One of C's favourite subjects in school is Food and Consumer Education (FCE) and since the beginning of Term 3, she has been coming back with food like chicken kebabs, chicken stew, and Shepherd's Pie. Then several days back, she told us that a test was coming up and she wanted to cook fried rice. Okay, that is manageable, I thought.  This was until she added, "Mummy, I want my fried rice to be wrapped in egg."

Right...

So what did the good Mummy do? She went groceries shopping for the necessary ingredients. I told C that she would need practice - This dish is not something you can put together without hands-on activity.

We managed to find some time off to put the practice round together.

First try: not too bad. She was a little clumsy while handling the utensils. Although the egg didn't break, and she heaved a huge sign of relief, she wasn't quite pleased with the shape of how it turned out so she asked if she could do another.

So here it is. Second time round, she was definitely a lot more confident. All I did was watch her from the side.  

Taste test: The omurice was absolutely heavenly!

C seemed pretty pleased with herself too. :) No prizes for guessing what our dinner was that evening.

The June holidays came and went but we did manage to squeeze in a little bit of cooking.

We were walking pretty aimlessly at NTUC because we couldn't decide it would be lasagna or grilled fish this evening and then I saw bok choy and then smiled and told C that we would have something special. By this time, C was most exasperated with me as she had been walking up and down the aisle, taking things off the shelves and putting them back due to our indecisiveness. 

We got our pork and bok choy. As fr the dashi miso paste, we have that at home since I regularly prepare lunch for C and myself during term time. I told C to layer the vegetable and meat. She was having fun actually. Then it was placed in a pot.

We added the dashi miso paste and some water. She also added in some carrots. Then we brought it to a boil and let it simmer for a while before switching the stove off. There was no need to add in extra seasoning. I was telling C that we could add in radish should we make this dish again in the future. Our cabbabe, pork and carrot nabe! C sheepishly said that she didn't know she liked cabbage. 

C and Daddy loved it! They finished everything that was in the pot and C commented that we should have bought a bigger bok choy. There is always another opportunity. :)

Last week, C also made dessert. Oreo cheese-cake! Not too bad for a first attempt and she enjoyed the process. We would try other flavours in the future and she said we should get other kinds of sugar for the mixture too.

She saved this piece for her daddy.

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One of our favourite pastime is going groceries shopping. A trip to the nearby NTUC saw us coming back with the ingredients we needed for tonight's dinner.

We had potatoes and carrots in the fridge and I didn't want that to go to waste so we came up with soy sauce chicken, potato and carrots stew. I told C that I have Korean pancake mix at home and her eyes lit up! "Let's have Korean Seafood Pancake!" and we did.

That's her mixing the batter needed for the pancake. We had a lot of spring onion in there too but Daddy and C later declared that they would prefer the pancake without them next time. C was confident enough to flip the pancake and I praised her for her steady hands. :)

Our dinner! Because we hardly cook at home during term time, C rarely turns down the opportunity to do so during the school holidays.

Some time back, a friend shared a link to a website; the owner of the website had prepared some light and simple lunches. I was inspired since. I then thought that we could have this at work and for C when she returned from school in the afternoon.

The noodles were cooked and cooled under running water to prevent them from over-cooking. I also had the carrots cooked in the microwave (2 minutes and they were done.) Then I placed the ingredients neatly into the jars that I bought from Daiso. Once term starts, cooking at home is really impossible hence I have limited ingredients in the refrigerator and at this point in time, there are only corn kernels, carrots, wolfberries and miso paste.

Now that C eats kimchi, my next attempt will be to use that. :)

All that she needs to do is to add hot water and lunch will be served.

Now with the new school term dawning upon us, there aren't that many opportunities to cook dinner so I asked C what she would like for dinner this evening. After lunch at the mall, we went groceries shopping and return with the ingredients we needed.

We eventually decided on rice instead of pasta and when we got back, it was preparation of the raw ingredients. The rice was put to cook while the others were cut.

 C commented that it has been a while since we last ate these mushrooms and requested that we had them to night. She went on to hunt for them at NTUC and then got right down to preparing them when we got back,

 As for the baked rice, putting the prepared ingredients on the stove was simple enough and in no time, they were ready to be placed in the oven. We used 2 different cheese: mozzarella and parmesan for the toppings. Popped the bowl into the air-fryer for 20 minutes. Thereafter, another 5 minutes more to just give the cheese a nice brown.

there you have it! - (air-fried) sausage and ham baked rice with portobello mushrooms. C cleaned out her portion. :)

The June holidays have started and for C, this means we get to stay at home more than usual.

We didn't want to eat out and C said she wanted something light so we did.

