Ricecooker yam rice for dinner (26 Sep 2015)

YX wanted to watch 中国好声音4, so we were aiming to be home during dinnertime. It was a choice between buying dinner back from the zichar nearby or cooking at home. On the way back from Bugis at 4pm after a quick visit to the Central Public Library, YX said "I want mummy to cook". So that sealed the dinner decision.

On the bus, I was doing a quick google search on an easy ricecooker recipe and hubby suggested yam rice, so I found this recipe: http://www.thetummyescapades.com/mums-mothers-yam-rice/

We could only find baby yam from NTUC, so I used that instead.


My recipe:

5 cloves of garlic

1 waxed sausage

6 fresh shiitake mushrooms (cos I didn't have dried ones on hand)

500g bag of baby yam

240g pork belly, skin removed


For seasonings, I followed the recipe mostly. I wanted to use up my stock of brown rice, so I used 1 cup brown rice mixed with 2 cups of Calrose rice (so that YX wouldn't know the difference!!)


The smell was quite fragrant and we hurriedly gobbled down our respective shares. The picture below is what is being kept as leftovers for my lunch next week.

Japanese anime series -Nodame Cantabile

After we were cooped up at home on the hazy Hari Raya Haji public holiday, hubby and I decided to get around and walking in town while the PSI was not so bad. We visited HMV at Marina Square which was closing. 

As I was browsing the Kids section, I noticed this Japanese anime DVD titled "Nodame Cantabile" (See Wikipedia entry). No, I'm no Japanese anime fan, but this title caught my eye cos there is a Korean drama series starring Joo Won which is supposedly based on this Japanese manga story. Haha. It features some aspects of music making and orchestra, so I thought it could be something to engage YX in. However, there were only discs 3 and 4 with no copies of the earlier episodes. 

I made a mental note to search the web for streaming sites for this, and I found it! 

Here is episode 1 on animeram.

Boiled Barley Grains - Mushroom, carrots "porridge"

I cooked a cup of dry ‪#‎barley‬ with 4L water in my pressure cooker to make barley water in this horrid weather. 

After draining the barley water, I always felt it was such a waste to throw away the beans, but it was too plain tasting to eat on its own. So I've been looking at recipes to use them.

Today I added some diced carrots, mushrooms and garlic to some barley grains, together with stock (I crumbled a small chicken stock cube), wanting to make something like a ‪#‎risotto‬. But I guess the water didn't really dry up as much since I used an electric lunch box steamer. So it ended up tasting like porridge. Still very good, though. 

Im gonna try #barley ‪#‎pudding‬ next. 

"James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl

A 45 minute silent reading session at Tampines Regional Library, while I was happily escaping from the haze.

Family birthday Sep 2015

Baked a chocolate Ogura cake for my niece, K's birthday.