Improvised simple bread pudding

I had a homemade wholemeal bread given by a neighbour 2 weeks ago. Half of it was still lying in the fridge. The kids rejected the bread once they saw the granular brown dots of fibre on the bread. They always reject anything that looks 'abnormal' even before trying it! I have to constantly encourage them to try before making a decision whether to like or to hate something.

So to salvage half of the wholemeal bread, I decided to make a bread pudding. I've done it before, maybe a couple or thrice but it never turned out as I expected. Back then, I didn't exactly learn how to make. I just roughly noted its main ingredients and pretending as an experienced cook, combined all the ingredients without knowing the measurements, how much eggs and milk etc. I would say it was never a hit.

The best bread pudding I've had was at a hotel at Genting Highland. It was soft as well as crusty, perfect sweetness and perfect vanilla sauce. I don't really like bread pudding which are too soft or have been 'compacted' too much (trying to fit a lot of bread in one). I also prefer to use crusty bread such as baguette to normal white sandwich bread.

This time, I took the time to get recipes and videos from the internet. I goggled for the simplest recipe and method. I've always like AllRecipe.com because recipes there are tried and tested. However, I roughly  adjust the recipes as the bread that I have is less than the quantity in the recipe.

My recipe
Staple ingredients
Bread
50g melted butter pour over the bread

Custard. Combine and mix
200ml milk
2 eggs
3/4 sugar
vanilla essence

Optional additions
Chocolate chips
Raisins or dates

Pour custard over bread ensuring all are soaked.  Evenly spread chocolate chips and dried fruit of choice (to make it a healthier! Hoho). Leave about 10 minutes before getting it into the oven.

Size of baking tin
You can prepare straight in the baking tin/dish of your choice. Size depends on how much bread you have. My tip is to imagine the cooked pudding, whether it will have heights or gets flat using the chosen size. To have heights is better.

Ensure oven is pre-heated, I did mine at 150-180C and took about 30 min to be ready. The bread pudding will fluffed up and the top will be golden brown. Done

Vanilla sauce
Combine half milk and half evaporated milk
Sugar to taste
1 tbs custard powder
Vanilla essence

Boil in a pan. Always stir. Turn off once the consistency of liquid able to coat the back of spoon.

I don't really put the exact measurement because I really rely on the amount of bread that I had. The recipe actually calls for 4 eggs, more sugar etc but I improvised and you should too.

Have a try!

Milk and the bread drenched in melted butter

Bread soaked in 'custard'

Tadaa!

2nd attempt as requested using baguette.

Lutfi is discharged on his 7th day

Impatiently waiting for the doctor to take Lutfi's blood test since 3.00pm. The doctor came at about 4.00pm and the result came at 4.20pm. Alhamdulillah his platelet rose to 122 from 92 this morning. Even the doctor seemed happy with the progress and had no doubt to discharge Lutfi.

D4 Day 0 11 Jan (admitted): 57
D5 Day 1 12 Jan am ; 51
D5 Day 1 12 Jan pm : 67
D6 Day 2 13 Jan am : 69
D6 Day 2 13 Jan pm : 67
D7 Day 3 14 Jan am : 92
D7 Day 3 14 Jan pm : 122

Note: the numbered Ds are no of days since Lutfi had fever last week.

After googling, the care should not stop here. Apparently the lethargy will take longer to subside. I shall take note of that although Lutfi seems fully recovered.

Dengue has 4 variants and Lutfi just had one. Never take dengue lightly as careless assumption may cause unwanted circumstances.

End of my full quality time with Lutfi. It reminds of my time in the UK with Irdina and my housewife days from 2004-2005. How I wish I could be a stay-at-home mum.

1st time out of the ward since he been admitted

Lutfi now is a free man! 

Boring routine shall start tomorrow. Blah.....

Next, to continue this parenting effort, I promise to do an sponge stamping art with Lutfi. It's a promise.....

3rd day in the hospital (7th day)

Today is our 3rd day at the hospital (Wednesday). Calculatively, it's a 4th day if you consider admitted at 6pm as a day. However, it is Lutfi's 7th day since he had high fever on last Thursday.

Yesterday's platelet reading was 67 in the afternoon, lower than the morning result. The doctor said he took it as constant and expect the platelet to rise today.

Result @ 9.30am

Alhamdulillah, the platelet reading rose to 92 this morning. The doctor will do another test and he seems quite confident Lutfi can be discharged today.I am more than happy. 

