Junior Chefs @ Work II - July edition

不知不觉 we are now in the month of October. October is our wedding anniversary month & we'll be married for almost 2 years! Wow, I hate saying this cliche - but time literally flies. The first year is always special, but I'm putting my bets that Leecher won't even remember our wedding anniversary this year. Let's see if he will prove me wrong :) Anyway, this is the July edition of our cooking adventures. We didn't cook much in July, for I was traveling for work. Leecher didn't want to cook for himself, so he settled his meals either at his parents' place or outside.

Whenever I head home for dinner, I'll always come back with lots of food. Mummy dearest is my personal grocery shopper :) Whenever she heads to the market, she will buy extra portions for us to bring home for our cooking. Sometimes, she will call me to ask if I need to buy any special ingredients from the wet market. The ngoh hiang is courtesy of mummy while Leecher worked his magic on mushroom+vegetables.

 

Leecher's way of stacking spring onion, worthy of a shot! 

My 4th aunt makes the best chili sauce ever! She'll pass me a container for Leecher's cooking whenever I see her & it really whets the appetite! It has become a staple in our fridge, alongside with the usual condiments.

 

Besides dinner, we are also preparing breakfast to bring for work. Leecher's version of home-made salad :) I wasn't a fan of vegetables, so I added in lots of croutons & roasted sunflower seeds to balance the taste.

We came home pretty late one night & these were put together within 15 min. Looks like Leecher is getting the hang of cooking under "pressure" and yet can still deliver :)

Things have gotten busier for us so it was mostly stay-home weekends for the past few weeks. I had to make sure that the fridge is well-stocked with food, so Leecher can continue to exercise his magic :)

Our brunch during one of the lazy weekends - our energy source before we kick start cleaning-house-campaign.

 

Ended the last weekend with soup & stir-fried duck meat with broccoli. 

*****

May's Edition

June's Edition 

Junior Chefs @ Work II - June edition

Junior Chefs are back with the June edition (read May's edition here). Besides visiting our parents or hanging out with friends over meals, we have home-cooked food most of the days. When the dishes are fresh out from the stove, I'll snap a picture and send it to mummy dearest for her viewing. She's my no. 1 loyal fan :) 

Our dinner courtesy of all my aunties. The sisters will have a gathering @ granny's place once every few months & I'll always have food to ta-dao home for our dinner. My 4th auntie makes the best mee siam ever :)

 

We decided to try out chicken baked rice, after Leecher found an online recipe that was relatively fuss-free. So, before the weekend, I actually went to get small trays for his baked rice attempt, lol! See, I'm such a supportive wife, haha! Our parents-in-law & Roger came for a surprise visit & got to taste Leecher's creation. 

It was a 3-part cooking process - mixing everything on the pan and cooked  for a few minutes before transferring to the rice cooker. Once the rice is cooked, transfer into the oven to bake. It took 30 min to prepare this dish & another 30 min in the oven to bake :) 

 

Simple ingredients for dinner - minced pork, broccoli & mushrooms. 

Stir-fried minced pork with chili padi & broccoli with mushrooms. Leecher put in too much chili padi & we had to drink lots of water!

 

Baked Lemon Salmon fish with herbs.

 

Chicken, lettuce and fungus mushroom, what will chef Leecher comes up with?

He took our 1/4 bottle of salsa sauce and came up with his own version of salsa-chicken. Needless to say, it was yummy :)

 

Lettuce with garlic & fungus mushroom. Notice how we always have mushrooms in our dishes? I'm a fan of mushrooms, so Leecher will always try to incorporate in his cooking.

 

With the limited space in our kitchen, we'll always keep the oven in the cupboard unless we had to bake/heat up something. Since we had our oven out on the dining table (after our baked rice attempt), we decided to make full use of it before it goes back into the cupboard.

 

Pour the mixture into the container.

We ran out of shredded cheese, so I had to cut our cheese block into smaller pieces. Leecher also prepared another fish-dish, with his own lemon-herb juice. Sometimes, Leecher don't really follow the recipe & I always wonder (with his 256MB brain storage) if he will be able to re-create the dish after a long time?

 
Into the oven for baking :) I love the cheesey smell that perfumed the air! 

 
Opened a bottle of my fave moscato :)

  
Once, we had Raymond coming over for dinner. For the 1st time ever, Leecher had to whip out 4 dishes and we got extremely busy in the kitchen - cooking, slicing, chopping etc. 

  

I conveniently forgot that Mummy dearest gave us mini nonya dumplings & went to cook our usual portion of rice. I almost died of rice overdosage, even though I always have 2nd helpings at mum-in-law's place. Thankfully, Leecher's fish was good enough to whet my appetite!

 

As much as I love Leecher's cooking (hey, I can't complain when there's food to eat!), I dislike the above veg dish that he put together, lol! It contained garlic, white fungus, ikan bilis and looked somewhat dry. Not my cup of tea.  

Our mini ice cream treats after the meal :)

Junior Chefs @ Work II - May edition

We've been cooking our meals for the past month & I'm proud to say that supermarkets are fast becoming my new hangout places! Nv did I realise that cooking is so much fun, seeing your creations taking shape. Well, I'm self-declared Chef Leecher's most capable assistant! The jobs & responsibilities of an assistant include:

1. Decide what dishes to cook for the week

2. Go marketing for the necessary ingredients.

3. Prepare the required ingredients - washed, sliced, diced etc

4. Make sure the required condiments are laid out properly beside the stove.

5. Call the Chef to step into the kitchen to cook.

6. Wash up the dishes while Chef Leecher is cooking.

7. Cook enough rice for 2 pax (This is something that Chef Leecher sucks at)

8. Take pictures of the food once ready.

Let me share some of the dishes that we have cooked in the month of May  :) 

 

Roast pork with tomatoes & vegetables. I had mine in a wrap while Leecher polished off the rest on the plate.

Leecher attempting a tomato omelette. I had to remind him that he is not Gordon Ramsey and shouldn't attempt to flip the egg in the air!

 A simple meal of tomatoes with eggs, steamed fish cake & vegetables.

Leecher was too hungry and started first before I could snap the pic. 

 

Ingredients for fried rice.  

The fun part was mixing everything into the dish. 

 

Tasted not bad for our first attempt! 

A simple dinner of chicken (marinated and contributed from mummy dearest!) cooked in gravy with corn & carrots & steamed ngoh hiang.

Vegetables with mushroom & grilled teriyaki salmon with garlic.

We normally have 2 dishes for dinner & that is sufficient for the 2 of us.

Baked teriyaki salmon with mushroom & steamed eggs with minced pork. 

Tata ~ our cooking adventures in the month of May. Stay tuned next month for our creations in June :)