The ONG family Homeschool

Cheese Centred Beef Hamburgers

Our Homeschool lunches are usually hurried affairs. Hurried, but I try to make sure they are nutritious. Usually, I do clear soups with noodles. 

Today, I had 1 kg of beef in the freezer so I decided to make hamburgers for a more special lunch.  

So, I LOVE to put lots of seasoning and flavours in my food. 

In today's beef patty, I mixed: soy sauce, some olive oil, salt and pepper, corriander powder (quite a bit of this), chopped garlic (lots of this too!) and roughly crushed cream crackers (saw dah biah!). 2 beaten eggs to hold it all together. Mix mix mix. 

And then, make two flat patties and place some shredded cheese (I used cheddar) in between the patties. Mould the two patties together. 

Fry on a medium flame. 

The Ooze....

Meanwhile, earlier on, no. 3 (10 yrs) helped me make the bread dough and I had that made into hamburger buns. 

The buns turned out ginormous. 

Some homeschooling done in the kitchen while burgers are frying

Someone was *not happy*.

Slice up the fresh veges.... tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and onions...

 

get the kids to make their own hambugers!

Baby had a vegan burger. She loves raw veges more than meat! 

The burgers turned out too Man Sized and the kids were struggling to finish their portions. But they didn't want to waste the good food. It was hilarious. The boys psyching  themselves with a Warcry to finish their food. 

 

We were in stitches LOL-ing. 

We kept away the half eaten burgers to eat later. 

Anyway, I'm glad we are homeschooling. Our children get good meals at the correct time. I understand that morning session school kids eat breakfast at 6am, recess snack and lunch on the school bus at 1 plus? 

Also our children sleep well. They get in more than 9 hours of sleep and wake at 8 am. 

And... we have GOOD FUN!!! (Amid the hard work. ) 

God's blessings entirely. 

 

Wedding cake disguised as a Basketball Court.

In case some are wondering... this is what we've been up to. ;)

The kiddos were a great help to me when we were baking the cakes. They earned some pocket money again! :)

Do visit my cake blog for the rest of the story behind this cake. (Oh and there's a hidden announcement in that post.)

Follow up Post: Peek into Our Grocery Cart

Since I did this post on a Peek into Our Grocery Cart, a reader and friend was kind enough to share with me a lobang to buy fish! :D (She empathized, having many mouths in her family to feed too, that fish can be very dear to buy...) Thank you so much A.! So touched you took the time to care and share!

It's at a wholesaler in Jurong called Song Fish Dealer.  I haven't gone before but I'll take her word for it and will be visiting soon! yay!

She writes:

You may wish to buy salmon from the wholesalers...we get ours from Song Fish. The last time I bought salmon, it cost $18/kg and with 6 to 7 pieces prepacked, it only cost less than $40. They sell a whole lot of other stuff too...including frozen food. Opposite them is Ben Foods, also sell wholesale...they are the ones who bring in Farmland Meat Patties. Only thing is Ben Foods open to public only on Saturdays, starting at 10am. Song Fish opens at 8am I think. If you do go, bring cooler bags or a big styrofoam box filled with ice to store the chilled purchases.

By the way, they do sell fresh batang fish, salmon, pomfret, prawns, squid etc. And they will scale, clean, cut and pack it to your specifications. The downside is, they only accept NETS or cash....

cookies art fun!

Funfunfun~ This was last Sunday's cookie project: gifts for the teachers at church. (As well as one or two of the wonderful people who teach my children guitar and choir. :)   )

See cake blog for a little tutorial on how to make this:

the recipes are at the end of this post. :)

Special credit to no. 2 (8 yrs) who helped mummy a lot in the kitchen that day! :)

 

Thinking about a verse to include about working with our hands and what a blessing that is.... Had to include this wonderful Psalm! God blesses His people with plentiful families! :D

Psalms 128:1-6  <<A Song of degrees.>> Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD. The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

t'was a day of blue elephants and pink hippos

still not in the mood for sit down school but still a day of learning. :)

I let the children have a fun day of hands on cookie making and decorating. They're quite familiar with the process by now. And practice makes perfect.

The older ones especially (10 and 8 yrs) know what are the things we need to get ready and how to prepare. I'm looking forward to the day they will run the show!

Concentrating. This was a hippo but they all kinda melted in the oven. 

no. 3's hippos, elephants and smiley faces.

 

Yummy! Recipe at the end of the post.

Taste testing. haha..This is what happens when you need to keep the youngest one occupied when you're busy with the other kids. 

