my neighbour moved out today

My neighbour upstairs was moving out this morning.

so the house moving truck came in early in the morning running up and down the stairs loading stuff. and before i knew it, they were done! in 2 hours! i thought, wow! that was the quick?!

with 2 children in the house, don't they have more things?

then came the doorbell late morning just when i was leaving the house to go the mart.

checked my intercom screen, and it was the lady from upstairs. hmm... (secretly thinking, maybe she is giving away her baby pram. maybe she knew i soooooooo wanted that baby air buggy. she knew didn't she. she knew!). ok, back to reality - she came to say goodbye.

BUT she was moving to the apartment 500metres away, so "we will meet again. and when H is ready to go out to play, please come over!" she says

no wonder that took only 2hours. they had probably brought over a lot of stuff on their own i guess.

well, we had a box of candies from her. the usual japanese gestures when you move into a new place, and when you move out too.

It was a hot day today and my appetite for normal food is diminishing. i could just do with asandwich or biscuits.

but no no, not a good idea.

i made dinner proper again

Besides a light vegetable soup,

grilled eggplant wedges with red miso meat sauce

this was so right.

i had wanted to make mapo eggplant, but the saucey dish would be hard to finish on a hot evening.

this meat sauce was good; helped us finish a whole lot of eggplants.

pumpkin salad

i can't say enough how much i love pumpkins!

right up to the skins. i finish the skins in one meal and use the sweet flesh separately for another meal in another dish.

i can't wait for the farmers mart to harvest the noodle pumpkins too!

time pockets

Each day, i am discovering precious pockets of time which i can use to complete household chores and sneak in some switch off time. And each time i manage to include a new activity, i feel happy. Many people have told me, when the baby arrives, your life changes 180degrees. from that friday morning onwards, indeed, a lot of changed and my time no longer belongs to me alone. It started with almost zero time to the the usual things i did everyday. then with time, i sneaked in cooking time, baking time, supermarket time, cleaning time, nap time between housework, then finally some time to indulge in yoga, to read, to scrapbook, etc.

today, another batch of ironing completed. =)

simple tasks which were carried out like nothing, i now accomplish like getting a medal.

Dinner tonight was simple

Broccoli, corn and squid garlic shoyu stir fry

Grilled fish and shitake mushrooms

Wafu potato salad

with yuba and edamame

this was mayo free, but yet really creamy because of the yuba (soft beancurd skins).

And instead of mayonnaise, it was flavoured with just miso since the potatoes were tasty enough on its own after boiling them with the corn cobs.

the rain is cooling the evening down=)

looking forward to bedtime already!

curry doria and chocolate cupcakes

It was a hot hot humid day today and i felt like a soccer player drenched in pirspiration after a hot lunch.

i wish i could have ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Dinner tonight was

curry doria

with a frozen portion of curry topped over rice, topped with mozarella cheese and baked in the oven.

mushroom salad

Our first time doing a doria! and it was really good! the rice absorbed the flavourful curry sauce while baking. gonna do more of these!

It is J's birthday today and much as i wanted to go out to town to get him a nice pretty cake, i can't since the skies were threatening to pour and the heat meant i can't put the little one in the baby sling for too long. i decided get out my cake mixer...

and make... mini chocolate gateau cupcakes

with chocolate almond coffee icing

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

it's been a long time since i made such rich chocolate cakes! and the smell was just sooooo therapeutic. i had a fun time licking my fingers too. =P

i need my sunday snooze

I am getting used to waking up at least once in the wee hours of the morning everyday to feed H. I used to be able to work through the night, so this shouldn't be that tough, BUT days off always meant clocking 13 hours of sleep straight under the covers (cos i loved the air con).

Now, i am starting crave such days off when i can sleep straight without waking up.

But, my milk tank might explode since the milk factory is always working without any control. My only indulgence? crawling back under the futon (and then kicking it off again since it was so hot today), and snooooooooooooozing for long time before H needed another feed.

i am looking forward to the next sunday already.

We had natto and kimchi in the fridge today.

And i so wanted to have this

Natto and kimchi ramen topped with a poached egg and toasted ground sesame

Another of my favourite cold noodles combination

Though hot hot hot, i wanted some bean soup today

so i made black bean soup,

steamed corn meatballs

mixed in some five spice powder which really upped the flavour of the meatballs.

flat long beans and white fungus simmered with wolfberries

i miss having the aircon blasting on such days.

salt yakisoba

Finally we have found a yakisoba taste that we both like.

salt yakisoba.

well, i used the sachet seasoning that came with it, so of course besides salt, there are other stuff in there. but unlike the sweet black type of yakisoba, this was white.

and very tasty!

So we had, salt yakisoba and tofu salad for lunch.

We spent a lazy day at home today since there wasn't much to do on a rainy day, and i didn't feel like preparing much for dinner, so we had it simple.

Oven fried chicken

with yuzu peppers

this was really simple to make. just cut up chicken, marinate, coat with flour, and deep fry! in the oven. which makes a BIIIIIIG difference in the time taken to cook. plus, i didn't need oil. =) which equals no big cleaning up.

