Guess Your Number Game

Callie love playing Guess Your Number Game. I am not surprised by her reaction to the game because even the adults are amazed what how it is able to guess the number right each time.

Maybe you can tell us.

RC Flying School Bus that Transforms

Calvin enjoys watching videos by RC Powers. This is his favourite.

Learn to type.the Z Generation way.

I am a baby boomer and in my time, I learn to type with a manual typewriter. Now my children can not only learn to type online, they can also play as they learn.

Check it out.

Ozspeller

Mummy's Mistakes = Children Gains.

I remember during the earlier days of my marriage, I used a whole chicken when I boiled soup for the children's father.   

There were only two of us eating at home! Since I cooked almost every weekend, that's a lot of leftover chicken to throw away.

I did not learn the basic of cooking a proper meal. I do not even know how to cook my favourite dish then. So, it is no wonder that I have been called a "fun tong" which literary means "rice bin" which actually means "good for nothing".

So, children, start learning your basic now. I am here to help you with these useful links:

Check out Thai Food Ingredients if you do not know the ingredients required in recipes you are working on. Most of the ingredients used in Thai cooking are used locally. I like Thai Table because there is a picture to go with each ingredient and you maybe able to learn Thai way of pronouncing it (if it works).

How to grind dried chillies? Jule Song teaches you how to handle dried chilli so that it will not stink your eyes and how to store it to preserve it. She even saved the water for soaking the dried chilli for cooking her noodles!

Generate an interest to learn by cooking with the ingredients you love to eat. Calvin surprise yourself. Google "canned peach" and see what you get. Mummy did that and discovered:

1) interesting ways to cook with peaches at California Cling Peach.
2) Also at Cooks.
3) Pick Your Own where you can also learn How to Make Homemade Canned Peaches, Plums, Pears, Plums, Nectarines and Cherries.

Since price of ingredients keep going up, don't be deterred by cost to learn. Learn by using leftovers. Don't forget to check out the recipes and ideas Mummy have created.

That's it for the moment till I find more to add to this.

And remember what Mummy said before. Good things always come out of bad experiences. Maybe if Mummy had not been criticized, Mummy would not have bothered to learn and teach you to cook.

So, what else did Mummy learned from this "good for nothing" period? The knowledge that your father must really love me since he had once commented that the food I cooked could be used to hit and kill a dog.

Your father (born in the year of dog) survived the hits. Your better half may not be so lucky, dude (and dudette).

Garlic and Ginger Miso Sauce

What do you do with the gratings of leftover meshed ginger and fried minced garlic?



Create a chillie hot miso sauce with it and here is how you can make it.

Mix together

1) Meshed ginger
2) Minced garlic
3) Salt and sugar to taste
4) Chillie paste

This is an example of the kind of prepared chillie paste you can use.



Pound them together in a mortar till fine. Stir in garlic oil and pour mixture into container before storing in fridge. This sauce can be used for steaming fish or vegetable like lady's finger or okra. Just place the sauce over the ingredient before steaming. To discover more ways to use this sauce, try googgling "ginger garlic miso" and check out what turns out.

A trick I picked up today from watching Michael Smith on Chef at Home; place some cut spring onion on the plate before placing the fish. This way, the skin of fish will not peel off and stick to the plate after steaming.

I also know that if you do not like the fishy taste, steam the fish first, discard the liquid on the plate before adding the marinating sauce to the fish to steam again.

Save water, don't wash that mortar yet. We can create satay sauce if you have some leftover serai or lemongrass and roasted peanuts to clear.

Fast food? Can't beat them? Join them!

I love my children and I hate it when I have to object to the kind of stuff they love to eat. And, that is, if it is not instant then its deep fried meals that they are always on the look out for at fast food chains.

I managed to work out an idea for their love of instant noodle with leftover sauce but with deep fried food, it is more difficult.

Since they love eating fried food, I decided to use this method to cook stuff they do not like to eat or are bore of eating in its usual manner. Here are a list of stuff I have tried that the children love to eat:


1) Bitter gourd marinate with magic sauce before dipping it in tempura flour batter to deep fry.

