Kids-friendly pasta salad for a picnic

In this family, we all eat almost the same food which means no spicy dish as A4 does not take spicy food yet. Hence, I always try out different recipes that all would enjoy. We were planning for a picnic on national day and I made the following:

1. Oven grilled salmon fillet with mentai mayo dressing
2. Vitamin-infused water- strawberry, lime and mint
3. Kids-friendly ham, edamame and cheese pasta salad

Gonna share the salad recipe today as my kids love it. For A3 who doesn’t like cheese, he just pick it out. The good thing came out of it for me is both kids like edamame after this when previously they didn’t.

Kids-friendly pasta salad
(Makes 6)

Ingredients
200gm of organic macaroni
7 slices of mini honey baked ham, diced into 1cm slices
100gm of gouda cheese, diced into 1cm cubes
1 cup of edamame, shelled
Olive oil
Pinch of rock salt
Coarse black pepper

Method
1. Boiled the edamae with shells as per instruction.  Rinse with cold water to stop cooking process.
2. Cook pasata as per instruction.
3. Dice or slice the ham and cheese if you haven’t.
4. Drain pasta. Add edamame, ham and cheese.
5. Add salt and pepper for taste. Don’t over salt the salad as gouda cheese is slightly sharp n salty.
5. Drizzle the salad with olive oil and give the salad a toss to ensure there’s enough olive oil.
Another fuss-free dish for the family! This salad is delicious to eat either warm or cold. Not complicated on the taste bud as I had paired it with the salmon dish which was heavier. I think I will make this regularly for the boys’ lunch. 🙂

Some other combinations to try out, like  chicken or fish either poached or grilled. Feta cheese, eggs or avocado. Noms away!

Oh yes, the picnic. The weather was fabulous for Singapore’s national day which the rumour was it almost never rained on national day. We braved it out despite the overcasted sky. My boys first had good water play fun with a friend’s son. Then we proceeded to the top of the barrage where we laid out the mats and to have our dinner. Everyone was hungry and we finished our dinner in less than 30mins….

Luckily we had the apache helicopters and fighter jets to keep us entertained. The finale of the night was the fireworks which everyone liked. Overall, an enjoyable and fabulous time we had. Gonna have another picnic again soon!

Ham and egg in a toast cup

Made ham and egg in a toast cup for our breakfast this morning. I have been planning to make this for a while and it was raining this morning thus I put together what I had in the fridge. My recipes are mostly adapted and improvised and this was adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe. It’s really easy to prepare and a dish that kids can help out. Washing up can be minimised too! 😀

I made 4 toast cups but it wasn’t enough for hb and me. On the hindsight, 2 would be better for adult. ;D

Ham and egg in a toast cup
(Makes 4 portions)

Ingredients
4 slices of multi-grain bread
4 slices of mini honey baked ham
4 eggs
Olive oil
Coarse black pepper
Sea salt (I omitted coz ham is savoury)
Organic parsley flakes for garnishing

You also need a muffin tray or 4 paper muffin cups.

Method
1. Turn on the oven and set the temperature at 190c.
1. Flatten the bread with the bottom of a pan. I find pressing the pan down on the bread works better than banging on it. ; )
2. Hand-tear or use a knife to cut a slit on both sides of the bread slice at the middle. This is to fit the bread into the muffin tray.
3. Place 1 bread slice into a cup of the muffin tray. Overlap the sides to form the shape of a cup.
4. Brush some olive oil on the bread. If not, do what I do in the next step.
5. Drip a few drops of olive oil on the underside of a ham slice. Place it on the bread cup and give it a swirl.
6. Crack an egg on top of the ham and bread cup.
7. Add some pepper on top and pop the tray into the oven for 20-25mins, depending on desired texture of egg.

I have already planned what to try out next. Gonna grate some cheese on top of the ham for some goody gooey yums! Instead of bread, there’s alternative like tomato and capsicum cup. Instead of ham, can try bacon slice or mushrooms. Noms away. The possibility is endless! 🙂

Teriyaki salmon with onion

Cooked this dish tonight and my kids love it. Alas! Forgot to take photo of it before it was all gone. Will update photo when I cook this again.

Ingredients:
4 thin slabs of salmon fillet
1 and 1/2 onion, sliced thinly
5 cloves of garlic
3 tbspn of Teriyaki or bulldog brand sauce*
3 tbspn of mirin
3 tbspn of water
Dash of black pepper
Oil

*Bulldog brand sauce is the tonkatsu sauce that is similar in colour than Teriyaki and taste sweeter.

