Fun with Play Dough

A gift from Stew last Christmas

Trixie just loves playing with dough. I find it therapeutic too, making all sorts of stuff with the dough.

Recipe for Cooked Play Dough

This home-made play dough is just fantastic.  It's very easy to make, safe and non-toxic (it's edible but I wouldn't risk tasting it) so soft and fun to use, it lasts quite a long time (as long you keep it in a sealed container), it's so much cheaper than the commercial brand and most of all, the fun starts in the actual making of the dough.  I got the recipe from the book "Wonderplay" from the 92nd St. Y Parenting Center that I bought years ago from Books for Less.  I'm sharing this with you so you could share this with your kids.   There's another recipe for play dough in the book which is an uncooked version recommended for older kids.  I'll try that when Trix gets older.  Remember, a fun activity + an active child = a happy mom :)

Cooked Play Dough














Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup water


Procedure:

Combine the dry ingredients and put in a sauce pan.
Mix together the wet ingredients then add to the dry ingredients.
Cook over medium flame while stirring vigorously until the entire thing comes together like a sticky ball.  Turn off heat.
Knead the dough until smooth- you may opt to use your hands but the dough will be hot!  So I just used a spatula to knead the dough while still in the pan.
Transfer to a plate then cover with plastic.  Let cool.  (You can put the dough in the freezer to speed up the cooling, but don't forget about it!)
As soon as the dough is cool enough to handle, divide it into portions and start coloring them with food color. 
Have fun with the dough and place in a sealed container after using to keep the dough soft and nice.

Tip:  You may add drops of water to the dough and knead it if it becomes a little hard when exposed to the air for a time.

Blueberry Muffins

I finally made blueberry muffins that I'm happy about, thanks to the ever reliable "The New Best Recipe." These are moist, but still light and fluffy, and I especially love the cinnamon-sugar topping. I found it very hard to give these away :)

Home Sweet Carton :)

What to do on a rainy day? Well, for me, I just lounged on the bed while my ever reliable hubby transformed a big carton into a house for Trix. Of course, Trixie helped excitedly and she's busy playing with it now. We will beautify it this week by painting the walls and adding some miniature furniture :)

Finger Painting Again

I made another batch of finger paint, using the Cornstarch-and-water only recipe, and I wasn't so pleased with the results :( It was too solid and not smooth and gooey at all. It was also quite a challenge to mix in the food color. I would recommend the previous recipe I posted over this one. Well, my little girl still loved it, and everything was still put to fun use.

Brushing her teeth

Brandon took photos of Trix while she was brushing her teeth... and cheeks too! She brushes her teeth on her own, and twice everytime.

Newest Chocolate Baby

Meet my newest cake- ChocoIate Cake with Fudge Icing and White Chocolate Curls (hmm... my cake name is so obvious naman... better think of a better name- I'm open to suggestions!). Anyway, I'm posting this photo for Stew's sake :) Hope your mom would love this cake.

A Better Gyudon

I’ve cooked Gyudon several times already with different types of beef, from local beef sukiyaki to Australian beef tenderloin.  I found out that the best beef to buy for this Japanese Beef Rice is US Rib-eye, cut sukiyaki style.  It’s a bit pricey, but hey, it’s for your family!  It’s really tender and flavorful; my toddler didn’t have any trouble at all eating the beef, so I'm posting again the same recipe for Gyudon.

 

 

 

Gyudon Once Again

Serves 2

 

 

 

 

(Photo by Brandon)

 

Ingredients:
200-300g US Rib-eye Beef, sukiyaki style
1 whole white onion, cut into big chunks
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup Kikkoman soy sauce

 

Procedure:
Combine water, mirin and soy sauce in a sauce pot and let it boil.
Add the onions, and cook until half-cooked or near transparent stage.
Add the beef and cook for about 2 minutes or until meat changes color.  (Overcooking your beef will make it tough, so be careful.)
Serve on top of rice bowls.

 

 

Optional Condiment:

Half Ginger, cut into thin strips

Reserve some liquid from the cooked beef.  Boil the ginger strips in it until cooked but still crunchy.  Serve along side the Gyudon for those who like it hot!

 

 

Trixie's Smile

Here are a series of photos that Brandon took while Trixie was flashing her precious smile. Trixie deliberately smiles now when in front of the camera, but five of the seven pictures showed her real happy smile. I put in two photos that showed her "fake camera smile." Guess which ones are the fake smile photos :)

Recipe for Finger Paint

Weeks ago, I was searching for finger paint in bookstores and toy stores in malls, and I had a hard time doing so.  If not out-of-stock, it's way too expensive (imagine, 4 tiny cups put in a fancy box sold at P600 plus!!!).  There must be a home-made version of finger paint that's cheap and non-toxic.  A quick search led me to www.creativekidsathome.com, and Trixie and I made the original fingerpaint.   Bottles of Wilton food color from my cake decorating days came in very handy, and I was able to make six full cups.  A note though, this finger paint is best used the day it was made--- the paint thickened and jellied up a day after.  It's still fun to use, but it wasn't gooey anymore.  Since the recipe below contains a bit of sugar, store the paint in tightly sealed containers to keep them from nasty ants! I'll make a different version next time to see which is better.  For now, I hope this recipe will help moms like me keep their young ones happy and busy!

Original Fingerpaint

Ingredients

1/2 cup cornstarch
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups cold water
food coloring

 

Directions

In a medium pan, mix all the ingredients together to make the finger paint. Cook over low heat 10 to 15 minutes. Keep stirring the finger paint mixture until it is smooth and thick. After the finger paint has thickened take the pan off the stove and let the mixture cool.

After cooling, divide the finger paint into storage containers depending on how many colors you would like. Add a few drops of food coloring to each container. Stir the coloring in to the paint to determine the shade of color. You're ready to finger paint! Cover tightly when storing.

Finger Painting

To appease my bored little girl, I decided to make finger paint at home- much to her delight! I actually tried it myself and I must say it was a lot of fun, especially mixing the colors. While we were doing this, we were singing Barney's song "When you mix blue and red it makes purple... red and yellow it makes orange....blue and yellow it makes green! When you mix these two you'll see a new color magically!" To see the recipe for home-made finger paint, check out my blog entry.