2) French toast with leftover bread fried in batter of plain four, rice flour and an egg with salt and sugar to taste. Use a ratio of 1:2 for flour, that is, 1 Tbsp rice flour to 2 Tbsp plain flour.



Any leftover batter can be used to fry pan cake.



3) Pan fried potato toast. I meshed potato from a soup I have boiled for the day. Mixed that with batter for making French Toast. Add sugar and salt to taste and more rice and plain flour, at ratio of 1:2, if the mixture will not hold together for frying. Cut the bread into quarters (half and half again) and spread that on bread on one side and pan fry the potato spread side first.



If you have more bread to fry and the potato batter is low, just prepare more batter with just rice flour and plain flour at ratio of 1:2 and add to it. Dip the cut bread into the batter and deep fry it.



Any leftover batter can be used to fry pancake.



Like the leftover potato recipes? I have more ways with that. Watch out for it in my next posting.

Picky Callie transformed with magic sauce

Callie is a very picky eater. Meal time can be frustrating when I watched her picked that little piece of garlic off her vegetable or when she refused the steamed fish because she can see the garlic and ginger all over it.

She reminded me of me as a kid. To avoid eating stuff I do not want in dishes my family cooked, I would rather eat plain rice with water and soya sauce. At least I can take two bowls of that while Callie would rather reduce her intake of rice. So, instead of being a pot calling the kettle black, here are my solutions to a genetic(?) problem.

I have resorted to mincing lots of garlic at one go and frying them in oil till they are golden brown. Once it has cooled down, I pour the minced garlic and oil into a container. The minced garlic can be stored for a long period of time as long as it stays immersed in oil. So, don't discard that!



When I cook any dishes I just use the garlic oil.

To solve the ginger problem, each time I need to use it in a dish, I will pound it up in a mortar until it is all meshed up. Extract the juice and pour the required amount into the ingredient to marinate.

So, this is how the prepared fish will look like after adding sugar and soya sauce, before I steam it over a pot of boiling soup or in my rice cooker. This is a better way (for a pot) to change Callie's eating habit than shouting at her (calling kettle black) for not finishing her food.



And that also started the creation of the magic sauce. A mixture of:

1) garlic oil
2) soya sauce
3) sugar

If you have fried fish for lunch, you can serve it again differently during dinner time by dousing the fish with the magic sauce, after heating it up. That way, you also solve the problem of your children complaining that they are eating the same thing for lunch and dinner.

Here are a list of other uses with this magic sauce:

1) Marinate chicken or meat with it. Add corn or tapioca flour to mix before storing them separately in portions enough to cook a dish. Take it out to defrost when you need it to cook. Defrosted meat will not spoil that quickly when left covered in room temperature. So, you do not have to worry about it if you are unexpectedly out later than usual.
2) Steam vegetable or chicken with it.
3) To steam meat. Marinate the meat with the magic sauce first then beat an egg into it. To this mixture, add 2-3 Tbsp of water, corn/tapioca flour, magic sauce. If you prefer to add oyster sauce than use less soya sauce in your magic sauce.
4) Add flavour to the chicken or meat you have removed from your soup. You can tear chicken into shreds before garnishing with cut spring onion. Do the same for meat after cutting it into thin slices.

What all this equates to is that Mummy now has less leftovers to finish up which can lead to flatulence. It is bad for your karma to throw food! So, eat up or mom will be farting all over with love for you, kids.

So, did I throw away the ginger or the minced garlic once the oil is all used up? No way! Watch out how I make use of them in my next posting.

McDonnell Douglas MD-11(F) Aircraft Pictures

From Airliners.net

Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce

I watched Michael Smith on Chef At Home created Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce for salad.

I remembered him saying, "Sweet, Sour, Salty and Hot" on the show. What drew me to work on it was one of its ingredients; peanut butter. My kids love it. So, here is my simple version:

Mix the following ingredients together

1) 1 big scoop of crunchy peanut butter
2) 8 Tbsp of canned peaches syrup (Calvin loves it)
3) Sugar
4) Half a lemon squeezed for juice (that's I have in the fridge)
5) Lingam Chillie sauce (we all love that)

Love the way it turned out. Taste a little like satay sauce.

