What's with inverted sunglasses?

It's always very entertaining watching my son when we're window-shopping. I am trapped between exasperation and amusement when he makes a beeline for assessories at fashion shops. Walking with him through a mall is like having a Jack Russell drag it's owner to a park. I'm the one being 'lured' to the shops that my son fancies, not the other way round.

My son pulled me into a Cotton On shop today after dropping off some books a the library, attracted by a display of items marked 'Under $20. There were lots of sunglasses going at S$2.00 each. He must have tried on every design available in the shop.

This white-rimmed pair (above) my son found highly fashionable. He deliberately wore them up-side down so that the glasses wouldn't slide off his face. The stuff he figures out is beyond me at times!

Feeling bad for taking up quite some time in the shop and my son's mischievous ways, I bought a purse and a bottle of nail polish before leaving. Turns out that Cotton On's having a buy-one-get-50%-off-next-item promotion so my already-discounted items cost a mere S$3 in total! Great gifts for my sis, who's into funky colours and vintage-looking assessories.

Purse (S$2) and nail polish (S$2) from Cotton On

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Food: Bread with sardine and onion

It's amazing how life-saving a can of sardines, an onion and a few pieces of bread can be when one's injured! I'm slightly crippled at the moment due to a nasty cut on one of my fingers while using the kitchen slicer.

Here's a desperate meal past-midnight:

(1) Chop up onions - husband to the rescue as I'm laying off cutting/slicing for the next few days!

(2) Open up the can of sardines and pour out the contents. Debone the sardines and break them into smaller chunks.

(3) Mix sardine well with chopped onions.

(4) I managed to do a poached egg but broke the yolk. No pics of this with rice and sardine - too ugly!

My any-how sardine sandwich

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The Inevitable OUCH

11.30pm

2 weeks into using the Daiso slicer for doing arrowhead crisps for the Chinese New Year, the Inevitable finally happened a while ago. Just as I was about done with slicing the last piece of arrowhead, one of my fingers slammed into the blade of the slicer. Prior to this (an hour ago when I first starting working in the kitchen), I already had a close shave - with a nail slightly chipped (2nd finger's).

Motherhood has certainly made me a stronger person. Not a cry or screech (lest my son jumps up from zzzz-land) as I calmly used a piece of kitchen rag to stop the bleeding before settling down to washing my finger and wrapping a plaster around it.

Took me a good 20 minutes to stop the blood!

I guess I'm never going to shake off this bugaboo of mine....

Typing this post took longer than usual:(

Very fortunately,
I had already bought tomorrow's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Happened to be at Cold Storage past 8pm and meats were on 50% discount.

I made a quick swoop for a piece of smoked duck breast (S$2.00 instead of the usual S$3.95) and 2 Bratwurst sausages (S$1.80 instead of S$3.60). These will nicely go with steamed watercress/carrots and rice. Or, with instant noodles and bread.

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Food: Fried rice with bak kwa and lotus root

I know today's meal sounds incongruent - fried rice certainly doesn't go with lotus root...

Well, my husband and I are fans of the lotus root soup. We don't waste any bit of the soup we cook and so keep the leftover in the fridge and steam it the following day for the next meal.

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Today's meal:

(1) Steam leftover lotus root soup.

(2) Fry leftover rice with garlic, sausage, prawns, mixed vegetables, bak kwa, canned spray (tiny fish), spring onion, shallots and egg.

(3) Serve the fried rice with a bowl of soup OR with slices of lotus root and peanuts taken from the soup.

Cost: less than S$3 (3 servings of fried rice)
Time needed: 15 mins (if you steam the soup and fry rice at the same time)

Mumusings' rice-in-soup (汤饭) and fuss-free recipe for lotus root soup ( 蓮藕湯)

One of my favourite ways if having soup is to pour it over a bowl of steamed rice, also known as 汤饭 (soupy-rice). It's the way I've always enjoyed soups, particularly lotus root soup and peanut soup! My grandma considers this the most 'barbaric' way of eating - hahaha...

I was feeling slothful after a hearty breakfast comprising of fried carrot cake and chilled sea coconut dessert. To the rescue today (side dish) is ready-to-eat smoked duck breast from Cold Storage (S$3.95 a piece). It's wonderful that I now have 2 cookers to help me out on days I don't feel like cooking. The new Philips cooker is amazing and intelligent - I solely use it to do steamed rice and rice dishes. My old Zojirushi is now the official gadget used to make soups, stews and desserts.

What's needed for lotus soup with pork and peanuts:

Pork muscle (I've decided not to buy pork ribs anymore for my soups!)

