Roasted Garlic + Red Meat + Truffled Mac n Cheese

The afore-mentioned deliciousness was part of an indulgent lunch we had at Bedrock today. It's a new steakhouse situated in Pan Pacific Suites, beside its sister cafe, Oriole. The name of the restaurant is apt, considering the decor conjures a posh vision of Fred Flintstone's home, and for the carnivores out there, you'll be happy to hear that beef is the feature on the menu.

Fuzzy, Chubbs and I met one of his ex-colleagues there, and together, we ordered a roasted tomato soup, a Caesar salad, grilled spicy sausages with caramelized onions and red peppers, roasted pork belly, two 200g portions of sirloin steak (accompanied with fries and rocket salad), truffled mashed potatoes, truffled mac n cheese, an 85% cocoa flourless Valrhona chocolate cake, and salted caramel ice-cream sandwiched in macadamia nut cookies, some wine and coffee. Do I really need to tell you that there was too much food? :/

Warm pita bread with butter and heads of roasted garlic was brought to us as we waited for our starters. The garlic was swoon-fully good. Sweet, aromatic and simply divine, slathered with butter onto the freshly baked pita. This was a nice surprise, a refreshing change from the usual butter/ olive oil served with bread, and definitely one of the highlights of the meal. The soup was fabulous, sweet from the ripe tomatoes, and especially tasty with hints of smoky bacon in it. Fuzzy loved the salad. The interesting thing about this Caesar salad, is that the poached egg is coated in Panko and deep-fried, adding another textural dimension to the dish. The sausages were good, but nothing much to rave about.

I must say that this was one of the rare occasions that I was almost unable to finish my steak! It was a huge slab of medium-rare grass-fed sirloin, accompanied with some delicious sides that we ordered in addition. The best thing I've had in a while, was the truffled mac n cheese. The pasta was not overly cooked, the cheese was baked till crusty on the top, the the truffle-flavor added an extra oomph to an otherwise tacky dish. I'd go back every week for this if I could. Fuzzy waxed lyrical about the shoestring fries and truffled mash too. The pork belly was to-die-for :/ The skin was baked to crunchy perfection, with some Cajun seasoning, and the meat was melt-in-your-mouth tender. What more can I ask for? Scrumptious! Every dish went nicely with the glass of Cullen red that we had. Can't remember the grape blend, but it was very smooth and full-bodied.

The small slice of chocolate cake was very rich and sinful. It came with whipped cream piped on top, which spoilt it for me. So Fuzzy took the chocolate cake and I had most of the ice-cream sandwich instead. The salted caramel flavor was delicious, and the biscuits were crunchy and fragrant. But the ice-cream, being home-made, was not as creamy or smooth as the good commercial brands. We ended the meal with a cup of joe, and it was one of the best coffee we've ever had. It was thick, syrupy and almost had a chocolatey finish to it. We immediately asked the waiter if we could buy a bag of beans, and he directed us to the cafe next door, run by the same people. We met the boss (no. 21 barista in the world), and he bagged some fresh beans for us to bring home.

Chubbs was happy in his chair playing with the kids at the next table. He ate quite a bit of the pita as well. He seems to love all bread currently, and have different loaves for almost every meal.

Definitely coming back soon to try the other dishes on the menu, and to pig out on the truffled mac n cheese again. I can't wait.

Waffles and Mr. Shadow

We usually cook something nice on Saturdays for breakfast. And yesterday, it was waffles; because I craved them. Can anyone tell me where I can find good waffles in Singapore? None that I've tried so far have made me want to go back for more. The solution? We make our own! Like we do with everything else, really.

After some whisking and mixing (organic unbleached flour, vanilla sugar, Meiji fresh milk, eggs, baking powder etc.), the batter was ready for the waffle iron. Fuzzy was tasked to cook the waffles while I feed Chubbs the first part of his breakfast as we waited; a banana and a spelt pancake. The kitchen smelt so good as our waffles were being cooked :)

Ta-da!

They tasted phenomenal; especially with some salted butter and pure Canadian maple syrup. But I don't know if I'm biased because my hubby slaved over the iron for quite a while, cooking them, or because they were just really very good. Fluffy, fragrant, simply more-ish. Anyhow, Chubbs liked them too, and we ate 2 cups of flour worth of waffles! For the uninitiated at baking, 2 cups of flour normally yields about 12 large muffins. Can you imagine the gluttony displayed that morning? :/

After breakfast, Chubbs did his usual post-meal run-around, in his home sandals and Thudguard. His current favourite toy is the remote control, and he was happy to finally lay his hands on one.

