I'm a full-time mummy

About a month back, I posted a funny pictorial guide on "How To Exercise Your Toddler's Brain?"

(which Ben has since rarely does anymore... Sigh...)

Now please feel free to go check out the videos on how I got my toddler to exercise

(the rest of his body... )

which later turns out to be tiring for me when Ben got his momentum up

and he goes on running non-stop...

What a day!

Here's wishing you all a happy and relaxing weekend!

(*P.S: You'll also be able to view other videos of Ben at my Youtube channel as well)

I have the privilege of reviewing a children's book by Brian T. Yates (illustrated by Tielman Chaney) called "Yalu and the Puppy Room".

Yalu and the Puppy Room is about a golden retriever puppy's experience in trying to find everlasting happiness in having a family to belong to.

This book relates to how our life is in the real world. How we wished to belong to someone and the desire to be acknowledged.

The book brings us through the life of Yalu; her desperate desire to move out of the Puppy Room; how she sees her siblings leave the place one by one and how she also wanted to go home with a human family.

I enjoyed reading where Yalu thought to herself that she needs to stand out from the rest, to be unique and noticed. The plan worked and led to her being brought home by a loving couple.

The story has a happy ending where Yalu goes home, enjoys the comfort of her new family, becomes familiar with the surroundings and new exposures in her life.

The simple illustrations are not too ornate and easy on the eyes. As for storyline, it is pretty simple and easy to read. I would have preferred a more impactful strategy from Yalu in showing off to her new owners that she is different from the rest. What the author does is not bad, though more could have been written on her strategy in order to relate to our everyday life as well.

As this is only the first in the series of Yalu, I can't wait to find out what other adventures Yalu will be in!

Author: Brian T. Yates
Illustrator: Tielman Chaney
Publisher: Mystic Publishers
ISBN-10: 193405142X, ISBN-13: 978-1934051429
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.5 inches
Hardcover: 60 pages

Brian Yates, the author of the Yalu series, resides in fabulous Las Vegas where he is a member of the Henderson Writers Group. Brian also holds a BA in history from Keene State and a Masters from University of Wisconsin. Watch out for Brian's upcoming titles "Yalu and the Stinky Stink" and "The Adventures of Sheriff Yeager". You can also read more from the YaluThePuppyDog website.

You can purchase this book from Amazon.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a softcopy of the book by the author via my association with BookPleasures 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 book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

I love cheese and Domino's Pizza had this dish called 'Breadstick' which I would order whenever we get pizza delivered to our home. So after mulling for a while and getting bored with baking muffins (and relying on pre-mixes), I decided to take the leap and do something new... 

Hence, this is my 1st attempt of making: CHEESE STICKS.

I baked this on Sunday 12th Sept and the recipe was adapted from Sara Lewis's "Healthy Home-Made Food For Babies & Toddlers" book. In case you're wondering why is my measurement so weird (such as 88g of flour), this is because I halved the actual measurements (to reduce risk of failure hahahaha...) and I rounded up the measurement. So the actual recipe can be for 175g of flour but mine has been revised to 88g of flour and so on.

PREPARATION TIME: LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR

* About 10 minutes to mix & knead dough

* 10 minutes for baking process

Ingredients / Tool Required:

* 1 egg (at room temperature)

* 88g plain/all-purpose flour (I used wheat flour)

* 38g butter (a bit chilled)

* 58g grated Cheddar cheese

* A bowl to mix ingredients in

* Kitchen scale

* Baking aluminium foil the size of wire rack

What to Do?

* Place the flour into the bowl, add the butter and rub in until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

(The fine breadcrumb look after you rub in the butter with the flour)

* Stir in the grated cheese.

* Reserve 1 tablespoon of beaten egg and then stir the remaining into the pastry mixture.

* Mix to a smooth dough, adding water when necessary.

(The dough... strong smell of cheese at this point...)

* Knead lightly and roll out on a floured surface to a rectangle shape.

* Brush the remaining egg on the top of the rolled dough.

* Cut into strips and place on the baking sheets/tray, spaced slightly apart.

BAKING PROCESS

* Pre-heat oven at 190℃ for about 7 minutes (although the recipe stated to pre-heat at 200℃)

* Set oven to 190℃ and bake for 10 minutes until golden brown.

* Loosen from but leave to cool on the baking sheets/tray.

(Note: Suitable for freezing up to 3 months in a plastic box, interleaved with baking parchment)

THE RESULTS

REACTIONS FROM MY "GUINEA PIGS"

* Test subject 1 (aka me): "Hmmm... taste so-so (this is because I'm comparing it with Domino's Pizza's cheesesticks) although it does taste better after you had a few sticks."

* Test subject 2 (aka Ben):(See pictures below)

* Test subject 3 (aka hubby): "Delicious! If served with Domino's Pizza's tomato sauce will be awesome! Can fight with their breadstick seriously!"

* Test subject 4 (aka MIL): "How come no taste?" (You have to excuse my MIL's reaction as she used to be a nose cancer patient and after radiotherapies, she lost part of her hearing and taste senses)

So there you go.... my 1st CHEESE STICK attempt!

Overall, I'm happy with this attempt - at least, I'm trying out something different from the usual muffins that I made and it's a small step in baking with real ingredients and not relying on pre-mixes.

And I'm getting tired of hearing my MIL telling people I can only make this food because it's taught by my SIL - somehow I feel she's always trying not to acknowledge that I can make good food too... probably scared of the competition hehehe... So now, she cannot tell people that I'm able to cook this only because it's taught by my SIL because it's not!! Muahahahaha...

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

Brought to you by:  Mama Baker wannabe aka