Bow Tie Pasta Salad

Was shopping with my little girl at Carrefour and when saw that they sell BOW TIE pasta and I just have to buy it. Saw the use of Bow Tie pasta in many of the kids cooking recipes so I just have to buy and try it. Have been looking around for it in NTUC Fairprice and Giant but just can't find it. So, today, I could a Bow Tie Pasta Salad for the kids and they love it. My Baby Girl actually ate the whole plate herself without me feeding her and my boy was playing and eat the pasta, he was imagining the pasta as a butterfly, a bat, a fish etc...I'm so gald it was a hit, even my hubby. I cook quite a large pot and was thinking maybe I can serve this for lunch tomorrow but ended up my hubby just gobble up everything, he say it was so appetising. YES! This is definitely a keeper, here's the recipe, roughly as I just add the ingredient based on what I have and tasted.

BOw Tie Pasta


Ingredients and Directions
- Bow Tie pasta
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Carrot
- Bacon Bits
- Pesto Sauce
- Sugar
- Olive Oil
- a pinch of salt to taste
- raisin (optional, I added it because my kids love raisins)

1. Boil a pot of water, put in a pinch of salt and a few drops of olive oil. Pour in the pasta and carrots and boil until the pasta is almost done.
2. Put in the cauliflower and boil for another 10 minutes before putting in the broccoli. Cook until vegetables are tender and pasta is al denta. Drain pasta and vegetable and left aside.
3. In a bowl, mix pesto with a generous portion of olive oil, add lemon, sugar and salt to taste.
4. Pour suce over pasta and vegetables and mix until evenly coated. Serve.

Beef Meatball

Baby Fan now likes to eat meet, but real meat pieces seems too hard for her to chew, so I was constantly looking out for mince meet recipe. Stumble upon this super easy beef meatball, I served it to tomato based spaghetti and the kids love it.



Beef Meat Balls

• Mince Beef
• Mashed Potatoes or Rolled Oats

1. Preheat oven to 200 deg celsius.
   
2. Mixed Mince Beef with mashed potatoes, roll mixture into balls.
3. Baked in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until beef is cooked through.
   

Healthy Potato Salad

My Baby FAN loves potato salad, but I was worried about the high sodium and MSG content in normal salad cream, so decided that I made the salad cream myself using yoghurt instead. It tasted quite nice and really healthy...kudos, a definite stable for my family. I made this for a potluck dinner and everyone seems to enjoy it without knowing that there is no salad cream involved.

Potato Salad

Ingredients & Directions

• 2 Potatoes (boiled until tender, then cut into bite size pieces)
  
• 10 Quail Eggs (or normal eggs) (boiled and cut into half)
• 1/2 onion (chopped into fine pieces)
  
• 2 tbs of plain yoghurt
• 1 or 2 tsp of honey (depending on your taste, if you like it sweeter, add more honey)
• 1/2 tsp of salt (again, depending on your taste)
• a pinch of pepper
• Bacon bits (optional)
  

1. Mixed the yoghurt, honey, salt and pepper together, play around with the honey, salt and pepper until you get the taste you wanted, if you want it sweeter, add more honey, if you want it saltier, more salt, want it spicier, more pepper, want it more sourish, add more yoghurt.
2. Mix the yoghurt mixture together with the potatoes, eggs and onion. Chilled salad in fridge for about 1 hour.
   
3. Sprinkle with bacon bits and served.
   

Baby Frittas

Tried making this Frittas for Baby FAN but I think because I don't have sun dried tomatoes, so I used fresh tomatoes instead and the frittas doesn't turn out as well and Baby FAN don't really like it. Will probably tried it again next when I get my hand on sun dried tomatoes.

Baby Frittatas (Makes 12 Baby Frittatas)

(original recipe here)

Ingredients & Directions

• 3 Large Eggs
• 2 Tbsp Milk
• 2 Tbsp Parmesan, grated
• 1/4 Cup Asparagus, diced
• 3 Sun Dried Tomatoes, packed in oil and diced (I don't have sun dried tomatoes so I used 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped it up and toasted it in the oven with olive oil instead)
  

1. Preheat the oven 375 degrees.
2. Spray or grease mini muffin tins with oil or butter.
3. Whisk the eggs and milk together. Add the cheese, tomatoes and
vegetables.
4. Add a heaping tablespoon of egg/vegetable mixture to each muffin cup.
5. Bake for 12-14 minutes.
6. Cool and serve.

