Tomato Sauce Pasta

This is a pretty classic tomato sauce recipe made from scratch to go with your pasta. No canned tomatoes, no ketchup, but only fresh ingredients for you to enjoy what nature offers. Give it a try and you'll never turn back to using store bought pasta sauce again the next time you cook pasta. This recipe yields 3 servings.

Ingredients:

3 large tomatoes, cut into pieces

2 stick celery, cut into pieces

1/2 red bell pepper (green or yellow ones are fine too but red ones give a nice colour to the pasta sauce), cut into pieces

8-10 tablespoon ground beef

1 small yellow onion, chopped

5 clove garlic, chopped

Some broccoli, boiled

Some mixed herb 

Pasta, cooked until al dente

Method:

Blend tomatoes, celery, and bell pepper together into puree (I use a stick blender). Heat some oil in a wok. Add onion and garlic. Fry until fragrant and add ground beef. Stir fry beef until it changes colour. Add tomato, celery, and bell pepper puree. Add a dash of mixed herb. Stir pasta sauce for 5-10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring the sauce to a boil and pour sauce over cooked pasta. Garnish with cooked broccoli. Serve hot.

I used spaghetti for the adult's portion and spirals for my tiny human's portion since it's easier for her to self feed. :D

Cheesy Pumpkin Pasta

Have you ever tried making pasta sauce from pumpkin? Well, if you haven't, it's time to try out this vitamins and minerals packed yummy pasta sauce! This recipe yields enough sauce for 2-3 servings.

Ingredients:

5 clove garlic, minced

1 small yellow onion, minced

2 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoon cream cheese

4-5 tablespoon minced meat (pork/ chicken)

Half of a medium sized pumpkin, cut into small chunks

100-200ml milk

Some mixed herb

Method:

Cook pasta until al dente. Steam pumpkin for 15-20minutes or until soft. Mash cooked pumpkin with a fork. Melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, some mixed herb and minced meat. Fry until fragrant. Add pumpkin puree and cream cheese. Stir until cream cheese melts. Adjust sauce consistency to your liking by adding milk. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring sauce to a boil and pour it over cooked pasta. Garnish with a dash of mix herb. Enjoy!

Prawn Curry Pasta

OK, honestly the name of it sounds weird right? Well, this is one of the funky stuff that I churn out sometimes. Haha. Take a break from the "normal" tomato-based pasta sauce and give this recipe a try! I promise it taste better than it sounds. I used kids curry powder in this recipe so that my tiny human can have a share of the pasta. This recipe yields enough curry gravy for one large plate of pasta.

Ingredients:

1 large tomato, blended into paste (I use an immersion blender)

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

4 clove garlic, minced

1 stalk curry leaf, washed and removed from stem

100ml coconut milk (replace with 1-2 tablespoon plain yogurt if you don't have this)

Curry powder, dilute in water as per instruction on packaging (mine says 15g in 200ml water, if I assume it correctly, since I bought it during my trip to Japan and the instructions are all in Japanese :P)

Handful of prawns, peeled, deveined

Some broccoli, washed, boiled, drained

1-2 king oyster mushroom, cut into bite-size slices 

Pasta

Method:

Cook pasta until al dente. Heat some oil in a wok. Stir fry onion, garlic and curry leaves until fragrant. Add prawn and stir fry until it changes colour. Add tomato paste, mushrooms and curry solution. Continue stir-frying for a while. Add coconut milk to adjust gravy consistency to your liking. Bring curry gravy to a boil and pour it over cooked pasta. Serve pasta with cooked broccoli.

You can replace prawn with other proteins like chicken, beef, or even hard-boiled egg. Similarly, broccoli and mushroom can be replaced with other veggies too. Veggies that goes well with curry gravy include long beans, baby corns, carrot, and egg plant. You can even add apple or pineapple chunks to create a mildly sweet curry gravy. Happy cooking! 

Miso Soup

OK, this is another almost-instant soup to make that takes no more than 15 minutes. Super easy and super convenient on busy days when you have limited time to cook.

Ingredients:

Wakame seaweed, rinsed
Tofu, cut into bite-size cube
2 tablespoon miso paste, diluted in 2 tablespoon water
2 spring onion, sliced into small pieces
Some sesame oil

Method:

Add wakame to water and boil for 10 minutes. Add tofu and boil for another 2-3 minutes. Stir miso paste into soup until well combined. Switch off fire and drizzle some sesame oil on the soup. Garnish with some spring onion for extra flavour (too bad I don't have it this time, haha). Enjoy!

