Beginning of Cooking-Simple-Dishes!

Yippee, I made it! Today I finally set up my blog about cooking simple dishes. After toying with the idea for a long time, this step is also the result of encouragement from my husband & friends, especially Nor who nudged me into *really* creating the blog.

Well, this is just the beginning, so what led to this & what's next?

In Singapore, there're many choices of delicious foods for meal-time, whether in price or nationality. There are less-costly hawker food stalls, and higher-end restaurants, and mid-priced ones in between. However, whenever we go out to eat, we would inevitably be asking the question: "what do we eat today?"

If we're not too choosey, maybe a simple meal at a coffee shop will cost about S$12 for the 3 of us. If we go to a simple restaurant, be it chinese, western, indonesian or japanese food, the final bill usually ranges from S$35 to S$55. Whereas the most "luxurious" meal I had costed S$100+, per person! Moreover, the food we get outside may not be as healthy as we would like it to be, whether in terms of ingredients or cooking methods. Plus, my one-of-a-kind son always give me sweet comments like "Mummy's cooking tastes the best", "I prefer home-cooked food" etc, though most of the time I only present very simple dishes, haha.

So I thought cooking at home is an alternative to get simple, delicious, nutritious food, and to cut some costs at the same time! But of course, sometimes I'll feel lazy and prefer to let someone else do the cooking while I sit down to enjoy the food and the time with my family. And I would prefer to leave those exquisite fine cooking to the experienced chefs. That is their expertise, not mine, not yet. Haha.

"You are what you eat". Foods give us energy and help us sustain life. However, inappropriate eating creates problems in our health & life. I hope with easy-to-cook nutritious meals, I would feed myself & my family properly, without "cooking up a storm" in the kitchen or spending too much time. In addition, I hope everyone reading my blog would benefit from it in some way: newbie cooks getting ideas & be inspired to cook, or veteran cooks sharing your comments so we can all improve. So in this blog I'll be sharing my recipes for simple cooking!

Of course, they may not be anything fantastic, but I hope to share those that I feel are easy to cook, nutritious, and at least pass the "taste okay" test with my son. Most of the recipes I share will be those that I myself cook regularly. They are the results from years of poring over cook books, watching cooking programs, asking tips from Mother, Mother-in-law, relatives & friends, etc. They are also the "easy-to-succeed" ones.

I didn't even know how to cook a proper meal before I was married. When I first started cooking after my wedding in 1995, how I wished there was some simple formula for cooking. So you can be sure most of the recipes I share here will be really easy to cook. And though I like to eat & enjoy foods from various nationalities, the majority of my cooking recipes are Chinese / Asian.

But I'm the type of cook who don't follow exact measurements most of the time and usually will not bother with "rigid" details of how much of what to use for how long etc. Haha, I know, I know, I used to follow every instruction to the last letter, coz I started out with zero experience. But after so many years, I feel cooking is kind of an art and sometimes you really have to rely on "gut feeling". Some of my favourite dishes are actually the results of my "experiments". However in this blog I'll try to write down as much details as possible, as it's meant to be a "record & reference" for my future use too. Maybe one day my husband or son could use this blog as a menu to "order" the food they would like to have for dinner! :-)

Hmm...The things we do must have a value in it, otherwise it'll not be easy to continue. In order for me to persevere in cooking simple dishes more frequently and in writing this blog, I shall first list down the benefits:

-know *exactly* what's in the dish I'm feeding to my son
-have full control over what ingredients to use or not to use
-freedom to decide which cooking method to use (simpler & healthier ones of course)
-flexibility to eat as healthily as possible
-easily limit intake of salt, sugar and fats for a healthier meal
-save time from travelling out to eat
-save money by cutting down frequency of eating at expensive restaurants
-cut medical expenses & enjoy better health from eating simple, proper meals
-be happy & contented knowing I'm feeding myself & my family with proper food & nutrition
-bonding with my family in the process of preparing, cooking, eating, & cleaning up
-etc etc... there must be lots more.

That's all I can think of for now. If anyone can think of further benefits or have any comments, do feel free to drop me a note. In the meantime, may everyone enjoy a healthy life!