Cheddar Cheese Biscuits

That day, I made a very big mistake.  I thought it would be a great idea to involve the tot in making some biscuits to bring to school.  Afterall, he's helped his aunt bake muffins before and I had not heard any complaints from her.  But I didn't realise one thing at that point - biscuits are DIFFERENT from muffins.

Muffins you scoop into muffin trays.  Biscuits you roll out and cut out.  Muffins look like gloop and biscuit dough, like play dough.

The dough is easy enough to make.  Took me all of 10 minutes.  But once I tried to roll out the dough for cutting, the kid thought it was play dough and proceeded to make a huge mess.  Add the fact that it is always above 30 degrees Celsius in Singapore, my table top was a mess of melted butter and flour.  And the floor littered with bits of dough and what nots.  I was about to cry.

Thank goodness for fantastic husbands!  My husband plucked him (the tot) up and took him for a bath, promising freshly baked biscuits if I were to be left alone to finish making them.  Then he cleaned the floor for me.

What started off as a disaster turned out great.  Scroll down to the tips for a relatively stress-free making process.  Without the kid's help, I made 180 biscuits (1" across) in about 1/2 hour.  The tot and his dad finished it in about the same amount of time.

Cheddar Cheese Biscuits
Ingredients
1.5 cup of shredded Cheddar Cheese
3/4 cup of All Purpose Flour
50g of butter

Method
1. Place all ingredients in a food processor and blitz until a dough is formed
2. Pick up all the crumbs to form a dough ball and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
4. Roll out the dough to 1/8" thickness and use a cookie cutter to cut out biscuits.
5. Place on baking tray lined with baking paper.
6. Bake biscuits for about 10 minutes until puffed up and golden brown.
6. Take out to cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Tips
1. Instead of 1 big ball of dough, I make several small balls of dough.  They get put in the freezer and I rotate them.  When the ball of dough I'm rolling out gets a bit too soft for handling, I toss it back into the freezer and take the next ball out to work.
2. Instead of a cookie rack, I use a metal sieve to cool the biscuits.  I avoid having to place the biscuits properly to avoid slipping through the gaps.
3.  Watch your first batch of biscuits like a hawk.  They burn relatively easily.

Angry Bird

A good friend's kids are Angry Bird mad. But looking around here, who doesn't seem to be? Their birthday was coming up and I had a crafting itch that HAD to be scratched. So a quick mini project that took me just an evening.

Using my felt stash (which is so big - I don't really know why), googly eyes and pom poms (All from Daiso). I packed a little Angry Bird kit.

Wrapped it with my extensive ribbon and wrapping paper stash (again, how did it ever get so big?!) All ready to be delivered to the birthday kiddos.

P.S. According to mum, they loved it. (With photos to prove) But I can't post that here.

Teacher's Day

I've been looking for an excuse to do some craft with the kid and so the upcoming Teacher's Day was godsend.  We often do coloring and random doodlings but I always find it difficult to decide what to do with the end products.  It seems like a waste to throw them away and yet keeping them only adds to the amount of things we already have.  So a "productive" craft that can be given as a gift is always a bonus for me - all I need is an excuse!

There are many food jar ideas on the web - ranging from home made food like cookies and cakes to premixes.  I toyed with many recipes and finally settled on a multigrain soup with chicken recipe.  The bottles were colorful enough and the ingredients were easy enough for a toddler to handle.

Things we learnt along the way:

1. Measurements with the cup
2. Fine motor skills in pouring 
3. How to use a funnel and how funnels help make work easier
4. Different shapes, sizes and colors of grains and how different ones pour with different ease through the funnels
5. Taste and smells of different herbs and spices

The little one loved the exercise and had lots of fun with the cup and funnel.  There wasn't much of a mess as I handled the herbs, distracting him with smelling and tasting the herbs.  I'm actually quite optimistic that we could try this again perhaps for Christmas!  We added instructions and a thank you card to the jar.

What did you do for Teacher's Day with you child?

Multigrain Chicken Soup
(Modified from here)
In the jar
3/4 cup raw brown rice
1/2 cup medium barley
1/2 cup red lentils
1/2 cup yellow split peas
2 tbs dried parsley
1 tbs dried thyme
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Instructions attached

1. Pour contents of jar into pot and add the following:
1. 2 large ribs celery, sliced
2. 4 large carrots, sliced
3. 2 cloves garlic crushed
4. 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
5. 12 cups of water
6. Salt and pepper to taste
2. Bring to a boil.
3. Cover the pot and turn down the heat to simmer.
4. Cook for 1 hour until all grains are tender.
5. Check seasonings.
6. Thin with water or chicken stock as required.