Caesar Salad or "Hayley" Salad? :D

It was a beautiful Sunday morning last week and I suddenly woke up craving for Caesar salad. I remember my colleague once asked me why it's called Caesar Salad, so I did a little bit google about it. The salad's creation is generally from an Italian immigrant who operates a restaurant in Mexico and the United States and his name is Caesar Cardini. He invented this salad during a day when he's kitchen is running out of food resources. So, he made do with what he had adding the dramatic flair of the table-side tossing "by the chef".  But a number of Cardini's staff have said that they invented the dish. And do you know that, original Caesar salad doesn't come along with anchovies? It only contains whole lettuce leaves, which were meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers; coddled eggs; and Italian olive oil.

I only came across to know I'm doing the same thing as Caesar did, put in all the ingredient I have left in my kitchen...hehe, and it is so delicious! So here's a picture of the ingredient I had in my Caesar salad.

Bread, Chesdale cheese, lettuce, green cauliflower, apple, an egg and margarine and yes, 'taiwanese' sausage :) which I later found out it's in the fridge so that's why I forgot to take a picture for that.

#1: Rub the margarine on both side of the bread and put the cheese on the bread.

2: Pan fried until it's golden crispy

#3: Cut the bread into cubes

#4: Cut the apple into cubes, wash the lettuce and rinse aside, boiled the egg & cut it into half, steam the taiwan sausage and then cut into slice and pan fried it until it's half crispy, boiled the green cauliflower and cut into pieces.

#5: Pour in all the prepared ingredients into the salad bowl.

#6: Finally, add in the 'Thousand Island' sauce & toss before you serve ;-)

Ok, don't comment and say this is not a tradition Caesar Salad, it's not! It's my own Caesar Salad or perhaps I should call it "Hayley Salad"*LOL*! I feel like eating it that day but I do not want to spend money on it so I custom made it myself with what I have in my kitchen, having Caesar Salad outside a restaurant is very expensive, it's around RM20+ for a Caesar salad which I think it's not really worth it.

So here you go, custom made your own too, you can replace that taiwanese sausage which bacon if you have it or try with different kind of sauce or you can follow the Caesar's one, tradition with half boiled egg and olive oil! Have fun! :)

Pumpkin, Minced meat & Scallop porridge for your baby

I only manage to have time to cook during weekends and it's quite lazy to cook during weekends too but rice cooker really save me a lot and it's very convenient too.

Last Saturday, I have prepared pumpkin, minced meat (pork) and scallop porridge for my baby girl, she loves it! Here's the ingredient and step to get it done.

Step 1 : Prepared pumpkin  - cut it into cubes as shown in the picture.

Step 2: Prepared Dried Scallop - Soak in the water for about 10-15mins. You can also use frozen scallop, it's much more easy to prepare.

Step 3: Prepared Red dates - Rinse with water and then cut a line in the middle to give off the scent of red dates.

Step 4: Prepared brown rice - You can use any rice but I prefer to use brown rice. Rinse a few times with water and set aside for use later. 

Step 5: Prepared minced meat - You can easily get the minced meat from the market. Rinsed it over with hot water for 2-3times to get off the fats so that your porridge will not have too many fat oil and make the soup look blurry.

Step 6: Pour in all the prepared ingredient. Put in water, about 2/5 of the cooker and set 'Cook'

Step 7: Because I'm using rice cooker, so this is how I monitor my porridge - Keep on to stir the porridge for like every 15mins. When it's about to dry, I will add in the same amount of water and then continue to stir until it boils again. Lastly, off the rice cooker and let it cook in the cooker itself for another 30mins.

Step 8: Optional - I normally blend the porridge before I serve it to my baby girl, she only has two teeth at the bottom and do not know how to chew yet.

This is how it looks like after I blend it.

I hope your baby enjoy it too! :)

How to improve your child's eating habit?

I have came across an article in Facebook today. It is about how to grow the interest in your baby/toddler of having their food.

A lot of parents will complaint "My baby doesn't eat that", "My baby doesn't like vegetables" or "my baby can't sit still while having food!!". Let me share how I trained my little princess, she's now 9 months old and she likes to eat by herself. I bought her biscuits, baked her finger food, just except porridge, she still didn't know how to hold the spoon yet.

I'm a working mother, so for now I only cook during weekends. My baby just started her solid 3 weeks ago, now she enjoy the porridge I cook for her!  *Yay, I'm so happy about that!* Here's how I did it!

