26 Feb 2011 - Birthday on a weekend

His birthday fell on a weekend in 2011. On Friday, he left the office at around 11pm, and reached home to find her waiting for him with a cake. "I've got my favourite cake to celebrate your birthday!", she beamed. How sweet huh. It was this child-like attitude that actually made him smile, still smiling while typing this.

Cake from Polar, with thick layers of chocolate mousse, and really rich chocolate on the top. This year's a more photogenic cake, but not as heart-warming as the one she made for him last year.


She also made some dishes for dinner, something they haven't done in a long while.

Blanched lettuce, topped with vinegar based sauce. Garlic stir-fried until fragrant before adding vinegar, oyster and soy sauce to heat. The piquant flavour opened wide the doors to his stomach.


Steamed minced pork with century egg - this was mixed with soy sauce, egg white and century egg. He would have preferred it with more egg to minced meat, but that would have become steamed egg pudding, eh?


Lean pork porridge sprinkled very generously with freshly ground black pepper. He hasn't gotten sick of the grinder, always enjoys doing the twisting work.


Finally, kombu soup with pork ribs, wolfberries and dates. Unfortunately, chicken stock cubes had been used, that's why they had oily soup this time round.

20 June 2010 - steamed brinjal

she always targets a few at the supermarket, yam, brinjal, mince pork, canned fish. this time, she got mince pork and brinjal.

steamed brinjal topped with mince meat - you've seen this countless of times, at least it's a healthier dish


plus some plain rice topped with sesame seasoning. sometimes, simplicity is bliss. (because you don't have to wash so many pots and pans)

12 June 2010 mash potato dinner

not the first time the missus made this. this is made by steaming, probably very healthy. the carrots give a hint a sweetness and the cucumbers add crunch to the dish. another dish added to the good list

mashed potato with minced meat, braised pork loin 20 Jan 2010

mashed potato with minced meat - potato, butter, salt and pepper for the mash, before mixing in marinated mince meat. sounded a little weird, but fortunately it still tasted ok. he still like smooth whipped/mashed potatoes better though.


stir-fried pork loin, braised with peking sauce. a packet 6 frozen pork loins cost $4.70. good to keep and probably also economical to have, since it can make multiple meals. a little too salty, but with tasted good with plain white rice. she bought many different sauces in recent, expect more braised food....

dinner on 18 Jan 2010

had a simple meal this day. his favourite tofu. she chopped up square blocks of the tofu and topped with marinated minced meat mixed with diced carrots and pork floss, before sending it into the steaming pot. perhaps the pork floss should have been added last. carrots were a nice addition to this dish, gifting it a tinge of sweetness.

close up of the toufu dish


a more mundane view of it

brunch on 16 Jan 2010

koka black pepper crab noodles, it's been a long time since they last had instant noodles.


the same minced meat patty topped with pork floss and olive vegetable. without the tofu though, and that decision seemed to make this dish on the salty side.


there were also boiled salted eggs again, but they were still watery inside. he only consumed the yolks and threw the whites away. wastage again. sigh.

salted egg dou miao and olive vegetable tofu

he returned home from work after wasting 2.5hrs for a meeting that was cancelled last minute. the only reprieve was to return home to good food for both the stomach and soul.

steamed tofu topped with minced meat, olive vegetables and meat floss. the savoury toppings went well with the bland tofu. he loves tofu. 80cents for the slab, and total cost of this dish is probably less than $2.


dou miao with minced meat and salted egg. another good tasting novel dish to him. however, this was made very wastefully. bought a new packet of dou miao, as she had left the previous packet in the chiller for 2 days and it had wilted quite badly. wasted $1.30. the eggs were cooked in water, losing most of the yolk and whites in the process. food wastage breaks his heart (and wallet). the over-zealous mom scooped away most of the yolk, displaying inconsideration yet again.

cheesy fried chicken, stir-fried bittergourd and congee

woke up at noon after a tiring day at the beach the day before. had some braised duck with plain porridge before proceeding to affirm the online recipes to start working on dinner.

she was doing some window-shopping online, so he went ahead to mix some all purpose flour with one egg, chopped green onions and salt in a bowl.

when she finally came into the kitchen, she sliced the chicken breast open to make one large piece of meat. dusted some pepper, salt, rice wine, wrapped cheese within, threw the batter on and put it into the refrigerator for 20 minutes. she then ordered him to thinly slice the bitter gourd, since it seemed he liked to chop things up. sliced it all up like a sushi master (maybe not), smashed and peeled some garlic, chopped some chilli padi and ginger.

next, he proceeded to shallow-fry the now-ready-chicken in the wok. around 6 (maybe more) sinful tablespoons of oil on medium heat before golden-browning each side. once done, he placed the chicken onto a plate with paper kitchen towels to absorb the excess oil.

cheesy fried chicken - cut it up with kitchen scissors after it had cooled a little. looks a wee bit like roti john, huh? chicken tasted tender even though it hadn't been bashed up, amazing.


he washed up the wok for the next dish, and by this time, she had finished marinating the minced pork with salt, soy sauce and rice wine. heated 6 teaspoons of oil and started frying the ginger, garlic and chilli till he choked. that was the signal to cook the minced pork. the bittergourd was added only when most of the meat had turned opaque. kept on medium heat and continued with frequent stirs until the bittergourd became tender.

stir-fried bittergourd with minced pork - a little too salty, she had soaked the bittergourd with too much salt and misinformed him to add salt when stir-frying! probably would have tasted fine with plain porridge...alas....


he decided he wanted to cook congee with his newly acquired chicken essence cubes. got a cup of rice, 6 cups of water, 2 cubes of chicken essence and put them to cook in the electric cooker. next was to marinate the remaining mince pork with salt, soy sauce and rice white (nothing new here). wife said to add a teaspoon of flour so that the meat would stick together better for him to make meatballs. mixed well and used a teaspoon to shape some meat before putting them to cook in the congee. had to add another 2 cups of water since it was already drying up, making the ratio of rice to water 1:8.

minced pork congee in chicken soup base. littlest brother commented that the congee looked yellow, but he attributed it to the soup stock. while writing this post, it dawned upon him that he had forgotten to wash the rice. oops. luckily google yielded little negative comments.

homecooked lunch on 18 december

dinner on the previous day was a disaster. perhaps they had tried to make something too difficult for them at this stage in time. only the broccoli with butter and salt tasted fine, the xiao long baos tasted like dough and the meat hadn't been seasoned enough.

but, she managed to rebound the very next day. got up earlier than him and cooked minced meat beans, sugar-coated yam and corn soup with minced meat.

corn soup with minced meat, and dissolved yam. tasted good enough.


sugar coated yam chunks. too thick, some were not cooked enough to bring out the sweetness, and he felt that too much sugar was used. those that were done well had a good aroma once you bit into them.


the best dish - minced meat with beans. she chopped garlic and chilli to suit his taste, how sweet. beans were still crunchy and complemented the slightly salty meat well.