盛り付け

Doing borliao things again 

Relaxing before the storm - cooking dinner

Again, another of my ‘why rebottling the yoghurt when I can eat it from the original packaging’. Yup! Another of one of those shitty days again. 

Hokkaido cream stew

 Bought this last October and haven’t used it yet 😂

 Time to cook this now on 21st April 🤭.

Hokkaido Stew Cream mix.

• Product Type: Japanese creamy stew roux blocks.
• Key Features: Made with 100% Hokkaido fresh cream and natural cheese.
• Serving Size: One box makes approximately 10 servings (5 servings x 2 packs). 
• Ingredients: Contains vegetable oil, flour, sugar, milk, salt, and pork extract.
• Price: Typically retails for around $5.00 - $6.00 SGD for a 180g box.
• 
  

In my last post in October I was puzzled with the different potatoes. This time decided to try Mayqueen potatoes. 

Liquid - I only put in 700ml instead of 1200ml. And it turns out just nice. Can’t imagine how runny it will be if I had followed instructions to the tee. 

Just how thoughtful Japanese are. Can tear along the perforated strip and make a smaller box

Makes packing so much compact

*****************

Since there was some leftover the night before, I had it as a soup for my lunch. Using the Japanese garlic spread I have at home and toasted bread. What a simple yet satisfying meal!

I will cook this again, once I finish the last cubes I will look for a Thermomix recipe and do everything from scratch.

Doing the bor liao thing

The work around the house is not just confined to housework. There are days when I remove things from cabinets and clean the cabinets interior, days when I become Cinderella and go down on my knees to clean the grouts *giddy*, checking medicine expiry dates, organize things from left to right then from right to left on another day etc.. 

There are days when I have to do this kind of bor-liao organizing things -

😒 then it's time to reshuffle my spice rack. It's usually in alphabetical order, then I realised I needed more of one or two items than the other. Luckily I gave up the idea of re-bottling my Japanese and German curry powder long time ago if not I'd be playing strategic games with this rack.

Now "fixing this puzzle" again coz I had to add one item in. Sigh....getting myself a little busy doing stupid things.

#borliao# #inmysmallkitchenfindingspace#

So many stickers. Different kinds of curry, salt. Very interesting. Some herbs/spice mix are unheard 😂 of

Had to buy this low sodium salt in China just coz I ran out of my seasalt I packed for lil' one. She has tonsillitis which comes every 2-3 weeks for the past 2 years. I decided to let her try gargling at least twice a day, trying to keep it away. No joke lah! Keep taking amoxicillin is not good for her. So many MCs in school last time 🤦🏻‍♀️

Anyway, che-che refused to help me bring over some from home when she was due to join us so I have no choice but to buy. Cannot find seasalt in the supermarket. Low-sodium which according to lil' one extremely salty. I won't use this for cooking at all, infact I hardly use salt for my cooking (that's why my food tastes horrible). This is for her to gargle, make it easier for her to prepare the salt water. And also to use it to kill snails in my PES, I used to use my seasalt to kill them

🤣, atas death.

Did a quick check on expiry. So far so good, some just expired not long ago. Check back in 6months time 吧！

Just another day .....

Just the day I need a perk-me-up. I decided to whisk whisk whisk. With this music playing in the background. 

Now charging my battery 🪫 before I start prepping dinner. I'm forced to drink one cup coz I needed to finish the milk, Next time I need to find milk that comes in 100ml pack.

#iwantmy🍵#

Finally posted these

Finally! Months later, my solo trip blog entries are up. 

Editing took so much time, I hope I didn’t miss out anything. I can’t seem to change the fonts for Part 1 and kindda gave up. 

Link is here, just click on it. Enjoy!  

Solo trip : Part 1

Solo trip : Part 2

😩 been a year

For my own peace of mind, I should probably unfollow their Instagram account. Those posts just make me longing for the place. 

雪の大谷 only 12m? Not enough snow to dig? 

It was 16m on opening day last year (15/4/25) and 13m by the time I got there on 12th June, 13 days to closing season 

真的太想念了。Will I have a chance to go back? 

ไปกินข้าวกันเถอะ

I know it sounds really crazy but I’ve been wanting to eat Thai food for the last few months more than any other cuisine, altho I know my stomach cannot take the spicy 🌶️ food now. I even have the crazy idea of wanting to fly to Bangkok just to eat. Haha! 

Think hubby been hearing me 唠叨 about Thai food past few days that he decided to show me where he had been packing the red ruby for the both of us for the last 4-5yrs when he drives past while otw home. 

Small humble shop. While waiting for my order, I flipped thru their menu. Food looks good and would love to try it one day. 

Love their red ruby. So many times tempted to make on my own but ….. how much can I eat? 

