). Not too bad, she finished most of it. Finished about 15pcs of the ribbons, last few pcs eaten dry, on its own, without soup as she's simply obsessed about self-feeding with her fork right now. She refused to be spoon fed by mama but when mama used the fork to pick a pce of ribbon for her, she gobbled it up hungrily. Horrible! Cold, dry and tasteless she also wants.

Beanster Family outing Nov 2010

Yeah the family outing started early this month due to PH - Deepavali. I thought of going for picnic at Marina Barrage but ended still Orchard Road... Ok mainly because K wanted to eat 鼎泰丰. And me? I decided not to bring porridge after the porridge-rejection saga the past few days.

Papa and his girl.

Mama saw her running around happily so squat down try to capture some shots but she ran back and took Mama as a 布景 or interesting backdrop. Guess what was she doing? I had the "essentials" bag on my left shoulder and my handbag on my right. She was walking in circles meddling with my bags while I remain squatted still trying hard to shoot her. Yep we don't use the pram these days. She's not keen to sit inside the pram when there are so many temptations along the way. *READ: Can anyhow run, pull, sit*



Finally her Daddy can't take it. He put her on the changing unit of a display playpen. She kept wanting to pull and take everything she saw. K said she's so heavy the changing unit still can take her weight? My reply was "Pls la 8kg only, if can't take her weight then who wants to buy?"

Bean Bean was fascinated with the pretty pastry display at O-Cha-Cha. *Note to self: Must go for tea 1 day. Miss the sandwiches.*

The family was queuing for our 鼎泰丰 dinner and she did the usual thing - meddle with my bag. *Girl, another 17 years ok. Mama will loan to you :)*

"Mama, why so many 包s? Really so nice meh?"

Yes, another one of her funny tricks.

Leaning her back against Mama's legs.

And finally we were seated! Sorry no pics of how she ENJOYED her dinner (finally!!) cuz Mama was trying hard to eat while she was shouting for more food, faster. Ok, also because the camera battery flat. *LOL*

Just for the record, she had a few tablespoons of fried rice (from the plate which contains prawns and she showed no signs of allergy), some noodle soup with 2 vegetable/pork dumplings, few strands of spinach and of course a taste of the 招牌菜- 小笼包.

湘颖是个大力士

Mama was busy in the kitchen, stationary at sink area when she heard some strange sounds. Turned her head and saw that the strong little girl had managed to push 1 of the dining chairs into the kitchen. Prior to that, she also did a 180 degree flip to my glass casement kitchen door which is usually facing out. That "swing door" action is permanent. She just has this urge to do it whenever she sees me in the kitchen. 我也拿她没办法! 讲了多少次她都不听...

Storage of raw food

I'm putting this up for the benefit of a newly introducing solids mummy.
* You know who you are :) *

Every saturday morning after our weekly market trip at Sengkang Square, AJ will be busy in the kitchen for at least 1 hour unpacking, repacking and preparing XY's lunch. Yes, you got it right. 1 hour just to do simple things like these. What to do? I am super slow in doing things and touch one thing, wash hands one time. Waste of time and make my dry hands even drier.

I usually ask the fishmonger to slice the fish for me so each slice is just nice for XY's 1 meal. Speaking of this, I bought a small piece of red snapper at Cold Storage yesterday. Asked the lady to slice it into smaller pieces for me but she said better not cuz the flesh will 碎 (scatter all over) after I bring it home. Pls la when I go home use my unsharp knife and my "wonderful" slicing skills, the poor slice of fish suffered even more 碎ness. Super ugly. Don't want to mention it. The good thing about buying fish at wet market is that you can get the seller to slice for you the way you want. I've previous encounters at Fairprice the lady refuse to slice for me cuz it is pre-packed in styrofoam box and she said no cutting service.

So this is how I store the fish. Pack the individual slices into plastic bags and tie a knot then put into plastic container and freeze. Very nice right? I even drew a fish on the cover to remind myself eventhough there is only 1 such container in the freezer. Note the beautiful slices of threadfin. Costs $2+ per slice ok. Super lucky girl I have.

I do the same steps for minced pork and chicken parts but they have bigger containers.



Ok, this doesn't really look like a chicken but I think I can identify the chicken box easily enough. hehe...

