Easy Peasy Recipe: Overnight Oats

I caught the overnight oats convenience bug for about a year now and I am pleased with the results. This simple, no cooking required recipe has kept my cholesterol index healthy. 

As much as I enjoy this cold breakfast, I also indulge in the occasional warm oats porridge on a weekend when not rushing to be out of the door for school run.

The easy-peasy steps, as you may already know:

1. Place 3 tablespoons of rolled oats into a jar. I use an airtight jar from IKEA because I happen to have a couple in storage. 

2. Add 200ml goats milk (you may use milk or soya milk, according to your preference). The easy formula is oat to milk ratio being 1:1.

3. Stir as lightly as possible to soak oats evenly. The more you stir, the thicker the oats as more beta-gluten is released. I just swirl the contents nowadays.

4. Place jar with lid tightly closed into the fridge overnight.

5. Stir well and serve with topping of choice. You may choose to scoop portions out of the jar to add toppings and serve; or eat from the jar after adding toppings.

I usually add one fruit with one type of nut or seed topped with one type of condiment. It is a fun game of adding whatever is acailable from my larder/fruit basket! As a result, I do not have a particular favourite combination and secretly love the surprise I give my family every morning. Different textures, colour and taste all help to keep my young ones interested. 

Firm favourites in the household: 

a) blueberries, walnuts, cinnamon powder, honey.

b) banana slices, cashew nuts, raisins, nutmeg powder, maple syrup (non-sugared). 

c) strawberries, dried apricot slices, dehydrated nutmeg slices, wolfberries, chia seeds.

How do you like your overnight oats served, my lovelies? Please do share!

Speedy Indeedy Meal: Aglio Olio

We were pressed for time to serve dinner on time tonight. That meant falling back on this classic favourite; quick preparation, fast to cook, good to eat *humming Maggi commercial jingle*

I replaced spaghetti with spagettini as thinner pasta boils to al dente texture much faster.  No genius there! 

The chopped garlic, chopped onions, calamari rings, peeled shrimps, broccoli were stir fried briefly with just olive oil. 

I then tossed drained spagettini with some extra virgin olive oil and added "topping" of choice before serving "customised" platters.

Bean's portion did not have calamari rings, chilli flakes and pepper in them (see photo). He tasted his sweet basil garnish and spat it after a chew cud expression, too cute! I have always admired his courage to try new tastes.

The Little Girl had hers with calamari without shrimp, chilli flakes and pepper. Her verdict of her sweet basil garnish is "leave it aside next time". Very honest!

The Other Half and I had ours with the whole lot, garnished with fresh sweet basil, as we are relatively easy to please folks.

Bonus: longer evening routine for the kids as the dishwasher took care of the pots and pans, dishes and cutlery. 

Ultra bonus: we ate a simple home-cooked meal on a Friday evening watching the traffic outside crawl in a sea of brake red lights in the rain. I wish everyone a safe journey home, and a huge part of me was so grateful for being home with my family.

Burp, alhamdulillah!

Note: I know broccoli is not an aglio olio ingredient. I was just being too lazy and tired to cook it separately. 

Vegetarian Night

Yes, I am still feeling under the weather. 

We had a vegetarian stir fry dish with hard boiled eggs for dinner. Luckily for me, the kids love simple dishes (I am not a very good cook, and still have so much to learn!). 

Also, we managed to pack 50% of our luggage. The other 50% will be added tomorrow once we can, in sha Allah.

Happy holidays, my lovelies!

The Speedy Indeedy Meal

Spaghetti with Bolognese sauce, served with grated cheese. We recently discovered that The Little Girl and Bean both enjoy their pasta sauce mince-free. We also learnt that some grated cheese always adds a fun twist to their taste and texture on a platter *slow parents*

Steamed broccoli. No brainer, 100% win for all as it is so easy to chop, rinse and steam *lazy mum*

Skinless pan-fried chicken breast. Wash, pat dry, score, marinate with pinch of salt and pepper, coat lightly with corn flour, fry with butter 5 minutes on each side. The trick to retaining juicy fried chicken is keeping the lid on while frying (use a glass lid, and kitchen timer) *slow learner*

In conclusion, there is hope for me in the kitchen. The trinity of my being a slow parent, lazy mum and slow learner all add up as odds against my attempt at being Annabel Karmel-Jamie Oliver-Chef Wan. 

The verdict is since my family cleaned their dinner plates last night, I will keep this combo as a fortnightly feature on our dinner rotation.

Feel free to try this meal if you are in a rush. Bon appetit!

AirFryer: Grilled Vegetables

My "grill for 18 minutes at 180C" vegetables are so easy to prepare and when the batch is small enough to fit into my Philips AirFryer, I would be so happy as it makes cleaning up much faster. 

Here is another version comprising of courgette (zucchini), pumpkin and yellow capsicum. 

Yes, Bean loves them all so if you are finding new ways to present vegetables to your babyledweaning child, you may wish to try this out. 

