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:

I love my steamer and slow cooker

I think a steamer and slow cooker makes a really good combi to having healthy and tasty home cooked meals. Ever since I got my steamer, I have been cooking on a more regular basis, from once a month or once in 2 months to 2-3 times a week. But it can get kinda boring sometimes as I often run out of ideas of what to steam for dinner. Then comes along the slow cooker. I can make soups and stews with it! Its so convenient! I always thought that slow cookers are a waste of money but now I think otherwise. They make great one-pot meals! I usually put the ingredients into the slow cooker at night, leaving them to cook overnight. The food will be ready the next day, so all I have to do when I get home from work is to let it heat up again. The inner pot can be placed directly over the stove for heating up too, thus saving more time. With the wonderful combi of the steamer and slow cooker, I now cook about 4 times a week including weekends. I usually cook 4 servings, 2 for dinner and 2 for our next day lunch boxes. Although there are still things to wash, at least it is not as tiring as re-washing my heavy WMF wok whenever I finish cooking each dish. So now, we can easily have soup and 2-3 dishes for each meal, or simply just a one-pot meal. Its so complete! Kitty says these are 2 of the best investments he has ever made so far, haha!

Lunch on Sunday, 24 Jan

Beef Stew

Cooked this using the slow cooker. Its so nice! I think it would be even better if I had used less beef broth and made the gravy thicker. Added potatoes, carrots, radish and big onions. A great one-pot meal!

Dinner on Monday, 25 Jan

Black Chicken Soup

Cooked this using the slow cooker too, so convenient, haha! As I plan my menu once a week with some dishes like this requiring chinese herbs, Kitty has to go get them for me at Rochor. I think he has by now become a familiar face to the shop there!

Steamed Kai Lan

Used oyster sauce for the gravy and added a few drops of sesame oil. I am surprised at the boost of flavour to the oyster sauce!

Steamed Egg with smashed Tofu

We have been eating a lot of steamed eggs cos I have plenty of eggs in my fridge expiring soon. We had wanted to make Deviled Eggs for the family cottage meeting on Sat night and had stocked up our fridge with eggs. Who knows, Kitty had to go back to his office to oversee some filming works and we couldn't make it in the end. Now, we are stuck with plenty of eggs. I am still left with 5 more eggs to clear after this! Anyway, this time, I smashed the egg tofu to see how it will look. Ok, not nice. I still prefer the full yellow-smooth look, haha. Tastes the same though.

Haha, I cooked too much beef stew on Sunday and thus we had a small pot leftover for Monday's dinner despite already having brought some to work for lunch, lol.

Dinner on Tuesday, 26 Jan

Steamed cabbage with fishcake

Haha, somehow the old cat thought I stir-fried this dish. But no lah, I steamed both the cabbage and fishcake, lol. Steamed veggies are just so crisp and tasty!

Steamed Pork Ribs

I realized I have a bottle of Mirin in my cabinet and I am determined to use as much as I can in my cooking. Cannot let it go wasted like many of my other seasonings and sauces. By the way, this is the expensive spare ribs I bought at the wet market (mentioned in prev post), the very one that Kitty dropped in his haste! Anyway, this dish is DELICIOUS!!!! I got the recipe from some online blog and after reading its very positive reviews, I decided to try making it on my own. Its so simple to make yet tastes sooooooooooooo yummy! For those who are interested, just buy some pork ribs (or pork chop if you don't want the bone) and marinate it with the following: 2 Tbsp Oyster sauce, 1 Tbsp Sesame oil, 1 Tbsp Sugar (I used Mirin), 2 Tbsp Hua Diao Jiu, 1 Tsp Corn flour and some Pepper. Optional: 1 Tsp White Vinegar. Marinate the pork for 1-2 hours and steam it for 20mins. Its really delicious!!!

That's our dinner. It includes a bowl of black chicken soup from Monday, lol.

Dinner on Wed, 27 Jan

ABC Soup with Chicken

This is not my first time cooking ABC soup but its my first time using the slow cooker to make this soup. I usually add spare ribs in the soup but this time I used chicken. Surprisingly, it tasted really yummy!! I shall opt for chicken next time when I make this soup, haha!

Chicken and more chicken

I decided to try out some new recipes and they all (except the veggies) include chicken as the main ingredient. As a result, we have been eating chicken for 3 whole days, haha.

Dinner on Saturday:

Chicken and Silken Tofu in Egg gravy (Stir-fried)



Had to fry the tofu before adding it to the chicken in the pan. I am lousy at frying soft foods like tofu, so they sort of broke apart during the cooking process. Used homemade chicken stock with egg for the gravy instead of water and egg. Don't be fooled by its look. This dish is really yummy! Try it and you will know!

Chicken Sweet Corn Egg Drop Tofu Soup



Cooked this over the stove. I used homemade chicken stock for the soup base instead of water. Kitty said its nice. A change from the usual Chinese soups that I make. Half Chinese half Western, haha.


Steamed broccoli and mushrooms



Kinda boring to eat broccoli by itself, so I added mushrooms for garnishing, haha.


Dinner on Sunday:

Lotus root with spare ribs soup



Used the slow cooker to make this soup. Set it to cook on Sat night and it was ready for consumption the next day, so convenient! I added peanuts to the recipe. YUMMY!! I like the taste of dried scallops, so I always put about 12-14 big pieces and a handful of small ones. The soup turns out to be very flavorful, haha.

