Domestic Diva Wannabe

Chicken Sambal has been one of my favorite dishes ever since I’ve tasted my Mom in Law’s chicken sambal. I then asked for the recipe but haven’t got the chance to try it yet. I need to buy a blended first because all the ingredients like the dried chili, onions, ginger and garlic had to be finely blended to have the best tasting sambal.

Writing about chicken sambal now, makes my mouth water.. Hmm.. Anyways, I hope I can get to try cooking this dish. And I hope I can make my Chicken Sambal as nice as how my Mom in law cooks.

This is something new for me, making a weekly menu for the family. Normally, I don’t plan out for our weekly or even daily dishes. I just wake up in the morning, open the fridge and see what I can cook from there. Usually, I end up just frying some eggs or meat since I don’t have the complete ingredients to cook a decent dish. Sometimes, I give up easily and ask my Hubby to buy food from the shop making the lack of ingredients as an excuse of my negligence ( or maybe laziness to cook!?).

Anyways, it was just recently that I’ve discovered the real advantages of planning out the meals. First, it’ll save time and costs. If a weekly menu is prepared so, I would be able to know what I need from the grocery and get them in one shot, therefore saving time and frequent trips to the grocery. Costs, because  home cooked food is cheaper than outside meal. If I’m not prepared with what to cook, there’s always a tendency to eat out or buy food from outside. Another advantage for planning out meals is that it’s healthier. With a lot of thought put in planning meals, I can see a broader picture of the family’s food intake and therefore I would tend to want to make it more balanced and healthy.

I’ve tried menu planning for 2 weeks now and I love it. I love the variety of food I’m serving the family, I love the sense of ‘preparedness’ every morning and I love trying out different recipes.

I was browsing through my old files in the computer and I saw this.

It’s a photo of the Christmas Goodies that I’ve given to friends two years ago. I baked some brownies and gave a box of them together with a sparkling wine we bought from the duty free shop and gave them to some friends and neighbors. I baked quite a lot of the brownies but I think we still missed out giving to a friend or two.

I would like to make this as a Christmas tradition. Giving goodies to friends and neighbors every Christmas. I hope I could make some for this year.