Breakfast

I don't eat breakfast but the kids do. 

My childhood Japanese breakfast 

My kids breakfast 

I feel guilty when I feed them cereal, feel bad that I'm not doing enough for my kids. 

Lilly and Connor won't even accept rice and soup for breakfast because they are not use to it :( 

Pancakes

Oatmeal 

Toast

Sandwiches 

Waffles 

......always with yogurt, fresh fruits or veggie fruit smoothies. 

Try to serve them healthy Japanese breakfast little by little but too many things to do in the kitchen from morning!!

I don't think I can copy my mums style at all....

Bread tips

It took me a year to complete this bread recepi in US. 

Now everyone likes it, especially Lilly and Connor :) 

Chia seeds bread 

It's always a hit gift for all my friends. 

It's got 

- chia seeds

- flax seeds

- rolled oats 

- coconuts oil 

- walnuts 

- craneberries 

For me this is a kind of energy bread that I can feel safe to feed the kids everyday. 

Kids like to eat by itself when it's freshly baked, or with cream cheese on. 

Cream cheese and cranberries, our favorite combo. 

Or veggie sandwiches with soup 

Or airfryer crunchy crust as a snack 

Real crunchy 

Or airfried veggie pizza toast to start a day

Here are some tips to bake this bread. 

1. Stand by the bread machine while it's kneading. 

I usually put 280g water in this recipe(I use 'grams' for everything so you don't need to use and wash other spoons and cups. Lazy. ) but sometimes you need more than 280g water somehow. Maybe depends on the weather or how much flours, seeds etc u put in. 

So the dough should be very soft and smooth but not too sticky. If the dough sticks to the bread case while it's kneading, that means you got too much water. You'll need to add some more flour to adjust. 

So I believe you can pretty much see the result by seeing the dough condition at the beginning. So I prefer stand by the machine and watch the quality. 

2. Get prepared. 

To bake this bread, it used to take me at least 10-15mins to put all the ingredients together in the bread case. As a lazy person, it was a pretty hard work and needed some good motivation before start baking. 

Well, now I got 2 bins. 

Bin no. 1

Bread flour and whole wheat flour 

Bin no. 2 refrigerated ingredients 

All other ingredients incl coconuts oil. 

Coconut oil doesn't get solid like butter here in Singaoore. Room temperature is too hot. So I pour the coconut oil into an ice tray, put it in the fridge for a while, made coconut oil cubes and store in the same bin with other ingredients. 

So this way, I don't have to measure either :)  no washing oily spoon!

Genius!

I usually threw 1 or 2 cubes in the bread :) 

So now the preparation is so much easier like I can get it done in 5 mins. Just take out 2 bins and you have everything in your hand. What a time saver! 

3. Check before beeps. 

I like nice and soft light brown colored bread. So I start checking my bread 30mins before it beeps to finish baking. 

I usually stop the machine and takes out 10-20mins before finish. 

4. Let it cool down. 

Let the bread sit on the cake cooker at least 15-20mins before cutting. The steam will make the bread moist and soft. 

5. Store in the plastic bag. 

When the bread is still warm, put it in the plastic bag so you can get nice soft crust bread like you buy from the shop. Because I don't like the thick crunchy crust. But Scott does. So it's depends how you like it but I usually store in the plastic bag when it's still warm. 

 

Those are the tips for my bread :) 

Observe the beginning! I think that's the most important tip :) 

Thanks for asking for this Yulia!

Hope you bake the best bread you really love soon!!!

Enjoy baking!

Days without school

There's no kids in our condo during day. 

All the kids must be in school...

Lilly and Connor will start going to school from next year. Till then....... I have them all day all night....

It's not unusual in US, in fact, I wanted to do homeschooling for Lilly in US. Not for Connor. Definitely not. 

So we do some activities at home. Then watch TV(I only let them watch UK kids programs) then sometimes go out to explore our neighborhood by bus.

To the bus stop, they search for senopies. Am I spelling correct? That what kids call them. Senopies...