Quality time

As much as I want Lutfi to be quickly discharged, I feel this hospitalization thingy remind me of my resolution to focus on my kids this year. I'm actually glad I managed to make this 3 days a quality time with Lutfi. I got to read to him, his favourite comic and learned that he has actually memorized his favourite lines. 

Getting to know own child

He is such an obedient kid. He didn't struggle when the nurse came to check his vitals and he could accept that he must be attached to the IV all the time.

But Lutfi is Lutfi. He doesn't like to sleep on the hospital bed, he only eats what he wishes to eat (it was pasta all the way). Like other kids, he got bored quickly and luckily the IV machine was movable. I always offered him alternatives whether to sit by the window or sit at our 'reading' chair to vary his space.

He is so intelligent that he understood the whys and do/don'ts when explained to him. That made handling him quite easy without needing to scold, shout and promise unnecessary reward for good behaviour. We only promised him an Ultraman toy as a gift for being such a good patient.

I understood him better within the 3 days spent with him. I knew he was upset and frustrated on the 1st day he had to stay at the ward. When the word 'balik' (go home) uttered by his father, his face would turned cheery thinking that it meant time to go home whereas it was time for his father to go home. He would cry and I calmed him down with hugs and kisses. I really felt my child needed me to help him cope with the hospitalization.

Sometimes he watched his favourite cartoons, Tobot or Ultraman on YouTube on my Iphone but not all the time. Sometimes he played by the window himself, immersed in his imaginary world of Ultraman, monsters and heroes.

Sometimes he watched Disney Junior channel and he actually likes Mickey Club House and Handy Manny. He would shout 'Hey Doodle!' mimicking Mickey.

I have to learn to put work at 2nd place. Only do stuff I need to do and trust my colleague to cover me when I'm absent. Everyone has their break. This time it's mine.

Writing from hospital ward

This is my 1st time writing a post from a hospital ward.

On the day he was admitted

Way to start 2015
Yes, I'm at a private hospital looking after Lutfi who is admitted for dengue. And yes, he had just recently been admitted at Batu Pahat General Hospital about 2 weeks ago for diarrhea. Read here. My way of starting 2015, huh.... I guess Allah SWT heard my resolution to focus on the kids in 2015. And it started with get to know your children and practice patience at hospital.

Dengue
Today is Day 6 from day Lutfi had his fever. Apparently critical phase takes place starting from Day 4. Generally people would think they have recovered when the fever subsides. It's the opposite with dengue where we really need to watch the dengue symptoms after Day 4.

Mak Long visited and some tokens from her

Tibbits

Usually we are advised to see the doctor if fever takes more than 3 days. Lutfi had fever for 4 days. Heeding on the advice, I went to a private clinic and did the Complete Blood Count (CBC) test. Everything else seems OK except platelet count showed very low reading on 87 (normal range is between 150-450). The doctor suspected it was dengue but was not 100% certain because the clinic does not have a dengue testing kit. Lutfi was referred to An Nur Hospital and got admitted.

What inspired me to write this post. The boring view from the window. Hoho

Platelet
Today, is our 2nd day at the hospital and this are his platelet readings:

Day 0 11 Jan (admitted): 57
Day 1 12 Jan am ; 51
Day 1 12 Jan pm : 67
Day 2 13 Jan am : 69
Day 2 13 Jan pm : 67

The hospital monitors until the platelet is on increasing trend and reach near 100 reading before confidently discharge a dengue patient.

The...err what? IV machine? Need to read my previous post. Hoho

I hope we can be discharged tomorrow but the reading seems not in our favour.

Terms learnt from this experience:

CBC = Complete Blood Test
Platelet normal range = 150,000 - 450,000

Managing Kasyif's weight

Kasyif is overweight. Although he is active, he likes to eat. A lot. He only stops when he is REALLY full.

Asmathic?
Kasyif has problem of his breathing. He's not really asthmatic but he does react to cold and smoke. He will cough and if it persist longer than normal, we'll take him to the clinic and ask the doctor to prescribe the nebulizer. However, doctors never said he is asthmatic so I will just stick to that.

Eating habit
We had a helper when Kasyif was born. So he was well fed but the problem is, the situation didn't help to instill good eating habit. He was spoon fed by the helper and not by himself. The helper didn't know whether he was full so she kept giving him until he seemed full. I observed she gave more than 2 servings most of the time but I didn't say anything.