Dear no. 4. (4 yrs). He went with the "load-lots-of-icing-on-the-cookie" look. *Squeeeeeeeeeeeeze*

 

no. 4's cookie art! ;)

 

no. 2 loves the silver dragees. :) 

No. 1 (10 yrs) turned out to the most prolific in terms of output. haha

no. 1's work for the day.

Other misc. closeups:

 

 

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Vanilla Sables

Cream: 1 blk of salted butter, 1 and 1/2 C of confectioner's sugar (sifted), 1 tsp of vanilla essence, 1 egg yolk together.

Add: 2 and 1/2 C of plain flour.

shape into a flat block, wrap with cling wrap and chill for at least 30 mins.

Roll out to 0.5cm (or so) thickness (work fast! don't let it warm up and oil ooze out), cut with cookie cutter, bake in 180 Degree Celsius oven for 8- 10 mins (or so).

Royal Icing

mix 1/2 kg of confectioner's sugar, 5 tbs of meringue powder, water add bit by bit till soft peak consistency.

Thinking About Food

This post springs from last Saturday's ST report on Huntington, reportedly USA's unhealthiest city. Hope they will get to eating well and change that label! Jia You! (you can do it!!!)

It's an eye opener that fresh food is more expensive than processed foods in USA because of government subsidies. Imagine, after processing the food, it comes out still cheaper than food that is fresh from a grower or farmer.... Which is why poor people are also more likely to be obese- because they can't afford the fresh, healthy food and buy more of the frozen pizzas, hamburgers and fires and coke and all that. It's killing them slow. :(

So I got onto youtube and started watching Jamie Oliver's reality TV series called Food Revolution where he goes to Huntington to try to encourage people to change their eating habits and start a... well,... revolution. Food wise.

It's an eye opener, that series. I'm pasting it here at the end of this post. I sadly have to add a disclaimer about some of his word choices, though. :(

Meals around here.

I have always included in my cooking the main food groups in every meal: carbo (rice, pasta, noodles etc.), meat (we usually eat chicken or pork, frozen fish because fresh is so expensive), and veges. We expose our kids to all kinds of veges: broccoli (fav!), carrots, celery, bean sprouts, string beans, green leafys like kai lan and spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, wong bok,... and garlic. Garlic is a main stay in my stir-fries. :)

Any one of these food groups missing in a meal, I'll feel the meal is incomplete.

In one of the Food Revolution episodes (Ep. 1, actually), Jamie pops into a home and we take a peek at what a family eats in a whole week: lots of frozen pizza, donuts, bacon, ham, eggs, corn dogs... the main cooking appliance in that household was a deep fryer. I don't know where I heard this byte but it was a mom that said that it's about giving the kids what they want to eat that is making meals unhealthy. That is so true!

Most kids don't naturally want to eat their veges or healthy stuff. Give them a choice and they'll choose a burger and fries. No, actually, they'll choose chocolate and m&m s. ... But parents shouldn't shy away from exposing their children to a wide variety of foods. I have seen families with very "conservative" menus. The children don't eat this or they don't eat that. You can't put onions in the dish, or they won't touch carrots, etc.

For us, I don't cook separate dishes for kids and adults (unless it involves chilli). Whatever we eat, they eat. As for chilli, I feel it is really quite a torture for young ones to take but then again, I remember when I used to have an Indian neighbour whose toddler was consuming curry everyday- spicy curry! Well, he saw what the adults were having and he'd ask for it too.

So who's to say what kids can or can't eat? The adults, basically. See, I would draw the line with spicy chilli, but another family would not, and their kids are fine! So why do some parents give their children only "safe" choices like potatoes and ham and eggs?

I need to add that we are trying our best to eat healthily and exercise! Got a long way to go in this department.... but moving on....

Food Awareness Journey

I'll have to admit, I didn't always think too carefully about the food I feed my family. And I know I've a long way to go in learning more about food!

It was only a couple of years back that I was introduced to health food stuff, starting with Apple Cider Vinegar. The accompanying literature talked about the benefits of natural ACV and the natural kind (with the Mother, still floating in it.) Don't buy the distilled white kind. It's all dead of active enzymes and stuff. That got me thinking about what other food we were consuming daily but not benefiting nutritionally from.

So I started eating and feeding my family more raw veges in the form of coleslaw (which my kids love! raw cabbage and carrots! Imagine that!) Raw, so that we can get the minerals and vitamins, not killed by cooking.