But we don’t have to go that far to eat Thai when we crave for Thai. Most times three of us would simply walk across our house to a small authentic Thai owned shop. Everytime I step in, I tell myself I want to cook Thai. 太难了 coz che-che don’t like Thai. The enthusiasm I have (buying Thermomix Thai recipe book, Marion Grasby and her mom’s recipe books) 都是白费的。Sigh…..

Cooking for one

Che-Che has been busy meeting friends for the past two weekends, this weekend included. One person less to 烦吃什么, I told hubby to just pack our dinner and I’ll cook for lil’ one. I had to clear out the soup and ‘1yr-old ?pasta sauce.’ OMG! 我的妈啊! That’s the problem I face when only one person eats a certain item, and I can’t possibly cook for just that one person without cooking for the other 2 fussy people. 幸好 I vacumn sealed the soup and pasta sauce so they can last longer. 

votre dîner! 

soupe à l'oignon française et pâtes aux pétoncles

When I’m free and in a better mood and freezer ada space then I’ll bulk prep whatever thing.

TO-DO LIST OR MY DREAM LIST 🤭 

- tomato based pasta sauce for lil’ one

- pesto sauce for che-che?

- cabonara pasta sauce for che-che?

- mushroom soup

- chicken soup

- French onion soup

先交代我的后事

The sun has made one round and it’s time for the cleaning of tombs aka niche. Aetos were called to direct traffic, this year we were directed to a carpark even further away. Walked under the hot sun to the columbarium. 🥵 no joke man! I was walking even slower coz every minute under the sun (with the umbrella) aka oven heat made my feet melt to the ground and I couldn’t walk fast. 

Honestly speaking, usually my SIL and J will do all the 拜拜 preparations all these years. I wouldn’t even know what to do, what to buy. 

Observed other families, all come in big family so 热闹. When I was younger we had to 七早八早 go to the cemetery. Then there were definitely more than 6 people. I don’t think I did much there, I was pretty useless 😂 maybe just help to put things down as instructed by the adults. Anyway I’m just glad we don’t have to wake up before the sun rises to go to the columbarium now. Since both in-laws passed, the ones that usually go down is just 6 of us. Our family usually come in full force, SIL and J. Son J sometimes come along; sometimes don’t. This time alone only 5 of us as Che-che already made arrangements to meet her friend. E and L don’t go, maybe only once or twice they went to the temple (?). It’s the same when we have to go to the 神台 in the temple. So yah, the grandkids paying respect to in-laws are just mainly 2 or 3 of them that’s it. 

That got me thinking when I passed what I would want my kids / family do with me. Long time ago I said I like 富贵Nirvana where A is in. Lovely place, chanting music playing. But that condo resting place is damn expensive. My girls will probably not be bothered to do all these stuffs then pay money for what? Then they will long forget their mother. Randomly in the car, I blurted out to hubby and lil’ one. When I die, just throw me inland. Don’t throw me in sea. Yucks! Altho when I die I wouldn’t know if they’ll throw my ashes into the drain. 

Two options in Singapore for inland scattering :

1) Garden of Peace at CCK 

2) Garden of Serenity at Mandai 

Throw in garden and hopefully will have a flower plant. If this life time I don’t have green thumb and kill my plants, at least when I die hopefully a plant can grow 🤣 above me.  

Clearing up

I spent today clearing out the magazine holders in lil’ one’s wardrobe. They used to hold her notes, exam papers from other schools, assessment books. But over the years, some of her notes got too big (like A3 size), so I had to stash them on top of the wardrobe. 

To declutter a house I must tackle one small space at a time, such as a single cabinet, laundry, bathroom, or kitchen corner. Because homes have endless nooks to fill, I refuse to buy extra standalone storage (esp for the yard with my mom’s and bro’s previous advice) and strictly limit my belongings to the built-in space provided by our developer and contractor. 

It’s no wonder my friends always ask me why I’m so busy—I’m constantly tidying up! I recently learned that a friend hasn’t cleared her only daughter’s room since primary school, even though she has already graduated from university and been working for a year. I’m the opposite; I declutter so frequently that when I moved into my current home with 12 boxes, the movers exclaimed, 'Only these boxes?' 

I am not a minimalist, but I am far from a hoarder. Periodic decluttering hits the sweet spot for me. It keeps my mind active and doubles as a great workout! 

At this rate, the next time lil’ one do her own decluttering at this spot will probably be when she starts working. Who knows, we might even get rid of this shelf and give her extra space in the room.

This photo from October 12, 2019, shows the shelf looking neat and uniform. All eight partitions are filled with blue ring holders that I searched high and low to match with the magazine holders

The lime green holders belong to Che-che. I cleared some out after her A-levels, thinking she might need them for uni. She didn't, but I still left a few in the top wardrobe. Today, I cleared out the rest and kept only six or seven. I used three on the piano to hold our music books.

These are still in good condition after 11 years, and they were expensive to ship from the US. It feels like a waste to discard them, but keeping unused items only creates clutter.

For my record and reference : Bought these ‘Bigso Box of Sweden storage box’ from The Container Store