Travelling with the Little Ones

This is a great website of travel ideas for families with kids of all ages.

You can browse by how old your kids are and they suggest what to pack, or browse by destinations and get ideas on where to go. There is also a section with special budget-friendly deals.

There are tips from other families in their forums, a section on planning and ideas for new families who are inexperienced travelling with young kids.

Families also review the destinations, so click the link on the image above and find great destinations for you and your family!

Organic Cotton Disney Toys

These toys were the first product from PTPA that I got to try with my son who is now almost 7 months old. They are soft and plush, and they have a bell inside so that when you shake them they make a rattling noise.

I have them in his playpen, so that he can play and sleep with them by his side. He just loves to hold them, throw them, and shake them.

They come in various Disney characters such as Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and more.

My favorite thing about them is that they are made of organic cotton, and this in my opinion, increases the quality of the toy.

Click for more information about these great toys for your kids!

Blog Update

After a looooong hiatus, I am making some changes to my blog.

I am now a member of PTPA (Parent Tested, Parent Approved), and I have also joined their Blogaholics team, which is a community of parents who test and review products (see link for details).

I hope to review my first product in the near future, and can't wait to share it with my little boy!!

Basic Everyday Bread

After a loooooooooong break, I'm back with bread!

I made the Basic (Everyday) Bread from Lillian's Test Kitchen (scroll down a bit to see the recipe).

What initially intrigued me about this recipe is the fact that it is made with almond butter. Previously, I attempted this bread recipe, and I loved it the first time I made it, but the second time I made it, I found it doesn't stay together (very crumbly), and then after a couple days I didn't want to eat it anymore.

Afterwards, I decided I wanted to a different kind of gluten free almond bread recipe, so when I came across Lillian's website and saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it.

This is how the bread looked before baking:

And this is how it came out:

In my opinion, this bread came out awesome!

I am so amazed at how moist it is, just like regular bread. And it tastes very almond-y (as expected), but in a really good way. I just couldn't help but be pleasantly surprised. I also liked that it has a little crusty crunch on the outside and moist on the inside.

Definitely try this bread out for a great gluten free alternative.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Finally some chocolate!!! Yum yum!!!

This recipe from Chef Michael Smith's television show called Chef at Home. As the name says, they are CHEWY chocolate chip cookies, and boy are they ever!

Previous times I've made chocolate chip cookies, they turned out hard and crispy, and my husband has always said that he prefers them soft and chewy. So recently, when I decided to make chocolate chip cookies again, I told myself I would try to find a recipe for a chewy cookie. So when I stumbled upon this Michael Smith recipe, I got very excited because every other recipe I've made by Michael Smith has turned out really well and this was no exception.

On the site where I got the recipe, there's a small video explaining how to make it with some interesting tips. One of the tips was that instead of melting butter and mixing it in, you put in cold butter and cream it with the brown sugar. According to Michael, this creates air bubbles which make the cookie light and fluffy. Also, using white sugar makes the cookie hard he says, so that is why he uses brown sugar.

The mixture of creaming the brown sugar and butter looks like this:



Separately, I mixed all the dry ingredients together:



Once the brown sugar and butter were creamed together, I added the egg, vanilla and honey (instead of corn syrup). Then once the wet and dry ingredients were combined together, it resulted as follows:



I then added the chocolate chips, however, I used MINT chocolate chips, which is my husband's favorite chocolate combination.



At this stage, the batter looked so homogeneous and soft that I was thinking mmmmm these are gonna turn out great!

Then, I spooned the batter onto a baking sheet and put it in the oven:



The result, freshly baked cookies!!!



And Michael Smith didn't lie, they were indeed very soft and chewy!

P.S. My husband is the one who did all the work in this recipe, I just guided him. So essentially, he is the one who made these wonderful cookies. Congratulations to him!!!

If interested, here is a link to the recipe.

Coconut Cupcakes

Well, it's been a while since I've blogged, and boy do I miss it.

When work gets in the way of entertainment and Internet and cooking, it leaves something to be desired.

After I discovered this post from Elana's pantry, I decided to make them.

This was my first recipe that I made using coconut flour. Up until now, I've only made recipes from her site with almond flour. Unfortunately, however, I did not make the key lime icing with these cupcakes, since I bought the wrong type of whipping cream. Oops!

First, mixing the eggs, coconut oil, and honey (I replaced agave nectar with honey)


This was also my first time using coconut oil, so I didn't know that you have to melt it before using, because at room temperature it is a solid. It still worked out in the end, even though there were lumps in the batter.

Second, I mixed the dry ingredients together before combining them with the wet ingredients.


Once the wet and dry ingredients were combined, I left the batter to thicken a bit.


Once thickened, I filled up the muffin pan and put them in the oven.


I baked them for about 23 minutes, and this was the result:


Even though I couldn't make the frosting, I ended up buying a can of chocolate whipping cream and used that as frosting.

In the end, they turned out quite well, as all of Elana's recipes do. After all, I am a big fan of coconut, so I am not usually disappointed. One of my favorite things was that they didn't come out very sweet, which is another reason why I love her recipes so much. I don't like it when desserts have too much sugar in them.

The only thing is that I don't think her yield measurements are very accurate, because the recipe says that these cupcakes yield 10, and I doubled the recipe, which ended up making 15. So it makes me wonder how many would've yielded from not doubling the recipe.

I will be making another post shortly so stay tuned!

Ta ta for now.

Meatloaf

This past weekend, I made Turkey Meatloaf courtesy of Chef Michael Smith.

Meatloaf is very simple to make, mainly just mixing ground meat and spices together then baking it in the oven. However, this recipe was slightly different in that it required me to saute onion, garlic and mushrooms prior to mixing it in with the meat and baking it.

The first thing I really liked about this recipe is that it had mushrooms in it, which of course, adds flavor. Other ingredients such as tomato paste, for example, are not in other meatloaf recipes I've seen. The tomato paste I found made the meat moist so that even when you eat it a day later, it's not dry.

In the end, this recipe turned out awesome and this will be my #1 recommended meatloaf!!!



Click here for the recipe