Then came other things like awareness of transfat in food. I became interested in baking my own bread, (and having loads of fun too!) to avoid the additives they add into commercial breads to make it stay fresh and fluffy on the supermarket shelves longer.

I think the food revolution has been going on in Singapore for quite a couple of years now. Many homemakers are also in to making their own bread. Many are juicing their own fruit and vegetable juices (that, I don't). Many are making their own yoghurt (that I do!)

However, I have to say, the list of food scare stories can go on and on, ever pushing us to buy this magic juicer or that magic steamer. I've seen people who turn this food thing into a religion of sorts. It starts taking too much of their concern avoiding certain meats, cutting out all the fats, making a big taboo of canned foods or what have you.

I am reminded in 1 Corinthians where Paul instructs the immature church at Corinth that when they are invited to a meal, they were not to ask questions about where the food came from, whether it was offered to idols aforehand or not.

1 Corinthians 10:27   If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.   

Just give thanks and eat it graciously. (Please read the whole Chapter for context.)

I think, likewise, some caught up in the current healthy-eating religion should also just give thanks and eat whatever is placed before them (be it char kway teow from the local hawker centre or Or Luak. Just eat it.) (yum....:p )

"Food offered to idols" and "fat laden processed foods" (and others that fall under the avoid-like-plague label)... what a comparison! LOL!!! But if you've met some of these healthy eating folks, you know exactly what I mean.

Oh yes, please do check out my section on Handy Recipes. It's my food section. :) And if you didn't already know, I love baking and decorating cakes as well. (All that sinful stuff!!!)

Well, over to you, Jamie Oliver.

Lao Shi Teaches in the Kitchen :)

My children are really blessed to have a Chinese Lao Shi (teacher) who is very flexible and willing to do "unconventional" things. Last week, she bought, prepared and brought over all the ingredients for making rice dumplings. She patiently taught us how to make them. She learned from her mother in Beijing and has been making these dumplings since young.

Here is no. 2 struggling but lao shi was very patient to teach her. :) I made frightfully ball shaped ones. (Couldn't make them into a four cornered Pyramid. :P)

Here are her deft fingers pinching the leaves, filling them with glutinous rice, pork, dried prawns and a chestnut. And the even trickier bit was folding it into shape and holding it with one hand while tying the string with the other hand. (!!!) When I tried, I was using my teeth to hold the string. Seemed like I didn't have enough hands for the job. haha. And in the end, some looked more like balls than pyramidal.

Anyway, it's an interesting way to learn Chinese and Chinese culture, don't you think? :)

Tonight's Din Din: Baby Back Ribs. Mmmmm.....

Oooo.... too good not to share.

Dinner tonight: two slabs of baby back ribs, all under $20. Learning to cook has cursed me with the inability not to gawk at restaurant food prices. (haha, double negative = positive?)

Recipe (or the way I achieved the above picture tonight)

marinate ribs in a plastic bag for some time. (It could range from 2 hours to a day for me.) Easy marinades would be to simply empty a whole bottle of barbecue sauce in with the ribs. For tonight's ribs, I used Hunts BBQ sauce, some teriyaki sauce, apple cider vinegar and chopped garlic. If I had onions, I'd have surely used them too.

Put everything in a pressure cooker (But set aside about half a bowl of the marinade for basting). Add a little water till the liquids reach the minimal level for safe pressure cooking. Proceed to boil the dickens out of the ribs, in this case, about 20 mins (20 minutes!!! beat that!!!) on level 2 (for my pressure cooker.)

[[You can do slow cooker for 6 hours or 20 mins with a pressure cooker for the same results. I'm for pressure cooking any day.]]

After that, release the steam, place the ribs on your baking tray, stick in your oven on top grill, 180 degrees for a while to dry it out a bit. Not too much!

Add a spoonful or so of honey in the marinade you had set aside. Baste (as in brush over) the ribs with the marinade and grill for a while more until you see it's nice and glazey. You know what I mean. 

Take out of oven while fending off the hungry hordes. (The absolute hardest part.)

;)

May you be "cursed" too! heheh.

Cook Porridge Pot, Cook!

I've been meaning to do a post like this since baby no. 5 started eating porridge. I want to show you how I cook my baby porridge! Why? Not because my porridge yummier than others. It's because I LOVE the vacuum pot I've been using and it's soooo great and I NEED to share it with everyone.

Even if I'm not getting any commission for it. Blah. :P Well, I'm not selling any brand in particular, but cooking porridge for baby, daily, in this kind of pot is fantastic.