Mini Vegetarian Quiche

Another wonderful recipe from Weelicious. My baby girl loves it and the best is that this quiche is so versatile. I have tried replacing the zucchini with the following ingredients like cod fish with mushrooms; salmon; beef and mushrooms and it works out quite well as well. Try it.

Mini Vegetarian Quiches (Makes 12 Mini Quiche)

(original recipe here)

Ingredients & Directions

• 2 Large Eggs
• 1/3 Cup Cheddar Cheese, shredded
• 1 Zucchini, diced or shredded
• 1/2 Cup Spinach(I used 2 cube of spinach puree instead)
• 1/4 Cup Cottage Cheese
• 1/4 Cup Whole Milk

1. Preheat over to 325 degrees.
2. Place all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and pulse until throughly combined and vegetables are in small pieces.
3. Spray or grease mini muffin tins with oil or butter. (I used those muffin cups instead so I don't need to wash up the tins later hi hi)
4. Pour a tablespoon of mixture into each muffin cup. It should fill each cup about 3/4 way to the top.
5. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden and cooked through.
6. Cool and serve.

Cheese Wafers

Was searching the web for some interesting breakfast and finger food that I can make for Baby FAN when I stumble upon this site which provided a lot of interesting and healthy food for kids, check it out, it's really cool...Weelicious

Tried making the Cheese wafers and it tasted really great, I was munching at it while putting it in the container, it has a crispy outer like a biscuit yet rather chewy and soft like wafer in the inside. Best of all it's so easy to make.

Cheese Wafers
(original recipe here)

Ingredients & Directions

• 150 grams of Cheddar Cheese
• 3 Tbsp Butter
• 1/2 Cup Flour plus additional for sprinkling
• 2 tbs of milk powder (optional, healthy extras that I added)
  
• 2 tbs of wheat germ (optional, healthy extras that I added)
  

1. Combine all the ingredients and form into a dough
2. Remove all the dough to a piece of parchment or waxed paper and shape into a thick flat circle. Cover with waxed paper and refrigerate for one hour or overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
4. Open waxed paper and roll out dough on it into a 1/4 inch-thick piece.
5. Take small cookie cutters and cut out into shapes.
6. Place on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with a silpat or parchment paper) and bake for 12-15 minutes. Let cool on sheet for 2 minutes before removing.
7. Serve.

Quick Bread Stick

Another finger food recipe that I manage to find in my Super Baby Food book. Baby FAN seems to like it alot, she can eat 2 at a go, rest for a while then eat another one. I served this for her as afternoon snack yummy...even my mum says it tasted quite good.

Quick Bread Stick

Ingredients & Directions
(makes 16 sticks)

• 1 cup of Super Flour (which includes 2 tbs of baby formula milk powder, 1 tbs of wheatgerm and top up with unbleached flour)
• 1/2 cup oat
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt to taste
• some Italian herbs seasoning mix
  
• 1 beaten egg
• 4 tbs melted better or oil
• 1/4 cup water

1. Mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately.
   
2. Make a well in the dry ingredients and mix in the wet ingredients until you form a dough. Add water if the dough is too dry and add flour if the dough is too wet.
3. Keep dividing dough until you have 16 balls. Roll into sticks about 1/2 inch in diameter.
4. After shaping, wel them in a mixture of one beated egg mixed with 2 tbs water and roll them in sesame seeds or wheat germ.
5. Place on greased baking sheet and bake in pre-heated oven (about 180 deg celsius) for 20 minutes until crisp and golden browned.
6. Store in air-tight container.
   

Easy Sweet Potato Snack

Here's a really simple snack, healthy and nice. yum

Easy Sweet Potato Snack

Ingredients & Directions

• One Sweet Potato
• Olive Oil
• Salt to taste

1. Preheat oven to 230 deg cel.
2. Cut potato into 1 inch strips, then coat it generously with olive oil and sprinkle some sea salt to taste.
3. Place potato in oven and baked for about 15 to 20 minutes or until potato is crispy outside and tender instead. Serve warm or cool. Enjoy.

Potato & Egg Salad

Baby FAN seems to be going into the fuzzy eater phase. She simply refuse to open her mouth for her porridge or puree. So feeding her becomes a struggle nowsadays. So decided that instead of forcing her to eat her puree, maybe I should just step back a little and think about what else I can cook for her to make her eat willingly. Baby FAN now loves to pick up her own food and eat, maybe I can try making some food that can be eaten with hands. The easiest I can think of is Potato and Egg Salad. Well, I glad I did that, it was a hit, my Baby Girl everything. Am going to try out more finger food stuff. Well, here's the recipe:

Potato and Egg Salad

Ingredients & Directions

• 1 potato
• 1 egg
• 1 cube of spinach puree
• 1 tbs of evaporated milk
• a pinch of salt and pepper

1. Wash potato and boil it in a pot of boiling water until soft.
2. Wash egg, place egg in a pot and bring it to boil, then switch off the heat and let the egg simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Thaw or warm up the spinach puree.
   