Lotus roots (sliced)

Peanuts (soaked, 1/3 of a packet)

Red dates (8 pieces)

Salt (a pinch)

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Method:

(1) Wash the pork with some cooking wine and salt. Boil it for a few minutes and drain off water.

(2) Wash and slice the lotus root.

(3) Place the lotus root, pork, peanuts and red dates into the cooker. Add enough water to just about cover all the ingredients.

(4) Add in a pinch of salt and start the cooker (on 'porridge' mode).

Rice with ingredients taken out from the soup

and smoked duck breast meat

Soupy-rice the way we like it

Note: I'd already set my other cooker (for rice) on timer for 1pm before going to the supermarket for groceries and the smoked duck breast. The meal was ready in a few minutes - just needed to slice the duck meat!

Cost of soup: less than S$5 (4 servings)
Ingredients: lotus root (S$1.70), pork muscle (S$2.15), peanuts (S$1.25, only 1/3 of a packet is needed) - all from Shengsiong upermarket. Smoked black-pepper flavoured duck breast (S$3.95) from Cold Storage.

Time needed: The longer, the better! I re-set the cooker to boil the soup a second time.
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Updated 23 Jan 2011:
Leftover soup can be refridgerated and steamed for the next meal! I had fried rice with the soup the following day.

Desserts: Boiled sea coconut (海 底 椰 or coco de mer) syrup

Diluted sea coconut syrup with ice cubes

Sea coconut is a controversial fruit because it's not from the bottom of the sea despite the Chinese name (海 底 椰, which translates into 'deep-sea coconut'). In fact, sea coconuts are fruits of the sugar palm tree.

Left: Cough mixture (from Amazon's website)

Right: Fresh sea coconut

Above: Hosen's canned honey sea coconut

My grandmother used to boil sea coconut soup for me as she says that it's soothing for the lungs (when I'm  down with coughing or with an itchy throat). The other medicinal item she'll feed me twice daily with is the African Sea Coconut Cough Mixture. To this day, she'll buy for me whenever she knows that I'm coughing.

It's rare to find fresh sea coconuts at supermarkets and so I will buy them when I spot them. I was fortunate to take the last 2 packs when I was at Shengsiong supermarket last Saturday. Each packet costs S$2.95.

What you need:

4 to 5 pieces of sea coconut (cleaned and sliced)

A handful of dried longans

6 to 8 red dates

Rock sugar

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Method:

Note:  I'm not fond of leaving stuff to boil over fire so I chose to cook this dessert using my old Zojirushi rice cooker (congee mode). I also prefer to make the dessert thick and sweet so that I can have it over a bowl of ice-cubes and for keeping in the fridge for a few days. 

(1) Wash and remove the brown coating off the sea coconut. Slice the fruit into strips.

(2) Add water, sea coconut, dried logans, red dates and rock sugar into the inner pot of the rice cooker. Sea coconut takes quite a long while to boil so I set my rice cooker to Congee-mode (a few hours).

After 6 hours of boiling and re-boiling

(3) Reset the cooker if the sea coconut is still very hard after the first round of boiling. I like the dessert almost syrup-like and so added quite some rock sugar.

(4) Serve a ladle's worth of sea coconut syrup over a bowl of ice cubes! Keep the remaining in the fridge and finish them within 3 days. Sea coconut syrup goes nicely with Sabah Tea ice jelly too!

Cost: less than S$3 (for 4 servings)
Time: 6 hours (done by the rice-cooker)

Food: Bak kwa (肉干) with bread

Chinese New Year marks the most unhealthy season for the year despite the fact that most people wish for good health. This festival sees many unhealthy forms of foods and snacking - from pineapple tarts to barbequed pork slices (fondly known as 'bak kwa' to Singaporeans).

Straits Times article on 20 Jan 2011

Bak Kwa (肉干) is one of my favourite CNY snacks but also one I prefer not to indulge in because it's really unhealthy. I won't ever queue for this food item - it's interesting how many loyal Lim Chee Guan fans queue for hours prior to the New Year at Chinatown when the shop's open throughout the year. 

I personally like bak kwa lean and thin, without fatty bits. I'm alright with any brand of bak kwa so long as it's thoroughly grilled and doesn't taste rancid. A couple of years ago, I bought bak kwa chips at People Park's Food Centre. A non-descript little stall which caught my attention because of the colour of the bak kwa - perfectly roasted, with crispy burnt edges. I know about carcinogens BUT proceeded anyway to ask the old man who was doing the grilling if he could sell me a few pieces of bak kwa, particularly the 'more-burnt' ones. He politely shouted from behind the screen, "Not worth it if you buy like that. What about you buy the chips (odds and ends)? I charge you S$18 a kilo. How much you want?" More than happy, I asked for half a kilogram of these bak kwa chips. These were the BEST bak kwa I've ever had!