Method:
1. Heat oil in a pan and start frying onion til the slices are beginning to turn translucent.
2. Add garic into the pan and stir-fry till fragrant. Make sure that the onion slices don’t get burn.
3. Add in salmon fillets and then black pepper. Give the ingredients a stir.
4. Add mirin, bulldog or teriyaki sauce then water. Flip the fish fillets. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to lowest flame. Simmer for 2 minutes. Viola!

River safari

My mom wanted to bring the boys out and we had to decide on a place of interest.  It was either a musuem or zoo/river safari. My mom is more keen on the zoo so it was decided then. When we were there, I was pleased to find out that I only have to fork out $37.50 for River Safari tickets! There’s currently an amex credit card promotion of 1 paying adult for 1 free child ticket. Plus my mom gets her senior citizen discount. All in all, a good deal. 😉

The River safari, well, has more fishes than animals. Good for us is that the fishes are almost all different from the salt water species at the S.E.A aqaurium which we visited earlier in the week. Demystifying… woah… lolx.

Essentially, RS is build around the banks of the Mandai reservoir which is a big pond at its best and which brings me to the mind of Jurong Lake. Ha…. there is no lake in Singapore.  What a joke. The island on Lake Toba is bigger than Singapore… Ok. I get carried way. While RS is not exactly big, smaller than the zoological garden, it is sheltered for most parts and several strong aircon spots. It’s a nice option for sweltering hot weather and even rainy weather. A nice touch is as we walked into some aircon spots, we are enveloped in citronella scent as a measure to ward off mozzies.

Everyone seems to be excited by the pandas who really are just sitting there and eat and eat. I say the best attraction gotta be the big tank with manatees or the sea cows. Sitting in a dark room with soft ambience music and manatees swimming gracefully…. Unaware of time passed by…. I don’t think I will ever get tired of this view. 🙂

We’ll probably return when the amazon river section is completed and when the crowd dies down, or I’ll wait for some promotion. The eventual entrance fee for 1 adult is $35! I’ll say this. Make the entrance fees more affordable, not just for family with young children but for people across all age.

Art garden

It looks like just about everyone has been to the art garden at the Singapore art museum. Its our 3rd annual visit and I say the exihibits are better and more interesting than our first visit.

Cost wise… Entrance fee is free for us. There is one kaleidoscope craft kit which is sold for $2 at the “Around the world in 80 days”. It was ok and perhaps more suitable for primary school children. Personally I like the exihibits even the eerie Les rêves engloutis – Glossy Dreams in Depths which teaches the children to understand what looks scary, can have a good side to it and not so scary afterall.

For the kids, the short animation clips garnered their biggest interest. Their fave gotta be the super feline clip.

Another thing is, as we were there early, I managed to park at front of SAM for free. Parking around the musuem is expensive as it’s in the city centre.

So would we visit again? Yes for sure!

Photos by my friend, MN.

Another visit to S.E.A aquarium

The boys and I had visited the aquarium when it was newly opened. We visited today agian with A1 (that’s daddy-O or the husband) and some friends today.  Didn’t know that A1 had never visited any aquarium before, so at least the fact had justified the steep entrance fee.

I say it again and again. The entrance fee is not cheap. We paid for 2 adults and 1 child, as A4 is exempted. Plus the parking, we had already spent $100! No wonder they say Singapore is expensive. Out of the countries I visited recently (Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan), sightseeing in my own country is the most expensive. 😦 I do believe if the entrance fees is lowered, visitorship will go up. Also, the annual membership scheme has stopped. Bummer…

What’s new for me is the dolphins. While I delighted in seeing the dolphins swimming gracefully, I’m somewhat appalled with their habitat, coz it doesn’t look very pleasant to me. 😐

The kids played very well together and we had an illegal picnic infront of the ocean dome. 😀 We actually brought our own food and drink to have lunch. I even harboured the thought of napping on the bean bags… alas the bean bags are gone. We didn’t know that outside food is disallowed in the aquarium…. but that means the food purchased in the aquarium is allowed. Hiaks!

Asparagus and ham macaroni

I cooked this for kids’ lunch yesterday. A4 loves this while A3 is not keen in the cheese in it. Sometimes I think A3 has weird tastebud. He likes aromatic n spicy food, but why not cheese?

