Food & Feeding

As you might well already know, I am forever on the lookout for recipes to try out that are simple yet able to please my fussy little eater.  I know that Ethan goes bananas over bananas 😛 , so I figured he would love banana pancakes.  And since I knew that KittyCat‘s Lucas (who is exactly the same age as Ethan in terms of birthdate) adores banana pancakes, I got hold of her very simple recipe and I decided to try making them last weekend.

The recipe did not require much slaving around the kitchen and soon the aroma of fresh banana pancakes filled our entire household.  Ethan was all interested to see me cook, as well as to see what I had placed on the table.  One look at the stack of pancakes and he exclaimed, “Peh-tah!”.  Gosh, he thought I had made pizza!

Unfortunately though, his enthusiasm did not last long, and he was only interested in playing with the pancakes.  He simply didn’t like them, even after Pete and I purposely announced how yummy they were!  He didn’t even want that cute little mini one I made for him….see the one at the top of the pile?  It looks like a turtle, doesn’t it? 

In the end, Pete and I finished all the pancakes and Ethan was ecstatic to eat a banana all by himself.

SIGH.  I tried making another batch of banana pancakes on Sunday too, this time with TWO bananas instead of one.  It tasted better, but still, I did not get the expected response from Ethan.

He preferred to prance around in his BEAR mask instead.  How?

It was experiment time again last weekend, when I decided to dish out something else to satisfy the needs my strongest food critic ever, who else but Ethan 😆

On Saturday, I cooked up a dish of stir-fry Japanese tofu with shrimp, carrots, mushrooms and egg:

I know what you’re thinkin’ …. looks kinda yucky and scary, doesn’t it? Well, although Pete claimed that it tasted a bit bitter (because of the mushrooms), Ethan certainly didn’t seem to mind. I served the dish over his steamed rice and he was busy feeding himself; although he didn’t wanna take the carrots, I was glad he ate the tofu 🙂

Dinnertime, we decided to head out to a nearby Pizza Hut since we only had food left for Ethan. It had been ages since Pete and I had pizza, so it was definitely a welcome change.  When we were served the cream of chicken soup, I was surprised by how much Ethan loved it. Good thing I brought along his own spoon…the soup spoon Pizza Hut provided was way too big for his mouth. Look…eating all by himself samo.

I actually packed his rice + tofu dish out as well, but our boy would have none of it, until he had finished all his soup. Oh, and although he was curious when the “puh-ta” (pizza) arrived, he didn’t want to try any of it. Well, as long as he had his rice and was happy 🙂

Sunday came and since I had some more of the Japanese tofu left, I cooked a slightly different dish, and that’s when I hit jackpot. Not only was it pleasing to the eye, both Daddy and Ethan loved it! It was a “throw everything together” concoction, and I even included chicken ham chips for additional flavor. In fact I even managed to sneak in a piece or two of the carrot and broccoli for Ethan, praying hard that he will eat them. And he did!

Looks like I’m heading somewhere huh? 😆
I’m gonna get the Annabel Karmel cookbook for toddler meals soon, and hopefully with that *weapon*, I’ll be able to produce more interesting and nourishing food 😛

Scrap Credits
Template 18 from Fanette Design
Always Welcome  kit from Kelly Puddy
Life is Good mini kit  from Amanda Heimann
100% Tampons circles & brackets from [ v.vv ]
HoldEmUps from Tara Dunstan
Handcut paper alphas from Grazieli Niclass

When Ethan attended his first parent-toddler session, they provided the kids with biscuits and water.  I noticed that Ethan took a liking to the biscuits immediately.  These biscuits were in the shape of animals and alphabets, and they were just the right size for Ethan to pop into his mouth.  They were the kind I like too, because they were not sweet and don’t crumble easily.  Images of Ethan making a crunbly mess with the pineapple tarts and cornflake cookies send shivers down my spine.

Well, anyway…I have been looking for these little cookies ever since, and finally just the other night when we were in Tesco, I saw them being sold.  Ethan was at his usual wriggly self, so I was thankful that Tesco had some prepacked ones.  I grabbed a packet, which didn’t cost more than RM2 and Ethan was obviously happy when he saw it.

Now I give these to him as his snack.  I like to call it his “happy snack” because it makes him happy every time I give him some.  And well, in a way, we are unashamedly literally putting words into his mouth, in the hope that he will spew forth some more soon 🙂

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Serie bleu kit from happy-scrap
Happy Easter freebie Alphas from Kate Hadfield

Some children like sweets.

Some children like cakes and cookies.

And yet, some children would do anything for chocolates.

But my boy…?  Give him a bowl of thab tim krob anytime!  Could it be hereditary?

Ethan is a healthy toddler who eats non-stop, so to say.  After we come back from a meal outside, he will ask for yogurt, fruit juice, Yakult and sometimes fruits and biscuits too.  Then after his shower, he will take about 5oz of milk.

Lately, he has also acquired a taste for the Old Town roti bakar.  He will happily chomp down one piece on his own (see pic above).  And that’s not inclusive of the hor fun he steals from my bowl.  Tonight at Friday’s, in addition to the spaghetti he spooned and forked into his mouth on his own, he also used his hands to pick several pieces of tomato and chicken to eat.

