Dinners (22-24 Feb)

Dinner on Monday night, 22 Feb:

Chicken Porridge with Dried Scallops and Clams

Dinner on Tuesday night, 23 Feb:

Mushroom omelette






Steamed French Beans with Shiitake Mushrooms




Steamed Song Fish (aka Carp)




Dinner on Wednesday night, 24 Feb:

Chicken Mushroom Rice with Bakwa

I had to think of a way to get rid of the Bakwa Mdm Yik gave us and decided to add them to the rice. It was very nice and the old cat loves it!

Lunch and dinner on 21 Feb

One pot dish of Chicken with Mushrooms and Dried Oysters for Sunday lunch (21 Feb).



I have cooked this before last month, but this time, I used homemade chicken stock as the base instead of water. It tastes nicer!


Cooking on Sunday night (21 Feb):

Steamed Spinach with Century Egg



Kitty saw this on the century egg and asked me to take a pic:



Steamed Beef:



Steamed Shark Steak:



This time I remembered to buy both tomatoes and mushrooms, haha. Anyway, the shark tastes different from other fishes. The meat is a bit spongy. It looks very muscular huh? I told Kitty must be because the shark was busy killing other fishes for food, thats why it became so muscular. This dish is nice, but I personally prefer the silver pomfret and toman fish. By the way, does anyone know what is the difference between the Silver Pomfret and Chinese Pomfret?? They look the same to me.

3 dishes for dinner on Sunday:

Dinner on Thursday night, 18 Feb

My dinner. Kitty's supper. ABC Soup with Spare Ribs



Bought the spare ribs from the wet market yesterday. I think I can tell the difference in taste between Indonesian pork and Australian pork (from NTUC) liao. Indonesian pork has a nice sweet taste by its own. Hard to explain. Try making soup or any other pork dishes with Indonesian pork and the Aussie pork from NTUC and you will know the diff.

Made this steamed egg dish to add to our lunch boxes tmr. This time, I added century egg and salted egg to the beaten egg mixture. IT IS YUMMY!!!!

Dinner on Wed night, 17 Feb

Today is my last day of freedom from the CNY holidays. Kitty had to work, so I had the day to myself. I decided to try making Mdm Yik's Stewed Pork Belly with Quail Eggs dish. First, I had to make a trip to the wet market at Jurong West. Got to get Indonesian pork you know? Ok, I finally understand that the pork sold at wet markets are from Indonesia. They are of better quality than the Australian ones sold at NTUC.

So pai seh. As it is my first time buying pork (especially pork belly which I have never bought before)at the wet market, I called Mdm Yik and asked her how to tell the pork seller what I want, lol. I even noted down her speech!

Here goes:

Me: Uncle! Give me 3 slices of pork belly. Don't want too much fats; I will be using it for stewing. Thickness about "like that" (indicate with thumb and index finger). Help me to cut into small pieces.

Haha, so I got my pork belly and other ingredients. Went to JP NTUC after that to buy some other ingredients like prawns (don't feel like stepping into the wet section at the market). Saw the Toman fillet selling very cheap and they look fresh, so I bought one to try. What a coincidence. As I was walking to the car park, I noticed Mdm Yik's car parked just a few lots away! She had a movie appt with her pals. This reminds me of 2 weeks ago when I was at Pioneer Mall and found my dad's (The EL) car parked next to mine as well, lol. What a small world.

Steamed Broccoli with Prawns:



Stewed Pork Belly with Quail Eggs:

I bought more pork and quail eggs than what was stated in Mdm Yik's recipe. Cos of that I added more water and the gravy was not as saturated as it should be. Nevertheless, Kitty said it was yummy. I personally think its nice too, but better with more dark soy sauce (the Ipoh one I mentioned in my previous post) and lesser water. I brought some over to the Low Clan at night to let them try. Mdm Yik said it was very nice and fragrant, but it would be better if I had added lesser water, 1 more Tbsp of dark soy sauce and let it simmer longer. Haha, ok, I will do that the next time and let them try again!

Steamed Toman Fillet with Mushrooms:

I forgot to buy tomatoes, so you can only see mushrooms here, haha. Think the Toman fillet is nicer than the snapper... Kitty and I like this a lot. The meat is very "shuang kou"!