It was very cute to see his shadow following him around, and the Thudguard casts a very adorable one at that.

Fuzzy and I were commenting that just by looking at his shadow, we can tell that Chubbs has something naughty up his sleeves.

Freedom Beans

I'd admit... when Fuzzy and I are in the mood for kidney beans in our salads, we simply pop a can open, drain the water, toss and eat. But when it comes to Chubbs, I try to do everything from scratch. So I soaked some organic dark red kidney beans in water overnight (in the fridge, so they don't ferment), and boiled them for 1 1/2-hours the next morning, in time for his lunch.

Kidney beans are great, because they contain the highest amounts of iron and protein amongst the beans. Key points for choosing food for Chubbs. Also, Chubbs can easily feed himself these, with no utensils. Perfect!

He gamely ate some, but I could tell he did not quite fancy its taste nor texture.



For a while now, Chubbs has been running around the garden at sunset. His new-found freedom makes him an extremely happy little boy. He loves exploring the plants and grass, feeling the soil and plucking blades of grass to feel the texture (and eat them!).





We grow some herbs in the garden, so Fuzzy plucked some kaffir lime leaves, basil, and lemon balm mint, rubbed them in his hands separately, for Chubbs to discover their fragrances. He loved sniffing them! So much so that when he was eating his dinner afterwards, he started smelling his carrots and broccoli before eating them. So cute.

Bread + La Braceria + Orange

I waited till now before letting Chubbs have any orange, because he used to throw up a lot after breastfeeding, if I ate oranges. Citrus is just another of his sensitivities, and you'll be surprised to know that a large number of people are actually allergic to oranges. But tonight after dinner, we cut him some segments, and he enjoyed a couple of pieces before he declared he had enough. A good first try, considering he did not get sick afterwards.

Last Sunday, we drove out bright and early to pick up a fresh breakfast loaf for Chubbs and ourselves. Swiss Bake and Simply Bread are 3min away, which means I can get good bread easily and we can come in early to get oven-fresh loaves. We picked the Goldkorn loaf (it was still warm and crusty) for him from Swiss Bake, which contains linseed, wholemeal flour, barley, oats, corn grits and other good stuff. For us, it was a ciabatta and a cinnamon loaf (very predictable) from Simply Bread.

This was the first time that Chubbs is eating something not baked or cooked by me, so I was a little concerned about the additives and sodium content in the bread. It actually tasted salty to me :( So I'll only be feeding him small portions at a time and maybe only every other day. But I like Swiss Bake because they list out the ingredients that go into each loaf. This one seemed the most wholesome.

Mommy and baby sharing a hunk of bread.

He devoured a rather large slice; even enjoying the crust, gnawing on it slowly (and happily). Recently, he's also taken to finger-feeding me his food. This is immensely fun to him; some sort of role reversal. So most of the bread I ate was fed to me by baby.

To celebrate my brother's birthday and my parents' anniversary, we lunched at La Braceria. We headed back because Fuzzy and I desperately needed to try their Fettuccine al Tartufo, i.e. Fettuccine pasta with creamy truffle sauce (one of Fuzzy and my all-time favourite dishes). The pasta did not disappoint. I could smell it the second it exited the kitchen, way before it reached me. Basically, the pasta was tossed in a cheesy, eggy, creamy, truffle-y sauce, embellished with slivers of black truffle. I inhaled it within minutes, and everyone who tasted it agreed that it was delicious. Will definitely be back for this dish again.

The other main dishes we ordered were a mixed cold cut platter with prosciutto, ham, salami, sun-dried tomato, fresh mozzarella, artichoke, white asparagus, green asparagus etc, the sauteed clams in white wine and garlic, a salad, two orders of beef tenderloin, rack of lamb served on a hot stone, and pasta with langoustines and brandy, tomato, cream sauce. Paired with some Valpolicella, it was all very good.

Dessert was three lava chocolate cakes to be shared amongst us. As mentioned in previous posts, as long as there's this dessert on the menu, I've got to have it. The large serving was hot, oozy, not cloyingly sweet, and very satisfying. One of the better versions we've had, especially since it's served laced with a splash of Grand Marnier on top, which adds to the flavour and makes for great presentation when they flame it at the table.

