Hooray! My Edda is Weaned!

A pat on the back for me because I finally weaned my 22 months old daughter. Weaning her was fairly easy because I knew she could understand me well. At first I was thinking to only start weaning her after she turned two. But that one fine night (last week) when she wanted to have some, I didn't know what happen but I started to "TALK" to her while carrying her and looked her into the eyes. I told her she is a big girl now and she shouldn't ask for mommy milk anymore. I asked her to look at her elder sister, whether she have seen her sister asking for mommy milk or not? I told her no right because her sister is a big girl and she doesn't need mommy milk and so is she. I told her she is a big girl now too and should stop asking for mommy milk and be a big girl just like her sister. Well, she fell asleep in my arms that night without any resistant. So, I persisted with the same conversation the next day and the following day. Sometimes she just fell asleep in my arms, one or two times she would make a fuss about it but again I gave her the same speech. Now, whenever she is sleepy, she just lay down on the sofa and sleep on her own. Great huh? One more thing, she also has been sleeping through the night, so no more interrupted sleep for me. ^.*


*She is blowing a kiss to you*

My next challenge now would be to move her and her sister into a room. Since she is sleeping through the night, when ever her daddy is ready to convert her crib into a toddler bed, we are ready to move both of them. Guess now I am waiting for my hubby to get the job done (might takes forever since he doesn't like to do this kind of thing!). Sigh! Maybe have to use a cane to force him, then he will do it! LOL! (just kidding!) :P

How to Make Ground Meat from Scratch

I decided to make this post so that my daughters will know it is actually very easy to make your own ground meat at home. I figure if I don't show them, they will not know when they grow up. I noticed a lot of people only know how to purchase ground meat at the supermarket and really have no idea how to make it at home. So, if you haven't gotten a clue before, after reading my post, you will know! :D Of course I learned it from my mother when I was little, used to help her made ground meat in her kitchen.


First you will need a sharp Chinese cleaver. And then of course ground meat of your choice, pork, beef, chicken, etc. You will have to cut the meat into small pieces and then use your cleaver to chop on it. Just chop through the meat, flip it and chop again, flip the meat again and chop again until you have worked all your muscles. In the olden days, the butcher used two big cleavers to chop ground meat for his customers. This is really a good hand exercise for anyone who wants to try. Haha...


My ground pork is done after multiple times of flipping the meat and chopping. Now it's ready for seasoning for my pork balls noodle soup later.


Serving up my homemade pork balls with glass noodle (tang hoon) soup!


Who wants to try my pork ball with Thai chili? :P

I cooked my broth with 2 chicken drumsticks, 1 baked chicken cavity, 1/4 cup of yellow beans, shrimp shells that I saved, dried Chinese mushroom stems (I saved this for making broth too), 1 whole large yellow onion and 3 carrots hence my broth turned out very sweet and flavorful.

Black Glutinous Rice Dessert (Bubur Pulut Hitam)

This is my black glutinous rice takes three! Yes believe it, my third time making this dessert only. Can you tell how lazy I am? I tried the rice cooker and stove method, I tried straight from the stove method (takes very long to make the rice soft) and my third time was a charm. I used my lazy slow cooker method!

Brilliant Weblog Award

Yes another award! I would love to thanks My Household Capers for giving me this award. It came as a surprise and I am glad that you think my blog is worthy of this award.

Brilliant Weblog is a prize given to sites and blogs that are smart and brilliant both in their content and their design. The purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogsphere.

Here are the rules to follow: When you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (or even more) that you find brilliant in their content or design. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘Brilliant Weblog’. Show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional).All the bloggers have wonderful work and content in their blog and all deserve to get this. As per the rules I would like to pass this award to my fellow bloggers mentioned below:

Dhanggit's Kitchen

Soy and Pepper

Teczcape - Escape to Food -recipes, cooking, reviews

Kedai Hamburg

More than Words

Beachlover's Kitchen

Mochachocolata-Rita

Noobcook

Enjoy ladies and do pass it along! ^.^

Use of Leftovers 4: Stir-fry Steamed Rice Rolls

Leftovers: one piece of salt & pepper pork and XO fried steamed rice rolls from a Chinese restaurant.


Turned into: Yummy plate of stir-fried steamed rice rolls with shrimp paste sauce.


I cut the steamed rice rolls into smaller pieces, added 1/4 yellow onion, 3 stalks of scallions and sliced the salt & pepper pork into smaller pieces. Heated up my wok with some oil, added in some garlic, onion and the pork, steamed rice rolls and stir-fried until warm. Added in shrimp paste in chili oil, my homemade chili in oil and dark soy sauce. Lastly added in the scallions, gave a few good stirs and dished out and served hot.

Party Food: Toothpick Fruit Mix

Dhanggit is hosting her first blog event in celebration to her precious girl's 1st birthday party and her event theme is "Perfect Party Dishes". I wanted to create a dish that is easy to prepare, stress free and easy to eat. So, I thought of this toothpick fruit mix on a melon, in this case a cantaloupe. Any melon can be used as a base and any fruit in season that won't turn brown like apple can be used as fruit on a stick. You can use decorative toothpick (like me in this case) or bamboo sticks.



What do you think? Easy party food (fruit) that guests would love right? You can use more fruit variety (play with different colors combination) if you are using a bamboo stick. In my case, I cut the cantaloupe in half, scoop the filling out with a melon scoop (I don't know how to scoop the melon out in round shape at all, *sad*) and use the red grape as contrast. I used decorative toothpicks and alternate the fruit in the toothpick and just stuck them onto the cantaloupe. Sorry for my ugly attempt, I tried.



I would love to submit my toothpick fruit to Dhanggit "Perfect Party Dishes" event as an idea to her (I bet anyone would make a prettier one than me). Do check out her round-up during the week of Aug. 15th.