9th Oct (Wed)
Feel not worth cooking for family. Hubby don’t like to eat the basil chicken without basil. Steam fish let him share with Aricia coz it’s a big piece of cod.
Started cooking the jap style mapo tofu at 5.15pm. This term lil’ one ends at 3pm on Wednesdays and of course I won’t go and pick che-che up from work so I can stay home n cook.
Dinner at close to 7pm. Che-che fried fish picture taken at 6.43pm. I lost appetite also.
I washed everything, I cleaned everything while the man sits n watch TV, che-che in her room watching stuffs or play games, lil’ one either watching rubbish on handphone or studying.
I only finished cleaning the kitchen and keep dishes at 9.24pm. That’s the time I rolled my sticky body into the bathroom for a nice Shower. Body aching. CB was worst when I cooked at least 5x a week!
值得煮给他们吗？either fuss over food or end up with leftovers. I’ve never seen any family as fussy as mine! Even for soups! I can use the prepacked ones and all I need is to add pork bones and water, the man also ask “what soup is this? Next time don’t cook soup anymore.” Not nice to drink? How is it everybody else (I mean strangers) can drink except him? And even fussed no taste. I put more bones than and less water than instructed, supposedly I should get thicker soup also kena scolded. Very difficult to 伺候 him n family.
16th Oct (Wed)
Experimenting on how to space out my ah-soh life. Term 2 was cooking while she was in school until I leave at 4+pm to pick her up (she ends school at 5pm). This term (Term 4) she ends at 3pm, so it means I either gotta prep meal before I pick her up and then rush like siao cooking once I’m home. In today’s situation, I try to cook and clean before I pick her up so I can relax at home after that. Actually not so, I still kapo-ly went to pick che-che up from work.
Took this out this morning while preparing lil’ one’s school lunch. Noticed I needed to soak the peanuts for more than 4hrs and lotus root for 1hr, so proceeded to do it in the morning.
@ 1.20pm - since I’m in the kitchen I decided to cook some eggs for lil’ one. This is for her snack or maybe bring to school. It’s just one of the ‘you never know when you will need it’ part of meal or snack.
@ 1.26pm - fried 4 eggs coz today’s dishes are really cmi
@ 1.26pm - soup in progress
Instructions asked for 2 - 2.5litres of water. I only put 1.5litres with 500g of pork bones. I believe it’s thick and flavourful enough. Not too bad. But …….
@ 1.48pm
By the time I finished cooking and sealion-ly splashed water on self, I left home at 2.08pm and reached IKEA at 2.24pm.
Did my zoomed thru IKEA getting the scissors, snacks and chicken wings.
Queued for chicken wings downstairs at 2.41pm. OMG! Long queue but not as bad as the cafeteria.
Lil’ one called at 2.50pm 🤦🏻♀️ while I was making payment. Didn’t pick up phone as I was getting phone ready for paywave payment.
Another dish gao-dim
@ 4.27pm - prepping lil’ one’s lunch tomorrow while snacking on the chicken wings
Cleaned up kitchen. I’m perspiry again. Sigh….. Took another shower @ 4.36pm, washed hair. @ 5.05pm I finished my shower n scrub shower area. Now to pick che-che up from work or not? Maybe sometimes is I spoil the market, So i shouldn't be complaining that I hv no time to do my things. I 自找麻烦.
Messaged che-che at 5.20pm that I’ll pick her up later and dozed off on the sofa. So tired! Set the alarm for 5.45pm to unwrap the towel from hair, clip them up (that’s how shabby I look on normal ‘don’t meet anyone’ days) and leave house.
Somehow I woke up at 5.42pm from my own snore. Haha! and saw the messages she sent me to help pack carrot cake. OMG! I was THAT tired that I knocked out immediately for a good whole 22mins.
@ 6.31pm
@ 6.46pm - final dish and then dinner is ready. I forgot to cook rice before I left home. I can’t ask lil’ one to cook coz she forgot how to do it, the man don’t know how to use Thermomix. Sigh…. Anyway, I’m glad that by 16mins the meal is ready
After dinner where I don’t have much appetite for, I rested a while before washing all the dishes and crockeries used. Tired, perspiry (again!) Leftover soup, hubby didn’t drink much (my goodness! I’m really speechless. You tell me how to cook for the family?!)