Again, it was a great meal. Chubbs enjoyed himself too, since the waitresses recognized him from our last visit and played with him as we ate. I'm planning my next trip back, and I already know what I'll be ordering.

p.s. The Gruyere was a fluke afterall. He hardly touched that stuff again :(

Deepavali + Dim Sum + Gruyere

We found a novel way to tote baby around.

After breakfast this morning, we headed to Fuzzy's Purdue pal's place across the road to join in their Deepavali festivities. Chubbs was very "chill" as we were chatting with D, and his guests. He simply lay back on my lap, watched the goings on, listened in quietly to the conversations, and ate his snack.

Getting sleepy in his new umbrella ride, before lunch started :/

Lunch was dim sum with Yee at Guild House. I know I've said it before, and I say it again. The food here is good. Couldn't fault any of the dishes we picked. Except that they could provide home made chili sambal/ balachan instead of the bottled, commercial sort. An interesting thing that happened was when we were leaving and Chubbs said bye to one of the waitresses. She commented that it was nice to see him again, and even remembered where he sat the last time we ate there. It was a good few months back, and we were surprised at her memory.

As mentioned before, Chubbs only eats what he can feed himself now. Meaning, I can't feed him with a spoon, or even with my fingers. So this makes it difficult for him to eat any fish (flaky), he wouldn't eat his chicken or beef and is highly sensitive to egg :( Fuzzy and I headed out to look for some cheese for him instead. My previous attempts to feed him dairy products have not been successful. He is repulsed by cottage cheese and not a fan of yoghurt. Since my hubby and I love Gruyere (which has the lowest sodium content amongst the hard cheeses- hence, very suitable for Chubbs), we picked up a wedge for ourselves, and would feed Chubbs some if he looked interested as we ate. We cut the Gruyere into small batons for him to pick up easily and feed himself. To our great surprise, he liked it. And polished off what we gave him. We limited the amount he ate because we didn't want to overload his system with too much sodium at once.

I'm way happy that I can finally get Chubbs to ingest some protein, however minute the amount. I'll repeat this exercise tomorrow, and let's hope this was not a fluke.

Baby Corn

Recently, Chubbs has been insisting on feeding himself, and wouldn't eat if I fed him with my fingers or cutlery. So I've been thinking of new foods that I can allow him to self-feed without making too big of a mess. Yesterday, I steamed up some organic baby corn for his dinner. The snag is that even after 25min of steaming, the corn was still crunchy. I stopped the cooking for fear of destroying all the nutrients in the veg, and gave some to Chubbs to try.

To my surprise, he liked it and managed to eat some despite it being crunchy. The problem is, that Chubbs has this habit of dissecting everything to the smallest possible piece before eating it. Imagine a piece of broccoli... he peels off each individual floret before eating them one by one. Same for baby corn. He plucked at each nano kernel before popping them in his mouth. The total amount of corn he eventually ate (after 30min) was about 1cm worth. Sigh.

"Keeping trim so that I can model with my shirt off."

After his dinner, we headed to SICC for our meal with my F-I-L and Chubbs' Tai-Gong. Because we are always the food-finishers, Fuzzy and I ate till we could hardly walk straight. While we were stuffing our faces, Chubbs was busy ignoring his toys, and watching Tiger play golf on TV (to my F-I-L's glee).

Strawberries and Isabelle

Over the weekend, I gave Chubbs a taste of strawberries, from a jar. I have these organic jars of strawberry and pear combo purees, to which I added some oatmeal cereal to thicken to a more suitable consistency, before giving to Chubbs.I waited till he was past 1 year old before feeding him strawberries, because they are highly allergenic to young babies.

Anyhow, neither Chubbs' appetite nor his interest in food has returned, so he hardly took any of the food. I had an idea and diluted it with some water, and let him drink it like a smoothie. He emptied his cup. Chubbs is really a water baby. He loves drinking water, juices, milk, and now, I have learnt, smoothies too. Great.

My friend, M, and I arranged to meet on Saturday, since we haven't seen each other in so long. I was also looking forward to see her darling, Isabelle, and let the babies play together. As the adults had our third cuppa joe of the day and chatted, I fed Chubbs some kamut puffs as part of his lunch. Isabelle was watching on intently as Chubbs ate, so I gave Isabelle some to try (with Chubbs' permission) and she liked them too. The sweetest thing happened when Isabelle fed Chubbs the puffs from her stash, and he ate from her hand. So adorable!