So how come he’s still as skinny as ever?  Not that I am worried or anything…. I am okay with it as long as he is growing up strong and healthy 🙂  Well, it must be all the running around he is engaging in.  I mean, have you seen this boy running up and down the sloping walkalators?

Scrap Credits
African Sunsets add-on from Kim B’s Designs
Folded frame from Gunhild Storide
Boxed words from Chantal
Basic chipboard alphas from Dani Mogstad 

About a month or so ago, I asked my Mom to get me a bottle of Amway’s Chewable Natural C, which is a vitamin C supplement for kids (because it is chewable, duh).  Anyway, it is supposed to be sweet and all because it is made from acerola cherries and whatnot, and I thought it would be good to train Ethan to take these chewables once a day.  I also took them when I was a little girl, and look how I turned out 😛

Although Ethan’s pd had given him some multivitamin syrup to take previously, he had rejected them all downright.  So to tell you the truth, I wasn’t at all optimistic about the success of feeding him the chewable tablets.  Anyway, the first time I tried, I took out the bottle of chewables, gave it a nice shake so it produced a rattling sound.  Ethan got all interested at once.  I opened the bottle and gave him a tablet to hold.  He was intrigued by it and he was looking and looking and he finally put it in his mouth, after some coaxing from us.  Now, since the chewable tablet is slightly sourish, Ethan made a face and then immediately took it out again.  And then he fed it to me!  He then requested for another tablet, and fed it to his Daddy!

Since that day, he has been “feeding” us chewables whenever he feels like it, that is, if we allow him to take the tablets.  He even knows where I keep the bottle of chewables in the fridge, and would request me to open the fridge, just so he can get to it.  Sometimes he likes to roll the chewable tablet on his cheek too.  Just the other day though, he finally nibbled off part of the tablet, little by little.  In the end, when the tablet got too small for his fingers, he popped it all into his mouth.  But before I could applaud him, he spat the bits and pieces out all over his shirt.  I’m not sure how much of it went into him though, but it’s a start, I would say. 🙂

Last Saturday, just as I was about to start cooking, an electricity outage happened. I thought the electricity would come back on after 30 minutes, but when it was already noon and there was still no sign of it, we decided to go out for lunch instead. A few days ago, while chatting with Hooi Ling, she recommended a Japanese restaurant in town on Chow Thye Rd named Isaribi. And since we have not had Japanese food as a family for a long time now, we headed that way.

The place was not hard to find and the entrance looked very calm and serene, what with the lush greenery in the porch area. We ordered the king sashimi set (which was not as king-sized as we imagined :P), the semi-grilled beef slices (awesome flavor, taken with chopped ginger and some unidentifiable sauce), and of course, chawan mushi for Ethan. They only had prawn and unagi chawan mushi though, and it costs RM10 per bowl! Took them mighty long to serve the chawan mushi as well… we thought it would be spectacularly good, but it was rather bland. Nevertheless, Ethan gulped down the chawan mushi and even pinched a bit of the shredded carrot and radish from the sashimi set. Oh and because it took them so long to serve our food, Ethan boy got impatient and decided to roam and explore the restaurant instead.

When we were done with our sets, either the servings were not big enough or we were immensely hungry that day, for we decided to order a salmon skin temaki, ebikko (fish roe) and as an after-thought, the cold soba too. The salmon skin roll was one the best we had ever tasted: crunchy and ohsogood with wasabi. And when Ethan saw the soba, he demanded to have some too, which was a surprise to me because I hadn’t expected him to like it. He really enjoyed eating each and every strand, slurping away like a pro! Didn’t manage to take a picture of him doing that because just as I was ready to snap a photo, we were served some fruits and Ethan decided he would like to have those instead. In the end, he gobbled down a piece of honeydew all on his own.

All in all, a good healthy Japanese lunch, but only if you have all the time in the world to spare… know what I mean?

… just like me!

I am an ardent fan of pineapple tarts and it is one of the few things I really look forward to each time Chinese New Year comes around. Anyway, here’s the first batch of pineapple tarts I ordered to try.

It was just 24 pieces and I foresee it will be long gone before Chinese New Year gets here anyway. It has been a long while since I have seen pineapple tarts made this way (most of them are pineapple rolls now), so I was eager to see if they tasted good. Well, they were all right, but not blow-me-over-the-top good. Let’s just say I have tasted better. Anyway, Ethan loves them! He has a peculiar way of eating the tarts though. He will guide me to the table where I put the box of tarts, and throw my hand towards the box (duh). I have to hold the tart and feed him because it crumbles easily and I don’t want to risk having ants all over the floor. However, Ethan will only eat the crust, biting off a little at a time. I gave him a bit of the sweet pineapple jam filling and he spat it all out. Peculiar or not?

We are going to order two tins of yummy pineapple rolls soon, and these are guaranteed yummilicious good – we order them every year. Let’s see how Ethan reacts to them. I am curious to find out how he will pick the crust out from those.