Balance between concern and doing damage
I wanted to help Kasyif, but I didn't know how to handle it. Then I found this site and hopefully it would help me to help Kasyif:
 http://blog.fooducate.com/2012/11/25/3-feeding-interactions-and-how-they-influence-child-obesity/

http://jillcastle.com/2010/10/whats-your-feeding-style/


I shall not focus on the child himself. Rather I 'need to check the feeding practice at home and how he handles outside influence around food, as well as his own eating personality and temperament'

The DON'TS
1. Using Restriction to Control or Reverse Weight Gain (we did let some treats once in a while, except that now he buys his own and he tend to buy them every day)
2. Pressuring Kids to Eat More (this was what the helper was doing to him when he was small)
3. Rewarding for Performance (never happened)

School in 2015
Kasyif is going to school this year. This time he will be occupied and he will move a lot compared to when he was in the half day kindergarten. His class is in the 1st floor so he will climb the stairs everyday. So I'm not so worried about getting Kasyif to move more. I'm more concerned on how to deal with him when he's complaining because definitely he'll feel more tired and he will get all cranky.

Making it right, this time
This is my plan:

1. Eat dinner together and ask him to feed himself to re-connect Kasyif with his own internal regulators of hunger and fullness
2. I will also suggest my husband to keep his cash elsewhere so will buy less of the treats.
3. I hope to cook breakfast and dinners (fingers crossed) to limit processed food such as nugget and burgers.

Suddenly I have an idea! I need to plan a 30 day breakfast/dinner on stick notes. The menu can be interchanged between days and interactive for kids.... Let's try that, shall we.....

Homemade burger

I've been wanting to make homemade burgers since I watched Eat St on Food Network a few months back. I'm currently bored with whatever food I have right now, rice and all. Didn't get to do it until today because I took much time to plan. I've done it agesssss ago so I know it is actually easy, I just need to shop for the ingredients.

I've hardly gone to big supermarkets since I discovered Econsave a few years ago. I shop there for monthly foodstuff but the problem is they don't have good quality minced beef. Good news is a new upmarket Jaya Grocer is close to my home and they have things not available at Econsave, such as Australian beef, various type of breads, Japanese seaweed for sushi etc.

I felt guilty for not cooking on Saturday, so I determined to cook burgers for Sunday lunch. Quickly bought ingredients from Jaya Grocer at about 5.30pm for 1/2 and hour (usually I take 2-3 hours!) so I could have it ready on Sunday.

Homemade patties on the grill

Love! Love! Love!

Satisfying and yummy. Mission accomplished!

Sumptuous!

The asparagus as additional garnish. Haha!

Ingredients I used:
250g minced beef
10 crackers
1/2 minced yellow onion
1 egg

Flavours:
Cumin powder
Chicken BBQ powder
White pepper

Assembling:
Tomatoes
Butterhead lettuce
Chili flakes

I also did roasted veggies and I just foun dout that my husband like roasted carrots a lot. I also recommend roasting the carrots as they taste very very different. A good different.....

Roasted spud, sweet potatoes and carrots

Kasyif is Standard One

2nd Jan was start of orientation week for Kasyif. His class is 1C10 on the 1st floor near the canteen. Kasyif is kind of overweight although he is an active boy. I hope he will accept he has to climb up the stairs and lose some weight.

I hope I will keep my word to be involved in parent-teacher activities for his class.

I hope to improve and teach him good attitude and health.

Ya Allah! Permudahkan lah untuk aku mendidik anak-anak ku....

Welcome 2015

My 1st post in 2015! Welcome all!

Kids
This year I'm determined to put my children first. I shall  observe my precious ones in everything. Watch them sleep because it will only happen once. Watch how quickly they outgrow.....

Husband
I have to accept he can't be with me all the time. He has the rights to do things without me and I shall accept that, and it's not because he has love me less.

Parents
I have to make them happy while I can. I want to give my mum a room make over. I need to call them more and chat.

Grow Up
I have to start think like a grown up. I have to think about grown up stuff like going for Hajj, mingle around with neighbours, start doing house chores, have goals for my kids. Life is not all about handbags. I'm getting old, I should have plans to face old age.

Be humble or else I'll be tired from competing with others and I can never win, every time.

Life is not about MY life. Life is about giving to OTHERS

Money should not be what I am aiming for. Give out. Improve deeds for the sake of Allah SWT.