One of the challenges I faced when Hannah started on solid food was time management. Life began to feel quite hurried at home when cooking was part of the daily routine. Gosh, and more washing too!
Since I didn’t start Hannah on commercial baby cereal but home-made white rice porridge, a lot of time was spent in trying to cook porridge until it was soft enough for our ‘bo geh’ (toothless) baby. The thing about cooking porridge over stove fire is that one must constantly stir the porridge to prevent it from getting stuck to the pot base. I ground the rice grains to speed up the rate of cooking but I still had to spend 45 minutes to an hour by the stove to stir the porridge! This was unacceptable to me. And says who that ‘the more you stir, the more love you put into cooking the porridge’?!!! Argh! Thank God that the slow cooker came to my rescue. No more stirring was required. Just put the rice grains and water into the slow cooker and set the dial to ‘high’ or ‘auto’ to cook for an hour. And voila, you get steaming soft porridge minus all the fuss.
I wish I had discovered the usefulness of the slow cooker sooner. It’s okay, like what my ang mo friend had quipped about his recent flight disruption, "live and learn". Yup yup :)
Why do u need one big and one small slow cooker?
Havent used the slow cooker to cook porridge before leh….
How fine must u grind the rice to? Do u wash the rice first, dry in sun/oven then grind? M thinking of cooking brown rice which I understand wld take longer to cook…
Do u dump the vegs like carrots etc into the pot with the rice and add the fish etc later? How much later?
Sorry for the many qns. Wish they taught us all these in sch!! Haa
Hi hi mumsy,
We bought the first slow cooker during my confinement period for cooking soups but it soon became a white elephant until recently, i.e. I used it for cooking chicken broth for Hannah’s porridge base.
The small slow cooker was bought specially to cook her porridge as if I cook a small amount using the large slow cooker, it is not efficient. If I remember correctly, the small one is 1.2 litre. Even so, the amount cooked is usually 300 ml.
I ground the rice until the bits are roughly one-fifth of the actual grain size. I might do a post on grinding rice grains soon. Check out the photo then yeah.
Ya, brown rice takes longer time to cook. Grinding it helps. I carried out the procedure you mentioned: Wash the rice > dry in oven at about 50 degree celsius for 30 mins > allow the rice to cool > grind it > store it in an air-tight container and keep it in the refrigerator. Some recommended that the ground rice should be used within a month. It took me about 1.5 month to finish up the ground rice though. If you have a good air-tight container and refrigerator, it can keep well longer.
I usually use 1 chinese spoon of ground white rice and 1/4 spoon of ground brown rice for Hannah’s porridges. Cook them together for an hour and they are good to go. Although many claimed that brown rice is so good so good, I find that pure brown rice porridge is not very palatable. One can also obtain the nutrients in brown rice from other foods.
I steam the veggies separately, puree them before adding them into the cooked porridge (i.e. after 1 hour of slow cooking). Certain veggies, e.g. carrots, I read elsewhere will take a longer time to soften in the slow cooker. But no harm trying to slice them up thinly and add to the slow cooker together with the rice. As for fish, I also steam and mash it before adding to the porridge after one hour. Some fish, e.g. threadfin, breaks up easily when cooked and so I think it is ok to add it directly into the porridge at the last stage of cooking. Fish cooks quickly. It takes about 2-3 minutes for minced fish meat. But I always play safe by letting it cook for 5 minutes.
Ya, I also wished that there was a workshop of this sort for new mommies! :P
Why don’t you just use a thermo pot? I bought the smallest “thermos brand” one and it “cooks” just enough for my baby’s 2 meals.
http://www.galtak.com/rpf20.JPG
http://www.galtak.com/rpf20.html
http://thermalcooker.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/thermos-rpc-4500-45l-thermal-cooker/
Can do 2 or 3 rice bowls of soup too, or even barley water. Can also cook macaroni/pasta.
Hi hi Sammicheng,
Thanks for the suggestion! :) I’ve heard of this product but it didn’t occur to me to use it for cooking porridge. Is it costly? The idea that it cooks while travelling is great. Meaning that time could be saved; I don’t have to wait for the cooking to be done at home first before going out with the baby. :)
I have used such a thermal pot for cooking soups before bb came. Find that it takes quite long for the soup to be stewing inside til it’s flavourful leh. Maybe my cooking skills no good, not enough tasty elements in soup. haha
I hope sammi revisits this post… :0
Sammi: u mean u will cook u servings of the porridge in the day and then use up one for lunch, keep the other in the pot til dinner? Will the porridge n ingredients inside be “over-cooked” by dinner since it is supposed to continue cooking throughout? N using this thermal pot… does it mean u will put in all ur fish n veg from the start since it works best when it is put into the insulated container on full boil?
Ling: Now that ur bb is eating a full serving of porridge, does she still need milk after eating her porridge?
Hi Mumsy,
Hannah’s milk feed has been reduced from 5 to 4 times per day. Volume was increased per feed too. I’m slowing weaning her off the need for milk down to 3 times per day. Her current routine is like this:
7am: 180 ml milk
8am: cereal with/without fruit
11am: 1 bowl of porridge followed by 150ml milk
2pm: 180 ml milk
5pm: complete dinner with fruit
8pm: 180 ml milk
Water is also given every now and then. :) The next milk feed I’d remove is the one immediately after lunch.