I'm a full-time mummy

For this post, I am sharing my next food recipe, Hakka Yong Tau Foo or stuffed tofu, bean curd and okra with fish paste. By the way, you can also use brinjals, bittergourds, mushrooms and red chilis but I omit them because I'm not a fan of them and I'm cooking this dish for the whole family (means including our kiddos) so I have to omit spicy stuff for the moment until they mastered eating spicy stuff. Some yong tau foo recipes calls for fish and pork meat paste but I'm using ready-made fish paste for my recipe today.

I remember my late mum used to do this dish every now and then. She was of Hakka descendants and boy oh boy, I just love eating that dish and it was one of the dishes in my list that I want to replicate and I am very happy to be able to make this dish, though not the same taste but it was quite close. I still remember her buying the fishes (mackerel if not mistaken) from the morning wet market and made the fish paste from scratch.

Without further ado, here is the recipe for Hakka Yong Tau Foo:

Ingredients:
* Ready-made fish paste
* 3 okras (ladies fingers) - quantity up to you actually
* 8 fried tofu puffs - quantity up to you actually
* a sheet of dried Chinese bean curd sheet (rinsed to remove the salt)
* 3 bean curds (square white color) cut half diagonally - quantity up to you actually
* Garlic - 1-2 cloves chopped finely
* Oil - about 2 ~ 3 tbsp

Sauce:
* Water - 2 cups
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 tsp sugar
* 3-4 tbsp of taucheo (fermented yellow bean sauce)


Methods:
* Clean the okras and slit the middle, remove the seeds and pat dry for stuffing later. (You can do the same step if you use red chili)
* For the fried tofu puffs, rinse with water and poke an opening at the top surface with either your finger or knife for stuffing later.
* For the bean curd sheet, I soaked it in water for a few minutes to wash off the salty layer of the sheet.
* For the bean curd squares, slit gently in the middle for stuffing later.
* Stuff the fish paste into the okras, fried tofu puffs and bean curds.
* Put some fish paste into the bean curd sheet and wrapped it - thickness / layers depend on you.
* Place the stuffed ingredients onto a plate and steam for about 5 minutes.
* Fry the garlic next until you smell nice garlic-ky smell from the frying pan. Be careful not to overfry them as it will give bitter taste then.
* Pan fried the steamed yong tau foo for a few minutes.
* Add the ingredients for the sauce and stir in.
* Let the sauce simmer for about 15-20 minutes.
 

Outcome:

My hubby likes the dish very much and our 5 years old boy loves the bean curd ones while I preferred the ones in fried tofu puffs.

This recipe is for keeps!

To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!

Our 5 years old boy has always been intrigued with our body organ functions, skeletons and etc. The moment I received a pitch to review this new app, I immediately requested for a review opportunity as I can foresee our kiddos enjoying and learning more from this app!

* Title: Inside Your Outside (Dr. Seuss/Cat in the Hat)
* Price: $3.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Apr 16, 2014
* Version: 2.6
* Size: 59.4 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"Come along with the Cat in the Hat in this interactive book app as he takes Sally and Dick for a ride through the human body! Explore pictures, learn new vocabulary, and personalize the story with your own narration. Kids will love learning about the human body as they visit the right and left sides of the brain, scuba dive through the blood system, follow food and water through the digestive tract, and a whole lot more!" 

* This app is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch and even move some of the objects in each page on the screen and the words pop out to tell you what it is!

* I used the opportunity to teach our kiddos the importance of our body parts, the five senses and I myself learned something new as well! I'm glad to be able to explain to our boy with an example of how we feel dizzy after spinning or twirling around (we sometimes sit on my office chair and have a wild spin hahahaha)

* Prior to this, our kiddos have been watching cartoon documentaries on human body and its function and with this app, I am also able to explain more to our boy. He seems to be particularly intrigued at the page below, how the bladder empties out the waste water - I can see him getting a better picture of how his pee comes out from his body.

* Overall a nice educational app for the kiddos! We love it!

You can purchase the "Inside Your Outside (Dr. Seuss/Cat in the Hat)" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

Lately, our 6.5 months old Carolyn has been doing this very cute hand gestures with her fingers. Something I've never noticed our other 2 kiddos did before.

She crosses her fingers! Very very cute and sometimes, it is hard to pry off her fingers and no sooner than you managed to uncross them, she goes and crosses her fingers again! Cute!!!

And because I love to google about stuff, I actually searched for the meaning of crossed fingers just to satisfy my curiosity and in case our ever curious 5 years old boy decided to ask his mummy one day why his baby sister likes to cross her fingers hahahah...

According to Wikipedia, "To cross one's fingers was a hand gesture commonly used to implore God for protection, as well as to wish for good luck." Cool!

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