The kind of cooking that I enjoy is the whole works starting from perusing cookbooks, deciding on what dish to cook/experiment, shopping for ingredients and that satisfying process of transforming all that myriad ingredients into the final product, be it a cooked or baked dish. Pre-pregnancy and Faith's arrival, I used to look forward to the weekends to grocery shop and cook either for dinners or dishes that I shortlisted on a weekday. That was my ideal of a relaxing weekend, to the delight of Louis who loved entertaining to a home-cooked meal at home.
These days, cooking usually entails the first and the last part of the entire set of steps I've described above i.e. I would shortlisted the item to cook/bake and the key ingredients would be assembled (usually by Louis). All I need to do is to dump them into the cauldron, stir like a witch and abracadabra... my dish poofs out magically ;)
Seriously, when I think of a dish I want to cook these days, I would give Louis a shopping list of ingredients that he could get for me from Tekka market or when we put Faith with my MIL on weekend afternoons, a quick zip to the NTUC supermarket at Ang Mo Kio Hub. Somehow, its not quite the same as a leisurely stroll of my own up and down the aisles of the gourmet supermarket chains like Marketplace or Jason's. Sadly, I miss terribly the morning trips to Tekka market where I am always intrigued and fascinated by the amount of local and "ang-moh" produce, vegetables, fishes and what-have-yous .
Selfishly, its moments like this when I wish Faith could quickly grow up and start eating solids 3 meals a day. That's so I could put her with my MIL earlier or even overnight so that I can have a little more time on the weekends to indulge in the experience of sourcing for my ingredients. Am I evil or what?
I am eternally grateful to my mom cos she comes in every weekday afternoon to help me take care of Faith, allowing me a good 2-3 hours to indulge myself in cooking/baking. To-date, I've managed to do some fairly simple stuff like pumpkin soup, quiche, tiramisu etc on occasions. Like today, I'm trying to make sun dried tomato focaccia *fingers crossed*
On a positive note, Faith is entering her 5th month and it would be another 2 more months before we start weaning her. And that's gotten me so excited that I've gone out and bought 2 books on cooking solid foods for babies -- speaking of which, I've ran out of bookshelves to put all the new cookbooks I've purchased. I know I should not get overly excited and build unrealistic expectations that Faith would take to solids at her first few attempts. Nevertheless, I can't stop myself from anticipating and looking forward to all the different types of food I can cook for her in time to come;- pumpkin, avocado, sweet potato, brown rice cereal, fish porridge, leek etc etc
My next milestone in cooking would be less on the intricate dishes that I can churn out but cooking for a potentially finicky eater and rising to the challenge of getting her to enjoy a wide spectrum of food :)
2 comments:
Hey Eve, care to share with me your pumpkin soup recipe?? I cooked twice but result not good very diluted... :(
I think it is pretty norm that you would like Faith to grow faster but when she is growing taller and bigger each day, you would wish that the time be slower :)
Hi Jean,
Have just posted my pumpkin soup recipe. If you're using the first method to cook, do ensure that the stock isn't too much. It should cover the vegetables by about 3-5 cm. The use of potatoes will help to make the soup more starchy :)
Post a Comment