Le Sigh...My Abandoned Kitchen

For someone who advocated very actively about home-cooked meals and managing one's schedule to make healthy, simple, money-saving meals at home for the family, I sure failed miserably for the past 2 years since the pandemic hit.

To be honest, the years of the pandemic, getting groceries was tricky and there was just general anxiety about going out...even if it was to get groceries and anything from the stores.

So, for the initial 2 years, I hardly touched the precious utensils in the kitchen. Food from before the pandemic sat expiring on itself. Sauces went bad, and frozen meat simply became permanent residents in the freezer.

I swear, I touched nothing in there. Lunch and dinner were all delivered to the home via apps, so were groceries whenever possible.

I didn't like ordering meat I couldn't quickly eyeball and check online - everything else was OK - so, I still made trips to the grocery store wherever I felt brave enough.

But now that things have calmed down a little, I am beginning to change things around to the pre-pandemic norm.

I still struggle to make meals at home. Frankly, because multi-tasking work and the demands of maintaining a family is taxing.

But I've come to rely heavily on a few habits and my beloved kitchen equipment.

Slow Cooker - This is simply heaven-sent. If I can pop something in before I go to bed, I would end up with food to eat for lunch
Air Fryer - When I dial back on the pandemic strategy of ordering everything online, the air fryer was the first saviour to step in (so to speak). It's a simple enough process of marinating and air-fry. If I wanted vegetables, there's water, sauce (and more most of the time) that I can place at the bottom.
Pressure cooker - The one that I have is not the best at predicting what I want to be done. But when I am running out of time, I can make stew and soups quite easily and quickly!
Infra-red stove - With a normal stove, I would have to watch the fire and keep an alarm on my phone to let me know when to check on it and stop cooking. I always need to keep a close watch on it. But the infra-red electric stove has a timer and different types of cooking functions as well as quick heat adjustments. This way, I can pop things in, stir in seasoning and let it brew.

For now, I am going to focus on prepping intelligently, staying ahead of my work-home schedule, practice savvy planning to make the most of my equipment.

From now on, I am going to call myself Quick Cool Queen. LOL

I've not even contributed much to my CookPad journal.

Comments

Stargazer - Stretch Those Sides

I have been doing this pose, part of Cosmic Dance (a type of yoga, I am assuming), called Stargazer pose without knowing it is called Stargazer's pose a lot in the past. You see, sometimes, I don't follow the rules and come up with my own stretches and poses. It is fun. I have on some music, nice, soothing music or just anything I can click on. Then I go with the flow, letting my hair down. Just moving to the music...and that is when I come up with the above Stargazer's pose. This pose really stretches your sides. Keep your eyes on the outstretched hand if you are keeping it pointed to the top, as if you are waving or connecting to a higher energy from the Universe. Your arms will ache a little but hey, toned arms, here you come! :-) For those who want a bigger stretch, it is safe to slowly and gently move the lifted hand towards your back...don't overdo it, listen to your body's complaints and respect it. You don't have to prove anything to anyone, reme...

Maid Side-Kick

I was kind of a little sad when I read the news about this - there will be no live-in Indonesian maids in Malaysia anymore . There are pros and cons to having a live-in maid, as with everything else, but for us, we enjoyed more pros than cons. Back then, when my kids were little, we brought in a family of maids to help with...well, just about everything, and we were like two families merged into one. They ate what we ate, we sleep, they sleep, we shop, they shop, they joke, we laugh, we joke, they laugh...for me, the maid I hired was more like a sister and side-kick to me. For that few years, I was dependent on her to mind-read my schedule and when I need or don't need help. She picked things up quickly and we ended up having lots of moments whereby we were in sync. Today, two of them are on my Facebook and we were gleefully chatting over Facebook Messenger since they've just discovered the wonders of the Internet and Social Media. Since we were more like partners in crim...

Drunk People Cannot Make Comments on Blogs

OK, here's the thing with this image thing....you don't want people to design robots or programs or spiders or cockroaches or whatever to spam blogs and websites. I understand that. In fact, I am all for it. It's annoying to have spambots come in and post one liners like.... Can't get it up? Try this website. Top quality Viagra for low pricing. Value discount if bought inbulk. Or the most common ones would be.... Want a completely paid-for holiday with your family and coming home to a villa beside the sea before taking a spin in your luxury car. Then you have to read this! It's amazing! Within three weeks, you will get $32,000 in your account. Within a month, whether you like it or not, we'll bank in $65,498 into your bank account. Within six months, you're a f*%#@* royalty. I don't like that....and I assuming you don't like that either, right? If you have a popular blog, you get even worse stuff like hate mails, awful comments or people who ...

Marsha Maung: I write. I love. I live

Search This Blog