28th Oct (Mon)
Started cooking at 1.30pm. Was able to do this with energy especially when I didn’t have to cook lunch. Reminds me of CB days where after cooking lunch, barely ate anything coz no appetite, wash their crockeries (told ya there’s magic in the house), then start preparing for dinner.
(1) Have the huge bunch of celery to clear, if only supermarkets sell them in smaller packets. Was about to finish cooking when I turned around and saw the Japanese scallops I took out to defrost 🤦🏻♀️. Meant to cook them together. I did eventually mix them up after I fried the scallops separately. Since only the adults are eating the celery, I cooked it with the keto sukiyaki sauce.
(2) The yellow onion has turned bad so just used fried shallots + non keto sukiyaki sauce. Cooked sukiyaki chicken. Cut the fillet into thin strips. At the same time I prepare for lil’ one’s lunch tomorrow - toriQ chicken. The whole styrofoam container of chicken fillet is finished.
@ 5.12pm : This time I remembered to cook rice before I left the house 😅. Asked lil’ one to refresh her memory on how to use Ms Thermie to cook rice. I think I need to get the instructions written somewhere. I did a dual steaming for the first time where the fish is at the bottom tier and the 梅菜扣肉. I’m pretty pleased that the steaming is done perfectly for both dishes
I didn’t cook the 梅菜扣肉, it’s prepacked food. The ingredients are 👍 safe.
Coz dinner was served at close to 6.20pm (I reached home 6.10pm after picking che-che up from work), I managed to clean up faster as I did clear some items before I left home. At 7.34pm I scooped up lil’ one’s 花生根田七 and left it on the table and dried all the crockeries, scrubbed the sink and threw rubbish. By 7.54pm I was ready for my second shower of the day.
Wanted to spend the rest of the evening planning itinerary (che-che didn’t even plan the trip properly. Just submitted whatever extra things I plonk in to ask her to check if distance or otw, without checking it. No train no this no that. My goodness!) but I’m tired so I will continue my blog drafts
6th Nov (Wed)
Started cooking way earlier, didn’t take note of the time. But by the time it’s 3.08pm the cod fillet is fried, vegetables cooked and frying the last few pieces of DDDK teriyaki chicken
I used the tamagoyaki pan to fry the cod. So much easier to control as it has a smaller surface area. I’m able to tilt the pan to coat with oil and fry the fish (getting oil splatters. Ouch!)
3.55pm - finished cleaning the kitchen, prepared rice in Thermomix with Varoma on top of it.
All I’m left is this to pour the gravy into the fish, throw the last 4 fresh fishballs and steam when I reach home later.
Showered and left home at 4.07pm. Haha! I kindda splashed water quick quick to clean my sticky dirty body.
The chicken became so dark (Haha!) as I had left it in the oven to keep the food warm.
Bought old cucumber soup from opposite. I checked with the lady 你这些汤、哪个没有放冰糖？She gave me a weird look and said all soup with sugar. Sigh..
I usually take another shower + wash hair after the kitchen is cleaned (usually is a quick wipe as I had scrubbed and cleaned earlier before I left house) and trash discarded for the night.
13th Nov (Wed)
Kindda lazy but needed to clear things in fridge. Broccoli has to be cleared asap before they turn yellow. Pork belly strips have been in the freezer since June *gasp* (which is why menu planning is important in my household)
Menu : prepacked fish tofu, fried broccoli with mushroom, pork sukiyaki, chawanmushi
21st Nov (Thurs)
I haven’t been diligent in updating this blog entry since the 13th, did cook 1-2 days after that.
Today is another day where I tried to clear my CDC vouchers - $19 from opposite che-che’s workplace foodcourt coz she wanted to choose the dishes herself
Fried chicken cutlet, fried fish, steamed fish. I didn’t get vegetables as I have broccoli at home and will also boil soup
Watercress soup - I’ve tried cooking this before CB and it wasn’t to his liking so never really attempted it again. Took recipe from souperdiaries.com Adjusted the portion as I didn’t cook 6 cups (1.4+ litres) as they asked for. I cooked only about 950ml coz the girls don’t like to drink soup except for lil’ one who only likes her purple soup. Honestly I don’t mind if he / they drink /eat up every single thing that is laid on the table, to cook a bigger portion, so that I can rest another day on cooking and just reheat them. If they are that easy, I would cook a bigger portion every meal. Cooking is so tiring especially if the man prefers a 3+1 rice meal.
