First Home-cooked Meal in the New House

Last Sunday, Juan Or woke up from sleep twice and ended up in a cranky state and crying spell. He didn't even finish his morning milk - only drank 2-3 oz and after that vomitted everything out together with some slimy stuff with saliva, probably due to his excessive crying earlier. After that, Mommy rocked him to sleep in the spring cot and Mommy continued with ironing clothes. Since it was already quite late in the morning (morning is the usual time we go for family outing) and Juan Or was already back to sleep, we decided not to go for any outings and that Papa would go out alone to buy things while Mommy stayed at home with Juan Or.

It was during this nap-taking time that Mommy had the chance to do some household chores. Mommy managed to finish up the rest of the ironing and proceed with opening up packages of kitchen utensils and washing them since they have never been used before. There were many things to wash - ladles of all shapes and sizes, chopsticks, wok stand, kitchen knives and cleaver, various containers and bottles for storing salt, sugar, MSG and pepper, oil pot, rice cooker's pot, 40-cm wok and the cover, measuring cups and spoons, garlic crusher, peeler, pestel and mortar- you name it! Just when Mommy had done about half of those washing, Juan Or woke up after sleeping for about 2-and-a-half hours. Mommy fed him the remaining milk that he didn't finish that morning and by then it was already 11.45am. How time flies!

Later on, Papa came back home with the things he bought and McDonalds for lunch. Mommy stopped all the housework temporarily to eat. Juan Or joined in to eat, but he was more keen on the French fries and Coke only.  After eating and clearing up the dining table, Mommy continued with wiping those utensils dry and keeping them in their proper places. Next came the step to fill up those containers with cooking oil, salt, sugar, MSG, all-in-one seasoning, cornflour and pepper. And finally, Mommy opened the cooking gas tank seal for the first time and attached it to the hose, then tested the new gas stove. Mommy was glad everything went well despite having some feelings of anxiety because Mommy has never done this before!

That evening, Mommy decided to cook dinner for the first time in the new house. Mommy cooked rice, hot assam prawns and stir-fried Beijing cabbage for dinner. The preparation involved for the hot assam prawns was the longest compared to other things Mommy did for the day. The prawn dish's gravy made use of bird's eye chillies, fresh turmeric, garlic and powdered turmeric being pounded together. And these were the yields for dinner!

And since this was our first time having a humble home-cooked meal for dinner in our new house, Mommy got Papa and Juan Or to pose in front of the food as well! ^ ^

Here's Juan Or having his dinner. He prefers to scoop himself and insisted on eating rice only and refused to eat the prawn and vegetable. On seeing his rice so plain, Mommy secretly added a bit of the cabbage gravy to his scoop of rice. The moment he ate it, he gave Mommy the signal that he wanted to spit it out! Later on, Mommy added a bit of the prawn's hot assam gravy to his rice and he kept on eating!

This day (Sunday, 18th April 2010) marks the day we ate our first home-cooked meal together as a family in our new home.