Sunday School: Samson's long hair

Niel in Samson's long (purple) hair

This week's Sunday School story was about the strong man, Samson, and his long hair.  I made a long hair strips from purple construction paper (because purple is the only colour I have left in my pack) and tape them in around a band that would fit the kids' head.  I was planning to cut/tear the long hair when I get to the story part where Delilah tricked and cut Samson's hair, but unfortunately the children wouldn't allow me to do it.

Boys in a Bag

Just in case...

During the boys’ first year, I have always protected my babies’ nap times. I would avoid appointments during that time, and if we are travelling far, I would plan the long travel time be during nap times. Well rested babies means contented little boys, and will make me a very happy mommy. Now that they are well over 1.5 years old and are only one nap a day, I would certainly love to get back into those impromptu un-planned trips.

I really miss those days where we would just get in the car with our emergency overnight bag and drive and drive and drive and find ourselves interstate. I don’t know how that will work out with three kids under four in tow. Anyway, just in case I get hit by those crazy vibes, I have purchased sleeping bags, and practiced with the kids…. Just in case…

Pressure Cooked Bread...?

My quest of becoming a Pressure Cooker queen wouldn’t be complete without at least a successful attempt to “bake” bread in it.   I found a “Couldn’t be easier slow cooker bread” recipe online that was, of course, written for a slow cooker.   Wholewheat flour, wheatgerm, milk, honey instead of sugar, egg; I certainly liked the list of ingredients the recipe calls for, sounds healthy and great for the kids.

I think I probably should try a much simpler brown bread recipe for a first attempt, but I decided to just do this one.   Pressure cooked breads are said to be moist and would not have crust to it, that sounds great for my kids and I am determined to check this out!

I did three attempts to make the bread these past few days.  The first one failed miserably as I didn’t let the bread dough rise before popping it into the cooker.  With the pressure cooker, I find it is important to cover the tin with baking paper / foil so more liquid would not seep in, only let the heat cook the bread.
The recipe said to immediately put the dough into a slow-cooker and cook it for 3 hours, so I tried the same trick, but obviously the pressure cooker cooked the bread within the first 20minutes- so it didn’t have time to rise.  The bread has nice flavor, but it was short, dense, and hard.

The second attempt with the dough, I let it rise to double size as most bread should be before punching it down and putting it in the pan to rise again before finally cooking it.  It turned out to have great bread texture and moist inside.  The sides of the bread (where it touches the pan) is dry and have a bit of crust, but top of the bread was soft.  Beautiful dense thick bread, a slice of it will fill you up.
Yes, the pressure cooker can certainly cook bread in 20 minutes, but it still needs constant attention to the dough in making and the cooking process to keep the pressure stable.

I was excited, the third attempt, I oven baked it to see the difference.  Turns out beautiful with crust, as expected.  The smell of a bread loaf baking in the oven is unbeatable and certainly very inviting.  My boys can not wait for it to come out.

Will I make pressure cooked bread again?  Mmm... Only if I am desperately craving for bread and no available oven…
Actually, I am still curious about trying a basic brown bread in it, but not anytime soon.
For now, I will just head out to the store to get a basic brown loaf.

Night Zoo...

The Werribee Open Range Zoo is just 15 minutes drive away from where we live, so we go quite often during weekday for a morning or afternoon playtime.

This school holiday we had the privilege of visiting the night zoo “After Dark”.  We got our big puffy jackets on, our little torches ready and see the lions being fed.   It was windy and cold, but exciting seeing the animals in a different light that we came back a few nights later... 

Pressure Cooked Fried Rice

from uncooked rice done in minutes!

Like most mornings, on Sunday, I was a bit pressed for time and need to whip up something really quick to bring for lunch after church.  I had some carrots, bacon and a chicken breast in the freezer; it would be nice to make a fried rice dish… only if I had some leftover rice.  Cooking rice now would take at least 20 minutes and it would be too moist to fry. 

I know that the pressure cooker makes amazing rice.  So I’ll make a pressure cooked fried rice – from uncooked rice - reinvented from these recipes.

I used ingredients that I would normally throw into fried rice.  A small onion, a few cloves of garlic, diced carrots, diced a rasher of bacon, diced chicken breast.  You can basically put anything into fried rice, I think if I had prawns and eggs it would be even better.

I sautéed the garlic and onions in the pressure cooker with some oil and butter and added the carrots into it.  Next, I added the bacon and chicken breast.  If I am using prawns or any other meat it will go in now.  If I wanted eggs in it, I’d lightly beat it and throw it in before adding the meat, so the eggs are cooked first.

Once the chicken breast pieces are not pink, I throw in 1½ cup of uncooked jasmine rice and stir until it mixes well and the rice is coated with oil.  I love sesame oil, so added a table spoon of it here. Then pour 1½ cups (equal amount of water as the rice) into the mixture.  The bacon and chicken are naturally salty, and the onions and carrots are sweet, so the rice dish already has pretty good balance here, but all friend rice needs soy sauce.  So I put in a table spoon light soy and a table spoon of sweet soy (kecap manis), the liquid should already taste pretty nice here.  The finished dish would taste pretty much like this but a little richer.  I was happy with the taste and closed and lock the lid. When the cooker reached high pressure, I put my timer on 3 minutes and stabilize the pressure by moving it to a smaller fire.  Turn the fire off after 3 minutes and release the pressure naturally.  When done, I opened the lid and leave it open for about 5 minutes so the rice would soak the moisture.