Ingredients
1/2 onion, diced
Asparagus, 100gm
Shaved ham, 80gm
Macaroni or pasta of your choice.
Butter, 2 tbspn
Pure cream, 3 tbspn (more if you prefer)
Organic vegetable stock powder
1/2 cup of water (replace stock powder and water with chicken stock if you prefer)
Parmesan cheese

Method:
1. Melt butter and sautée onion till slightly brown. Medium flame will take abt 8-10mins.
2. Add in shaved ham and sautée for 1min.
3. Add in water and stock powder.  Using high flame, let the liquid evaporate until the desired consistency.
4. Add in cream and asparagus spears. Stir fry for 2 mins.
5. Add in macaroni.
6. Shave parmesan cheese before serving thw food.

Holiday… in full steam

Holiday…. everyday feels like the weekend.

My kids sure have been having fun. They have 3 play dates since… yesterday! Mummy here merely had a quick breakfast date. Our days are packed. Kids are tired and just can’t pass on any fun. So I’m actually glad that our playdate tomorrow is called off!

What we have been doing and maybe ideas for you…
1. Ikea Tampines. The older children can play in its playground while the younglings can play in the newly renovated cafe. The carousel play area is no longer there and in another corner is an array of kitchen sets fully equipped, trains and rocking horse. The kids and their friends had a blast.

2. Indoor play date. We wanted to go for some swimming, yet it rained and spoilt the plan.  Hence our friend detoured to our place instead.

3. Lego fun at Raffles city. There’s an ongoing Lego fair on the 3rd floor with Duplo, Lego and even Lego friends set for play. Our kids spent hours there. Sure there are Lego sets on sale… your usual 20% discount. Not too big a deal if u ask me!

Ok signing off. I’m losing steam. Hopefully can fully recharge my batteries tonight!

Fuss-free baking

We rested for a day after the short weekend break and by the next day kids were roaring to get out of the house. So off to running errands with them along!

I have heard about ToTT and its Bake and go  section for kids to bake cookies. So why can’t I do it at home for the kids? Yes, I can when I have more energy to clean up. Yes, after I gather the essential ingredients…. Yes but… just for the fun of it! The bake and go is fuss-free for mummy and excellent for my kids who don’t have the concept yet about how much work their mummy does behind the scene for every activity. 😉 Ha….

So the baking section has everything ready from ready-made cookie dough to heated oven. The entire process is well-oiled (pun intended) down to the oily hands of my kids.

We first selected a flavour and a free topping. Then the lovely Thai assistant led my kids to the working table and helped them with hidden steps and stool to be at a comfortable level to the table. She also helped my kids to put on gloves n apron (just 1) and then passed them the cookie cutters. My mummy duty is to ensure that the kids flattened the dough evenly and to use the cookie cutters in order or take turns. 😉

Then the assistant helped us to pop the tray into the waiting oven. She told us to collect the cookies in 25mins’ time. In the meanwhile, I took the kids to a play corner and even managed to sit them down at the bistro so that I can order some food. Oh! And I didn’t have to do any wash-ups!

My kids are happy with the cookies and have been requesting to eat them. A3 offered a heart-shaped cookie to me coz “you are so sweet, mummy.” 🙂  Overall, a pleasant experience for us.

*I am not paid for any of my review. I just like reviewing my experiences.

Day 2 & 3 Port Dickson

We wanted to have a relaxed time for this holiday.  Port Dickson is perfect for this purpose.  It’s a beach town with not too many sightseeing points, in fact just one which is the army musuem. Shopping is in the next town, or touted to be a city soon, Seremban and it’s 45mins away. Food wise, not much selections too. For us, it was just nice and fit into the idea of a getaway for a family of four. We pretty much just swam, slept and ate!

We drove out of the resort to find a lunch spot.  I noticed a coffee shop as we drove past it and told my husband to turn into the car park. It proved my instinct correct. Cheap and good roast meats that the family enjoyed. What good luck this is! It also beats many of the roast meat stalls in SG hawker centers. Our lunch with drinks costed us RM30 which is less than S$13. *thumbs up

Kedai Kopi Leong Ji (address KIV) about 5 mins drive from Grand Lexis.

After lunch, we were on our way to a local supermarket and happened to see an area cornered for fun fair. Naturally we must check it out in the evening. What we didnt know was the fun fair had been there for a month and will be closed soon.

Little did we also know that there’s also a monthly pasar malam nearby. What luck! I do love chancing upon such events!

As for our dinner (I always have to blog about what I eat), we ate at the seaview seafood restaurant. The food is alright but pricey (less than the Japanese restaurant)… After talking to a local then we found out that it’s a restaurant that caters mainly to tourists… oh well,  there’s not much food blogs about Port Dickson that could recommend us other options.