4. Peel and cut potato and egg into bite size cube.
5. Mix the potato, egg, spinach, evaporate milk, salt and pepper together and served.

Verdict: Baby FAN loves it, here's a vid of her happily chomping away.

Steamed Pumpkin Kueh

I always have a lot of remaining pumpkin that I don't know what to do with it. So decided to try making Steamed Pumpkin Kueh so that I can let Baby FAN eat it for her snack. Can't really find a good recipe on the net but I do manage to find quite a few on Steamed Yam Cake, so decided to use the recipe for Steamed Yam cake and modified it a little for the pumpkin. Here's the recipe:

Steamed Pumpkin Kueh
(original recipe from Rose's Kitchen Blog)

Ingredients:

• 250g pumpkin (skinned, cut into cube)
• 250g rice flour
• 1 tbsp tapioca flour
• 800ml water
• 3 dried mushrooms (soaked & diced)
• 75g pork (diced)
• 50g dried chay po (soaked, chopped)
• 50g shallots (sliced)
• 2 Tbsp cooking oil

Seasoning:

• 1/2 tsp light soya sauce
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• a pinch of five-spice powder (optional)

Garnishing:

• 1/2 stalks spring onions (diced)
• Fried shallot crisps
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Method:

1. Mix rice flour and tapioca flour with 350ml water. Strain mixture and set aside for 15 minutes.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in wok, fry the sliced shallots until golden brown. Remove and set aside for garnishing.
3. In the same oil, stir-fry the chopped chay po until aromatic.
   
4. Add pork and mushrooms and stir-fry for a while. Add in the pumpkin cubes, seasoning and some water and let simmer for a while. Dish up and set aside.
5. Boil the remaining 350ml of water with 1 tsp salt. When water is boiling, turn off heat immediately. Add in the mixture from (4) and the flour solution and keep on stirring till mixture becomes thick. Pour batter into a greased 23cm steaming tray.
6. Steam mixture over high heat for 30 minutes or until cooked.
7. Garnish with chopped spring onions. Sprinkle with lightly toasted sesame seeds and fried shallot crisps.
8. When cold, cut into serving pieces and serve with chilli sauce.

Steam Egg Tofu

As Baby FAN don't drink milk, I have to constantly think of calcium rich stuff for her, here's one simple one which I serve her as snack in the afternoon. Enjoy.

Steam Egg Tofu

Ingredients & Directions

• Half a package of Egg Tofu
• A handful of Wolfberries
• Some Japanese Seaweed Seasoning

1. Cut tofu into about 1.5 cm thick and place it in a steamer or a metal plate.
2. Wash the wolfberries and put a few of top of each piece of tofu.
3. Then sprinkle some Japanese Seaweed Seasoning on top and steam the tofu in a steamer for about 10 to 15 minutes. If you don't have a steamer like me, I use the rice cooker steamer instead.
4. Let the tofu cool slightly before serving.

Verdict: My Baby FAN loves it...yum yum...she finished the entire plate.

Fruit Smoothies Recipes

Have be trying to wean my baby girl off breast milk ever since she hit 9 months. But just can't seems to get her to drink formula milk. Tried all sort of brands, even goat's milk and soy milk but she just don't like it. So, tried giving her full cow's milk when she hit 1 year old but she don't seems to like it. So I tried yoghurt and she loves it. Well, don't think I can ever serve her yoghurt for 3 meals a day, so I thought maybe I can try making smoothies for her. Tried making banana smoothie as recommended by some baby food guide but it taste really yucky and my baby girl just spit it out. Also, the problem with banana based smoothies is that it will turn brown quite fast and it really doesn't look too appetising. So I search the net and stumble upon this page of smoothie recipes from nickjr.com. Tried it for my baby girl and wa lah...she gobble up half and cup at one go...yappie... this is a great achieve as I normally only manage to get her to drink the most 1 oz of formula milk each day. Here's the winning recipe:

Peaches and Cream Smoothie

• 3 frozen peaches or fresh peaches
• 1/2 cup peach yoghurt (I used 1 cup of yoplait apricot yoghurt instead)
• 1/4 cup of fresh fullcream milk
• 1/2 cup of baby apple juice