Step 1: Aim.

Look at her porcelain doll haircut. Too cute!

Step 2: Feed.

Step 3: Enjoy!

13-Months and a Wedding Dinner

I thought to myself this morning... didn't we just celebrate his birthday? Has another month passed already? I am ageing faster than I had previously imagined :( Anyhow, 13-month old Chubbs is learning at an alarming rate. I showed him the ASL for "book" once, he learnt it instantly, and added it to his ever-expanding repertoire of signs.

He has mastered walking for a few weeks already, and now seizes every opportunity to shuttle run the length of his cot. I'm expecting him to lose some weight now that he is so much more active, but still nibbling on his food :/

Running around, acting like Casper.

Today, we also attended the wedding dinner of our friends, R and S, after Chubbs took a second nap. It was a beautiful and elaborate wedding, with a lovely video montage of their church ceremony. Chubbs behaved very well, and sat in his seat for most of the dinner, allowing Fuzzy and I to fill our tummies first. Afterwards, he was passed around amongst Fuzzy's female colleagues, giving my arms some rest. Chubbs had quite a bit of fun playing with their necklaces. Unfortunately, we had to leave before dessert was served, as it was pushing 11pm.

Two cameras on Chubbs at once.

Dear Aunty ST.

Cod

It's difficult to find "fresh" cod; not just because the fish we get here are all frozen and thawed, but a lot of times, they have brownish/yellowish stains on the flesh, and don't smell good :( A few days back, I managed to get some decent looking pieces for Chubbs from the supermarket.

This was part of Chubbs' lunch. Steamed cod, French beans, butternut squash, together with half a sweet potato, a handful of kamut puffs, and a small bowl of grapes for dessert.

In short, he ate everything except the fish. Sigh. Will try again tomorrow.

"There's no fish in this tubby tummy."

Kamut Puffs and the Thudguard

I gave Chubbs some organic kamut puffs a couple of days back (because puffs are the only things he willingly eats right now), and he loves them! Kamut is an ancient grain that is almost 20% protein, high in Vitamin E, and is considered a high energy grain. What I feed him is basically puffed whole organic kamut grains, with no added salt, preservatives, sugar, etc. It's delicious too. I love it because it is nutty and sweet; almost tastes like it's slightly coated in honey. Yum!

On a different note, since Chubbs has been walking around more with his newly honed skills, he has been getting more thuds and knocks on his noggin'. The bruises and bumps on his face and head are really worrisome :( To minimise further damage, we have enlisted the help of Thudguard.

We gave Chubbs time to play with it as a toy for the first day, and after that, he was happy to wear it while pottering about in his playpen. It cracks me up everytime I see him in it, because he just looks too adorable :) Only problem is that Chubbs perspires a lot, and the helmet worsens the situation. Hence, we have to remind ourselves to take it off for him to cool down ever so often.

Yoghurt and Bubbles!

I'm currently at the stage of slowly introducing diary to Chubbs, and next on the list was yoghurt. I eat natural yoghurt almost everyday for breakfast with home-made granola and milk, so I always have a tub of either Greek or European yoghurt kicking around.

I mixed some into Chubbs' pomegranate and blackberry blend for breakfast a few days back, and he didn't seem to mind it as much as he did with cottage cheese. No fondness for it, but no repulse either. He ate it as unwillingly as he eats everything else. That, to me, is a victory :/ As I've mentioned, his eating situation is dire.

We let Chubbs play in a bubble bath before his milk feed and bed every night. He really enjoys that time of day. Yesterday, I took my eyes off Chubbs for a second as I washed my hands. I turned around, and he was eating the bubbles. Despite our best attempt, he wouldn't stop.

"I prefer bubbles to food, any day!"

Then he moved on to scratching his bum-bum :/

He has recently learnt how to bathe himself. We taught him the ASL sign for bathe, and he has been scrubbing his torso clean everyday since.

He has also learnt how to comb his hair. Problem is, he isn't actually combing his hair since he's using a brush. But he associates the word "brush", with "toothbrush". Hence, if we ask him to brush his hair, he'll do the action of brushing teeth instead. So, we'll stick to the term "comb" for now.