What have you been doing lately…

As for me, I’ve been doing quite a bit of cooking especially with my girl home for the holidays, and like what any parent would do, I would try and cook some stuff that she would enjoy very much.

I know she enjoys western cuisine so I made this salad…

…of lettuce, two hard-boiled eggs, sliced, and slices of grilled bacon.

For the dressing…

…I just used the little bit of mayonnaise left in the fridge and I added some honey mustard, sugar and evaporated milk to it and I dare say the end result tasted pretty good.

It was a case of killing many birds with one stone. I grilled the bacon in a bit of butter which I later used to toss the potatoes, cut into chunks…after which I added a bit of salt and pepper and sprinkled parmesan cheese generously all over them before putting them in the oven to roast…

They sure turned out really well and my girl loved them very much.

I had the fat trimmed off the bacon and I melted that in a frying pan before adding some garlic which I fried till brown and in went the mushrooms…

…to which I added a bit of salt and pepper according to taste.

I guess that is what people call stretching the dollar/ringgit. Bacon is expensive here – I bought a packet of 9 thin slices for over RM12.00 and I used only 4 to cook three different dishes so it was not too bad actually. I put the rest back into the freezer for my girl to enjoy for breakfast with egg and toast or whatever.

This wasn’t western but on another day, I thought I would try and cook some pork the way my mother did – in soy sauce, no five spice powder involved. I took some chunks of the meat and marinated them in soy sauce and sugar and a pinch of salt. After sometime, I put everything in a cooking pot, added water, one whole bulb of garlic, a handful of peppercorn and some shitake mushroom…and boiled that for a while after which I turned the heat down and let it simmer for around an hour. To serve, I took the meat out and cut it into thin slices…

…and I had the sauce/gravy in a little bowl by the side to use as a dip and also to pour over our rice and eat. It was nice but no, it wasn’t like what my mum used to dish out. I wonder how she did it…or maybe, the soy sauce then was different, I’m not too sure.

Then one afternoon, I wanted to take my girl out for a movie but the mum wanted to go too so in the end, I let the two go together while I stayed at home. There are things I can do without and at the prices of tickets at the cineplexes these days, it would not hurt one bit to miss a movie or two but lately, I did get to watch some good ones on DVD like this one or this, both of which I enjoyed very much. They do not screen this more intellectual kind of shows here as there isn’t any market for them – so what we usually will get are those ghastly horror movies or fast-moving action movies with lots of punches, shooting. killing and bloodshed and car crashes thrown in for good measure…and cartoons only.

However, I did not sit around, idling the time away while the two ladies were out having fun. Instead, I decided to try out this recipe that I learnt from my girl and I sure was delighted that the pancakes…

…came out really well!!! Maybe I added a bit too much butter but it sure turned out even nicer with the extra rich buttery fragrance. My girl enjoyed them very much and that night, before calling it a day, she dropped by my room just to say thank you…and of course, when the girl is happy, the dad is happy too!

So, what have you been doing lately?