Constipation is a killer

Meine Eltern are very big on vegetables and fruits. Now that I spend more time at "the Summer Villa", as my friend sarcastically calls the new house, I need to make sure that the two of us eat enough fruits and vegetables. Fruits no, we are still trying. Because he likes apples and oranges, while I prefer exotic shit. =D

So we up vegetable intake. More like me, since I am the designated cook and grocery shopper. I also note that I spend about 8 hours every week cooking, because I tend to cook from scratch and not buy shortcuts. I need to combine my mis en place hours, or feed the man takeout. Time wasted cooking while I can be reading, painting and writing =D.

I had an awful lot of fishballs, ocotopus balls, foochow balls left because of Chinese New Year. So we are slowly eating through the balls *haha*. I didn't really like the soup, what I liked was the scallop with hairy gourd =D. The chicken, tofu corn is actually a rehash of the 玉米羹 except that it was even thicker, more like a stew.

Macaroni

B1 hates macaroni. He associates macaroni and ikan bilis with being sick because that is what his Mutter fed him when he was sick as a child. Which is kind of sad because I love Macaroni, esp Mac and Cheese.

Anyway Vater didn't cook on Monday because Mutter was at the hospital visiting Grossmutter so he told me to eat out. B1 went running, so I went back to the new place first and opened the fridge and pantry cupboards. Eh. only Macaroni and tomato sauce left. 

B1 was horrified when he came back. WTF!?

Too bad darling. Now suck it up and eat it.

Laksa

This is Laksa. I think it is a Chinese dish, not a Malay dish as usually mistaken.

Typically filled with beansprouts, julienned fishcake, julienned tofu pockets, cockles and thick rice noodles in a spicy coconut broth. Mine is more like a copycat version of Rocky Masters', which have cucumber and octopus balls in theirs. Ok I admit, I cheated with a ready mix, which just tasted spicy. I thought that Laksa should taste sweet so I dumped some sugar in. =D

In the end I think the gravy is a bit thin. I should have taken a photo of the label, so that you would know what to NOT buy. Sigh =D.

Cold Soba Day

It is just too bothersome to cook sometimes when the weather is too hot. On these kind of days, I like to cook Japanese food, e.g. soba. It is cold and fun to eat and you end up feeling refreshed after the meal. Win Win =D

We had green tea soba with miso soup, salad with perilla dressing (some cheapo dressing I got from Daiso, but I cannot figure out what is perilla other than it tastes very green =D) and shishamo which I wasted a lot of elecrticity trying to grill them in my microwave before finally giving up and frying them to a nice brown in my non-stick pan.

Sandwiches for Breakfast

It is one of those wordless mornings, where you just want to munch munch and then get to work. =D

After a nasty day at work...

hot ramen noodles in pork bone soup is soothing indeed...

I love tiny julienned spring onions, runny egg yolk and the chashu. The only thing I hate in this bowl are bean sprouts. I only like those with big heads *keke* or I want them really cooked through and not crispy and sharp-tasting.

You can't miss this little shop in Cuppage Plaza. It is the first shop you will encounter when you walk in from the Centrepoint side. It is always fast with high turnover of seats and everyone is very nice and polite and will move so that you can be accommodated as well.

I am always torn between their tamago ramen (as above) and their tori chahan (chicken fried rice). Since I was having a bad day yesterday I decided to console myself by having tamago ramen and share a half portion of the fried rice with B1, who was also having shoyu ramen (I thought it would taste the generic instant mee *psst but don't tell him I said so*)

If this was all, we wouldn't have been clutching our tummies. You see, the shop is most well known for their deep-fried and pan-fried gyoza. In fact I heard that my cousin is even more hardcore and is known to take away their gyoza for home cooking. 

I think their gyoza is ok, but I order them because I am greedy by nature. *haha*

Japanese Day - Grilled Fish

There is a place I like to frequent at Takashimaya, where they grill a slice of fish on the spot upon order, which can be a pain to wait for, if you are in a hurry.

Still, it makes for a nice treat. So while we were at Isetan supermarket, I decided to try grilling fish as well with my new microwave... I was thinking that maybe one slice of fish was not filling enough and should I get the weird looking kurumi fish (which B1 and I might not like) or the safe but boring mackerel?

So I bought both. What the hell is kurumi anyway? Googling it reveals that it is an anime character or a song by Mr Children...

I also bought B1's perennial favorite, daikon radish. I know he likes them in big chunks but I wanted to copy the restaurant in cutting them very thin. So I cut 4 equally sized cylinders and shredded the rest into miso soup. I later  poured out almost all the soup into our bowls, and kept only a bit for braising the daikon cylinders.

The kurumi was marinated in teriyaki sauce so it should not be a no-brainer to cook while I couldn't figure out whether to salt the mackerel. I thought that the fish was likely salted already (it was) so I left them alone.

After grilling for 20min, the mackerel was done... I couldn't figure out whether the kurumi was so I left them in the oven while I ran out to fix my Tante's pc... next thing I knew the bloody fish was abit burnt, due to the sugar in the teriyaki sauce carbonizing.

Nonetheless still edible with my favorite yellow daikon pickles, yum yum =D.

Typing with my eyes half-opened

Am resisting the sleep monster (as Bruder refers to his baby son's fending off exhaustion), as I am typing this. It has been a ruthless quarter, and I think Bär und ich are running ourselves into the ground with no end in sight. Fun times. I cannot even play CoH, knowing that I keep falling asleep in game and will finally eventually get banned by other players =D. Of course disclosing that I am a chick makes me more easily forgiven *shameless*.

So I am doing a round-robin of sorts posting of entries to the blogs (I have three active ones right now, namely My Life as a Tiny Plasticine Penis, Schnappi und Other Krokodil und 你不饿?), attempting to ensure that each one is updated at least once a week during this trying period.

I am also trying to upload backdated photos I found in various parts of my computers. With a combined total of 8 hard disks, and other storage devices, I always find something I forgot somewhere. This being an example. I initially did not want to upload this because it would showcase what a trashy lover I am. But still did, because this was the first ever meal I ever prepared at the new Haus. 

See here? The first and only one dish that was actually made by myself  was the super disgusting paella at the top left side. Quite ashamed to admit that that was the very first dish of many meals I would torture the ungrateful B1 with. I had no choice really because I had been very busy at work (always am, just that this period is worse) and I was flying off to Vietnam the next day.

The rest of the items were thankfully store bought, including the fruits that I cut. It was there and then I decided that I should endeavor to cook from scratch as much as possible and not rely on processed albeit time-saving foods.