The pieces are easy to grip, hold, pass from hand to another and as long as you monitor your child when he or she is eating, it should be fine. We did use a crinkle-cutter when Bean was less than one year old to assist with his grip. 

Have a delicious time trying new vegetables!

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1. Slice 150g of pumpkin, 1 red capsicum, 1 yellow capsicum and 1 green capsicum.

2. Wash and drain dry.

3. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the vegetables and let it sit for 10 minutes while the oven heats up.

4. Grill for 18 minutes at 180C fan-forced. 

5. Serve as a side dish. Especially delicious with Jamie Oliver Roast Chicken.

This is our firm favourite and makes a weekly appearance as it is so too simple to cook. Let me know if you like it.

11 teeth

Bean sprouted a couple of canines and a lower left pramolar over Shawal. We have been expecting the canines but the pramolar took me by surprise.

He had some extra dribbles, and slept mostly in my arms. No fever, syukur alhamdulillah, as we were away in York when it happened.

Fiddlesticks, fruit bars, biscotti bars and stone fruits cut into little sticks/bars are his favourite snacks at the moment. 

Self-feeds blueberries, broccoli, carrot sticks and little cubes of cooked chicken. We love how he likes exploring with taste and textures at the dinner table. Arugula, lettuce, corals, kale and countless other vegetables have passed his experiment. He loves some of those, and would ask for more. Those he dislikes, get thrown down onto the floor from his Stokke.

Today, he fell in love with taste and texture of an orange, after a few failed attempts earlier. I strongly believe in letting his try a new type of fruit and food generally, presented differently for at least a dozen times before quitting. 

What an interesting milestone for Bean! Well, at least I think so, for obvious reasons.

Crinkle Cutter

Crinkle cutter was added to the Lakeland shopping list for my MIL to help me purchase one unit as I failed to hunt one down in KLCC and Bangsar Village.

When we were at One World Hotel for a staycation, we saw this by chance, at Aino One Utama Old Wing!

Needless to say, it is half the length of the crinkle cutter I had in mind. Beggars cannot be choosers, live with this I shall. 

Bean does find it easier to grip his vegetables and fruits, alhamdulillah!

Hope you enjoy baby led weaning as much as we do!

The Gardens Residences

The Other Half and I swiftly decided on this year end 4D3N treat as we have "first world problem" of not being able to shop properly at The Gardens and Mid Valley Megamall with 2 kids under 5 in tow.

We went, we shopped and we like it!

Even Bean approves of the 2 bedroom serviced apartment! We did lug along the Philips Avent 2-in-1 Steamer/Blender to purée some of his meals.

Favourable reviews to be updated...got lots to unpack now!

Stay-cation

Yes, you read right.

Again.

In the same city, different postcodes.

Why we love stay-cation is because we tend to take the city for granted, so it is nice to play tourist once in a while and try to fall in love with the city. 

The main advantages include the fact that we can cut short the holiday if we need to as it is within driving distance, have access to our usual world class medical care, and pack the kitchen sink along if we so fancy.

Speaking of the kitchen sink, Bean has the most luggage because we now have to bring his Phillips Avent 2-in-1 steamer/puree maker along. I figured it would be easier to cook his simple meals than trying to find something he can eat at the hotel...

Wish us luck!  

Baby Led Weaning Progress

Preheat oven to 190C.

 

Cut organic vegetables to bite size, arrange on top of baking sheet in a non-stick grilling pan. We have a corn cob, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots and courgette/zucchini as photographed above.

 

Drizzle with some olive oil or give the cut vegetables a light butter wash.

 

Grill at 190C for 20 minutes.

 

Serve immediately and check temperature before feeding.

 

Please pardon the poor quality photo, I was in a hurry to serve dinner to the impatient starving kids.

Well, Bean skipped the corn (that was The Little Girl's dinner). He ate some sweet potatoes, pumpkin, zucchini and carrots. Yes, we did cut off the little burnt bits. But of course.

The almost 6 month old boy still has to work on his grip - as I could not find a crinkle cutter in KLCC, BSC and BV (the consequence of which The Grandparents have been assigned to purchase intended crinkle cutter from Lakeland at York, hopefully they can find one!).

Bean has two bottom incisors and coupled with strong suckling motion, he can eat up a decent portion of fruits and vegetables without choking. It does feel like food is being vacuumed out of my hands, and the mess is less than what of a bowl of puree can do. Alhamdulillah!

At the moment, he eats by sitting supported in his Stokke Tripp Trapp newborn cushion, under hawk eye supervision. When not eating, we do let him sit unsupported for a few minutes before catching him just in time before he topples over (a very cute sight of head being heaviest part of body!). In sha Allah, he will sit independently soon and we can upgrade him into the Stokke Tripp Trapp Toddler Set, and keep the IKEA Antilop for picnics at the sky deck.

How is your little one eating? Do share your weaning tips and recipes!