Pork Feet Success

I have recently found that slow cooker is actually a really good tool to cook baby/ Toddler food.  (Baby O is now 13 month and should be considered Toddler O.)  Toss everything in a slow cooker in the morning and there will be great soft meat & veggies for dinner.

I bought some cut port feet at the local Asian market and found a pretty simple recipe to do with slow cooker.  It came out great.  We finished the whole pot in one meal and O fed himself spoon full of chopped meat and rice.

Ingredients: 

2-3lb  Pork Feet

4-5 cloves Garlic

1 cup Soy Sauce

3 cups Water

1/2 cup Wine

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2-3 Star Anise

1 stick cinnamon

1 tablespoon hot chili sauce (optional)

Recipe:

1. Boil pork feet in a large pot of water for 5 minutes. Remove all the floating brown bubbles with a spoon. Remove port feet and scrape skin with a knife and rinse under water to make sure there is no hair left on the skin and all are clean. Save the boiled water for the slow cooker. 

2. Arrange pork feet pieces into slow cooker clay pot and add rest of the ingredients (except hot chili sauce).  I use saved boiling water instead of plain water for added flavor.  Make sure the liquid covers all pork pieces.  If more liquid is needed use the same proportion of soy sauce, water & wine. 

3. Turn slow cooker on low and let it cook for 5-6 hours. Taste the "soup" at 4 or 5 hours. Add more brown sugar if its too salty.   

4. Add chili sauce and stir.  The meat should fall off the bones and soft.  Serve over rice. 

This can be cooked on stove top for probably 2 hours or maybe sorter in a pressure cooker. I do love the fact that I can put everything in the slow cooker during O's morning nap and its ready at dinner time.  Don't have to spend more time in the kitchen. 

Port feet is mostly bone wrapped in skin fat.  I simply picked out the bones and chop up the soft meat and finely chopped some stir-fry yam leaves to top onto soft cooked brown rice.  O loved it and fed himself spoonfuls.

Recipe I Want to Try

Saw this recipe and thought it sounded pretty healthy and i liked how they took into considerstion that it is solid enough for baby to pick up but soft so that it will break apart easily in their mouth.
hope i can try to make it one day soon. Anyways if you try it, let me know how it is!

I figure we can add more recipe ideas as we find them!

Turkey meatball with applesauce.
http://www.madebymelis.com/2013/03/turkey-meatballs-for-babies.html?m=1

Chinese School

So Chinese School was always a given for me as a kid. No matter where we moved, and we did move to quite a few places, my parents always found a Chinese school to go to and it was something we went to every Saturday (or Sunday depending on the school). I remember living far inland in California where there was only a small Asian community and every Saturday my whole family and I would drive 1 to 1-1/2 hours to the city where there was Chinese school so that we could attend. 

It's funny that I meet a lot of people that went to Chinese school as a kid because their parents 'made' them and how they 'hated' it and how they didn't learn anything.  For me, it was kind of the opposite. I actually liked it and I somehow learned there. I think my parents were also really strict about speaking Chinese at home - and English was used pretty much just outside or at school.

Now as a parent, I'm just assuming my kids will also follow in my footsteps and go to Chinese school. I took K1 to some mommy and me classes and it's really interesting that in her class there were Caucasian, Koreans, Japanese that were also taking the class. Chinese language classes are becoming really popular!  There are a few (unfortunately not close to us) immersion programs appearing as well. If there was one in our school District I would definitely send my kids there.

It's interesting although I live in a community with a large Asian population there is not an immersion program available.  I heard it's quite political and maybe Districts don't necessarily want to open up to let in ethnic programs. I know 1 program was started in a school District by a bunch of moms who convinced the school District to incorporate an immersion program. The school the District allowed it in was slightly under performing and is hoping the immersion program will attract students from outside the community. The District even stated that we will accept the program 'only if it doesn't cost us a dime'.  Interesting, huh?