To start that, first #1:  You 'll need to get a baby chair. My advise is to get a baby chair that you can easily clean, trust me you will find it very important than buying those just looking fancy.

 #2 :  Continue the same food you cook for 3 days in a row so that the baby is familiar with the taste and easily accept it. Don't keep on changing your menu, baby takes time to learn about a taste, they will not like it from the first but will slowly love it after few times of trying - be patient.

 #3: Make eating interesting - If your baby likes to eat by her own, let it be! Don't worry and get panic about getting the shirt wet or dirty. You can change after she finish her meal! Do not scold her when she dirty up the floor or the chair or do cleaning during the eating session,  you will give wrong impression that he/she is doing something that the adult don't like and will make them lost interest in eating .If you are afraid of him/her getting too dirty, get them to wear on the bib.

 

#4: My baby really likes how we - the adults eat! And then you can see her imitating our mouth like how we eat. She's interested in our food, do I give her? Of course NO! Whenever I feed her, I would eat along and share her porridge too. I will take a spoon of her porridge and tell her "MMmm, it smell so nice, and it's so delicious!" and I will eat and show it in front of her.

#5: Do not get distracted by toys, TVs or play with your baby during eating session.

#6: Buy some colorful eating utensils, baby/toddler/children loves that! 

 #7: DIY! Make your own bento set. Eating can be fun too! Make some panda rice ball or some other cute cartoon/animal that  your baby/toddler likes, makes it colorful!My baby can't take rice yet, of course I'm not doing it now but looking forward to do it after she can take rice. For now, only porridge and her porridge looks pretty, delicious and healthy too. It has different type of vegetable to make it looks nice and colorful. (I blend the vege)

#8: Dine in together! I do not feed my baby first or after we have our meal. We do it together! This is to make them understand that when we eat, we sit and gather at the table until we finish up the dishes.

#9: Give compliment! Always tell him/her how well and good he/she is, to be able to eat independently. People loves compliment, so do the baby/toddler.

There's plenty of other ways out there on how to make grow your baby eating interest. You will find the way better than mine, enjoy finding the perfect way for both you and your baby, I'm sure they'll enjoy their meal someday! And oh, remember to give patient! :)


This is few blog/website which I found useful and might be able to help you out, enjoy the eating session with your little one! :)


https://www.studenthealth.gov.hk/english/health/health_dn/health_dn_hc.html

http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-to-handle-a-picky-eater_9199.bc

http://www.earlyinterventionsupport.com/tips-improving-childs-eating-habits/

Lunch at 'Dapur Penyet' Cyberjaya

Finding a place to have lunch in Cyberjaya is not so difficult nowadays. There's plenty of food variety recently with the new malls built up in these 2 years. How is your lunch today? I've tried out the 'Dapur Penyet' with my colleague during our lunch time today!

This is my second time of having ayam penyet, overall, it taste just OK. The one that I had at the other restaurant is even nicer! Too bad I haven't started blogging that time, will definitely share it out if I go there again. But I'm giving compliment to their Udang Petai Belado! The sambal is really delicious. The price is average, there's a lot of food selection. If you're the one who loves spicy food, you can try out there, their sambal belacan is really spicy.

Ayam Bakar: RM 8.90 (The chicken is not spicy, it taste sweet, only the sambal belacan is spicy)

Petai Udang Belado: RM 8.90

Ayam Penyet: RM 8.90

DAPUR PENYET
No. 34, Ground Floor Cottage Walk
Off Persiaran Jalan Apec
63000 Cyberjaya

*Available for outside catering - Tel:  +6019 3786146 (Zul)

Afternoon Tea at Carcosa Sri Negara

Me and my best friend are going to have afternoon tea in Majestic Hotel next month. We heard about how nice the ambiance is and would like to experience it. Most of the blogger said that extra RM20 need to be paid for orchid room booking but I have just made my reservation today. If you are going to enjoy your afternoon tea inside the orchid room, you only need to pay RM88++. No additional charges of RM20 requires for room booking and sharing is not allow. I'll share it when I get there next month.

Before this, I only have one time of afternoon tea experience which is 2 years back ago at Carcosa Sri Negara. The price is definitely cheaper than Majestic Hotel but Carcosa Sri Negara is like a perfect getaway from the city as it's set on a prime at 40 acre land, no trace of traffic can be heard - beautifully surrounded with trees and flowers and you can listen to the sounds of birds chirping.The indoor atmosphere is elegance complemented with dim lighting, carpeted flooring, and plush maroon colored sofa seat, which is comfortable enough for us to sink into, while indulging in soft conversation - It's perfect ambiance for a traditional English afternoon tea. Oh yes, if you have noticed, there's also room booking to stay in the mansion. ;-) 

Three-tier platter: Apple crumble, carrot cake, chocolate cake, sandwiches, plain/raisin scones, mini croissant, cream brulee and etc.

The plush maroon colored sofa seat

Surrounded by the greeneries atmosphere

Piano was played during the tea session

Here's the contact for Majestic Hotel and also Carcosa Sri Negara, I hope you enjoy your afternoon tea session there.

Carcosa Sri Negara 
Taman Tasik Perdana Persiaran Mahameru
50480 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
+603 2295 0888


The Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur  
5, Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin,

50000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Tel :  +603 2785 8000 

Journey of a First Time Mom at the age of 28 years old

Recently, friends around me is getting married and having babies. It is very happy to see this. Even though I'm not the very first among my friend of having first baby, many of them came and ask about breast feeding, which I'm still currently doing and my little princess is now 9 months old.

Many would ask me how I came across this? Some would said it's tiring, some would said it's painful and some would said it makes the breast looks saggy! But I would said, it's magical how your breast can produce the best food for your baby! It has not been easy for me since from the first she's born, but we managed to come through it so far. I suffered from nipple cracked and it's bleed, being emotional for less milk supply,  milk duct which caused breast pain, fever and engorgement. It never stopped me from breastfeeding!

When the first time the nurse bring over my baby to nurse, I was so excited! It was wonderful that the nurse said I have milk for my baby. Well to correct the word, it's not milk which we produced after birth. It's colostrum and it contains antibodies to protect the newborn against disease - IT'S GOOD!

In order to stimulate enough milk for your baby, you need to latch your baby often. The more you latch your baby, the more supply you'll get. I'm so sad at first because there's no one there for me that time to guide me how to nurse and also to share the basic knowledge with me about breast feeding. I first got nipple cracked and it bleeds and it takes almost 3 weeks to recover, trust me it is SUPER PAINFUL! You shouldn't nurse your baby up to 40 minutes, you'll get nipple cracked! I nurse my baby from 3am until next day 7am in the hospital because whenever I pulled her mouth out from the nipple, she cries. If I would know this earlier, I would have stop all these from happening.

I started to latch again when my nipples recovered - during my confinement. At first, I mixed with formula because the confinement lady said my milk is still lack of supply. I remembered once when I spend almost 40minutes to pump the milk and my hubby actually spoils it by dumping it in a bucket of hot water and the hot water flows into the bottles  - TOTALLY RUINED! I got bad emotions, I cried and I cannot handle my feelings. Me and my hubby got into fight, he was yelling at me - he doesn't understand how hard it is to breast feed the baby with my bleeding nipples and painful c-sec wound.

After 3 weeks, thing gets better. I stop top up with formula milk and was able to fully breast feed my baby. Then something happened again! Engorgement! It is so painful, I have to breast feed and pump on time. The engorgement leads to milk duct! When you touch your breast, you can feel a little cube inside your breast. It doesn't feels good to me, I went to the gynae and they advise me to do my own massage, nothing much they can help. So I started to go online and search for massaging method, then I came across this page called "The Breastfeeding Advocates Network" also known as 'TBAN' in facebook, it has all the information I want! You can always seek help by posting your concern in the page and the mummies will answer to your post. I got a lactation consultant with the help of a daddy in the forum *LOL* don't be surprised, they're really good at it!

Okay, I guess I wrote too much and I don't think people love reading. In conclusion, please pump/latch on time to avoid engorgement and milk duct. Milk duct will lead to fever and also mastitis if you don't clear it. I'm a working mother so I do pumping at work and latch on whenever I'm around with my baby.

I'll share with you the pump I've used and also some details of lactation contact just in case you need help! When it comes to manual, I prefer AVENT ones because of it's suction but electrical one, I'll go for MEDELA, it's really saving up my time especially going back to work.

Good luck mummy, u're the best and always remember, breast milk is the best food for babies!

Aliyos.

Medela Dual Maxi Swing (Around RM1,200) : My 2nd pump - Time saving, easy to use, quiet, and easy to wash.

AVENT Manual & Electronic Pump (Around RM600) : First when I bought during my pregnancy - Freesytle (can adjust your own pumping rhythm), Time consuming (single pump), easy to use, noisy, too many compartment to wash. 

Lactation Consultant: Ms. Elizabeth  (+60192163758)

Facebook "The Breastfeeding Advocates Network"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheBreastfeedingAdvocatesNetwork/