Chicken Soup for Toddlers

Kids are very prone to flu, cold and sore throat in winter. It is very difficult to feed them solid foods when they have sickness. The chicken soup is very suitable to feed at this time.

Suitable for Age: 8 months onward.

Ingredients:

• Chicken Breast- 1 piece
• Flour- 1 table Spoon
• Garlic Paste- ½ Tea Spoon
• Zinger Paste- ½ Tea spoon
• Onion Paste- ½ Tea Spoon
• Salt – As Required
• Olive Oil- 2 Tea Spoon
• Water- 1 Liter

Process:

• Cook the chicken in water with garlic paste, ginger paste, onion paste, olive oil and salt for an hour for making stew. The water will be 1/2 Liter after cooking for an hour.
• Take out the chicken breast, cut into small pieces and mix the pieces in the stew.
• Add flour and cook for another 10 minutes.
• Feed lukewarm.

Lemon Cake with Cheese Frosing

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The Cake

Indredients:

• Flour- ½ cup
• Milk Powder-1/2 cup
• Melted Butter-1 cup
• Egg-4
• Sugar- 3/4 cup
• Baking Powder- 1 tea spoon
• Lemon Essence- ½ tea spoon

Making Process:

•  Grease a 6 inch (radius) baking pan with butter. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a medium bowl, stir the eggs for 2 minutes with an electric mixer. Add butter and sugar and stir for another 5 minutes. Slowly add flour and milk powder and keep stirring. Add all other ingredients and stir for another 2 minutes. Pour the mix in the pan.
• Bake for 20 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the cake and check if it comes out clean. If not, then bake for another 10 minutes.

Frosting

Indredients:

• Philadelphia Cream Cheese-1/2 of a bar
• Whipped Cream- ½ of a can
• Sugar -1/2 cup

Making Process:

• Stir the ingredients with an electric mixer for 10 minutes.

Finishing

Cool cake completely. Add the frosting and smooth the top, sides and edges with a knife. Decorate with dry fruits.

Book Review – The God of Small Things

The Man Booker Prize (1997) winning book The God of Small Things is Arundhati Roy’s only novel. 

The story plots the social circumstances of South Indian state of Kerala in 1960s. The book is about the sufferings of twin children Estha and Rahel as a consequence of social hypocrisy. She pictured how caste system and superstition influenced social norms and how lives were demolished as a result them. Through the death of a child Sophie Mol may seem irrelevant to the main course of story, but through it she pointed out how things can change in a day. Roy’s story plotting and language fashion is rhythmic, unusually chronological and majestic. The book ends with a feeling of how things could actually be!

Tips from a Formula Feeding Working Mother

Raising up a child for working moms is undoubtedly a hard job. Working mothers not only has to work hard physically but also has to go though a lot of psychological ebbs and flows. Studies say, kids are more prone to diseases and illness when their mothers are working. Things are worse for the ones who are formula fed.
Though it is recommended to breast feed your child exclusively up to 6 months and follow it on with solid foods after that; some mothers cannot afford it due problems of lactation, child born pre-matured etc. Many mothers feel guilty for not being able to breast feed their child and some get extremely depressed of it. Though the percentage of formula feeding infants is less, it is completely okay to feed your child formula if you cannot afford to breast feed even after trying your best.
I am also one of those mothers who feeds formula to their child. After trying hard I failed to breast feed my baby and chose formula. Initially I was having a felling of guilt but later I tried to study and practice the right ways of feeding formula as I had no other way than that.
Here I would like to write some tips for formula feeding working mothers from my experiences:

• First of all, choose a suitable formula for you child. Some babies are lactose intolerant. So, talk to your pediatrician whether to choose lactose based, lactose free or soy based formula.
• Boiling a feeding bottle for at least 10 minutes is mandatory before feeding you child in it. Also, you have to store the feeding bottles in a sterile way. Here is how I clean and store my baby’s feeding bottles:

I bought 6 feeding bottles for my baby so that I can use them throughout the day. I wash all the bottles at a time at night with a feeder washing liquid soap. Then I boil them in a large cooking bowl in stove for 15 minutes. Before bringing them out from the cooking bowl, I sterile my hand with a hand sanitizer. I store the feeders in a box in my refrigerator. When I need to feed my child, I take one bottle out from refrigerator, feed in it and then put in another box which I keep for storing used feeders in my refrigerator. When all 6 of the feeders are used by night, I wash them again and follow the same process. Thus, I maintain hygiene as storing bottles in refrigerator keeps the feeders safe from bacteria and does not require cleaning them frequently.

Moreover,

• Choosing right feeding bottle is important. Choose a feeding bottle that your child is comfortable to be fed from and choose the proper nipple size for his/her age.
• Change the nipples every 15 days and feeding bottles every 3 months.
• When you take your child to daycare take 5/6 sterilized feeding bottles with you and ask them to store them in refrigerator as the way you do at your home.
• After 6 months of age, it is important to make your child habituated to solid foods. Increase the amount of solid foods gradually and decrease the amount of formula.

Sri Lanka : SUMMER 2015

As I was planning to get a summer break some where by the sea, Sri Lanka was knocking my mind subconsciously. Though summer is not an ideal time to visit the country, I could not disregard my long cherished wish to get a taste of Sri Lankan heritage.

On the day of Bangla new year, that is 14th of April in English Calendar, I along with my husband and my 8 months old toddler started from Hazrat Shahjalal Int Airport, Dhaka to Bandarnaike Int Airport, Colombo. Journey was smooth and it took 3 hours and 20 minutes. We reserved a cottage room earlier over internet and a hotel representative came to receive us from airport. It took a 45 minutes car drive from airport to Ziegler Cottage located in the town of Negombo.

Well, I have always been a backpack traveler and I never preferred a luxurious and comfortable hotel before. Rather I like to spend less on hotels and more on traveling. But this time our little kiddo precious was with us. So while choosing hotels over internet, we gave priority on choosing a comfortable, less noisy place for him and a soothing sea view for us. Ziegler cottage seemed to be the best one considering price and location. It has an amazing backyard and behind that is the sea. So the evening was well spent in veranda and back yard with the mystic sound of the sea. We ended up the day with a sea food dinner.

Early in the morning, we went to the beach and had some fine playful time there.I would say that the beaches in Sri Lanka are not so very suitable for bath and the sea too is quite rough.

In the evening we started for a night Colombo tour. It took us 1 hour by car from Negombo to Colombo. As it was the eve of Sinhala new year, most businesses in the city were closed, malls and stores were partially opened.
Colombo seemed to has insufficient street lighting systems for night. So, we could not have a clear sight of the city that night but it appeared to be an organized and neat city to us. We had a good time at Arcade- Independence Square. It is two storied old building renovated as a mall. So the place has an antique styled architecture and yards with status and fountains. Returned to Negombo at mid night after having dinner at McDonalds.

Next day we went out to taste more sea foods. We were suggested a nearby seafood restaurant named Choy's. Enjoyed lunch with Shrimp and Cuttle fish. In the afternoon, we hired the car again for Colombo. We spent the evening visiting World trade Center, Colombo and having a city tour by car. We brought some dry fish and local spices to take back to home from a super store named Arpico,had dinner at Burger King and returned to Negombo. 

Sea Food