LAZY MOMMY GUIDE

Easy Peasy Omelette Bites

Just like the ones sold in Starbucks & Tim Hortons, just better & cheaper!

So easy your toddler can help too

Easy Peasy Omelette Bites

Time: 30 mins
Difficulty: easy
Print

Easiest thing to make for your kids and will work as a baby led weaning recipe too. Feel free to use other vegetables and meat. This isn’t a strict recipe. I just happened to have bell peppers and leftover deli ham in my fridge so that was what I used but i have used bacon bits, diced up turkey deli, diced mushrooms, chopped up spinach…you get the drift. This really is a recipe that you can customise to your own liking. I like to add a little salt and pepper but you can omit that if you prefer it not to have any. This is a really great recipe for the freezer. I usually make a batch of them and freeze them. When i know i need one for the next day for ryan packed lunch, I take one out the night before and it be all thawed and ready to eat the next day. Or if you forget to take it out the night before, just heat them up slightly in microwave and there you go. So easy peasy.

Ingredients

5 beaten eggs
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1/2 cup diced deli ham
1/2 cup diced bell pepper
milk
pinch of salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degree
Beat your eggs and add in all the ingredients
Pour them into Silicone muffin cups
Bake in oven for 15 minutes
Let it cool before serving

DIY Lemonade Stand

So I really wanted to learn to make a lemonade stand for Ryan. I found this DIY tutorial at Seevanessacraft.com and told our Papa Del to teach me how to do it. Of cos, I go to his place expecting a lesson from him but he’s already got it all done lol.

He says he left the screws slightly loose so I can tighten the screws myself LOL….like really, did he think that was what I asked him to teach me????? To tighten the screws? 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄

Clearly he didn’t need to read my blog to know that I’m a lazy mom lol. Oh well, less work for this mama! 😎 😎

So now all this lazy mom has to do is to paint it 🤗🤗… Thanks again Papa Del!

So I wanted to use chalk paint for the top board so that it doesn’t just have to be a lemonade stand. It could be a cookie corner or just anything really. I didn’t however want to buy a pint of chalk paint so went to Vintage & Restoration Love to check out what they had.

The ladies there recommended me Fusion Mineral paint in Homestead Blue. While it wasn’t chalk paint, they gave me tips on a chalk treatment that will allow us to use chalk on it.

& TAH DA! This is how it looks like now. If you have any ideas on how I can decorate this further, please share with me 🙂

I am not a DIY person but I really want to learn doing simple stuff. And using the Fusion paint was really easy peasy & so was the chalk treatment the ladies recommended. Didn’t do a video when I painted it but it was really easy. I just added like 1/2 tsp of water to it and painted 2 coats of it and let it dry.

The video was more of the easy chalk treatment that they taught me. Honestly, I love how it looks after the chalk treatment. By doing this step, I can now use chalk to draw anything I like on the top board and it will be super easy to clean just like a regular chalk board. Yeah!!

Baking with Toddler Tips

I remembered the 1st time I got Ryan in the kitchen with me. He was 21 months old, 3 months shy of turning into a big 2 year old boy.

We baked an upside down pineapple cake that day. Let’s just say I learnt a lot that day lol. IT WAS A MESS.

Lessons Learnt that day:

Place him nearer to the sink for ease of washing hands & cleaning up
Because he was only 21 months and liked to put everything in his mouth, find ingredient substitutes. For example, use applesauce as substitute for oil & bananas as substitute for egg.
I love baking from scratch but seriously, using a cake mix from time to time just makes your life easier..
The toddler might eat most of the ingredients so be prepared to have a bit more ingredients than the recipe calls for.
Prep all the ingredients….every single one of them be it a tsp salt or shredded zucchini or the exact flour measurement
Place all ingredients in a kid friendly big bowl so it’s easy for him to pour them in
Have a small bowl of his favorite snacks nearby so when he finishes his baking tasks, you can just bring the snacks in front of him while you finish up the baking. It gives you just enough time to do all that while he is distracted with his snacks.
Place a big towel on the floor under him and a smaller towel on the chair that he is standing on. Makes for easier cleaning.
Have all the rest of the items all ready for standby e.g, your spoon, mixer, spatula & etc. The last thing you need is to go find something in the middle of the baking. The toddler ain’t gonna be waiting for you patiently for your to get your shit together. They want to play and they want to play now! lol
Set up your camera. In my case, it was my iphone. I didn’t have any gadgets then. I only had my iphone but since then, I have been searching for an iphone tripod that will work great for filming Ryan in the kitchen as well as making baking videos. There are many such products in the market but check out this inexpensive iphone tripod that I found at Amazon. It works great and is affordable.

