A Simple, Satisfying Meal

Steamed minced pork with salted egg and stir-fried carrot/cabbage (ignore the hard boiled egg in the centre)

I often get this question asked "do you cook everyday?". The answer is "I cook dinners on an average of 4 nights a week." Hubby and I would go to my in-law's place for dinner every Thursday. On the weekends, we either eat the leftovers from the week or hubby will cook us instant noodles or we might be either eating out with friends (every Sunday after church) or just eating out at friends' place to gather. I would cook extra for dinner so that hubby would have it for lunch the next day.

Another common question "do you cook mostly asian food?". The answer is I will try to vary them and will cook at least 1 'ang mo' (western) meal in a week. It may come in the form of steaks or pastas. Sometimes it becomes fusion - steak with rice and asian veggies.

For breakfasts, hubby would be happy eating cereal everyday but we actually rarely eat cereal (even though it is readily available in our pantry as a backup). We either have toasts, pikelets (I make them in a big batch to freeze away on average every month), muffin cakes (same as pikelets), or any other food that we happen to have. I try to make sure we have varied breakfasts everyday.

This brings me to the point - I am very thankful to have a husband who eats everything (if not, 99%) of what I cook, even if they may not taste great occasionally. And hubby is the type of person who eats every single grain of rice in his bowl. His lunch box always comes home much cleaner than mine. He is one of those (my mum would say to a little child) who will grow up marrying a girl with good complexion because he cleans out his plate at a meal. If you have seen me, judge for yourself if my mum is right :p

Last Wednesday, I suddenly had an idea to use the salted eggs lying in my fridge to mix with the minced pork that I have and steam it. I vaguely remembered I have eaten such a dish before, either at yum cha places in Singapore or my mum has cooked it before. I did it! Just cook the salted egg until it is a hard-boiled egg, mash it up and mix it with the raw minced pork. Add a bit of soya sauce and sesame oil and I 'steamed' it in the microwave (I was lazy to use my wok to steam :p) using my faithful Pyrex dish (I often do that to steam fish too). The next thing I did was to stir fry the leftover raw cabbage and grated carrot from our vietnamese rice roll meal over the weekend. I added fish sauce and some chicken stock powder to it. These were 2 very simple and no frills dishes... but hubby loved it a lot! He would be happy just to have them everyday (with rice, of course) - simple yet tasty. This is probably the simpliest meal I have cooked from scratch and yet it obtained much praises and satisfaction from hubby. And of course, it makes me happy that hubby is happy with my cooking too! For the record, hubby has never complained about my cooking :)

Relating to food, hubby is also the 'sacrificial' sort. Even with his favourite food, he would make sure he only eats some (not eat a lot), so that others will get enough to eat. Sometimes he would remind me to do that too (I sometimes get carried away when I eat my favourite). He would also be polite to let others eat first. When we eat out and have different food and he knows I (too like him) like the food on his plate, he would not be selfish to give me a bit more than what he would usually do, while I am usually more relectant to do it when it comes to him liking my food :p Most times, he would peel prawns for me because I am a bit more lazy to peel it (e.g. when we had steamboat last night, all the prawns I ate are peeled by him). On the day that I first met hubby a couple of years ago, E, one of my good guy friends at the same dinner table noticed that hubby would take food for me and place it on my plate for me. That left a good longlasting impression on E until now. Heh but really, I myself did not remember that :p

I am thankful for these simple joys of married life and enjoying the little bits of sacrifice hubby does for me.... :)