Monday, June 17, 2013

Coursera's "Just Cook" a Balanced Dinner

Welcome to Week 3 lesson of Maya Adam's Child Nutrition and Cooking, an online course offered by Coursera.

The discussion includes:
Preparing lunch for kiddos: 
According to Maya Adam, studies shows that visual exposure to fruits and vegetables increases children's willingness to consume them. Important point I got was that since kids tend to get hungry at school from any school activities, we need to take advantage of their hunger by putting good food in their lunches. The easier for them to eat their lunches, the better :D (You may want to slice the mango into serving slices than just put the whole mango in their lunchbox)

Preparing home-made chicken nuggets:
Another helpful tip from Maya Adam was that its better to prepare the food at home than to buy the processed food. She shared her version of home-made chicken nuggets. 

Shopping for vegetables:
Tag your kids along when you go for vegetable shopping.

Roasted vegetables:
Another option on how to cook and prepare vegetables.

Baking cupcakes:
It not necessarily needed to be exact in the ingredients as long as you get the right consistency of the batter, then its good to go. 

For the Week 3 assignment, we we're task to create a balance dinner.
Here's what I submitted: 
Rice with Chicken Adobo and Unripe Jackfruit stewed in Coconut Milk
As usual, rice is again part of my dinner meal.
In Making Chicken Adobo:
In a pot, put all the ingredients
- chicken (cut into serving pieces)
- sliced garlic
- sliced onions
- enough soy sauce
- enough vinegar
- enough water
- salt, pepper and brown sugar to taste
Bring to boil over medium heat.
Once in a while, flip the chicken and continue to simmer until chicken is cook.
Taste the sauce and adjust if needed based on your preference.
You know its done when the chicken is cook and the sauce is already thickened into dark brown color.

In Making Unripe Jackfuit cooked in Coconut Milk:
In a pot, bring to boil the following ingredients
- sliced unripe jackfuit
- coconut milk (thin)
- sliced ginger
- sliced onions
- salt to taste
Simmer until the jackfruit is cook
Add the remaining coconut milk and sliced spring onions
Stir and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve. Enjoy

For the rice cakes wrapped in banana leaf (commonly known as "Suman"), I bought this at the store that specifically sell Filipino sweet delicacies. This is one of the best Filipino delicacy.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Coursera's "Just Cook" a Balance Breakfast

I recently joined the "Child Nutrition and Cooking" by Maya Adam, an online course offered by Coursera.
The course tells that its best to go back to basics in cooking. Maya Adam encourages us to indulge more on home-cooked meals rather than processed foods or "from-the-box" foods.

I almost forgot this course, thus I was not able to complete Week 1 lessons on time. Here is the Week 1 & 2 lessons that I had to catch-up in Week 2. 
Week 1 introduced us to the current problem regarding childhood obesity and possibility of preventing it by giving the children healthy foods. Cooking and preparing food at home using fresh ingredients was then introduced. According to Maya Adam, there are six main ingredients that should be available in a kitchen to create a healthy and tasty meal. These are:
- olive oil (we used canola oil)
- garlic
- onion
- salt
- sugar
- lemon (we don't usually use this so we have black pepper as our 6th ingredient :D)
Cooking with eggs and vegetable stir-fry as well as making smoothies was also covered in Week 1. Eggs are complete protein and serving this with bread is good deal. For stir-fry vegetables, the more colorful it is, the more appealing to children. You can vary the sauces to make stir-fry vegetables. Smoothies is best with lots of fruits and yogurt that has fewest ingredients (less artificial and sugar in it).

For Week 2, Maya Adam discussed the importance of a balance meal and its composition. She discussed various breakfast options like oatmeals, pasta and baked goodies.

For the Week 2 assignment, we we're tasked to create a balance breakfast and this is what a submitted: 
Rice with Scrambled Egg and Fish Balls and Sauteed Vegetable

For typical Filipino meal, rice constitute a great portion of it. My breakfast is not complete without them :D
In making a scrambled egg and fish ball, you need to have the following ingredients:
- fish balls
- tomatoes 
- onions
- eggs
a. cut fish balls (or squid balls) into cubes
b. diced tomatoes and onions
c. fry the fish balls (or squid balls) on a frying pan heat with oil (I used canola oil)
d. when the fish balls are cooked, add in diced tomatoes and onions
e. saute vegetables with fish ball
f. pour in the beaten egg, its done with the egg is firm

In making sauteed vegetable, the following ingredients are needed:
- garlic
- onion
- carrots
- chayote cut into
- white squash cut into bite sizes
a. diced garlic and onions
b. cut carrots, chayote and white squash into bite sizes
c. saute garlic and onion in a pan heat with olive oil
d. add the vegetables
e. season to taste (I used salt, umami, soy sauce and sesame oil)
f. put water when needed
f. cook until the vegetables are tender

You may want to check Coursera.

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