Herbal Chicken

Firstly, thanks everyone for your concern and prayers. Grandma had her op already and everything is good. Sis says she is in good spirits as well. :)

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Back to topic.

Cooked herbal chicken using the ready to cook pack from my box of love IV (will touch on that in another post). Previously, I tried cooking herbal chicken once, from scratch. But the results didn't turn out too good as I didn't have all the herbs. So when i saw the ready to cook pack from box of love IV, I was really thrilled. Cos I really really missed that dish.

The ready to cook pack is really easy. They have the marimating powder, the herbs and even the aluminium foil and HDPE plastic sheet all ready in the pack. Before I opened the pack, I read the instructions behind and it said to wrap the chicken in a HDPE sheet before wrapping it in aluminium foil. I thought: where the hell do I go find a HDPE plastic sheet?? And hence I was really surprised and glad that they really made it so convenient for us.

Herbal Chicken for the Emperor

And the steps are very simple too. Just rub the packet of spice powder all over the chicken, boil the herbs, stuff the herbs into the chicken and steam it for 2 hrs and voila, you get home cooked herbal chicken, like this:

The taste was quite alright but due to time constraint, I only steamed the chicken for 1hr instead of 2. Hence the chicken was not as soft and tender as it should be and the soup was not as flavourful. But nevertheless, it was so good that the 3 of us (we invited another friend over for dinner) finished the whole chicken.

Do consider cooking your own herbal chicken, if you have the time. :)

Fell

Woke up to a piece of bad news today. Sis left me an offline msg on msn telling me that grandma had a fell outside POSB and fractured a bone near her hips. She is now in hospital and needs to be operated and she has to be hospitalized for a while, which means she will be in hospital during CNY. :(

While sis told me not to worry too much as grandma is quite alright now and the op is quite a safe one, I can't help but feel like something clouding over me.

But I really wanna thank the POSB staffs. They are really kind hearted. According to sis, they checked grandma's particulars and wanted to send her home and when they found out that she can't walk, they sent her to the hospital. Thank god grandma met good samatians. :) I will never complain about the customer service of POSB at that particlar branch anymore.


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Good news: sis just told me that the doc said they can operate on grandma this afternoon, which means she'll be home for CNY. Thank god. I'm sure must be mummy's chanting. Please help me pray for a smooth and successful op.

Cheap Dining

Just finished watching local drama Daddy at Home (企鹅爸爸）starring Chen Hanwei and Li Nanxing. I have to say, I love Chen Hanwei's sibeh aunty character and curly hair. I think he is even more "aunty" than my mum.

So hubb was watching the show with me few days ago, while we were having our dinner and there was a scene where Li Nanxing took his family to a posh chinese restaurant for dinner. Later his wife asked him how much the dinner cost and told him not to waste such money in future (as he was retrenched). He said the dinner costs about S$200.

Upon hearing his reply, my first reaction to hubb was: $200?? Its not expensive at all mah... Thought they went to a posh restaurant?? How come so cheap?? There were 5 of them (4 adults and 1 child) so means per person is only S$50. Cheap mah. Hubb replied: Don't compare with the cost here lah. OMG I think when we go back Sg, you're gonna eat at all the expensive restaurants cos you'll think they are so cheap. You are going to 吃穷我!!

But seriously, S$50 is about 25eur and that is the price for a dinner menu at a normal (not posh at all) restaurant. In the past I used to complain that S$5 for a bowl of noodles in a foodcourt is expensive. I don't think I will complain about that anymore. Over here, 2.50eur can only buy you 1 corssaint and a cup of coffee. But... I still think $200 for 5 people is really cheap. :p

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So, drama recommendation for Jan 10:

Daaddy at Home. You're gonna love the aunty Chen Hanwei.

Okay I gotta go do some housework and cut discount coupons now. Keke

Transformer Strollers

As the guys don't have to go to work early today, hubb and me and An and her hubby decided to go check out this baby outlet near our area. Since its the winter sales now, we wanted to see if we can find any good deals for baby strollers as alot of people tell us that the strollers here are of better quality.

 Well the shop wasn't very big but we were wowed by the strollers there. Seems like strollers nowadays have alot of functions. They come with car seat, detachable basket, this and that and there are different ways u can fix the strollers!! We were busy looking at the catalogue which has the different ways the stroller can be fixed and I told hubb: wah these strollers are so complicated. Can transform into so  many patterns, like transformer.

And the transformer strollers don't come cheap. Since we can't get the sales person to explain to us the functions (doubt they can speak much english), we decided to do some research on our own before buying one. So far I like the Mac Laren strollers best. Saw that their latest model of strollers even have a thermometer and a stroll-o-meter to measure the ambient temperature and how fast you are walking!! Nowadays strollers very high tech ah.

So... Any godmas to be out there wanna sponsor your god child his/her stroller?? Let me know :p

Disclaimer: An and I are NOT pregnant.

10 Ways to get your wife to cook

Guys, if you want to enjoy home cooked food from your wife on a daily basis... Try these...

1. Move to a place where cheap and good local food is not easily available (any part of Singapore does not qualify)... Somewhere out of the city, somewhere boring and dead, somewhere both ur parents are not available... An ideal example of such place would be La Teste, France...

2. Let your wife be taitai (ie, no need to work, just stay at home) so that she has all the time to cook...

3. Introduce her to wives who can cook very well (and pray that they become good friends) so that they can influence and inspire her...

4. Move in to an apartment where you have neighbours who are good cooks and always give some food to you... Over time, your wife will feel paisay and will wanna reciprocate also...

5. Organise potluck gatherings...

6. ALWAYS, and I repeat, ALWAYS, no matter under what circumstances, PRAISE her for her cooking. Always say its delicious. "OK la" does not constitute to nice. "OK la" means its not nice at all but still edible.

7. When she is cooking, the kitchen is her empire. DO NOT go into the kitchen and start giving pointers on how she should do it, unless she asked.

9. Offer to wash the dishes after eating.

10. Buy her a LV bag for her effort in cooking.

And viola, I assure your wife will cook everyday. :D