Our favourite assorted tomato pack

again with only 2 that are black

i think i shall call it the 2 black tomatoes pack

H is starting to go ahhhhh oooh ehhhh when we talk to him.

chit chats are getting more and more interesting.

Pork wrapped eggplants

Japan beat Denmark in last night's, no, this morrning's 3am match!!!

for once, i had a companion for the 5am feed cos somebody was watching the tellie.

haha i wish fathers had breasts to feed too. cos night feeds are really tiring when you are so sleepy headed.

Dinner tonight

Grilled pork wrapped eggplants

drizzled with lime & shoyu

this was tasty and easy on a hot evening.

simply marinated the pork slices in wine, shoyu and grated ginger, then wrapped around eggplant wedges and simply grilled. It was flavourful enough, so i only gave it a splash of shoyu and lime juice on serving.

Soy beans and hijiki salad

J says tonight's main would have matched a can of beer.

well, he said that when we had pizza too.

but we are both on an alcohol fast.

in the supermart's advert today, i saw this new mango cocktail filled with mango bits and mango jelly in a can. SOOOOOOO tempting!!!

Nakamachi cafe dinner

We had dinner at Nakamachi cafe today.

Grilled meat stuffed zucchini topped with breadcrumbs

drizzled with balsamic sauce

was so delighted to see the juices flowing out when it was cut.

i guess the zucchini flesh chunks helped.

cold asparagus soup

plate dinners are indeed easy to finish on a hot day. =)

tuna curry

It was a cool cool day today because of the rain.

but indeed the humidity level is still on the high side, and it is exhausting at times.

some days i wish the kitchen is air conditioned.

i am starting to wonder if i made curry everyday, will we get sick of it.

Cos curry really is easy to have on a hot day.

Tuna and cabbage curry with a poached egg and cheese rice

daikon pickles for going with the curry

pumpkin salad

hijiki salad

the rain has stopped, the evening is cool, and we had a large portion of curry. i think my eyelids are getting heavy.

neba neba soba and pizza

I am coming to terms with the heat of the season.

it is just so tempting though to keep reaching for the ice box compartment.

since it is rainy season, the occassional breeze still keeps us cool. but when the cicadas start creaking, we know the rain rain is over, and the humid type of heat will start setting in.

I am trying hard to keep us genki with as much cool yet stamina giving foods

Neba neba (sticky) soba

with all the sticky foods to boost our stamina on a hot day

okra, black natto, grated mountain yam, and mekabu sticky seaweed

topped with yuzu shavings

i reckon we'll have plenty of neba neba foods this summer.

Dinner was home made pizza and salad

mushroom salad

squid ink pizza

scallops and potatoes genovese pizza

We still have a batch of genovese paste in the freezer that i made from last year's batch of beaming basil leaves and yummy hazelnuts that i got from phoon huat. i need to finish this before i make a new batch this summer.

The squid ink sauce was actually a pasta sauce we bought from the mart, and it was really tasty! i can't wait to try this sauce with pasta the next time round.

hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot day

IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOO HOT today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i felt like i was in sauna when in the living room, and in the onsen when in the kitchen.

i need an aircon in the kitchen...

i wanted to make a cold dinner tonight.

cold soup or cold noodles would be nice and easy to make. but the other half of the inada fish was waiting for me.

so i made a proper dinner in the end.

i rarely dish out everything onto big plates, but i did it tonight, so we could take how much we liked since i reckoned we couldn't finish everything being so humid tonight.

Inada fish simmered in shoyu

with potatoes and french beans

Tonjiru

to help me finish as much vegetables as i have in the fridge

Eggplant and green peppers miso simmer

cucumber salad with salt konbu and sakura prawns

i feel like having a giant ice kachang now.

my new found ramen friend

We finally found a ramen flavour that is so alike that we have in the ramen shop!!!

I like the fish based stock ramen that we had a few times at Ikebukuro, and since we can't go to those ramen shops for the time being, having this at home is such a treat~

cold ramen dipped in hot fish based soup =)

great for summer

Dinner tonight was meant to be a simple affair since we got sashimi from the fish monger

and sashimi means no preparation needed eh?

haha but i was wrong.

the daikon strips took time.

the slicing and laying of the fish on the plate took some effort and pinching of nose.

well, it looked good on the table, but weirdly, i didn't take on the sashimi well tonight.

the smell didn't agree with me.

Inada sashimi

But good thing i made...

Peranakan Chap chye!!!

My second attempt. was a great improvement from the first! =)

this helped me finish my rice tonight.

Home made tofu

wakame salad with jelly dressing

and a simple suimono (soup) which we always need with sushi/sashimi dinners

I was so excited to see inada today! when our friend gave this to us, i immediately liked the taste, but this one just didn't have the same sweet taste that we had last time, to my dissappointment.

i would have to get it cooked for the second portion still in the fridge.