I think it's interesting how different generations thought differently about being bilingual issues. My husbands older cousins, who's parents immigrants but immigrated when they were older seemed to tend to think it is better to become American and be fully assimilate. They tended to learn English and eventually spoke English to their kids. So their kids don't speak or understand Chinese and nor will their kids, the next generation. However the younger aunts/ uncles who also immigrated here, tended to continue to speak Chinese to their kids. Their mentality was to keep your culture and be more what people call 'Asian-American'.  So their kids will still understand it and can communicate with it and possibly the next generation, will also learn it and be bilingual - but it will depend if they can keep it up. 

The other thing I find interesting in talking to parents that are bilingual some have the view that the child will be confused if you speak to them in 2 languages. Some have the view that if your kids all speak English and you speak Chinese, then after awhile, you might not be as close to your child because you don't quite 'fit into' their world which is all English (e.g. school and how they communicate with their friends). 

As for me, I find it important to be bilingual. I really hope that my children will learn and appreciate the same that my parents gave me. I hope that I have the discipline to keep it up - since I do see now that my daughter is going to preschool classes and talking to her peers and cousins in English she speaks a lot more English now. 

Lunar New Year Traditions

For several months I've been thinking about what I should blog about since this being the first blog 'club' I've been asked to contribute. And as exciting as it is I thought since its my first post on my first blog then I better have something profound to say. But the more I thought the more complicated it got and here I am months in and no post. So here goes nothing...

Even though my kids technically are 2nd generation, I really want my kids to know Chinese/ Hong Kong/ Taiwanese culture. Mostly because I was brought up that way and it wasn't necessarily a choice it was just simply how it is.

Every year for Lunar New Year we get together at my in laws place with my sister in law and family, my mom, and my sisters family to have a big New Year's Eve dinner. I think it's a great way to get together with close family and celebrate. My mother in law makes a lot of dishes including all the lucky foods such as fish, fat choi, vegetarian dish with ginkgo nuts vermicelli veggies dish that's my favorite, stewed pork hock (ti bang), duck or chicken, lobster, and various other things. My mom usually cooks black mushrooms or her sticky rice and my sister in law always makes their family recipe nian gao (sticky sweet rice cake) in which she usually puts a twist in it and makes it with mochiko or something japanese.

In addition to all the food which of course is a big part of the culture too, I think Chinese New Year is about family being together and about multiple generations getting together.

The kids usually dress up in traditional colorful Chinese clothing and all get red envelopes. Yay! Although they would really rather get candy or toys. Haha.

I hope that we will continue to have this tradition. I think it would be so wonderful to be able to take our kids to Asia during Chinese New Year someday and celebrate the festivities there!

So how about you? Do you have any traditions that reflect your culture that you upkeep so that your kids can also learn about too?

The Insperation

Baby O started solid food 3 months ago but the baby rice & oatmeal cereals only lasted a month.  He started refusing anything with baby cereals in it at 7 months.  The dog ended up eating more than baby food than the baby did. I was at lost at what to feed him for days.  Then, I read about Baby Lead Weaning online and decided to give it a try.  Lets just said, all foods ended up everywhere except in baby O's mouth as expected. It was just too painful to watch and not efficient enough for this full time working mom with engineering background. So, the experiments begin....

It would certainly better if he eats what we eat, but I didn't find much Asian baby food ideas.
The first task was figuring out how to feed him brown rice, which is what we have for lunch and dinner almost everyday.

1st try --  I rolled little grains together into tinny rice balls and put it on the high chair tray for him to pick up and eat.  He would eat a little but it really lacks flavor to keep him interested.

2nd try -- Dipping the rice balls in pumpkin sauce... he pounded the balls flat with his palm and "juice" squished out on his sleeves & hands. Then, smudge all over his face & chair. It was messy fun but I don't think he ate any of it. The rice grains either stuck to his fingers and he played with it till it was all over his shirt and pants or face down flat stuck to the chair tray.

3rd try -- The half mushed rice porridge.  Mom-in-law happen to made some chicken stock for soup.  I added some stock to brown rice and blended in a food processor to a thick porridge consistency.  This way I can add other vegetables and chicken to it and spoon feed Baby O.  Bingo!!  He was opening his mouth for more spoonful of the brown rice porridge while playing with other foods in his high chair tray.  I can finally finish feeding him within 40 minutes.

As days go by, I kept thinking about a blog and share my mommy experience doing it the American-Asian way.  So here we begin...The 1/2 Asian Way.