So, this kind of pot basically is an inner pot which can be placed on the fire, and an outer holder which holds a vacuum, exactly like a hot water flask.

It was kinda hard balancing the camera while getting a nice pic of rice grains falling. :)

So, I scoop 2 tablespoons of special porridge rice into the pot. This is for baby's lunch and dinner.  

 

So I wash the rice, changing the water twice. I save the water to water the plants. 

So I fill the water level to about this much. Less water than conventional boiling cooking. 

So, I put this inner pot on the flame and start bringing the water to a boil while I prepare the other ingredients.

 

Today's porridge has Japanese sweet potato in it.

 

I peel and cut it up like this. Cut it cross ways so that the aren't any long strands. Same with fish, cut against the grain so that there aren't long strands that will choke the baby.

My 10 mth old only has 6 cutie little teeth so most of the "chewing" she does with her tongue against her hard palate. :)

 

I look in my freezer and found I had run out of the usual frozen cod that I use, the ones that are in smaller chunks. Those are handy. So I pulled out these which I had meant for the family. :)

 

So everything goes into the pot at once and bring it to a rolling, steamy boil. (about 4-5 mins.)

 

And here's the beautiful part. After 4 mins on the fire, it comes to a rolling boil, you simply close the lid, place the inner pot into the vacuum pot and put that lid on, turn off the fire and THAT'S IT! It will continue cooking like that!

The idea behind this is that this pot looses heat very very slowly, that it can cook a porridge in about half an hour. For me, I do this in the morning, sit it on the table and at around noon, the baby has her lunch to eat.

If you're like me, busy around the house with no time to sit around in the kitchen to watch a boiling pot of porridge, (who does???) I tell you, this technology is a god-send! No boiling over, no charring (or in our lingo, chao tah.)

So, lunch time rolls along, and I sashay into the kitchen.

Get the feed-ee ready! I'm ready!!

 

So this is how it looks when I open the pot. Everything is mashable and soft.

I take half the portion and close the lid. It will keep warm till 6 pm! (another BIG plus point.)

 

Ok, so I felt that the porridge was a teeny bit drier than I would have liked. So I add hot water to it. No problem. I begin mashing it for baby while she waits.

This is the reason why I don't chop everything into very very fine bits. It's easier to mash one bigger piece than many. You may miss a few if they're too small.

 

Meet our Mickey Mouse bowl we've been using for every baby since no. 1, 10 years ago! :)

Anyway, the porridge is now nicely smooshed and ready to be fed!

Nonono, baby, you're supposed to SMILE and make it look like you LOVE this yummy porridge mummy made for you!

LOL

It was a little too hot, hence the frown.

But, yup, that's the porridge pot I highly recommend for other mommies who have to cook porridge daily.

You want one more very good reason why you should use this pot? Not only does it save electricity and/ or gas, and you can walk away from it while it cooks...

... you can actually bring it with you while it cooks!! Tell me, which other appliance can do that??

This pot didn't come with this bag. We happened to find one that fits so snugly. :) 

This is how I can feed baby porridge on a Sunday at church without having to get up at some weird hour to cook it.

Thumbs up?

What to do with extra Pineapple tart Dough?

We were doing our yummy pineapple tarts for new year.

This is the second batch that was made on the eve of New Year, just before reunion dinner. I came home after church orchestra practice to find my sis, mom and BIL in the kitchen busying away.

 

BIL was in a hurry to finish the baking so he portioned the jam into super large portions, making this batch a BIG mouthful of tart. Might not be a bad thing, actually. heh heh. (Pineapple tarts do not survive long in our house. They're finished by the inhabitants here even before the guests come visiting. :p Is it like that in your house?)

Anyway, I was then stuck with extra dough. What to do with it? ??

Make an Apple Pie! (for tonight's dessert treat. We don't usually have dessert when I cook.)

Hmmmm..... I"m not sure if that is the correct type of pastry for apple pie, but in the end it worked pretty well. Yum. It was a hit.

I went to my favourite recipe site, allrecipes.com and I found a how-to video how to do a fancy lattice top on pies.  Oh, and this is the recipe for the apple pie filling I used. (thanks grandma Ople!!)

And so, I followed the instructions and here we have it! My First Lattice-topped Apple Pie!! TA DAH!!!

Here's it, on the inside....

Not sure if I did it wrong but it didn't hold in one piece when I tried to transfer it on the serving plate. But it was yummy, if not messy. :p

I guess I'm one HDHM! 

(Happily domesticated homeschooling mom.)

;)