These dishes actually reminded me of the food that Justina, Penny and myself had just days before term ended. We had set our hearts on eating right and healthy and I decided that we could also do this at home. Chicken essence marinated chicken with wolfberries for C, the air-fried salmon with herbs for Daddy and steamed vegetables for me. :)

Even as we ate dinner on Thursday evening, C was already planning for the menu for Friday and proudly declared that we would be having curry rice. haha. We tried salmon with honey and rosemary and it turned out to be very delicious. :)

There: our dinner on Thursday and Friday.  

We love how the air-fryer makes preparing food so much easier. We love how the air-fryer cuts the amount of time we need to cook some food and of course, the ease of cleaning up when we are done.

This morning we prepared a simple breakfast of ham and mushrooms.

The best part is, it was ready in a matter of minutes and everyone in the family loves it. :) We will be trying out baked rice soon.

We were this close to flying out for a short getaway this September holidays: I had informed my boss and was already looking at getting the best air fare deals ... then Daddy said that he couldn't travel as there was too much work to be done before October as he had a project that was due then so it was time for Plan B.

C and I spent much of the holidays with each other and catching up on rest. Besides that, we also devoted some time to cooking dinner for ourselves instead of eating out.

Dinner on 8 September:

I recently got us a steamer so I thought C could also learn to prepare some steamed dishes. The first dish she learned was "beancurb paste chicken". We had some Chinese sausages in the refrigerator so we added them in with the chicken. The outcome was fantastic: C loved the taste and was full of praise for this dish.

Dinner on 10 September:

 I bought some minced meat and taught C how to prepare springy steamed meat balls. She had a lot of fun working with the meat; picking it up from the bowl and giving it a good smack. We added some 冬菜 for that extra flavour and carrot too, besides the usual seasoning. Again, another dish done right because she thought the meat was "just right". :)

Dinner that evening for Daddy was a healthy meal of steamed meat and  酿豆腐汤.

Dinner on 12 September:

C sent Daddy a text message on the menu for the evening much to Daddy's delight!

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get fish fillet so we bought chicken instead.

Had the chicken marinated for several hours before lacing it with breadcrumbs. The air-fryer did much of the work and the chicken was cooked in no time.

 That evening, we had ABC soup too.

and dinner was served. 

Though we were initially disappointed that we weren't traveling, C confessed that she had a fabulous time this September holidays. :) I told her that any break is a good break so long as we could be with our loved ones and enjoy each other's company. 

Guess it would be a while before we hit the kitchen again now that the new and short school term was starting. 

Just before the school holidays are officially over, C said she wanted to prepare one more meal so when she was in her art class this afternoon, I took the opportunity to head out to get the ingredients she needed.

 There was honey-baked ham, crab sticks, mushrooms and caixin hua. Then of course, udon noodles.

The ingredients went into the wok first and finally the noodles and the season of oyster sauce, pepper and light soy sauce.

The result, I must say, was better than the first time she cooked it. The noodles were moist and the taste was just about right. :)

It's more like clay pot chicken rice without the clay pot!

We were out with Aunt Di and Asher and wondered if we should cook for dinner. Then I asked C if she thought it would be a good idea to prepare a simple one-dish meal again so we headed off to do some groceries shopping before coming back home.

Like Aunt Di said, it was easy: we marinated the meat with dark and light soy sauce, oyster sauce, pepper and let the meat sit for about an hour. Cut up the chinese sauages and the mushrooms and then set them aside.

 Everything just went into the rice cooker and viola!

Dinner is served!

It was Friday and it was a good break from school with the examinations and marking. I thought it would be nice if we cooked dinner so I suggested to C that we have noodles. C, on the other hand, wanted something a lot more elaborate and after some negotiation, we settled for Carbonara.

When Aaron was here with us, he cooked this dish for us and C hadn't forget so she told me that she wanted our Carbonara to be "like how Aaron had done it."

Hence before I got back, I dropped by NTUC to quickly get what we needed.

Then in the evening, we got busy.

Aunt Justina had given C these cute Hello Kitty pasta some months back and we decided to prepare them for our dinner tonight. :)

I vaguely mentioned to C that Coke could be used for cooking and she has been intrigued since.

Today, she asked if we could make this dish and so we did. :)

She happily ran down the aisle that had all the soft drinks and picked up a carton of Coke. Then it was chicken from the meats section. C has always followed me to the supermarket; unless it's during term time and my groceries are done after work, so she is rather familiar with where-to-find-what now.

When we got back, she hastily opened a can of Coke and emptied its contents into the pot with the chicken. Then the meat was left to soak in there for a good 3 hours before we started cooking at 6pm. Well, it wasn't too bad considering it was her first attempt. Her eyes widened when she bit into the chicken as the taste of Coke "exploded" in her mouth. Haha.