My happy moments

Yes, opening her mouth to EAT makes me happy :)

Sean Lau Photography - End product collected

We attempted to go on Monday. I tried to call for inform Adelena we were going down but no one answered the phone.

See my little girl dressed up in her demin jumper skirt.



Her favourite page of the colour book. *Cat cat says "Meow".*

结果铺了一场空. Reached the place realised SL is closed. Later on think back. Shit they are closed on Sunday and Monday. Nvm we go walk walk at PS where the little girl enjoyed some treats.

Wednesday finally got Adelena on the phone and we went down after the girl's nap.

Short short dress with silver shoes. My favourite shoes :)

At PS Mac again having the same things as 2 days back. Chocolate donut.

She was very happy with the straw. Didn't even shout for my cold drink like she usually does.

On the way walking towards PS from mrt. This is her favourite path so far. Super happy whenever I release her from her pram. Badly taken cuz I need to use 1 hand to push the pram.



Little girl expert in eating donut.



Her usual behaviour when she is eating something nice.



And finally... here are the 5 prints in super good quality photo paper.



The tabletop which I have no idea where to place it. The lady at SL suggested hang on the wall in her room. Good idea, can consider.

They also gave me this CD which includes the 5 edited selections and all softcopies. Phew luckily the CD was nicely presented. The other time they gave me a plain CD for the softcopy which made me so shocked.

Recent cooks

A whole week of lonely lunch and lonely dinner. K is busy with his most dreaded NUS project which keeps the team working 16 to 19-hour days. Madness!

Chicken congee. Cooked with chicken bone leftover from XY's steamed chicken thigh. Remember I said I will be frugal? Ok maybe this is toooo frugal. Btw I decided not to buy a whole chicken afterall. My boss, K (the chicken breast hater) irritates me so much whenever he eats. Every pce of chicken he takes, he will ask me "Is this chicken breast?" despite me pre-empt him he will be expected to eat whatever is in his bowl and no more choosing cuz I want to be frugal. Forget it. Let me find other ways to be frugal. *Great. I mentioned FRUGAL 4 times in this short paragraph. 5th time.*

Anyway the congee was yummy. i always cook my congee with some chinese herbs for flavour. Added some beancurd skin too and it went very well with the congee.



I suck at taking soup pictures. Sorry soups!!
This is my most wonderful soup by far. Remember I cooked lotus root peanut soup the previous week? Bubblygal gave me this idea to cook it with chicken bones and pork ribs for more flavour and I did. I was sooo happy with it. And I sliced the lotus root thinner than before after K feedback to me previous week that I cut it too thick. Needless to say XY had the soup as a stock base for her porridge. Lucky girl she is. Mummy always cooks yummy porridge for her and she can still eat with difficulty. *drum roll* Guess what happened in the end? K started the 1st day of the work week stuck with that horrible job and he didn't get to drink the soup at all. Not willing to give up, I heated a bowl for him the next morning. "Forced" him to drink some before he went to office. I saw myself a bit like those housewives in Korean drama who has to cook rice and soup for the whole family for breakfast. Except that what I did was give my hubby leftover rice and soup...

Cheater dish: Soft tofu with pork floss. Yes, can't think of anything to cook so I made this. Luckily I didn't cook other dish cuz I ended up eating dinner alone.

Nicer version of 鲁肉饭. To make myself happy, I bought this "don" bowl from Daiso. Nicer presentation I eat also happier.

药材鸡with the skin on. Was meant to be for K (who feedback to me must have the skin on then taste nice) but since he's stuck at work, I ate it. He's damn right, it tastes better with skin on even if you don't eat the skin.

Aglio Olio. This was for lunch. Angel's hair is my favourite pasta for now. Only dump in and stir for a few moments and it's done. No need to use timer.

This was for dinner the following night.

I've decided to include some of XY's meals too. This is porridge (mixed brown, red and white rice. no millet) cooked with cherry tomatoes. I usually put 1:1 ratio for rice and millet but some meals I omit millet. Topped with sauce from steamed fish.



Steamed threadfin with miso paste. I didn't taste it as I'm scared of fishy smell but I think it must have been great cuz she seems to love it so much. No fussing during the meal and she finished everything within 20min which is a good timing for her.