Emptying the Fridge day

These meals were seriously "get rid of whatever is sitting inside the fridge".

B1 is a serious lala addict, so we bought two plates full at Cold Storage on Friday night.

Saturday Lunch

I despaired on how to get rid of the spinach, since it was bought last week. Amazingly 95% of the leaves were still edible. I got rid of some for Saturday lunch with century egg (not sure if I did this dish at the new apartment before. I think I have forgotten to mention that I am aiming for a "no repeat recipe", in a bid to increase my repertoire of dishes). I have finally bought a microwave oven (a different one from the one I previously eyeballed, because that one cannot do baking. This one is the more advanced brother =D. My wallet is hemorrhaging), so at least I can do grilling and baking now. Gott sei dank. There are only so many dishes one can cook with boiling, steaming and frying before cheating by deep-frying in desperation. I almost wanted to steam me a cake, which is actually possible. Anyway that S$20 toy cupcake set now sitting in my cupboard is calling out to me. To think I paid S$40 for the sushi maker when the series came out one year ago.

 

A long time ago, when we could still afford expensive meals (sigh), we ate at Nanjing Steamed Bun Restaurant (the name sounds cheap, but the menu is not, I assure you), and they served a dish that went straight to B1's heart. Steamed lala chawanmushi, where the delicate meat rose like *ahem* against the fluffy egg mixture. I tried to do the same, except I used lightly boiled lala (so they were still in their shells, I wanted to boil the shells to make sure we didn't poison ourselves later), so the bloody things exploded just before I was going to take the dish out of the pan. If I had reached for them earlier, I would definitely had been scalded. So my poor dish looked horrific. Of course it didn't help that I was lazy and just made a z pattern with the oyster sauce instead of topping the dish with a sauce. Psst, it tastes better than it looks. Shouldn't have put oyster sauce in the first place, defeats the purpose of chawanmushi.

Anyway we are nuts. We ate like 40+ clams and still fought over the remaining ones. Not bad, only 3 of them did not open at all.

B1 later had the cheek to complain he was hungry and I cooked too little rice. Wtf. The man has a bird-like appetite and it took me like almost 10 meals before I figured how to portion the rice exactly for two bowls *thumbs up*. Now he tells me the rice is not enough when I know he always has difficulty finishing. zzz. He retorted that usually I overcook the main dishes so the rice is not really needed as a filler.

I had to admit though I was hungry later, but we were totally stuffed later when we had our french dinner.

Sunday Dinner

Before I go on, I must congratulate myself for braving the odors at the wet market and buying vegetables and eggs there (I was not brave enough to buy raw meat there, I am not the kind to poke the meat without running to the washroom to disinfect). 

Let me see, I had a marrow, a giant lotus root ( I love this, I can eat it boiled, fried, deep-fried, stewed. I have only never baked the thing... Hmmm. Anyway I did not know that the bloody was so expensive. S$3.80. wtf), leftover chicken (which I was supposed to cook the previous Sunday but did not because I was tired from hauling my shit ass lousy new pc), and that annoying spinach.

I refuse to murder the rest of the spinach french-style, so I just lightly boiled them in water, and then topped some deep-fried chicken on them. Keke, the chicken wasn't fresh either, so I had to deep fry them. I see deep frying as cheating (though it is a painful cheat, considering how much cleaning I have to do to the kitchen afterwards). 

I started boiling down the lotus root in the morning all the way till night. B1 complained the soup wasn't full bodied enough. I give him full-bodied, bloody hell, who was the one who drove wrongly last Sunday and I ended up not being able to buy my dry goods?

I forgot about Mr Marrow. I cooked him with bacon. A delicious ending.

I think it may be the way I am brought up. After having the privilege of living in a well-stocked kitchen, it is sometimes a shocker to open the fridge in the new house. It is like freaking bare, except for a few bottles of alkohol and a whole shelf dedicated to three kinds of bier. We are like a fucking frat house. The usually unobservant B1 commented dourly that anyone who comes to our house will think we are alcoholics. He who loves buying beer, and me cheap plonk.