Sensory Boxes for Toddlers

Every milestone is a joyous occasion with your child and turning 18 months (E is nearly there) means you can go and splurge on those activities and toys you always wanted! Best of all you can leave them involved in something for a few minutes and get those urgent jobs done. Every child develops on their own pace and being home with mine has made me know my child so much better that I would have missed this opportunity forever if I would be working full time. E now can try and stop the urge of putting things in her mouth and explore them with her hands instead, which is the right time for some sensory box play. These boxes are made by so many bloggers that I am not sure who was the first one to come up with this but whoever she was she sure was a brilliant mum or could be a dad!

These sensory boxes are E's very first ones so I didn't want to make them too complexed I just wanted her to be able to see and feel things at her comfort. They are so easy to put together if you have some ideas and basic supplies on hand. I wanted to look for some nicer looking toys to put in side but have still not had much luck finding small but cute animal toys.

Another thing that I corrected in my later boxes is that if the box is too deep (Dino box) and E has to stoop in she finds it hard to play for long so I used some trays for my other boxes.

 E tries to push the dinosaurs through the tubes. I made the trees with paper towel tubes and added some pebbles and tissue papers to give a sort of landscape feel to the box. For the under teh sea box I made a fishing game by tying a magnet to the end of a wooden stick and clipping some fish pictures with paper clips. The idea is to fish the fish clips with the magnet stick.The croc is E's favourite in this box.

Birds are E's all time attraction she loves to chase them, tries to stop them from flying away and shoos them away if she doesn't want them coming inside the house. She points to the sky, sun, moon and clouds and calls them out by name and shouts "Sky" "Moon" and so on. Such a sense of achievement for her and a little for us as parents that "she just said that"!
There are some bird printouts which I stuck on some thermocol and cut them out irregularly. Thee are some feathers for clouds and texture and a rainbow as well as some fabric birds which I bought from India.

 This box is for the nature lover E, her very own flower garden! Any flower anywhere E has to spot it and then run towards it and finally try and pluck it, she even blows on it as if she is trying to spin it around like a pinwheel.The most fascinating thing for her in this tray were the bugs, E just loved the bugs as she was able to hold them and play with them and mum didn't stop her. 

As we graduate towards more complexed sensory boxes we will keep you posted and I hope you can make some for your little ones as well. These boxes don't really look the same by the end of play though but E is very delicate even in her play.

J's Birthday, a humble affair..

J is my dearest girlfriend who listens to my every complaint and worry and just relaxes me with her calm voice. She is the godmother of my daughter and believe me I get told off all the time now, which I don't mind at all, well I try not to! Birthday dinners has become like a tradition with us and we try to pick a really nice place we haven't been to before. However, this year with the heat, we felt it might be comfortable if we enjoy a night in, so after putting E to bed we had a party of our own, mostly talking nonstop. J loves tennis and a few years ago she nearly lost her eye while playing with her coach. She had to wear an eye patch and refused to go to work like this so she stayed at home. I wanted to make her a tennis cake for her birthday but didn't want to make something literal. So the kitty on the cake with an eye patch is J and I gave her a pink dress as J would never wear this shade of pink, although she loves bright colours. Although J is not a cat lover but E is so cats it is for now! 

J loved her cake and more than the cake she loved the dark chocolate ganache which she licked from the bowl. Happy girl on a very happy birthday! For dinner I made some north indian favourites, Chola Bhatura and Aloo Tikki Chaat. 

Nothing healthy when it comes to birthdays! I am enjoying these new birthday celebration trends eat in and eat your heart out, end up sleeping on the couch! Life is beautiful anyway you look at it and in any phase x

Not so very Chinese food for Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year is celebrated on a very high note in Melbourne! Also, with so many Asian friends around it feels like a vey joyous time of the year. A couple of years go I enjoyed the best Chinese lunch ever at my friend's place for CNY. It was the most delicious meal I have ever tasted and was nothing like the food we get in the markets. It was really spicy and full of flavour. I have always enjoyed chinese cuisine but had a very big misunderstanding of the flavours as what I have grown up to know as Chinese food was an Indian version of the cuisine! However, this year I wanted to relive those flavours from childhood and enjoy a very Indian-Chinese feast. The menu consisted of vegetable fried rice, gobhi manchurian, fried noodle salad and veg steamed wontons.

Indo-chinese as it is more fondly called, is a more spicier version of the more authentic chinese cuisine and the use of chilly and soy sauce is a bit more liberal than the usual. Gobhi manchurian in particular is something I have only had in India and is so popular with or without the sauce.  However, that said the common ingredients are ginger, garlic and chilly which are the holy trinity of chinese cooking! Here are the recipes for these dishes.

GOBHI (cauliflower) MANCHURIAN

Ingredients:

one medium sized cauliflower, break the florets by hand

one onion diced into 1/2 inch squares

one green capsicum diced into 1/2 inch squares

2-3 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 inch ginger finely chopped

2-3 green chillies finely chopped

3 table spoons cornflour

1-2 table spoon dark soy sauce

1 table spoon chilly sauce (green chilly sauce is ideal)

1 tablespoon white vinegar

black pepper and salt to taste

oil for frying

Recipe:

Mix water with cornflour enough to make a smooth thin paste. Add some pepper and salt. Gently coat the cauliflower florets in the cornflour paste and deep fry. Keep the fried cauliflower aside. In a wok or a pan add 2 table spoon oil. add ginger, garlic and chilly and fry for a few second then add onions and capsicum and stir fry till they soften gently. now add the soy sauce, chilly sauce and vinegar and add some water to make a gravy. add 2 table spoons of the cornflour paste to this gravy. cornflour will help thicken the gravy. Now add the cauliflower and season with pepper & salt of required. Serve hot.

Tip: add toasted sesame seed if you prefer the taste. 

I used a very thin cornflour paste as we don't prefer a thick coating on the florets. Try both ways and decide what suits your taste buds the most!

VEG STEAMED WONTONS

Ingredients:

wonton wrappers

2 cloves of garlic grated

1/2 inch ginger grated

1 green chilly finely chopped

1/2 cup finely chopped cabbage (red and green)

1 carrot finely julienne 

optional bean sprouts

soy sauce to taste

oil for stir fry

for potato filling add one boiled potato

Recipe:

Heat the oil in a wok or pan. add ginger, chilly and garlic. Stir fry the veggies in oil for 1-2 minutes. add soy sauce and mash the potato in for potato filling at this stage. cool the veggie fillings. Place the filling in the centre of the wonton wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half and stick both sides together by lightly brushing some water. Pinch together the corners of the folded side, leaving the other side opened and fanned out as shown in the pictures above. You can fold the wontons in any way you prefer. Steam the wontons in a bamboo steamer for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot with sweet chilly sauce.

VEG FRIED RICE

Ingredients:

1 cup rice (of your choice)

1 carrot julienne

1 green capsicum finely sliced

1 onion finely sliced

1 cup finely sliced green cabbage

1-2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1-2 green chillies finely chopped

handful of chopped coriander (widely used in chinese cooking)

Soy sauce to taste

1 table spoon white vinegar

1 table spoon green chilly sauce

oil for stir fry

Recipe:

Boil rice in water until just done. It should not be over cooked. Heat oil in a wok. Add garlic and chilly. Sauté the onions. Add the vegetables and stir fry for 5-7 minutes. Add soy sauce, chilly sauce and vinegar. Add the cooked rice and mix well. cover and simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add the chopped coriander and serve hot.

Tips: add mushrooms and bean sprouts for more nutrition and taste. 

Bring out your chopsticks and enjoy an oriental feast packed with flavour the Indian way!