Fighter is super happy about it being school holidays (except that he misses his friends) but I can slowly feel life ebbing away from me wtf.  Hahahahaha no la but I suddenly find myself with a lot less time on my hands.  My carefully balanced juggling of work, school runs and errands totally flipped on its side already hahaha.

I still try to allow the kids mostly free play time, but I’ve also been trying to plan for some structured activities so they pick up new skills too.

Like doing activity sheets…. (aiya don’t say tiger mom la ok he hasn’t touched it since that first day lolol.)

Making trips to exhibitions and art installations…

And I also registered them for toddler gym classes for something physical to do.

And another thing we can do together is learn how to cook!  Inspired by this story I heard of recently of a five year old Japanese girl called Hana, whose mom before dying of cancer taught her how to cook at four, and now she cooks for her dad T____T, I thought ok let me teach (or at least expose) my kids cooking in case I die WTF touch wood.

I’ve baked with them a couple of times but this is the first time we’re doing cooking so I was slightly nervous.  Dah lah my cooking also subpar one hahaha and I’m as likely as the kids to cut my own finger off.  :X

So pasta it is!  I chose spaghetti bolognese because easy la hahaaha.

Started off with boiling Prego Angel Hair pasta in a pot of water and a dash of olive oil.

Then the usual steps – fry minced garlic on medium heat; add onions, then minced meat.

Then add my Prego Mushroom Tomato sauce.  And add salt and sugar to taste.  The kids took turns stirring the sauce around hahaahah.

When the sauce was done, I smothered the angel hair pasta in lots of butter, then added the still warm sauce and got the kids to toss the pasta.

(Totally regretted wearing white that day)

Plating pass boh!?  I think not bad wor! And no blood shed over this hahaha kiddingggg.

Because it’s December, I got all extra and told the kids we’re making pasta Christmas trees hahaahha.  Cut up slices of carrots to decorate the tops of the “trees”.  The plating and food art were the hardest for me please haha.  If you close one eye and squint with the other, the carrot stars don’t look so bad shaped right hahahaha.

Sadly, they still wouldn’t eat their carrots. T3T

But I think it’s a really simple yet festive dish for the year end.  Unless you’re on a low carb diet, I don’t know anyone who would turn down a nice plate of pasta haha and kids definitely love it.  I think there’s loads of ways to decorate and serve up pasta dishes which would suit any celebration and make it all the better. 🙂

In the spirit of the year end celebrations, Prego Malaysia is running an online contest on their Facebook page HERE.

Step 1: Snap a shot of your cooked pasta meal using the app available on the Prego FB page

Step 2: Frame the photo using special Prego frames and upload.

Like this.

Step 3: Create a slogan OR a 4-line quatrain which consists of the words “Simple”, “Special”, “Delicious” and “Prego”.

Step 4: Submit with details and receipt number of your purchase.

Prizes worth up to RM80,000 to be won. ^^ To join, go here.

This post was written in collaboration with Prego Malaysia.