Homemade Baby Food Strategies

Suddenly it sounds like a war strategy, for some it might be, looking at the circumstances when we are battling against every odds to give the best to our baby. Homemade baby food is the best way to go, as it comes full with nutrition, no processing or preservatives. But time is something that we never seem to have enough of, neither can be bought. For things money can't buy, we find our own workable methods.

Here are my strategies in preparing baby food, usually about 2-3 times a week:

• Since the serving portion for 1 meal is rather small, cooking a large portion (2-3 meals in one) is better to fully utilise the veggies you have bought for your baby. Freeze in portions enough for one meal each, and use as necessary. I usually keep frozen food for no longer than 7 days.
• The same dish daily gets boring for baby. I sometimes cook 2-in-1 meals. Example one recipe here. This serves as the basic meal for either lunch or dinner.
• I always keep stocks of powdered anchovies, cheese and yogurt to add taste and nutrition to the food. For example, with a basic meal of porridge or potato (consisting of carbohydrate and 2-3 types of veggies), I just add either anchovies, cheese or yogurt for added protein and dairy nutrition.
• For some animal protein, I keep frozen stocks of boiled egg yolk, steamed fish or steam chicken for a twist to the taste and variety on the nutrition chart.
• I cook and freeze some rice, banana or carrot puddings, for a change of taste on occasional meals or breakfast. A plain carrot or banana pudding is perfect to be served with cereal or on its own. You can also add in some fruits like apple or plum.
  

These methods gives me more flexibility over putting in more variety into his daily diet with reasonable effort. I usually cook and prepare stocks of his food while he's sleeping.

What are your baby food strategies?

How To Lose Weight - The Baby Workout/Diet

During my pregnancy, I put on close to 20kgs. Can you imagine, it is like more than 2kgs per month! I can still recall the merry eating sessions I used to have when eating out, at my parents or my in laws place. Truly miss those preggy (and legally bloated) days. I truly did put myself up to my best food cravings and one after another, dessert became mandatory on even weeknights. During preggers I didn't have to worry about not fitting my jeans, at least, at that time. But yeah, on some odd ocassions I used to wonder, WILL I ever be able to shed all these 'food' off? If yes, how would I do it?

I really did not plan anything (other than sensible diet) like exercise or yoga, because I knew, with a baby and a day job, it is going to be a challenge doing that. Here's something I want to share, how I finally managed to lose abt 18kgs post-baby. I call it the Baby workout and diet. Below listed is the aspects of baby workout and diet that helped me shedding my glorious weight away:

1. Fussy Baby - Gives you power walks and arm muscle toning (hehe.. kidding here) while trying to soothe a fussy baby that wants to be carried and only carried the whole day. Constant sitting down and getting up also helps the whole body, as some babies, like Sanju, start crying the moment he realises I am sitting down
2. Flash eating - I think I should rephrase 'eating' to 'shoving food into the mouth' to get over with the meal as soon as possible and go back to attending the wailing baby that needs attention, refer to (1)
3. Baby wearing - When shopping or doing house work, the extra weight you are 'working' on is good for you
4. Lack of interest in food - It is not the appetite, but the lack of time you get to even sit and think, hey, I want to eat ABC, or BKT or CKT
5. Multitasking - Baby tending, house chores, (pampered) hubby tending... you get the idea?
6. Baby eating = burning calories - When your baby likes explore the whole house during his meal times, and if he takes long to finish his meals, you have longer workout

Disclaimer - This diet only works if you have recently given birth and have a baby tending to do. Baby Alive dolls do not count.

Manmadhan Ambu Movie Review

Manmadhan Ambu is a classic example of half-baked story with an over-hyped starcast. The movie starts by showing arrival of movie star Nisha at the airport, later some details are thrown in as to how she is escaping from her personal life issues with her fiance back in India. The first half was so bland, with some hospital scenes of a cancer patient of some emotional factor. Nothing funny, interesting or engaging that happened at all. Yet, I continued watching, keeping some faith in the movie and Kamal Hassan's story.

It got interesting when some revelations came up in the second half, but only to be put down again with bad screenplay. The flashback song in the second half is the only engaging 5 minutes of the movie. I must say I was amazed at the whole song that was shot in a reverse order, at the same time, the actor was miming in a forward order, totally amazing. It feels as if 100% of the efforts in conceptualising & execution went into the song only.

Only at the last 1 hour that they decided to put in some comedy or errors, lies and cover-ups, which is nothing new, probably you would have seen this in 101 other films. The dialogue depends heavily on dirty and double meaning jokes to bring in the laughs.

So many things of important events were not explained or given proper justification.

1) What took Trisha 3 years to escape to a holiday away from Madhavan?
2) With such a bad accident happening just a distance away, how come none of the crowd of people heard it?
3) What triggers the romance between Trisha and Kamal? All of a sudden they announce that they are lovers?
4) The scene where Trisha was to confess about the 'accident', why does she suddenly turn all so romantic, citing her poem, and what not?
5) Why did Madhavan (the rich guy) refuse to pay Kamal?
6) Deepa promised to get Nisha to read Kurup's script, why does Kamal in the end walk around with it, saying he promised Kurup instead?
7) Deepa and Madhavan get together in the end, WTF for?

Instead of the comedy of errors and dirty jokes, they could have given more attention to Madhavan-Trisha-Kamal's relationships and development in a rom-com style. Badly disappointing. Kamal's 2010 offering is nowhere near Rajni's Endhiran. Better luck next time.