This recipe asked for dried oyster, ikan and honey dates. This is taste approved (phew!!) or maybe he just 因凑 me ‘just nod my head otherwise she starts complaining again’. I should think honey dates is fine, as long as recipe don’t ask me to put rock sugar.
27th Nov (Wed)
Now wondering if I should ever keep the record of my yucky cooked dinners. Just wanted a record for self when I look back next time or when I need to refer to recipes, but blogging takes up time.
Stir fry spinach with wolfberries. Recipe taken from Home Cooking with Somjit ‘s YouTube. I omitted cooking wine. Watch her video and you see her spinach still looking so green and nice. Nope! I didn’t overcook my vegetables at all.
Then I realised I could have bought a wrong spinach 😂 coz it tastes different from the spinach I tasted before. The geh-angmoh saw spinach labelled on the bag mah ….
Halfway thru dinner I rummaged thru the trash bag to find the clear bag it came in. I can’t even read and ask hubby 什么菜？(he must be thinking, another hopeless person in chinese. At least his most doted girl’s chinese is better than the 2 of us. Googled translation and found out that this is amaranth.
So in conclusion “ Amaranth leaves have more Vitamin K, Vitamin C, and Calcium, while Spinach have more Vitamin A, Iron, Folate, Magnesium, Vitamin B2, and Vitamin B1. Amaranth leaves' daily need coverage for Vitamin K is 539% higher.”
Sometimes it’s good to be blur 👍 to learn more things. Then again, I’m lucky that this time he finished the vegetables.
The rest of the I dunno what the heck I’m cooking dinner. It’s cheat dinner - Mapo tofu, DDDK teriyaki chicken steamed with the codfish (🤦🏻♀️ I wanted to drop by supermarket and pickup spring onion before picking lil’ one up but was so engrossed with the itinerary planning that I overlooked the time. So now my fish is steamed plainly)
Teriyaki chicken is in two containers coz I was lazy to find my round plate for steaming. Fish and chicken were steamed at the same time, good thing about Thermomix.
And che-che’s fried cod.
Has it been that long since I cook? Yah I think so, there were days when I wanted to cook then something crops up so end up buying dishes outside and I only cooked rice at home.
Suppose to cook yesterday but hubby informed me last minute he has a company dinner. Put back the ingredients into the freezer and took them out today 😄. One more time if I were to thaw and freeze the same ingredients again, I might have to discard them.
My goodness! I started cooking at 3+ coz I needed to get the soup boiling and only finished at …..
@ 8.12pm Can finally sit down on the toilet seat. Exhausted. Sticky. Smelly. Bao-ga-liao. So tired! Suppose to iron another batch of clothes today, just so tired and threw back into the laundry basket 😮💨.Maybe I should just throw their clothes in the rubbish chute 😜.
(1) The same watercress soup as I cooked on 21st Nov, this time I added carrot as per recipe. Mom asked why I didn’t pluck the watercress? Huh? Need to pluck meh? 🤣 I just washed and then checked all the vegetables and dump inside the soup. (2) Mapo tofu coz I need to finish the tofu, which they often sell them in sets of 2 in NTUC. No more buying tofu until we return back next year. (3) Fried cod for Che-che and steamed cod for the 3 of them. Mom commented that my fish is fried so nicely. Yah! I didn’t tell her it was with practice and using the smaller pan that helped me. (4) The garlic sprout (which I bought like 2 Thursdays ago!) and chicken in sesame oil spring onion style WITHOUT the spring onion. I really have to omit a lot of ingredients, which I also believe affects the end taste of a dish. Wanted to cook the pathetic garlic sprout + bol choy as a dish & then another chicken dish but realised that watercress is a vegetable and o wouldn’t want to have so many small portioned dishes, make myself busy only. So put all into one dish. I think mom is just trying to make me happy, she says the taste is ok.
By the time I finish cooking, it was already close to 5.40pm so was still thinking if I should pick che-che up. When I messaged her she mentioned she was leaving soon, I told her to make her way home herself then. That gave me more time to catch my breath and a short rest on the floor.
Cook, clean kitchen, wash and dry dishes. Wah….cook one meal and so many items to clean. Next time can I just cook porridge as a meal - today chicken porridge; tomorrow pork porridge etc…
Not sure if I have the energy to post anymore of my cooking after this. Let me get this post published now, need to clear my Draft folder that has entries dating back to 2020 😂.
