Siopao Sauce recipe (naks!)

We bought a pack of cheap siopao at the supermarket last week. By cheap, I meant that the siopao was more like a mantao - puro tinapay. It's like the bola-bola filling was just 1/8 of the whole thing. Parang binobola ka lang na bola-bola siya. (Achiche! Corny!)

Tha pack of 10 also comes with 2 sachets of siopao sauce. Now for somethng that is more bread than meat, ofcourse you need a lot of sauce diba? So I did a quick google and found a recipe for siopao sauce. The recipe called for onions and garlic and star anise. Being the tamad that I am, I decided to skip those and made my own.

Today's blog is about how it was made. Naks!

What you need:
- pork cubes
- water
- sugar
- soy sauce
- worcestershire sauce
- salt and pepper
- sugar
- cornstarch
- Tito Franco as the taster - o diba, we love him that much! :)

How we did it:
1. Dissolved 1 pork cube in 1 cup water.
2. Added 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce.
3. Added salt and pepper to taste.
4. Tito Franco tasted it and complained that it was too salty.
5. Added 1 tbsp sugar. Still salty? Added 1 more tbsp. Salty pa rin? We added 1 cup water and 1 tbsp sugar. At this point, I dunno how much sugar was added. We just keep adding until I felt it was no longer too salty.
6. Once an agreement was made on the taste, we dissolved 1 tsp cornstarch in water. Add to the mixture and stir until thick.
7. Oops! Didn't thicken enough. Dissolved one more tsp cornstarch in some water.

Taste taste taste! Eventually, you'll get the right mix of salty and sweet, as well as the thickness that you're aiming for.

Dad loved it! Ginawang dip instead of sauce! Hahaha.

Not a very helpful recipe no? Treat me to siopao and I'll show you how to do it. Love you 'nak! :)

The *star* is the siopao, ofcourse, and not my sauce. :)

Praying for you

I heard somewhere that as a mother, you find that there are a LOT of things that are beyond your control. This is why you turn to the power of prayer.

I definitely agree to this one. In fact, I think I become more prayerful the more kids I have. Without wanting so sound self-righteous ha, I find myself muttering quick prayers for you guys and daddy, as well as lolo and lola ofcourse. I pray for your safety, well-being, happiness and health.

Do you do that? I hope you make it a habit to throw prayers all the time. Mommy may not be perfect, especially during ny younger years. But you can be sure that even when I get old, I will still pray for you kids.

Love you!

Have I told you about Baby-led weaning?

Definition from wikipedia

Kuya and Ate were both traditionally weaned, meaning their food was mashed, and they were spoonfed to. 

We tried BLW on Miko and I was a bit hesitant at first because we leave you guys with lolo and lola while we are away at work. I worry about the choking risk and how lolo and lola will react in case of an emergency. 

So we tried just doing BLW during the weekends. A facebook support group on BLW that I joined has 2 schools of thought on this. One was that this causes more confusion daw kasi the kid, i.e. Miko, wouldn't know if he is to swallow first (as done in mashed food) or chew first (BLW). One the other hand, some would say better do it during the weekends alone than not do it at all. 

I must say it was so rewarding watching Miko eat! Now we have breakfast together everyday. I eat while he chomps on a piece of bread, or a small tomato, really just anything that you give him. 

I just wanted to share some pictures of Miko eating. Probably because he mostly eats while seated on my lap, he like is more than being on his chair. (We'll get there, Bunso, don't worry.)

Oreos. Okay, not healthy.

Pan de sal. Usually shared with Mama over breakfast.

Tomato tongue. No seeds.

Eggplant from sinigang. Asim!

What are your thought on baby-led weaning? If you let me take care of your kids, will you let me do this approach?