Most Asian mothers never use any recipes for their cooking all because they were trained to be flexible since day 1 when they were taught how to cook either by their grandma, mother or sisters.
Recipes perhaps are only required when you work as a chef or caterer, you cook in bulks and where consistency is the prime importance.
Most home cooking is very flexible, most of the time a dish is cooked and improvised based on the ingredients available during the time of cooking. Home cooking meals could never be same as different mothers cooked differently from each other, just like the different restaurant with different chefs prepared their dish differently, e.g. Egg Benedict all prepared differently in different cafes or restaurants.
I only realized some mothers never cook breakfast for their kids, their kids were basically eating cereal with milk, egg with milk or peanut butter jam sandwich with milk.
About four years ago, I overheard a young Chinese boy grumbled bitterly when he saw how I dotted my daughter when I walked her to school, he grumbled, "This is a mom who really loves her kid so much!" He was walking alone; after I heard his grumble, I wondered if he was hungry, no proper breakfast was fed or a proper lunch box was prepared by her mom and I wondered what was happened to his life. This boy is definitely an observer, he is a sensitive boy, he admired other kids who got dotting moms.
From there I realized that no matter how busy as a mother or as a poor mother, even if you don't have much time to cultivate or educate them properly, the least you must do is to feed them with some simple healthy home cooked food. Home cooked food is always more hygienic if you know food and safety well enough.
The following is a suggestion list of recipes that you can always prepare ahead of time to save time. With the prep food kept in the fridge, children can use a toaster or microwave heat the food for their breakfast, snacks or pack for their lunch box.
Mexican Style Tortillas
Ingredients:
1. Hard flour
2. Salt
3. Oil
4. Vinegar (to get rid of floury smell)
Method:
1. Sieve the flour, add salt, a little oil, little vinegar and then water.
2. Knead into a dough, rest in a fridge, this can last for three days.
3. When you have time, take out the rested dough, tapper into a flat disk of tortilla size (about 6 inches diameter).,
4. On a griddle, brush a little oil, grill the tortilla on both sides.
5. Let it cools down, store in the fridge.
6. Always get ready with a container filled with carved meat, minced meat, ham or even smoked salmon (good to keep up 3 days in the fridge), a container of herbs and washed and rinsed lettuce and shredded carrot and a container of shredded cheese.
7. You or your children can roll tortilla with any choice of fillings like cream cheese, shredded cheese, meat stripes, minced meat, vegetable or avocado.
Giant Crumpet or Muffin
Ingredients:
1. Hard flour
2. Rice flour
3. French yeast or ask your friend for own cultivated yeast
4. Salt and sugar
Method:
1. Prepare the batter right after dinner or during dinner time. Mix the sieved two flour, add yeast, sugar, and salt, then mix it with warm water or lukewarm milk into a thick batter.
2. Transfer to a greased baking tray.
3. Place in a warm place cover overnight, the batter will rise to double.
4. Next morning, turn on the oven to 220 to 240C, place the batter in the oven bakes until golden. Don't open the oven before it is baked, or else it will collapse.
5. Turn off oven, let the crumpet cool down, you can cut crumpet into pieces. It tastes good even it is cold.
6. This crumpet is so good to eat along or sandwiched with a meat patty and a glass of milk (or coffee/tea) for adults.
Savory Pancake
I don't propose to feed too much sugar to kids, thus no sweet pancake is encouraged.
Ingredients:
1. Mixture of rice and hard flour and baking powder
2. Minced pork and bacon bits
3. Scallion and kale or any vegetable (chiffonaded and chopped finely)
4. Milk, eggs (Optional)
5. Seasoning: salt, pepper, soy sauce, a pinch of cayenne, a pinch of sugar, vinegar to get rid of the floury smell, melted butter, lard or sesame oil.
Method:
1. Prepare the plain batter with sieved rice and hard flour and baking powder, make a batter with milk, egg (optional) or/and water. Add seasoning, salt, vinegar and sugar. Keep in three sterilized containers can last for three days in a fridge.
2. Before you panfry the pancake, mix the plain batter with minced pork, bacon bits, add herbs, spice, vegetable, and seasoning, always check the final seasoning.
3. Panfry on a brushed nonstick wok or pan, this will use less oil.
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