Since Calvin is just recovering from a sore throat, I did another version which is salty and less piquant.

To the above, add

1) garlic oil
2) soya sauce
3) canned peach syrup

Salad Ingredients
1) Cucumber shredded
2) Onion sliced thinly
3) Peaches cut into cubes (optional to add colour)

To serve, mix salad ingredients together and drip the sauce over mixture.



I decided to steam a plate of fried bean curd to go with the sauce.



If you want to cook without a recipe, check out Michael Smith's tips for inspiration.

The girl who makes him happy

Calvin, meet the lady who makes Uncle Chris a happy camper that he is always emailing us great stuff that we like.

It's Aunty Ria!



They have been together for ages and still looking good together. So, when you are happy yet again with the aircraft photos Uncle Chris emailed you, remember to thank Aunty Ria in your heart.

And don't forget! If you hear me squabbling with daddy, remember to email me this link as a reminder that I have said I want Daddy and Mummy to be a couple just like Uncle Chris and Aunty Ria.

Thank you Chris and Ria for my daily happy moments.

Kalitta Air Crash

Calvin used to enjoy watching planes flying over the Changi Beach towards Singapore Airport until he watched news of an airplane crash on TV. As parents, we did not realise how it had impacted him until we took him to his favourite spot. He was clinging to us and each time a plane flew overhead, he started crying in fright. So, that ended our pleasure rides to Changi Beach to watch airplanes.

He is much older now and enjoys watching car crash tests. So, it is save to show him another airplane crash.

This crash happened on 25 May 2008. Kalitta Air B747-200F aircraft overran the Runway 20 at Brussels and broke in two. It was a cargo plane and no casualties were reported.

| View | Upload your own

So, how did it ended up this way? See CNN news on it.



Richard Kebabjian has kept a very good record of airplane , the statistic of such accidents and their causes.

Physics and Math Help

Get help from the Physics Forums (PF) for Physics and Math subjects.

Check out link to PF Library to find the topics you are interested in.

This will be very useful for my children when they are older but then you never know. If their interest for Science is strong enough they may be looking out for more information than what their school teachers have to offer in school.

British Aerospace Concorde 101 Aircraft

Photos Aerospatiale-British Aerospace Concorde 101 Aircraft Pictures Airliners

Air France Concorde on departure from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  This was of
course many,many, many moons ago. ie in 1979.

Note that the pointy bit in front is already almost in the upward position
just after take-off.

Once at cruise level, a heat shield will be put up in front of the cockpit
window in order to ward-off the friction.

Not again, Mum!

It is the school holiday so the kids are home for lunch and dinner. I feel sorry for them if they have to eat the same dishes for lunch and dinner. I do not want to cook additional dishes because that will mean Mummy has to finish up the leftovers. So, what can I do?

I gave the leftover food a makeover.

| View | Upload your own

I cannot think of a better way to teach my children to look at leftovers differently, to cook and care for the environment at the same time.

How water pump works, Calvin

I promised to provide Calvin the answer to his question on how water pump works. He is going to love all the links I have discovered.

How Things Work - Water Distribution
This site explains the physics in everyday life. Just click on the "Select Topic" for its drop down list and click on one that is of your interest.

How It Works: Water Well Pump by Popular Mechanics has diagrams with its explanation. This could well be Calvin's favourite site as it has links to "Sciences", "Technology" and it's "How To Central" also touches on Automotive.

Here is how water pumps works in cars as cooling systems by How Stuff Works. Here is a video clip about it.




I might as well let him explore pumps in other dimensions through Wikipedia and my write up on recycled musical ware where I have posted a video of some hydraulic musical instruments installed in Ontario Science Centre.

And some water pumps do not need electricity to run. They are powered by play. Check out the Play Pump, Calvin!

AFC, Callie.

I promised to include the link to the Asian Food Channel for Callie. She knows about it because it has been promoted on Astro.

She can find her favourite chefs and look up on their recipes.

No contest to participate in at the moment, girl.