3 Dishes for dinner:

Updates since 1 Feb

Been pretty busy last week with the booking of our flights to the US and confirming our hotel choices. Liew I realise that airfares can really go up and down very suddenly. Just 2 weeks ago, the airfare from SIN to LA on Cathay Pacific cost $5691 and it suddenly dropped to $1334. We thought we would wait a day or two but who knows it rose again to $5691! Then last week, I was just randomly checking out airfares and found that it dropped again to $1334! I immediately booked. Better not wait manz! After that, we had to book 3 domestic flights. The airfare on United Airlines for the flight from LV to SFO increased as I wanted to book! I refreshed the page and it displayed the higher fare! I checked again the next day and interestingly, it went back to the cheaper fare! Faster booked that too.

Good hotels in the US are not cheap. Plus, the tax is so high! Whatever savings we made in airfares (cos I budgeted much higher), half went into extra hotel cost. Why? Cos when I was doing the budgeting in my spreadsheet, I did not take into account the hotel tax and tourist tax and possible resort fee, lol. We ended up exceeding the budget for all 3 hotels after taking into account the taxes. Read a lot of reviews on Tripadvisor, but then I don't place 100% trust in the reviews cos of our bad hotel experience in London. We thought since we are going there to "MIA" (or "BMT", haha), better stay in better hotels lest the hotel spoils our mood, lol. I got quite peeved and irritated with the London hotel. Thankfully we were only in London for 2 nights, so it was still ok. Plus, we were not there to "MIL", so its OK lah. To play safe, we booked 4 star hotels. Hilton for our stay in LA, The Mirage Hotel for LV (cos it is located in the middle of The Strip, no need to walk until legs break) and Club Donatello for SFO. We got a very good deal for the hotel in SFO. Had been searching online for 2 days but couldn't find any hotels with reasonable prices. In fact, the hotels that I have shortlisted a few months back all increased their prices by a few hundred dollars!!!! Daylight robbery!!! Thankfully, I chanced upon some very good last minute deals at Booking.com and found Club Donatello's King Suite going for only US$637 (including taxes) for 4 nights!!!

Yay, all bookings confirmed, so happy! Now gotta start hunting for a good camera tripod cos the old cat damaged our new Nikon tripod in Pisa (Italy)!

Dinner on Sat night (6 Jan)

Steamed Dou miao



Stir-fried Chicken with Salted Fish and Tofu

Mdm Yik gave me this recipe. She was kind enough to give me enough salted fish for this dish. I am surprised at how much it helped to enhance the taste and flavour of the dish! This is delicious! Mdm Yik was saying she bought salted fish cos she thought it is cheap, but ended up it was NOT cheap, lol. The auntie at the market said salted fish is expensive, haha. Good salted fish, I mean.

Steamed Silver Pomfret

After my previous attempt at steaming a black pomfret, I told myself I will never buy one again unless I use it for deep frying, which I hardly do so. On Sat, I bought the usual silver pomfret and manz its so delicious. I mean, black and silver pomfrets, they are both pomfrets, so why such a big difference in taste and texture??? The silver pomfret seems fresher and sweeter, the meat more tender. Its so nice manz! I used to steam this using the wok before I bought my steamer, which is more tedious cos my WMF wok is freaking heavy. Now I use the steamer. Don't know why, but somehow the fish tastes better. And No, its not psychological. Even the old cat said it was very, very nice! This is the Teochew style (cos I was lazy to prepare the sauce separately) without the chai po (I hate that) and tomatoes (I forgot to buy). Decided to make the fish look nicer by arranging the ginger like a star, haha.

Complete meal




Dinner on Sunday night (7 Jan)

Chicken Stew (one-pot dish)

I used the slow cooker to make this. This recipe includes 1 Tsp of Worcestershire sauce. I think this Worcestershire sauce really makes a difference to the dish. Don't know how to explain, you can just taste the difference. I put in chicken, potatoes, carrots and shitake mushrooms. Yummilicious! The old cat couldn't stop eating, haha! I shall cook this more often.

I cooked extra portions so that we can have it for lunch the next day at the office.

The one on the left is mine. See the difference in size?? He has 3 big scoops of brown rice while I had only one small scoop. For the chicken stew, he has 4-5 times more too, with a lot more chicken and potatoes, wahahhahahahhaa!

I realise that it is not easy to cook perfect brown rice cos it is hard to gauge the water level. For white rice, I usually put 1 cup of water to 1 cup of rice, but for brown rice it is different. First time, I put 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. It was a lil drier than we liked but still nice. 2nd time, I put 4 cups of water to 2 cups of rice and it turned out to be slightly sticky and soggy. 3rd time (yesterday), I put 4.5 cups of water to 3 cups of rice and it turned out good! See? I think the "pattern" and trick is to add approximately 1.5 cups more water. E.g. 3-3.5 cups of water for 2 cups of rice.