UGREEN IPHONE TRIPOD WITH EXTENDING ARMS FROM AMAZON

I don’t know about u guys but just writing & reading all the steps makes me tired already lol. And yes, it is definitely more work when you bake with a toddler & I honestly just rather sit down and watch TV but the rewards for me is tenfold. Seeing Ryan having fun in the kitchen brings me so much joy. Seeing him being excited to eat the food we bake together.

Would so love to hear any other tips you have.

We Won the BetterTogetherBC Contest!

I chanced upon the Better Together BC website early this year and they were running a video contest. The video contest was all about bringing together food and fun in the kitchen by having two generations or two youth demonstrate how to prepare a recipe.

While I had taken many videos of Ryan baking in the kitchen, his videos never had me in it before so this was like a “OMG do i really want myself in the video” moment?? While I felt slightly shy and embarrassed of putting myself out there like that (hmmm no makeup and kitchen doesn’t look perfect) but what the heck I think. Who’s going to care anyway?

So there you go – our very 1st baking video together. The thing is when you do an amateur baking video with your toddler, there is no such thing as a retake LOL. It’s not like the toddler is going to cooperate and give you back an ingredient when you have already handed it to him. So PREPARING AHEAD is KEY!! Not kidding. My next post is going to be sharing my tips before you do a baking video with your kiddo. You can read the post here.

This is our 1st year of entering this contest but Better Together BC has hosted this contest for the last 10 years and I think it’s amazing what they do & that is to help everyone experience the joys of cooking and eating together. I can tell you that this wouldn’t be the last time we enter ourselves into this contest for sure!

While we did not win the Grand Prize or Runner up, we did win the People Choice Award of a $300 cash award, which means $100 for my baby’s RESP, the remaining $200 to two non-profit groups in our community.

The judges also awarded our video an Honourable Mention Award. Although this doesn’t carry a cash award, I feel really honored that the judges noticed how much our video did capture the spirit of their contest & that is to inspire other families to cook together more often.

We feel super super thankful & honored to win this as the only representation from the north. And we hope you enjoy our little amateurish baking video.

Weekends

I don’t know about you guys but weekends always passes way too fast for me…but there is so much to be thankful for weekends…Here are some of the things I’m thankful for this weekend.

1. Being a working mom, the only time I get to sleep in & still wake up snuggling with my little boy are the weekends.

2. Family fun & time together

3. Time to try something new… I’m no artsy person & I’m so bad at anything DIY or artsy that when I saw this mason jar DIY painting kit from Vintage & Restoration Love, I just had to get it but it’s been weeks since I bought it and I finally had a chance to try it 🥰🥰.. it was so easy peasy… Yes!! Easy peasy is important for this lazy mommy 😅… Love Love Love this Fusion Mineral paint… so easy to use & they are non-toxic, lead free & virtually odourless. I started too late in the day & so have to wait for it to dry so photos of completed product yet… Stay tuned tomorrow.

4. Instant Pot Chinese Glutinous Rice. Last time my mom was in Canada, she made a huge batch for me and we froze them so I will have plenty after she leaves. I love traditional Asian food that my mom cooks but I’m too lazy to cook it from scratch 🙄🙄… just seeing my mom cooks it makes me tired already lol. But I decided to test it out in my Instant Pot this weekend & it was a success. Ok let’s not kid ourselves here. It’s never going to be as good as what my mom made from scratch but point here, good enough lol. As the saying goes, lazy moms can’t be choosers 🤣🤣 hahaaa.. While I didn’t follow their recipe to the tee, I did get my main idea from Twosleevers.com. Thanks!! It works.

5. Eating Reese Crunchers late late at night. Dun even ask how late lol…The funny thing is I don’t even like Reese. My hubby is the Reese consumer in our household. Not me and never me. But my coworker introduced to me Reese Crunchers & now there is no going back. They are like a deliciously crunchy snack made of creamy milk chocolate, smooth peanut butter and crunchy rice crisps & every bite is better than the last… YUM YUM YUM! Definitely not letting Ryan see my secret Reese Crunchers stash lol.

Hope you all had a good weekend that you had things to be thankful about. Good night everyone!

Xoxo

Happy Friday Morning

Good Morning and Happy Friday Everyone! Hope you start off your Friday morning as chirpy as we did!

Instant Pot Chinese Glutinous Rice 糯米饭

I have made so many of our meals in our Instant Pot but this is my very first video of a Instant Pot Recipe 🙂 I am definitely still learning how to make cooking videos and would love to hear any feedback in the Comments section below. Thanks for watching.

A Simple Homemade Dish My Mom Always Made

Instant Pot Chinese Glutinous Rice 糯米饭

Time: 30 mins
Difficulty: easy
Print

Credit: Twosleevers.com.

While I didn’t follow the recipe in Twosleevers.com to the tee, I did get my main cooking instructions from there and it works! I also didn’t have the most authentic ingredients like dried shrimp & dried mushrooms for this recipe so i replicated this dish using other ingredients. Feel free to use marinated chicken slices or cubes to replace the Chinese sausage. Traditional Chinese Glutinous Rice doesn’t actually have any vegetables in them but I added spinach so Ryan can have his vegetable serving as well when he has this for lunch. You want to be careful to not just use any random vegetables as cooking vegetables in Instant Pot for 10 minutes will make most vegetables all mushy and way too soft for my liking.

Ingredients

1 chopped onion
2 sliced Chinese sausages
1 cup rinsed Jasmine rice
2 cups spinach
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce/1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce/pinch of sesame oil mixture
2 cups water or chicken broth

Directions

Press Saute Function on Instant Pot and add a Tbsp Oil.
When the Instant Pot is hot, add all ingredients except water and saute for 2 minutes.
Add water or no salt chicken broth.
Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes, and then allow it to release pressure naturally for 10 minutes. Then release all remaining pressure.
Open the Instant Pot & stir to mix well.
Leave it open with no lid to allow excess water to absorb before serving.

Easy Peasy Banana Muffins

Ryan Baking Banana Muffins

Instant Pot

Saying I love my Instant Pot is totally an understatement.

I love to bake but boy, cooking is definitely my nemesis. In my Barbie Fantasy land, I bake in a cute apron with perfect skin and hair of course & sip my cup of coffee leisurely while my son plays quietly on his own with his Daddy Ken who says Yes to everything his Barbie Mommy says hahaa but nowhere in my Fantasy land do I ever do any cooking. Yup, this is how much i do not like cooking and in my reality, I do not bake in a cute apron…Most times, i am just in my ratty pajamas with my messy hair and definitely not perfect skin lol….& no, my toddler who is rarely quiet and Daddy Ken definitely does not say YES to me LOL…

But okay, back to the Instant Pot. Many friends have asked me if an Instant Pot is really all that great. My answer is YES to us moms who hates and is not a good cook. My answer is Maybe or even Nope to you moms who are great cooks and can whip up a dinner PEW PEW just like that.

For good cooks, the Instant Pot would still be great for something like ribs when it significantly cuts down the amount of time needed for the meat to get sooo ooey gooey tender but I think there is something very beautiful about creating a beautiful meal for your family from scratch the traditional way – no shortcuts no gimmicks so before you run out to get an Instant Pot, think of what gives you more gratification – a beautiful homemade meal or a faster way to get back to my couch & TV lol….ya, no competition there for me. And if you do intend to buy one, do yourself a favor and get either the 6 quartz or 8 quartz one. The 3 quartz, in my opinion would be too small for me even if I was a single. I cook for 3 to 4 people daily and the 6 quartz suffice for us but I do have the 8 quartz too.

Instant Pot, however is not a magical pot for all recipes:

Fried Rice – as it name depicts, it really taste bad ass when fried rice is ermmmm….fried. Yes to cut time, I will continue to cook it in the instant pot but nothing beats fried rice being fried in a pan or a wok
Lasagna – I’m sorry but when I tell hubby I am making Lasagna for supper & he sees me cooking Deconstructed Lasagna soup in my Instant Pot, it just ain’t the same. Still taste good but it ain’t Lasagna
Roast Chicken – I have tried a no. of recipes from different websites but still not really liking the final result but if you have a winning recipe, please share it with this mama! 🙂

Instant Pot, however is MAGICAL 😀 for the following recipes:

