During the Earth Hour 2010, I was invited to a Hungi style meal. What they did was to bury the meats into a pit and allow the meats to cook underground.

The chef is from New Zealand and he told us that the Maoris use this method of cooking. Over there they can even cook a whole lamb..

Now, looking at the piece of lamb, I am really hungry for more Hungi style of cooking

Earlier, she also phoned me about her new deep fryer. She wasn’t sure if she should close the cover for faster cooking or will that cause her fried foods to turn soggy. My friend is already in her 50s and hence, is finally so pleased she can afford all these cookware and new oven.

Although she is a good cook, she couldn’t prepare several foods simply because she doesn’t have all the fanciful cookware sets as her family was merely struggling through. Now that her children are older and can afford to buy her all these cookware, she is thoroughly enjoying them.

So, if you are a new cook, you may want to know that sometimes our cooking skills are limited by our range of cookware in the kitchen. If you don’t have proper stew pot for example, you may not get the kind of melt in the mouth kind of meats. Or if you do not have the heavy base cookware, certain foods take long time to cook.

But of course, do not let the lack of proper cookware sets stopped you from preparing meals in the kitchen. Sometimes, simple meals will warm the heart although they are not the most elaborate dish.

My sons and I first went to McDonald’s to try out their Samurai Burger. It is pork burger with sweetish sauce. Though I don’t quite like it, the children love it because we don’t have pork burgers over here. Then, we headed over to the local foods and tried out pork leg, pork skin and almost every stall sells something with pork.

Though it was just a short vacation, it was a nice break because I had an enjoyable time taking photos of the foods, the people and the sceneries. I will certainly try to find cheap holidays where we can just take off without much pre-planning.

I always like to have spontaneous trips where we just decide the night before and fly or travel by car the next day. Of course, one needs to find some reliable sites to make the hotel bookings or find good last minute vacation packages.

Travelgrove is one of such sites where people can make holiday planning much easier because they have get all the details from one site. You can compare prices and find alternatives because they have compiled all the information for us.

Take a look.

*Sponsored post*

So, I did exactly what my mom used to do. It is really easy to make because I just need to buy some fillet pork (bak thau) because it is believed that the fillet part is not so ‘toxic’ for new moms and ask the butcher to mince it. Next, I slice the ginger and cut them finely. Stir fry the ginger with lots of sesame oil. You may notice an ugly layer of oil but that’s what mom insisted. Plenty of sesame oil to keep the new mom warm. I usually remove some of the ginger for garnishing and mix the rest of the oil and ginger into the meat and steam it with a little soy sauce of taste.

On another meal, I cooked these stir fried celery, carrot with lots of garlic and fresh tumeric slices. I used Indian spices like fennel, fenugreek and mustard seeds because fennel and fenugreek helps with increasing breast milk production. This is a very easy to prepare meal which I cooked for new moms. See? You don’t need to hired super expensive, nagging, old lady for confinement ladies.

The only thing left to do is to visit the wet market for some marketing and then, head to the hawker centers to have breakfast. Eating breakfast alone is not such a nice idea because most of the times, I need to share table with strangers. I dislike eating with people I do not know because some of them are darn talkative and like to strike up conversation with me. I hate talking while I am eating with strangers, ok?

So, what I will do is to takeaway something I can eat at home and enjoy the morning alone. If I am not too lazy, I will prepare my own breakfast and have a nice cup of coffee.

These K-cups method of brewing coffee looks interesting. It is so convenient to make ourselves a cup of coffee at home. They have the grounded beans, creamer and everything sealed for freshness and one just need to get the right portion as required. It also saves me a lot of money compared to sitting at those coffee joints.