Evy & Edda Updates 10/10/2010

My Evy at 6.5.  She lost the baby fat on her face and looks slimmer now.  She is considered tall in her class, I think she inherited her daddy's tall gene.  We didn't skip her to 2nd grade so she is at Grade 1 but goes to enrichment class once a week if applicable.  We also signed her up in a Destination Imagination club where she will participate in activities that will challenge her critical thinking, problem solving and presentation skills.  They will get to compete with other schools in COS.

We enrolled her in a Chinese School here.  Now she goes to the Chinese School Grade 1 level every Sunday for two hours.  In this class, she will learn to recognize Chinese characters, read, write, speak and form sentences.  She would received a page of reading material and homework assignment which she would have to learn before class.  I got to say, she did well in it.  Her Chinese teacher was impressed at the sentences that Evy could form in Mandarin.  I was so pleased and proud to hear that of course.  :-P  We just received two text books and 4 work books from the school and she will be getting a test this coming Sunday.

I made her lunchbox everyday to bring to school.  It's nothing fancy like a bento because I couldn't foresee myself being that hardworking.  Her lunch consisted of brown rice, veggie and chicken/fish (sometimes fried rice or noodle) that we had the night before.  I took out her portion before we started dinner.  The next day, I reheat her rice and pack it in a 12oz. food thermos along with her water bottle and snack.  For me, this is healthier than the cafeteria food that the school served (even though this cafeteria offers healthy food choices).   Her reward for finishing all her lunch (Mon-Fri) is she will get to eat in the cafeteria on the day that I don't have a lunchbox for her (like we went out to eat on Sunday night and thus no lunchbox on Monday).  If it happens that one of those day, she brought back half thermos fulled of food, then her reward is canceled.  So, on that day, I will cook some chicken potstickers (from frozen) or omelet and pack with some brown rice for her.

Banana Dried Fruit Waffles

This is another type of healthy waffle that I had in mind.  My elder girl won't eat banana but she liked banana cake.  So, I thought I would smashed up the banana and added into the batter and make the waffle so that she doesn't even know she is eating a waffle with banana in it.  On of my readers suggested me to slice the banana and bake it with the waffle which gave me the idea.  For this, I only used one large banana and surprisingly I could still smell the banana in this waffle.

I read that a good energy food for breakfast is oatmeal, banana, milk and etc.  So, this is definitely a good energy boost breakfast for you to last until lunch.  Not to say, yummy too and no syrup needed!  This waffle has oatmeal, banana, milk, eggs, honey and dried cranberries to list some.

Salmon Mixed Vegetable Porridge (jook)

Porridge again?  Why so many porridge because this time I had been sick.  I had some bad sore throat right after Evy was cured.  It was really painful and I had to cook myself some porridge/jook/congee.  This time I used frozen mixed vegetable, dried scallop, salmon, dried shrimps and some cut bok choy.  Lastly garnished with some fried shallots.  The cooking instruction can be found at my old post here.

This was how I like my porridge, all the rice grains broken out, watery and soft.  It was sweet with a touch of salt as I added dried scallop and dried shrimps in this.  Healthy too right?

Too bad, both my girls do not fancy porridge, even though it is delicious.  My elder has been very picky and my second one just like to follow her sister.  But if the sister is at school, she will eat the porridge with me.

2-2-3-4-5 Braised Chicken

This dish was inspired by 1-2-3-4-5 Sticky Spareribs (Tang Chu Pai Gu).  Since I don't have spareribs and only chicken, I cooked it differently but with almost the same sauce except I increased the Shaoxing rice wine to 2 Tbsp.  Got to say, delicious!  Now I have one more chicken dish to serve my family.  :-)

I added tofu knots in mine.  If you don't have tofu knots in your area, you can omit it.  Or you can substitute it with Chinese dried mushrooms or dried beancurd sticks.  This sauce is so good with rice, you have to try this dish!

Pandan Chiffon Cake 2 (Healthier Version)

 

Pandan chiffon cake was my childhood favorite cake.  I remembered I always asked my mom to buy it at the bakery shop for us to have as breakfast.  It was great being a kid without having to worry about counting calories and just consumed however much we liked.  I seriously would not have known what went into making a cake, a bread, or a dish without me being a cook and a baker myself.  Once I learned that, I have to be careful at what to cook for my family and how much portion to consume in a day, you know to watch my diet and not over eating certain food that is high in saturated fat.

This recipe is adapted from my Pandan Chiffon Cake recipe but because I want to make it healthier with less saturated fat content, I omitted the coconut milk and used 1% milk instead.  I also changed the all-purpose flour to cake flour, just for experiment.  Glad to say it turned out well, still fragrant with Pandan smell and not much difference from the Pandan chiffon cake made with coconut milk.

I didn't do a nice job at dismounting my chiffon cake from the tube pan, this really takes patient and skill.  LOL!

Toast Camembert Bagel

I received this sample of Normandie Ile de France Camembert recently.  I was one of the lucky fews who got to sample the product before it hit the shelf and release to the general public.  Its' flavor is more intense than Brie and I instantly noticed it when I first opened the box.  I could actually smelled it.  Ile de France Camembert is crafted in Normandy, from local Rbst (hormone) free pasteurized cow milk.  The herds spend most of their time outside, grazing in the fields of Normandy, known for its temperate climate and rich soil.  It has the mushrooms and nutty undertones and known for its' creaminess.

This was my first time sample a Camembert and frankly I had no idea how people eat this besides serving as a cheese platter.  So I went to the Ile de France Website and look through the recipes.  But I was too eager to try it and I had some bagel at home, so I just cut two slices and toast it in the toaster oven.  Got to say, even though it didn't smell too good, it tasted not bad at all.  Very creamy and melted beautifully.  Even my little Edda who said yuck at the smell couldn't stop eating it.  Two days later, I tried it in my cheesy shell pasta dish and my two girls walloped it up.  They really loved it. 

Two slices of Camembert on my mini blueberry bagel.

The end product!  Loved how the cheese melted, yummy!  Would go great with a English muffin with bacon and fried egg as well.