31st Jan 2024 : Is this the first meal I cook this year?

I think this must be the first meal I cook this year 😛 that hubby just happened to walk into the kitchen after his phonecall and said “oh! you cooking dinner?” I caught him by surprise 🤣. 

Reason why I haven’t been cooking. Since we got back from Taiwan on 6th Jan, che-che only had two weeks here so I spent most afternoons (if she’s not out with friends) bringing her out for lunch. And if lil’ one ends school at 5pm, there’s no way I can get dinner ready in time having being out of the house the whole time + “I’m not that dumb to make myself busy after that when I badly need to clean myself”.  I did cook mee hoon kueh but that’s just for the two girls. After she left SIN, it was 🎨 time + out of house for exercise, I’d rather pack before picking her up then to again ‘impossible to cook anything’. Anyway not like my family love my horrible cooking. 

Wednesdays - Lil’ one usually ends at 12pm (this term) but we reached home late after visiting mom at hospital and then bringing lil’ one out for lunch. 

While she was in the shower, I decided that I should start cooking earlier so I can have a shower and feel clean 

At around 4pm, I started cooking the black chicken herbal soup. Ok, so I play cheat on this as I bought the prepack herbs pack - I don’t hv the individual herbs at home. I rmbr I told the girl at Kallang NTUC to cut my chicken into 8 parts or 6 parts and specifically told her “don’t give me chicken head please. Throw it away.” And she had to give it to me together with the 💩 bishop’s nose 🤦🏻‍♀️. So disgusting! I used another bag and layers of paper hand towel to grab the head while squirming in nervousness and threw it away. 

DISH 1 : BLACK CHICKEN SOUP 

Instructions called for 500g of chicken and 1.5litres of water. 

I only used 4 pieces to cook 900ml of water soup. Why so gniao? Coz if I cook too much it’ll go to waste. I was trying to clear space in the freezer but looks like no difference at all, next time I shall cook for 2 meals then pack the other half. A little soup spilled out from the small pot 🤣. I transferred it to the slow cooker to do the rest of the job. 

Initial plan

Initially wanted to steam rice first so I can keep the rice aside and use Ms Thermie to ‘stir-fry’ the broccoli while I steam tofu on the stove. Sounds like a good plan right? Then I  suddenly remembered that I can steam the egg tofu at the same time! OMG! Why am I so dumb ?!?! I stopped the machine when it was barely a minute into steaming my rice and took out the UFO and put my round dish in. One of the reason that sold me into buying Ms Thermie is that I can do layer cooking and I’ve totally forgotten about it. Well…there’s always a first time. 

While I set Ms Thermie to steam both items for 15minutes I took my shower. My second dish is ready once I’m clean. Yay! Now left with one more dish. It’s faster this time too as I didn’t want to cook a plate of proteins where I will be left with leftover meat for sure.

 

Checked on the soup which is brewing up nicely. 

At the same time I took out the rice and put it into the thermos container, and chucked the tofu into the heated oven. I don’t hv a warmer at all. 

To shift the topic, let’s talk about food warmer. A girlfriend has a food warmer in her home. I love the idea especially when I prefer to get my meals ready early, the warmer will help keep my food warm while I clean up a little part of the kitchen/crockeries (so I have lesser work to do after meal). I would prefer to have my shower earlier. 

Infact when renovating the kitchen, I did have the intention of having one but decided against it when I : - 

1) checked the price of a warmer drawer,  it cost around $2-3K 😱 (the ones I saw. Not sure if there are cheaper ones in the market)

2) Where can I put? Directly above the convection oven, which means my oven will end up “on the floor”. Do I need to raise up the height of my lower cabinets and kitchen top? I don’t have space anywhere else, I can’t give up any cabinetry space coz ….. already not enough space in the kitchen.

3) Dare not put veggies inside actually, so how often will I use it? Maybe just using the convection oven will be able to help me. 

I came across this in 淘宝。不知道真的有用吗？I may only consider getting this if I’m cooking 5x a week lor! Now only 顶位 and adding more clutter in the house.  

Back to my aunty talk - cooking the broccoli. I made the mistake of not removing the MC again! Resulted in watery sauce 🤣. 

It’s really hassle free cooking. While it was cooking, I washed some dishes. 

After I dished out the broccoli and mushroom into a plate. I pre-cleaned the bowl with detergent and sodium percarbonate. At the same time I cleaned the kitchen top and cleaned the stove. Gao-dim-sai! Dinner is ready. 

Today’s simple dinner 

Cut some red chilli for the black chicken

Lil’ one don’t like veggies so I left this on the dining table. The tofu is for us to share, I used up 1 1/2 egg tofu. Still had leftover to steam if it’s not enough. Her chicken soup

And hubby also one kind. Why always want to sit on the floor at coffee table to eat? So our meals are served at two different places. Tell him to sit on the dining table also 没用。Too stubborn to listen. Just coz he wants to watch TV.