Split Pea & Ham Soup – OMG OMG OMG to be able to dish out a yummy split pea soup within an hour is like SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS Amazing!!! Best thing is you don’t even need to soak those bad bass peas overnight…It’s that easy.
Prep Ahead Chicken Breasts for the week – Best thing is you can cook them from frozen chicken breasts, shred or slice them and now you have chicken strips for your stirfry any of the evenings when you are short of time!! I hate touching raw chicken EEEKKK
Chinese Beef & Broccoli – Okay. This recipe itself deserve a blog post on its own and I’ll get to it. The first few times were flops for me but by trial & error, I actually figured out a way to make the beef tender but the broccoli doesn’t go mushy and yes, I only used one pot.
Ribs – Enuff Said…Just read all the raving reviews on Pinterest
Chicken Wings – Cook and Broil and all the flavor gets ingrained into those wings
Cabbage Soup / Chicken Rice Soup / Vegetable Soup – Perfect for those cold harsh winter evenings
Beef Stroganoff – Cooked together with the egg noodles, one less pot or pan to wash in my household is a win for me
Cashew Chicken – I don’t even eat cashew chicken in Singapore but oh well, it does taste good and cashews has so much nutrition
Beef Goulash – I pronounce it as Goo.Lash…my hubby says I’m wrong
Chinese Congee – For those days when hubby is not home. Despite what he claims, this man does not like authentic Asian food :roll:. Lucky for me, my son loves all Asian food so far and so when hubby is not around or when Ryan is feeling under the weather, Chinese Congee is our comfort food to go to.
Pad Thai – I love Pad Thai but I hate making them in a pan. So far, I have had equal success and fails in making them in the Instant Pot. I honestly think I just am not measuring stuff right
Made from scratch Apple Cider Drink – Oooooooo I made that for Christmas and my house smells amazing….:star: that’s a winning recipe for me

There are so many other Instant Pot recipes out there so if you have tried an Instant Pot recipe and it is a success for you and family, I would love to hear it from you in the comments.

Bye bye for now while I decide what to cook tonight in my Instant Pot 🙂 #InstantPotSavedMyMarriage is a Real Thing people!! 😮

SOUR LEMONS

I have never been the kind of person who could seamlessly & effortlessly pull off any kind of stunt (okay, I’m not referring to a physical stunt or like a bank robbery stunt..please read between the lines) without it being obvious to the people around me. As such, I find myself having a love hate relationship with friends that are able to do that.. When i was in my 20s, I couldn’t stand people like that. Feel that they are manipulative and they could bend the world to their knees if they chose to. My lack of self esteem was screaming at the top of the mountain shouting “Get the fuck away from these people! You be manipulated without even knowing about it”. And even if I did know I was being manipulated, their SHINE was sometimes too hard to stay away….I mean who wouldn’t be drawn to shiny stuff??

I have come to realize that it wasn’t really that I couldn’t stand people like that. It was more that I couldn’t stand feeling how inadequate I felt in the presence of such SHINING people. Like having a sour taste in my mouth. Why can some people just SHINE so effortlessly & why can’t I SHINE the same way? The key word here is effortlessly…

Getting older does have its perks. For starters, while I will never be the person with 100% confidence right in my bones, getting older and life’s experiences has shaped me to be comfortable & confident in my own skin, in the line of work I do & with how I view the world and the people around me.

Also, I just chose not to care as much or be bothered as much by what people do. Some days are harder but overall, I mostly feel pretty at peace with myself. The days I don’t, oh well, they are okay too. Life ain’t perfect. That’s when I connect with my SHINING PEOPLE 🙂 & they help dust me off and sometimes scrub my skin really hard too until I SHINE like a fucking Care Bear…..By the way, I do love Care Bears…

But in the process of getting older, I have also discovered that underneath that SHINE is also a real loving, awesome, flawed & imperfect human being like myself too immersed in all of our life dreams, aspirations, regrets, insecurities and worries. Underneath every different set of life and troubles, we are fundamentally all the same. We all want to make a better life for ourselves and family. We all want to move forward and not backwards. Yes. A lot of times, our actions contradict with our true intentions but that’s just because we are all flawed and that’s okay. But fundamentally, we all want the same Holy Grail – to live our days with joy, happiness and purpose.

I have also come to realize at my mid 30s that I have my own SHINE too. Maybe my SHINE isn’t as effortless but I SHINE nevertheless. We just SHINE differently and that is okay and there are sooo many merits to being different.

Through my SHINING friends, I see my weaknesses, where I am lacking, where I can better myself but I also very clearly see my own SHINING strengths that I never thought I had when I was in my 20s. And I know for a fact that my SHINING friends think I SHINE too, sometimes in ways that they could learn from as well.

With that, I end my very first blog post with no sour taste in my mouth 🙂

So easy your toddler can help too

Easy Peasy Omelette Bites

Ingredients

Directions

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Lessons Learnt that day:

UGREEN IPHONE TRIPOD WITH EXTENDING ARMS FROM AMAZON

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A Simple Homemade Dish My Mom Always Made

Instant Pot Chinese Glutinous Rice 糯米饭

Ingredients

Directions

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