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A kg of bak kwa chips from Kim Hwa Guan

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A good friend derailed my weight-watching plan last week by presenting me a kilogram's worth of bak kwa chips. She, too, prefers these to the large square pieces. They'd cost her S$32 a kilogram (per bag) instead of the usual S$28 because she had gone a day late and the shop had declared festive-pricing, a norm for many shops in Singapore, including hair salons and beauty parlours.

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I kept this bag of bak kwa, hoping never to be tempted to cut it open. Not until TODAY. I was starving and lazy to cook because I have been making arrowhead crisps day and night (either slicing or frying) for the past week in my quest to do a few tubs of them for family and friends in time for Chinese New Year.

"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it...

I can resist everything but temptation."Oscar Wilde

I shall use Wilde's quote to justify my caving-in to a bak kwa lunch. Here's how I eat bak kwa - has been a tradition of mone since I was a child. Arranging pieces of bak kwa to cover slightly more than half of a piece of plain white bread (doesn't taste as good with wholemeal or other types of bread) before folding the bread.

Sigh... I had 4 servings at one go (my record being 8 - many many years ago). The only other ingredient that can make me eat lots of bread is crispy fish floss. I haven't been able to find good ones (phew!) and so haven't over-indulged in fish-floss-and-butter-sandwich like I used to enjoy as a kid.

Look at the lovely shade of the bak kwa!

Bak kwa and the usual ingredients for fried rice

Fried carrot cake with fresh prawns and bak kwa

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In order to keep myself from finishing up the entire bag, I packed them into 3 portions. My husband uses these bak kwa chips as a substitute for Chinese sausages when doing fried rice. Meanwhile, I've kept these portions of pork-slices in the cabinet. See no evil, eat no evil...

P/S: I avoid walking pass the little stall at People's Park Food Centre whenever I'm at the hawker centre for my favourite fish soup or mee pok. The same with Marks and Spencer (potato crisps!!).

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I finally own a kitchen slicer!

My biggest bugaboo:

I've had a couple of terrible accidents with blades, penknives and knives since young. All sorts of mishaps have happened to me whenever I dealt with blades. Believe it or not, my first-time opening a penknife during a Girl Guide's activity resulted in a cut! None of my friends and family have this problem. I often thought: "Is there something wrong with me?"

As much as I loved sewing and simple cooking, I limit my scissors to the most-harmless-looking and cheapest. No thanks to the super-sharp professional knives and Swiss knives - I've largely stuck to Ikea and Daiso. There were times I thought I'd give slicing and cutting another try. Just maybe, I would have better luck, after all these years?? Turns out the bugaboo is more real than ever!

5 years ago at a family gathering, I offered to help shave some white radish and carrots during the Chinese New Year for yusheng dish. 1/3 of a nail came off and almost some flesh (if I hadn;t reacted fast enough). I bought a slicer in 2009 (to make carrot chips), I hurt myself within the first few shaves. So I decided that I would banish the idea of owning/using one forever!

Luck is on my side, finally...

I have been vascillating between getting a kitchen slicer and not getting one. I do my best to avoid having to use a knife/slicing gadgets when I cook, sticking to scissors most of the time. He's been urging me to get a slicer so as to cut down preparation time only to have me say "no!".

My husband and son went out last evening while I was busy doing laundry. After a few hours, father and son came back holding a Daiso carrier (the famous $2-everything shop). My son showed off a new diecast orange Lambhorgini and shoved me a 'present' - a Daiso slicer.

And so, I braced myself and chanted my favourite Caesar quote: "Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant tastes of death but once...". I quickly got down to skinning an arrowhead and using the slicer. I will make it without losing a nail or flesh!

So far, so good.... (touch wood!)

Using the Daiso slicer

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This slicer is sure sleek and smooth. Before using this, I would spend at least 30 minutes slicing the arrowhead before frying them. Now - 4 pieces of arrowheads can be sliced under 10 minutes. The crisps look evenly cut and round too!

Left: Manually-sliced arrowhead (30 mins)

Right: Evenly-sliced pieces (10 mins)

Finished product and packed into a tub as a gift for family!

Well, I hope I've made peace with the Blade-nemesis. 2011 has been certainly kind to me:)

UPDATED (sadly) on 25 Jan 2011,

I did injure a nail and a finger...

The Inevitable OUCH had to happen!

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