Keeping up with the Joneses...

Browsing through my Facebook can be somewhat extremely stressful. It's food from someone else's kitchen, food from cafes, food from restaurants and food and more food~!!! ....'thou shalt not covet'.... 'thou shalt not covet'.... 'thou shalt not covet'....'thou shalt not covet'.... well, I try to cook better. I aim for the best taste. The 'ooommphhh' must be there. 

Actually as long as hubby and mi mama said it's delicious, I'm okay. But sometimes my taste buds have been upgraded a notch higher and I will feel that my cooking was not as good. Today is a Sunday. Hubby is supposed to cook but he's tired because he has been driving me around today. Usually I'm the driver when he's my sleeping passenger. So, he said he would take a nap and helped me in the kitchen a few minutes or an hour later. By the time I'm done cooking, he was still in dreamland. I made this rice meant to be a Chinese New Year meal. Oh, well... Chinese New Year's only for 15 days but I've started mine so much earlier. For example, I've finished a few containers of CNY goodies. Emptied them containers every week. Back to the rice, it's not fried rice. But just to share with you a bit of information if you don't know, if you want to cook rice with a mixture of sorts, saute all the ingredients first. That's the first step to bring out the taste. Then, of course, you will need seasoning before you transfer everything into the rice cooker. It's pumpkin rice with Chinese sausage. I cancelled waxed meat off my list. Don't fancy such item.

While the hubby was still snoring away, I was boiling the potatoes thinking when the hubby would come down and help me. Then the marinated chicken thighs which had sit in the refrigerator came out and went for a spa with lemon juice and rosemary in the oven. While being roasted to perfection, only the hubby came down. Actually, after I was done with everything, I woke him up if not I think he will have all these for tomorrow's breakfast.

I wanted hubby to make that for me because I know he could come out with something nicer. In the end I was the one standing at the stove blanching the Japanese spinach and stuffing the lychees with chicken and prawn paste. You don't buy chicken and prawn paste. You just blend them together and marinate them. This too, went for steaming and has been sitting on the table for a long time. Halfway through dinner, the hubby needed to go clear his bowel. Nothing surprising with such uneventful happening, it runs in 'his' side of the family, both male and female. They carry out the dumping process while digestion takes place.

I played with my konnyaku jelly dessert while the hubby was away. I read that konnyaku originated from plants. That's all I could remember from my reading. I just know I can eat lots and lots of konnyaku all on my own. I have ditched the orange flavoured jelly and adopted the lychee flavoured one.

Mi mama made her best ever pineapple tarts but she made the competitor blueberry tarts as well. I have no love for the blueberry tarts because I no like blueberries. I no like any berries. No like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries... all please stay away from me. I will stay loyal to pineapple tarts.

Mi mama also made Nian Gao (年糕) - Chinese New Year cake, it's sticky and I like it deep fried with yam. It's palm-size so it's really huge. Mi mama said she will make love letters next year.

This is also one of my favourites - Dahfa fish tied together and sacrificed in the oven. It will be gone by tomorrow. How to keep Chinese New Year goodies until Chinese New Year? I think by the time Chinese New Year's day arrives, we will be left with no goodies at all. I'm waiting for mi mama's (rougan 肉干) - Malaysian pork jerky~!!! *saliva dripping all over the floor*... *drip drip drip*