Quiet Book Page: Ruffly Lion

Good day!

Let's continue with the ruffly lion page for the "At the Zoo" quiet book.

Materials & Tools:

Felt - light brown, pale yellow, black, white, purple
Thread - light brown, black

Rig rags - yellow, orange

Ribbons - dark brown, light brown, orange polka dots, light brown polka dots

Needle
Hot glue gun
Fire lighter

Steps:

1. Cut felt pieces based on the template. 

2. Attach ears, eyes, nose and mouth to the lion face using hot glue.

3. Cut ribbons and rig-rags as the lion's mane. I cut brown ribbons into longer lengths to create loops while the rest of the ribbons and rig-rags are cut into lengths half the size of the brown ribbons. Carefully burn the ends using a fire lighter to prevent fraying.

4. Time to attach the hairs to the head! Using hot glue, carefully attach ribbons and rig-rags to the back of the head, with the ends of the ribbon measuring about an inch from the edge of the head. Now, glue the lion head onto the page.

5. Make simple straight line stitches along the edge of the head to secure the head and mane to the page. Lastly, stitch the eyebrows and whiskers using the back-stitching method. Yep, the ruffly lion page is now all done!

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Slow Cooker Beef Stew

OK, this is another upgrade of Baby V's food! A baby-friendly beef stew! While the prep time is just around 20 minutes, the cooking time is about 5-6 hours to get soft and tender meat. There's no need to cut onion and tomato into small pieces as these ingredients will "melt" into the stew after cooking. This recipe yields about 3 adult servings.

Ingredients:

500g beef, cube into bite-size pieces (I used beef knuckle, there is no need for expensive cuts as the stewing process will produce tender meat anyway)

5 slice ginger

1 onion, cut into wedges

1 carrot, cut into 1-2 inch pieces

1 tomato, cut into half (I normally just use tomato ketchup but this is a heathy baby version, so yeah)

1 stick cinammon

1 star anise

800 ml water

Method:

Heat some vegetable oil in a wok. Saute ginger and onion until frangrant. Add beef and stir fry until lightly browned. Add spices and water. Bring it to a boil and transfer the stew into a slow cooker. Add tomato (if you prefer to remove the skin, just blanch the tomato in boiling water for 2 minutes and the skin will come off easily). Cook in automatic mode for 4-5 hours. Add carrot and continue cooking for another 1 hour.

Shred few pieces of beef and cut carrots into smaller pieces with a spoon and the baby version beef stew is now ready to serve! My tiny human had her first taste of beef stew around 11 months old and she seemed OK with the taste of mild spices. Give it a try if your are thinking of introducing mild spices to your little one! For the adult version, add some soy sauce, sugar, chilli flakes, salt, and pepper to the remaining stew. Serve with white rice. Enjoy! 

Quiet Book Page: Peek-a-Boo Panda

Now that Baby V's "At the Zoo" quiet book is complete, I'll be spending time on the steps for you to make your own. This time around I don't have photos for every single step of the page making but I can assure you that everything you need to know about the process will be explained in detail. And of course, free printable templates will be available for download soon. So here goes, let's start with the peek-a-boo panda page!

Materials & Tools:

Felt - Black, white, pink, lime green
Thread - Black

Needle

A pair of googly eyes

A pair of snap fasteners
Hot glue gun

Method:

1. Cut felt pieces based on the template.

2. Arrange all parts accordingly as in where you want the ears, eyes, nose, and blush to be before you start glueing it permanently with hot glue. This step is important because you'll get all sorts different panda faces with different arrangements. Haha. You also want to ensure that the eyes are in the right place so that the arms are long enough to reach and cover them.

3. Glue all parts excluding the arm. Thread a needle and tie several knots at the end. Use two strands of threads instead of a single strand so that the outline of the mouth is more prominent. Sew the mouth (i.e. something shaped like the letter "w") below the nose using the back-stitching method. Sew one side of the snap fastener on the panda body.

4. Sew another side of the snap fastener on the arm of the panda. Repeat for two arms. You'll end up with arms that exposes messy stitches from sewing the snap fasteners. Layer another arm cut-out on top so that the stitches are hidden. You can either glue the pieces together or blanket stitch around the pieces. I prefer the later because it gives more durability, especially with destructive tiny humans. :P

5. Fasten the arm to the body and there you go, a shy panda with movable arms! 

"At the Zoo" Quiet Book: Video

Ta-daah! My "At the Zoo" quiet book for my tiny human! Stay tuned for the upcoming tutorials and printable templates! Enjoy!