Meal planning tips

Do you hate cooking? Does anxiety strikes when you have to cook a meal? Do you often open your fridge only to blank stare and not know what to do with the ingredients inside? Well, you're not alone. I often feel like that too!

Where I stay now, is very different from Singapore. None of the food places are within walking distance. Its quite costly to eat out. The simplest meals are a minimum of USD$10 per person, not including tax and tips. You'd still have to drive miles and miles out to reach to the town to get the better food. Sometimes, after adding all the costs and inconvenience up, its still better to cook and prepare whatever I'm craving for at home.

Having to cook all 3 meals a day, and sometimes supper too, can be quite tiresome. I have to keep looking and searching online for new ideas on what to cook for the husband. I'm quite fussy in what I put in my mouth, I need colours and variety. I hate repeating dishes so I try to find new recipes all the time to prevent that.

I find that meal planning really useful, as I have the entire list of meals I will be preparing the following week, therefore, on the weekends when I go out to get my grocery, I know what to buy. I have this weekly planner pasted on my wall that acts as a whiteboard, so I can just fill it up on weekends and see what to defrost and prepare on the night before.

Side note: Club Sycamore is what I call my house, because we throw the most "happening" parties in this area! Or at least what I try to make myself believe.

I used to print weekly planners online, and plan my meals ahead, then draft out my grocery list to bring out on my weekend grocery trips. That way, when meal times come, I won't have to tear my hair out to think of what to cook later.

I also take photos of the food I cook, and load it up to a folder on my Facebook. From there, I can see what I've cooked before, and if it turned out good, I can use it for inspiration for future meals when I run out of ideas. I will be posting my meal plans and recipes on this blog in the future as well. I figured if that help me, I'm sure it can help someone else as well. Plus, its also another way I can use as a reference when I need new ideas.

I have been trying out several recipes and writing them down to create my own recipe folder, where I experiment with new recipes and improve them to suit my own palette. Hopefully it will eventually be good enough to share on my blog. I haven't got to the stage of developing my own recipes yet, so I still do get alot of inspiration from other blogs, and my ever - growing cookbook collection.

I have alot of upcoming plans for this blog, and have been slowly changing the layout and planning out the things I want to write about and share here. Tried and tested recipes, travel tips and photos, and reviews of products I've been given to test out. I also plan to do a blogging marathon soon! There's like tons of things in my head I want to share here, and that blogging marathon will force me to post everyday. If you have a particular topic you want to hear my views on, feel free to drop me an email, or leave me a comment!

Check out my "Unfinished Biz" tabs to see my upcoming endeavors I hope to achieve.

Follow me on Twitter @natxwang to be updated on my latest posts, and my daily nonsensical ramblings.

Our 1st Anniversary Dinner

Its hard to find a place to eat here, there's no place here that excites my taste buds, neither are there any places that spells romantic. The best foods around here, are the fast food restaurants. On days I don't cook, and we stay in MH, I'd rather just grab a Mushroom & Swiss from McD.

Since our anniversary fell on a weekday, and my hubs is working morning shift. I decided to prepare a "surprise" romantic dinner in our own home for him. So he can just come back from work, bath, eat, have some wine, and laze on the couch with me. Perfect isn't it?

The menu of the day:
-Potato Salad topped with raisins.
-Filet Mignon with sauce
-Strawberry Cheesecake

All paired with Parma Ridge Sweet Blush Wine 2005.

I have no idea how to put romance in our dining area, based on the fact that the weather has been cold, and walking to buy decorations and carrying them back is not gonna be an easy task. I used what I had on hand.

The plastic wine glasses are from Dollar Tree's Valentines Day sales. I did up the potato salad in the early afternoon, and left it in the fridge to chill. Next, I prepared the sauce for the filet mignons. I had no idea how to prepare it, as the commiss had ran out of red wine, which was what I intended to use initially. I searched for some recipes online, but decided to replace the red wine with shaoxing rice wine, and added a little sugar instead. 

Here's how I set it up. I even wiped the dripped sauce off the plates. Must be watching too much Gordon Ramsay's shows. Sigh. 

I warmed up the sauce that I prepared, and drizzled it over the filets, and topped it with lots of onions. The sauce was fantastic. I loved it. Hubs raved about it. He said it was the happiest day ever since we got married. ;)  

I thought we could have a good sit down dinner, and talk and romance over dinner and wine. However, the meat was still quite raw in the center. The recipe recommended to cook the meats for 6 mins on each side, which I followed to the second, for medium rare meats that the Hubs liked. However, it turned out to be too raw. Had to run back and forth the kitchen to refire the meats to make them slightly less red and more edible. I would reccomend to cook them for around 12 minutes on each side and that should make it more edible. 

Candlelights, and wine.. What more could I ask for in a romantic dinner at home, for less than $20. ;) 

Happy Anniversary Hubs, love u always. Recipes on how to prepare the food step by step... Coming up next!

Recipe: Easy & Yummy Teriyaki Chicken

There's only a couple of Chinese restaurants in this little small town that we live in. And even so, the food never ever tastes like what we eat back home. As what they always say, home cooked food is always still the best. When we used to live in Aaron's parents place, they had a maid who would cook the meals everyday, and we were lucky enough to enjoy his mum's yummy recipes everyday.

I never knew how to cook, or how dishes were created. When I started working and preparing towards our wedding, my hours and location at work, forced me to pack my own food to work. It was costly to eat in town, and the food were prepared pretty unhygenically. There were rats and insects all over.

Being here now in USA, we really miss the convenience of the hawker foods. I have to cook our meals, as it takes a 20 minute drive out to get proper food. Every week day, I cook to pack food for my husband's lunch/dinner box, for him to bring to work. I know how hard he's been working, and how tired he is everyday, and I prepare every meal with love hoping it will make him feel better with the yummy food that he puts in his mouth.

Today's lunch box consists of Teriyaki Chicken and Bok Choy with Oyster Sauce.

The Teriyaki Chicken recipe is adapted from:
I have tried several recipes from here and they're all great and easy to cook.. Will update with pictures as I go along.

Recipe: Teriyaki Chicken

1 chicken thigh (you can choose to debone it, but I left the bones on.)
2 tablespoon mirin
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
drizzle of cooking oil

1. Marinate the chicken in mirin, soy sauce, and sugar for 30 mins.
2. Drain, reserve the marinate.
3. Cook the chicken in cooking oil skin side down. When browned, turn and cook the other side.
4. Add 3 tablespoon of water to the reserved marinate, and pour over chicken. Cover and simmer until cooked through. ( about 15 mins)
5. Remove cover, raise the heat until sauce is reduced to a glaze.

You may choose to slice it now, or if you're rough like me, serve it as the whole thigh, and bite into it like a carnivore. ;)

This recipe is only for 1 chicken thigh. I usually cook 1 thigh for each person, so just multiply all ingredients with the number of people eating. The guys pretty liked the chicken I cooked the last time, and I'm sure they'll enjoy it again today.

I apologise for the lousy food presentation, but I only remembered to take a photo of it after packing it into his pyrex containers. I'll try to improve on the presentation part. But its still yummy! ;)