Catapillar with hair.  Oh no thought this is hairy catapillar but it's not!!! What is this? 

I try hard to like them..try making good comments abt them....not easy. 

Kids love getting on bus.

7mins ride, here we r at massive shopping malls. 3 malls and little stand shops street in one place. 

I took this pic at 9:30pm last nite. Mall was pretty crowded still.

We eat Singapore lunch. 

The toy it eats my $1 easily. 

I met Indian lady in our playground who moved from Tokyo to Singapore 2 months ago with husband and baby boy after spending her 6 years in Tokyo. She speaks fluent awesome Japanese. So nice to meet her and talk in Japanese at home ;) 

Met another mum in playground, she invited us to her place(in same condo!) we found we came from the same service apartnet in west coast, exactly same timing. 

Met oz family again. You know Terry's family. Those 3 kids are so nice.

This Chinese family took us to their kindergarden to show us. (Cuz we were looking for one.)

His grandma only speaks Chinese.

I managed walking with her talking somehow. Body language!! Their maid is chasing my kids too lol 

So far so good. 

We enjoy everyday here ;) 

Halloween in Singapore

We missed US traditional Halloween. 

In RVC, all our neighbors had perfect settings, tons of kids got together walked ard for trick or treat. It was awesome experience. Last year, we had superstorm sandy but even tho auntyM took Lilly out and Lilly could play with Christian in the dark. 

I remember Connor had abit of fever so I stayed with him at home last year. Connor doesn't really know what u do for Halloween I guess. 

In Singapore, I was too lazy to research where to go, also felt like fake to do Halloween here too ;( 

Well we went out and kids saw some Halloween decorations at shop, tiny decorations. Lilly noticed its Halloween time. I decided to do it by ourself. 

Took out my Halloween decorations I had in NY from storage.

Lilly became a witch.

She's holding black cat too!!! Should have taken photo against the white wall!!

Made witches brew as usual.

Children's bones, ears, eyes...Lilly named them pretty gross ;) 

Stir stir 

Connor became Micky mouse. 

Had pumpkin soup for dinner.

We have done Halloween! Wasn't bad. 

After this day, I saw a lot of ppl in Singapore had Halloween event. Should take kids somewhere next year. But still, feel strange to do it in here. It has to be in US!!!!!!!

Natural scent

Smells awesome 

Simmering orange peels, cinnamon sticks and some cloves in the pot.

Kitchen looks better after tiding up little bit.

Eric ;)

Lilly has been watching the little mermaid over and over again. 

She's so into Eric and Ariel, she only had Ariel peg people so she asked me to make Eric. 

She said Eric has blue eyes, dark hair, wearing white shirts. 

I went to Pinterest, here it is. 

So I just copied it. 

Eric and Ariel.

 Running out of plain peg people now. 

Hmmm time to order some more....aw we r not in US anymore!!!!!!

Wonder how much it will cost to ship it to Singapore....;( 

Mums cake maker

I just love love love this cake maker!

I have been using it almost everyday. 

Made some banana cake, carrot cake, pumpkin cake, apple cake, raisin cake, mixed berry cake. 

I ordered bunch of frozen berries. My freezer is now full of berries. 6 bags of these!!

I finally succeed making blueberry cake today. 

I've been trying different way, ingredients and amount. 

So moist and fluffy inside ;) 

Used 2 eggs, 10Tsp organic wholemeal flour, 1tsp alumi-free baking powder, 5Tsp honey, and 5Tsp grape-seed oil. 

Mixed all together and add blueberries.

Took abt 7-10min to bake. Took long time i know but I think it's because I used frozen berries. 

Love this cake maker because it bakes perfect size of cakes and those shapes, they r too cute.

Thanks mum to bring it over here from Australia!!!!! Love this so much. 

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Blogger has finally fixed the problem. Now I can insert my pictures wherever I want as u can see. Before, my pictures were added randomly at the end of my post so I couldn't put any explanations or comment on my each pics.