Monday, August 7, 2017

Cooking With the Kiddos

To those who wonder how we survived this long having four kiddos, there is actually someone behind the (blogging) scene who helps take care of our household chores so that we can take "play" seriously. We do have a helper, and we are also lucky that ours came well-trained and we never had to tell her once what to cook and where to clean up. Maybe we are also easy-going lah but it sure beats fussing and over-worrying the little things. 

My helper was surprised when I told her to take a rest as I decided to take "play" into the kitchen this time round. Instead of only "play-cooking" with their favorite Play-Doh this time round, I decided to just "let it go" and experience cooking dinner with the kiddos, for real! All my entire married life, I had never ventured beyond the fried eggs or instant noodles, so this time round, it was also a challenge for me as well.



Meatballs and Spaghetti Dinner

Easy does it. Just throw the meatballs (KÖTTBULLAR) from freezer direct into the oven.
Next up, preparing the savoury sauce (GRÄDDSÅS) for the meatballs.
Getting the older ones to stir the sauces while I oversee their performances. Not too bad.
As you can see, Leroy is hard at work distributing the food amongst the sibling into the unmistakable children sets (KALAS)!
How can we not have mashed potato (POTATISMOS) with our meatballs? It just would not be complete without it! 
Aha! Finally we can tuck into a hearty dinner, complete with their KALAS cutlery and plates as well!
There were so many times when we shopped at IKEA, and thought of having a meal of meatballs, but only to be put off by the super long queues at the restaurant. This time round I noticed a promotion at the Swedish Food Market for the full set of ingredients for the meatballs, and it even came with the the Raspberry and Blueberry Jam!

Took a leap of faith and decided to replicate the dish back home. I was glad I did and it was really as easy as following the steps on the food packaging. Even kiddos can do it and the best part is, they tasted exactly like what they served at the IKEA restaurant! After going through this cooking with the kiddos, I am confident of whipping up the same meatball dish, anytime now! Spaghetti was kinda easy too, with ready-to-cook tomato-based sauce.

Oh by the way, we tried the new improved chicken wings at IKEA and they are as juicy as they were now!
 


Tea Party

With my confidence boosted by the success of the dinner, the kiddos were egging me to continue and try out baking some muffins for a tea party as well! So why not? After all, the instructions on the box of box of IKEA muffin mix seemed easy enough.

Steffi loved to help out and here is she pouring the mix into the baking cups. We only needed to add in water and shake VIGOROUSLY that's all! 
As much as I would like to report that everything went smoothly, unfortunately it didn't. The first batch of muffin we did, was a little HARD for us to swallow. If anyone (or anything) is to be blamed, it has to be my itchy fingers opening the door too often to check and also that the oven that we were using is probably not suitable for baking!

Yup, it was really HARD! But thankfully the second batch was much better before my confidence hit ROCK bottom!
The kiddos were not easily disappointed though, and we ended up having a fun time drinking tea and smoothies with the second batch of muffins looking pretty in the 2-tier GARNERA display stand on the MARIT table-runner. It was especially fun for the kiddos because they get to sip from their fun-sized DUKTIG coffee / tea set! To be honest, I found it kind of cute too and for some weird reasons, the drinks must have tasted exceptionally good in these cups. The same goes for the food that we prepared together! 


We had more snacks in the end and the kiddos also decorated the muffins with whipped cream and sprinkles before devouring them. We did end up with a rather nicely framed Instagram shot for the record but left a lot more dishes for the helper to wash! Sorry Yati!



This blog post is brought to you in collaboration with IKEA Singapore!

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