Wall decals for our study wall - 3/4 completed

Since my previous update, we positioned the maple leaves on the wall and left them there for a week. The purpose is to confirm our liking for the position of the leaves, haha. After a week (20 Jan), we finally removed the backing and applied the leaves on the wall for good. That same week, I also received some sample decals I requested from Modishop. Lol, they were too slow. By the time they mailed me the sample, we had already ordered and applied on our wall decals from Wink Play, lol.

Wall with leaves applied for good:



Sample from Modishop:



I cut out several sizes of paper and stuck them on the wall to visualize how the wall will look with photo frames. After coming up with more than 20 mock-ups, we finally decided on the following:



Went to IKEA 2 Saturdays ago (23 Jan) and bought 3 of these:



As we are planning to fill 1 frame (3 photos) with pics from our US trip, we can only hang the frames in May after our return. So now they are lying in the study gathering dust. In the meanwhile, the old cat removed the nail on the wall that supported our big portrait. Filled up the hole with putty and used sandpaper to even out the surface. We're also not going to let the Modishop sample go to waste. Planning to apply the bird and dragonfly somewhere near the 3 photo frames, haha!

Will post pics once it is completed!

Sidetrack:

The air bubbles beneath the window film on our dining table has dried up and now the table looks nice!

Updates since 28 Jan

I love Mdm Yik's cooking! No matter how simple a meal, she can always make it so nice, haha. We went over to the Low Clan's for dinner last Thursday (28 Jan) and Mdm Yik cooked one of her best dishes - Stewed Pork Belly with Quail Eggs. Manz, it was so yummilicious that I requested to tabao some back for my next day's lunch! Anyway, she gave me the recipe to making this dish, and I can't wait to try it out after CNY!!

She always uses these 2 sauces whenever it comes to stewing meat:

1) Famous Ipoh Light Soy Sauce

Apparently, this famous soy sauce from Ipoh can only be found at the wet market (Jurong West), and it is selling for $7.50 per bottle! I tasted a bit on its own, and indeed the taste is very fragrant and nice! It is not too salty, and has a nice, sweet taste to it. I really like my new Kikkoman soy sauce, but this tastes even better! Mdm Yik was kind enough to give me her remaining bottle for me to try cooking this dish, haha.

2) Dark Soy Sauce from Malaysia

According to Mdm Yik, this dark soy sauce can only be found at GIANT supermarket. She likes it cos it is neither too salty nor bitter. I tasted a bit as well, and yes, it was good!! I like it! I didn't like my bottle of Tai Hua dark soy sauce cos it was too bitter. Thankfully it expired, so I bought a different dark soy sauce last Wednesday at GIANT. I was lucky I did not throw away my receipt, so I went back to GIANT on Friday after work to do an exchange for this sauce instead.

Dinner on Saturday (30 Jan)

Stewed Chicken with Dried Oysters and Mushrooms

Haha, this is the advantage of the slow cooker. I put all the ingredients into the pot before noon and it was ready for consumption by the time we got home! So convenient. I love this dish. Very nice. There was a big pot leftover, so we had it for our Sunday lunch as well.

Cooking on Sunday (31 Jan)

Foil-wrapped Herbal Chicken

Before:



Didn't know the 2 big packs of chicken can fit into 1 tier, haha.



After:



I quite like this dish. Didn't add "pao shen" as stated in the recipe but it tasted good anyway, lol.


Stir-fried French beans with egg

Haha, as mentioned previously, I have a few eggs to clear before they expire, and I thought, why not add them to french beans?? Its so easy to make this dish. Just stir fry the french beans and add beaten eggs to it. I added ikan bilis powder to it. Delicious! I think I shall cook this more often. At least its a change from the usual broccoli or leafy veggies, haha.

Just 2 dishes for Sunday dinner:



Cooking on Tuesday (2 Feb)

Steamed Red Spinach with Fishballs




Steamed Potatoes with Chicken




Steamed White Snapper




Steamed Brown Rice

The brown rice at Atrium (IBP) is really nice, so I have been trying to find something similar now that we have finished our white rice. Haha, having cooked only once a month or once in 2 months last year, we took more than 1 year to finish our rice. This year, we finished a new bag of white rice within 2 months! 80% was consumed by Kitty, cos I have been trying to transform him into a Persian cat, haha. Anyway, we bought this "Heavenly Brown Rice" from Cold Storage. Bought a 1kg packet to try out and its not bad! I like the nutty, chewy texture of the rice, haha! Its healthy too!

Our dinner on Tuesday: