Nicquee's Nook – Page 391

Weekend Cooking

Mon and I still have that habit of celebrating our “monthsary”, which is every 19th of the month. When we were planning our monthsary some time last week, MIL mentioned that it’s their anniversary as well. So Mon said we’ll just go to Slice and Dice (a steakhouse that we’ve been planning to visit since-i-can’t-remember-anymore) for dinner and grab some ice cream on our way home probably. That conversation happened before Saturday.

April 19, Saturday morning, we realized that we didn’t have any car (no, taxi is not an option) that we can use to go to Slice and Dice for dinner. So I said I’ll just cook the pasta at dinner time and probably my home-made buffalo chicken. (I was really planning to cook pasta for Mon for breakfast but I was too lazy to get out of bed.)

So that was the plan. We went to CMC for Ayex’s vaccination for Hepatitis A. After that we went home and Ayex and I spend the whole afternoon in bed. Hooooray! Mon on the other hand went out to buy chicken and a couple of other things. So to cut this story short, let me present to you the recipes I prepared for our dinner.

Pasta with tuna and mushroom in creamy garlic sauce

This recipe is based on Ms. Connie’s pasta recipe with prawns.

Ingredients

1 pack 400 grams uncooked pasta
1/2 cup butter
5 cloves of garlic (big)
2 cups all purpose cream
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 cans of century tuna
1 can of button mushroom (medium)

Procedure

Cook the pasta and separate.
While the pasta cooks, finely chop the garlic, mince the tuna and cut the mushroom.
Heat the pan. Once it’s hot, put in the butter.
When the butter has melted, put in the garlic. Cook until brown.
Put the all purpose cream. Simmer.
Put the tuna, mushroom and parmesan cheese.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix and simmer.
After 3 minutes, put the cooked pasta in the pan. Mix well so that every strand is well coated with sauce.
Serve after 3 minutes.

This serves 6-8 people.

Buffalo Chicken ala Burgoo

Ingredients

1 pack Del Monte Fried Chicken Mixes
2 pcs half part of chicken
1 bottle sweet and spicy dip
vegatable oil

Procedure

Prepare the chicken by cutting each half into 2-3 parts.
Put the chicken in a casserole with water.
Half-cook the chicken.
Follow the instructions at the back of Del Monte Fried Chicken Mixes for the marinade, batter and breading.
When all is set, heat the pan. Use something that you can deep fry.
Make sure that the pan is already hot before putting in the chicken so it won’t stick to it.
Cook the chicken until the outside is golden brown.
Remove the chicken from the pan and drain the excess oil.
Put the chicken in a bowl and coat it with the sweet and spicy dip.
Arrange the chicken in a clean plate.

This serves 6 people.

AVENT is dangerous – I think NOT!

Recently, I stumbled upon a blog published by a fellow multiply user. In her blog, she said that she might throw all her son’s AVENT bottles due to BPA. I read the link of the article she provided and found that it was dated 2003. That’s like 5 years ago!

So I found an answer from a multiply site (Sister Jing’s) and decided to share it here.

What is Bisphenol-A, and what are the issues surrounding BPA

AVENT is aware of the recent media reports focusing on Bisphenol A (BPA) and polycarbonate. We would like to help our customers better understand why many companies, including AVENT, use these materials to manufacture baby bottles.

Polycarbonates are used in thousands of consumer products such as reusable food containers, lifesaving medical devices and sport safety equipment. Manufacturers of such products, including baby bottles use polycarbonate because it prevents cracking, shattering and other hazards that can lead to injuries. The key concern for parents is whether BPA can get into their child’s food through leaching from polycarbonate bottles.

Various governing bodies have found as follows:

In November 2005 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reconfirmed the safety of the use of polycarbonate for food contact including baby feeding bottles stating that “based on all the evidence available at this time, the FDA sees no reason to change its long-held position that current uses with food are safe.”
Extensive reviews by the U.S. National Toxicology Program and independent scientists under the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis have determined that BPA used in consumer products does not pose a risk to human health.
International regulatory agencies responsible for consumer protection, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the UK Food Standards Agency, the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment, and the Japanese Ministry of Health have all studied the use of BPA and concluded that it can be used in the manufacture of baby bottles.

All plastics used in AVENT products are FDA-approved and recognized as “safe for food contact application.” AVENT Bottles are also independently tested in accordance with and comply with the latest European Standard for Drinking Equipment for Children-EN14350: 2004 which looks specifically at the acceptable daily intake of BPA for children. By looking to these acknowledged authorities, AVENT will continue to deliver the best products to customers.

AVENT is committed to meeting or exceeding the standards set by the FDA and all other acknowledged authorities around the world. Our bottles have been and will continue to be used by millions of healthy babies in over 70 countries worldwide.

This is very re-assuring. I went a little panicky when I read the first blog because I’ve been very happy with my AVENT products and I don’t think there’ll be better products out there for Ayex and her future sibling/s.

When I become a manager…

I will let the people in the operation to attend meetings that I know greatly affect them.

I will not try to extract from them the knowledge of what they do and how important it is because chances are, I will not be able to understand it fully and may relay the wrong information to other people in the meeting. I will do my best to get them involved. I will make them attend meetings, to allow myself to work on things that will make me a better manager for them.

Ok. ‘nuf said.