Honey Chicken Chop



I was supposed to pan fry the chicken skin side down when I realised that the chicken thighs I bought from NTUC did not come with skin, wahahahahahahahaha! Nevertheless, this honey "chicken chop" (or thigh) is really nice! Just marinate it with a lil bit of salt and pepper on the top and on the bottom, salt (just a bit), pepper and rosemary. Pan fry on both sides until cooked and add the gravy. To make the gravy, combine 1 Tbsp of honey, 1 Tbsp of light soy sauce, 1 Tbsp of lemon juice and 2 Tbsp of water. Its so easy!

Xiao bai cai



Steamed the xiao bai cai and added some oyster sauce for taste.


Dinner on Monday:

Herbal Chicken Soup





I sent Kitty on a shopping spree last Thursday for Chinese herbs required for this soup. He had an appointment after that, so he said felt so pai seh carrying these things (except the weighing scale), haha. I decided to get a weighing scale cos some recipes specify ingredients in grams. Actually I already bought one 2 weeks ago but the unit of measurement was not ideal, so I sold it off on eBay (luckily there was a buyer) and bought this orange one yesterday.



Steamed cabbage, steamed egg with century egg (no egg tofu this time, haha) and herbal chicken soup.

Fried arrowhead chips



I read online that fried arrowhead chips are super nice and taste much better than potato chips. Arrowheads are only sold during CNY period once a year, so once you miss it, you will have to wait another year before you can see it on sale again. I found some at NTUC on Saturday and decided to buy some to make chips. They look kinda like water chestnuts. I cut off the tip and bottom and sliced them as thinly as I could (I don't have a slicer) with a knife. I soaked them in salt water for a few hours and the old cat helped me to spread them out on plates to dry. I deep-fried them after work on Monday and tried a piece. Manz, they are yummy!! Very crunchy and tasty!! They are indeed much, much better than potato chips!! Even the old cat agreed and can't stop eating!!

This is how it looks after frying:



I bought the Kikkoman Special Fragrance Soy Sauce and found that I like it a lot better than Tai Hua Standard Light Soy Sauce! I have always thought the one I am using has a strong taste and I didn't really like it. The Kikkoman is good - the taste is just nice! Now I wonder what to do with my bottle of Tai Hua. Maybe I should just wait till May when it expires before throwing it away. I had a quick look at the shelf where I put my corn flour and realised to my horror that I have MANY packets of flour. Corn flour, tapioca flour, potato starch, sweet potato flour...etc! Oh manz! I must have bought them when I was trying out different recipes over the past year! I found out recently that they can be used for the same purpose - thickening gravy. Manz, its such a waste! I mean, I could have used my regular corn flour when the recipes asked for tapioca flour. Sigh. I had to throw out those that have expired. Another thing.... I bought a packet of cane sugar to replace my white sugar. I found that I still have half a packet of white sugar on the shelf and its 100% PURE CANE SUGAR!!!!! Manz!!!!!! Arrrrgh I should not have bought the cane sugar without checking my shelf lor! I mean, just cos it is white colour does not mean it is regular table sugar mah!!! Plus, how could I have doubted my own fussy nature in buying "healthy" options even 2 years back???? Liew, I feel kinda peeved knowing that I have bought so many "extra" food items for nothing!

Wall decals for our study wall - half completed

Let the pictures do the talking!

Mock-up done by Wink Play

A default colour was set for the leaves cos we were waiting for the sample metallic colours to be mailed to us. Gave the go ahead for the layout on Thursday without realizing that the leaves ain't maple leaves! Decided on metallic silver for the maple leaves.

Wink Play delivered the decal to my office on Friday - so fast! It later occurred to me that the leaves were not maple leaves. I called them immediately and they agreed to do a reprint of the leaves. Got to wait till 19th or 20th Jan for delivery, so I went down after work to collect it myself.

The wall had to be cleaned before applying the wall decal. The old cat removed the big portrait and I told him to use the vacuum cleaner to vacuum the wall, haha.

We were given 2 hard squeegees and instructions on how to apply the wall decal. Prior to that, kiasu me had already read up and viewed several videos on how to do it.

This is how it looks like before we cut out all the leaves to avoid accidentally applying them.

1st step: The old cat using the squeegee to rub over the entire graphic so that the graphic would stick onto the transfer tape.

Used masking tape to paste the whole thing on the wall to see how it looks.



We cut out all the leaves, removed the backing and pasted the transfer tape on the wall.



Using the squeegee to rub over the transfer tape.



I'm obviously not tall enough to reach the top, lol.



Peeling off the transparent tape!



Tada!!!!!!!! 1st part completed!!! Now we're only left with the leaves!



The mess we created. Nothing has changed till now.

We cut out the leaves and a few cherries and used masking tape to stick them on the wall. Haven't applied them on the wall for good cos the old cat said "wait and see for a few days to confirm if we really want this layout".

2 versions at the moment:



Version 1

Version 2 (with only 1 extra cherry and maple leave)

Which do you think looks better?? Or is there something we should add or remove? Comments please!

Wanna put photo frames on the wall at the empty space. Checked out IKEA's website to get the dimensions of their various photo frames. Gonna cut out the various sizes of photo frames and stick them on the wall to see which sizes would be most suitable. I can't wait to get it over and done with! Cos... I am thinking of repainting our bedroom doors (thankfully only 2 cos we hacked off the 3rd one) and adding decals to them, wahahahhahahahaha! The Nippon service personnel had already advised me on which paint to use and taught me how to do it. They have also mailed me the paint catalogue for me to better visualize the colours (online not accurate). Now I got to convince the old cat that we got to repaint the doors... cos he'll be the one doing, wahahahahahhaha!