Result: really tasty firm fried rice with soft chicken and carrot pieces done from uncooked rice in less than 30 minutes, as pictured. Cooking time: about 15 minutes including the sautéing, waiting to reach high pressure, and 3 minutes on stabilized high pressure. Beautiful!

Since trying this out last week, I did this recipe few more times.  You can add all sorts of things into it, and you can even go very bare only using butter, tons of chopped garlic and ginger, chicken carcass and rice and still make wonderful chicken rice.  The rule is rice to liquid ratio: 1:1. Last but not least, a tip to open the lid immediately and remove the rice and let it "dry out" in a cooler bowl.  I have tried to leave my rice in the cooker a bit too long and it burned the bottom bit of rice.

Meaningful Relationship

A group of fellow parents including myself have been discussing parenting topics of creating meaningful relational moments with our children. 

The goal of having great “relational experience” with our kids is so when they reach the age and time to make important decisions of their life, we (the parent) are at the position to give influential advice because of the excellent relationship we have worked hard for during the early years. 

As a parent, of course I want to have a say when any one of my boys are choosing their college major, choosing a career path, deciding who to date, or who to marry.   However, it has been brought to our attention that many parents may not have earned the ‘relationship position’ to be listened to.  Thus the kid would listen more to the advice of their fellow friends or influential teacher or other adult they respect or even listen to that boy/girlfriend we don’t like.  

The theory is that children without great relationship with their parents would certainly not seek their parents for advice when they need to chose.  Then the only way to get them to do what we want is if we are bigger and stronger than them (we can pick them up and strap them into a seat) or because we have something they don’t (bribing with ‘don’t you want to use the car?’). 

So how can we, as parents, after all we have been through to raise our kids, be in that influential position?

It is certainly a food for thought to think about building meaningful relationships, in our current circumstances, to turn every possible moment into influential moments with our children.

Happy Call Flip Pan

Another kitchen gear that I find is always on my stove top is my jumbo "Happy Call" flip pan (yes, my pressure cooker pot is also one of my top 3 most used pot).  My mother brought it for me from overseas and thought that I would make good use of it as it also cooks using pressure, but the main difference with the pressure cooker pot, is that the flip pan can cook without much liquid in the pan.  Vegetables are cooked in its own water or with just a couple tablespoons of liquid. 

Within a few weeks of experimenting with the flip pan, I have learnt dishes that are normally baked, grilled, or roasted such as roast potatoes, roast veggies, grilled fishes can be done perfectly in minutes without mess.  Roast chicken works very well in the flip pan, I can use store bought marinades for speedier dishes.  Dishes like Indonesian style deep fried chicken is done with just two tablespoon of oil, producing chicken with crisp skin while the flesh is tender and moist.  Healthier alternative to deep fried dishes, without the splashing oil too!   Pancakes cook very well, and the whole recipe would fit in the pan, producing a giant pancake which just needs slicing for the kids.  Baking a cake, yes, a cake can be done in this stove top pan too! I tried using a store bought chocolate cake mix, and it bakes well producing a wide-short rectangular cake.   Sure, short-rectangular cakes don’t look too great for presentation, but it taste just as good as oven baked, and saves energy as does not need pre-heating (like in the oven).  I fell in love with my flip pan.

There is no particular recipes special for this pan, you can use your usual family recipe, but will need to experiment with the timing and how big/small the fire should be.

Camera Block

Since I was a little girl, I have been fascinated by cameras.  I would go through my Grandfather's belongings and beg to give his cameras to me, this became my first camera.  It was pocket sized, really heavy as it was an old style film camera that does direct exposure to only half of a 35mm film.   I carried this everywhere I go taking pictures of everything.

In Uni, I was introduced to my very first SLR camera.  It was fully manual film SLR and I absolutely love the results.  Coupled with graphic design skills and digital photo editing software, my option felt endless.

I still carry a pocket digital camera everywhere.  I’d even leave it on my kitchen bench for those unpredictable photo moments happening while I am cooking.  I would also have my mobile phone camera within reach to take videos and photos to email my family overseas straight away.

I take so many pictures that my son thinks that taking photos of everything all the time is normal.  Today, I caught him walking around with his blocks built into an SLR camera.  He made the lenses and trigger button, and tell his brothers not to touch the “lenses”.  He even produced a fairly accurate shutter sound by mouth.  Fascinating…!

Fear of Water

When Malakai was 6 months old, I have decided that one day he will attend a swimming class conducted by a proper swimming instructor.  However, I will not enroll in a swimming class at 6 months old, I thought that I can do the job of introducing water confidence myself, then I will enroll him in swimming classes when he is 3.  Why pay someone for a job I can do myself?!

Little did I realize that 3 years passes by really quickly.   With a set of twins in tow, it is almost impossible for me to take the boys swimming by myself, as it is a struggle to take all three boys swimming even with my husbands help (they are 3.5 years old and 1.5 years old).

So there I was, just a couple of weeks ago, with my  3 years old boy standing by the pool wearing his water wings and his goggles hanging on his neck.  He would not wear his goggles, and would NOT get into the water, and scream when someone accidentally splash water on his face.

Oh, What have I done…?

I suppose,  being only 3 years old instead of 30 would still give him plenty of time to learn life skills.  I am still adamant to teach him water confidence myself and would not push him to do anything he is not ready for.  So I have started with the basics, such as blowing bubbles.  I'll get into the bath with him when his younger brothers are asleep and show him how to do it.
He still would not let his chin touch the surface of his bath water, but he is happy to give it a go in a bowl of water...
That's a start.  Patience...patience...