1. Blend all ingredient together and served cold. Yummy....

Check out more yummy smoothie recipes here

Homemade Baby Food: Baked Beans with Pork

Baked Beans with Pork

Ingredients & Directions

• 175g minced pork
• half a carrot
• 2 potatoes
• 1/4 onion
• 1 tsp oil
• 1/2 cup baked beans
• 1/2 cup water

1. Wash, peel and cut the carrot, potato and onion.
2. Heat the oil, add the pork and fy for a few minutes, until slightly brown (about 70% cook). Put aside.
3. On the same pot, add the vegetables and cook for 2 minutes, then add the baked beans and water.
4. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer until vegetables become tender.
5. Pour the mince pork back to the pot together with the tender vegetables and cook for another few minutes until pork is fully cooked. Don't cook for too long or the pork becomes very tough.
6. Puree the food to desired consistency and served. Freeze the remainder.
   

Homemade Baby Food: Avocado Soup

Saw some really nice avocados, so bought some for Baby FAN to try as a finger food. She seems to like it though she can't eat a lot, so have some left over avocados which I dunno what to do with it. So dig through my recipes and found this avocado soup recipes that I used to cook for SMALL FAN quite often. Well, SMALL FAN stills likes it and so did Baby FAN..yum


Avocado-Spiked Corn Soup
Ingredients & Directions

• 1 cup of corn
• 2 avocados
• 1/2 an onion
• 1/2 a carrot
• 1/4 cup of celery
• Salt & Pepper & Basil to taste

1. Cook onion, carrot, celery and corn in some chicken broth until all the ingredient are soft.
2. Cool and puree all the ingredient.
3. Add avocados and puree it with all the ingredient
4. (for Baby and SMALL FAN I add 1 small piece of chicken meat and puree with the rest of the ingredient for the protein)
5. Pour all the puree mixture into the saucepan warm it, add water, salt, pepper and basil to taste (for Baby FAN, I omit the salt, pepper & basil as it's actually tasty enough on it's own). For water, just add base on your own preference, if you like it thick, less water. Serve Hot.

Homemade Baby Food: Steam Egg with Beancurd and Spinach

Those who has been following my blog would have know that I am having serious issue with getting my girl to drink milk. Till now, at 11 month, she is just drinking about 3 oz of formula milk each day. So, I'm trying very hard to replace the formula milk with calcium and protein rich food since she loves eating solid food. Here's a really easy recipe and my baby girl loves eat, she can eat up the entire bowl.

Steam Egg with Beancurd and Spinach

• 1 egg
• 1 tbs of soft silken tofu (cut into cube)
• 80ml water
• 1 tbs of spinach vegetable puree (basically, blanch spinach in hot water and puree it to make the puree)
  
• a little bit of salt and pepper to taste

1. Whip the egg and add water and salt.
   

2. Add the tofu and a cube of vegetable puree.

3. Place into a metal bowl or ceramic bowl you wish to serve in.

4. Place into a steamer and close lid. ( You can make your own steamer by simply adding some water into a wok and raise the bowl above the water by using a small wire rack. If you do this, don’t close the wok lid fully... leave a small gap )

5. Gently steam for 12-15 min. You can open the lid and check if the egg is cooked by making sure the egg doesn't wobble like jelly when you gently shake it.

Mushroom Stew Tofu

Was trying to cook Ma Po Tofu for SMALL FAN to eat but couldn't get any mince pork at the market, so tried to search the net for some recipe that requires Tofu and stumble upon this one. It's quite a tasty dish and really easy and I can cook it in advance. Served this to the entire family, including my 10 month old baby girl and everyone loves it.

Mushroom Tofu Stew

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
  
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into pieces
• 1 cup stock or water
• 1 oz dried mushrooms, plus soaking liquid (optional)
• 1 1/2 cup white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 1 dried chili, chopped, plus soaking liquid (I omitted this since I serving it to the kids)
• 1/4 to 1/2 soy sauce (I don't think I put in so much, just add to taste)
• 1 star arise (I omitted this)
• 1 small stick cinnamon (I omitted this)
• 2 lbs tofu, drained and cut into cubes (I used 1 package of those Hong Yun Silken Tofu)

1. Heat oil in a large pot, add onion and cook until transparent, about 5 minutes.
   
2. Add garlic and cook for another couple of minutes. Then add the potatoes and stock and bring to boil. Reduce heat and cook until the potatoes are just tender, about 10 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms and the spice and some soy sauce to taste (I only added very little soy sauce here as I'm serving this to baby). Cook for another 10 minutes or so.
4. Add the tofu and continue to cook, covered for at least half and hour to allow the flavours to blend. Scope a portion up for the baby. Then add more soy sauce to taste.
   
5. You can make this earlier in the day or the day before serving.

I throw in some asparagus just before serving so it's crunchy and nice and also to increase the nutritional content.

Homemade Baby Food: Marmite/Bovil Stick

Trying to make some finger food for Baby FAN as snack and saw a Marmite Stick recipe in my baby recipe book. But the recipe called for pizza dough, so I look through Allrecipes.com and stumble upon this one which is yeast free. Here's the modified one.


Pizza Dough
(click here for original recipe)

• 1.5 cup all-purpose flour (Ask I used bread flour instead as I run out of all-purpose)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt (I just put a small pinch or you can omit it if making for baby)
  
• 1/2 tsp of baking powder
  
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano (I poured in some premixed italian herbs instead)
  
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper (omitted this)
  
• 1 eggs, lightly beaten (I reduced it, original recipe called for 2 eggs which is too much)
  
• 2/3 cup milk (I replace this with 1/2 cup of baby formula milk)

Toppings

• Bovil

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a rimmed pizza pan or baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, salt, herbs and black pepper. Mix in eggs and milk; stir well. Pour batter into prepared pan and tilt until evenly coated, spread the batter really thin as it do rise.
   
3. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until crust is set. Put in toppings of choice, in my case I spread a thin layer of bovil on the pizza (spread the bovil very thin as it's rather saltish).
   
4. Remove crust from oven. Bake until bovil dries up. Then cut into strips or small pieces.
   

Muesli-Applesauce Muffins

Bought this Apple & Muesli for Baby FAN to try but she don't like it. So, instead of letting is turn bad in the fridge, I decided to try making muffins out of it. Found a Muesli-Applesauce Muffin recipe from All recipe.com, so tried my hand at making it so that I can feed Baby FAN the muffins since she prefer chewy food to mushy food now.








Here's the recipe:



Muesli-Applesauce Muffins

* 1 cup applesauce (I have one left over banana, substitute half the applesauce with mash banana)
* 1/3 cup vegetable oil
* 2/3 cup white sugar (I thought the recipe was quite sweet with the banana, applesauce and rasin, so cut the sugar to 1/4 cup and still find it sweet, next time maybe I will take out the sugar totally)
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup water
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/4 cups muesli cereal
* 1 cup raisins

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease one 12-cup muffin tin.
2. In a large bowl, beat the applesauce, oil egg, sugar and water together for 2 minutes at medium speed.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, allspice and muesli together. Add the dry ingredients to the applesauce mixture. Beat on low speed until combined.
4. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tin filling each cup 3/4 full. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the tops are golden brown an spring back lightly when touched. Remove from pans immediately to cool.

Homemade Baby Food: Red Pepper Risotto

Red Pepper Risotto

• 1/4 cup or 50g of long grain rice (I used brown rice instead)
• 300ml or 1 1/4 cup formula milk
• 75g red bell pepper
• 75g zucchini
• 50g celery (I opmitted this as I don't have it on hand)

1. Place the rice and milk in apan, bring to the boil and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.
2. Discard the core and seeds from the pepper and trim the zucchini and celery. Rinse and wash the vegetables and chop them into small pieces.
3. Add the vegetables to the rice mixture, bring to boil, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the rice is soft.
4. Pree the rice mixture until smooth
5. Spoon a little into a bowl and serve. Freeze the remainder.

Verdict: Baby FAN doesn't really like this, I think may be due to the bell pepper, the taste can be quite strong.

Homemade Baby Food: Cheesy Pasta

Cheesy Pasta

• 1 carrot
• 1/4 cup of frozen corn
• a few broccoli florets (about 4 or 5)
• 50g or 2 oz dried pasta shapes
• 1 cup formula milk
• 50g or 2 oz cheddar or mild cheese

1. Peel the carrot, rinse and chop broccoli and carrot into pieces.
2. Place the prepared vegetables, corn, pasta and milk in a pan, bring to boil and then simmer, uncovered for 12 to 15 minutes, until the pasta is cooked.
3. Grate the cheese and add to the vegetables, stirring until the cheese has completely melted.
4. Process or mas just enough to give the desired consistency. Then spoon a little into a bowl. Test the temperature and cool if necessary before giving to the baby.
5. Freeze the remainder.

Variations: I actually cooked the pasta separately from the vegetables. Then I puree the vegetables and make it into a sauce before putting in the cheese. Once the cheese has melt, I pour the sauce over the cooked pasta and serve it to my boy. He loves it. Then I puree the pasta and mix it with the sauce for my baby girl.