Of soups and congee

Since early September this year, we have been eating out for every meal. It was either the mamak stalls or economy rice stalls or 大 炒 (literal translation = big stirfry) stalls. One of us loves Cantonese style soups (炖汤) and congee therefore recently we redeemed the following three items using our credit card reward points that we have been accumulating for a few years:



This is the first rice cooker owned by us. It will be used to cook congee. Before this, we just cook rice using our microwave or on our previous built-in gas hob.

The slow cooker will be used to cook soups and stews. The size is just right for a two-person meal to be finished in one sitting. I do not like to keep leftovers in the fridge because food kept there tend to be forgotten and will stay there forever.

The induction cooker will be used mainly for boiling eggs, cooking instant noodles and steaming vegetables. I do not know in detail how an induction cooker works but plan to read it up on the Internet. All I know is that it uses magnetic waves and if a magnet can stick to the bottom of a cookware, then the cookware can be used on the induction cooker. Among all the existing cookware that we own, the magnet only stick to the bottom of one steamer pot.

We do not have a gas stove because we only cook once in a blue moon so we do not see a need for it and furthermore I am afraid of cooking gas leakage. In my previous kitchen, I used to smell cooking gas whenever I open the kitchen cabinet door where the cooking gas tank was stored. We also do not own a wok. I am strictly against 大 炒 at home because of the amount of oil and fumes generated.

When we start to use these items, I will monitor our electricity consumption. If these items use too much electricity, we may need to get ourselves a gas stove. Now when would we start cooking?

Saving by cooking

My partner and I cooked almost all of our meals when we were living in Newbury because eating out was very, very expensive. I even skinned a whole chicken once and took photos as proof :-) as that was my one and only time.


To make it interesting, I did my best to keep the whole skin and whole chicken intact. I did it by looking up instructions on how to skin a chicken from the web. I like my chicken soup to be not so oily therefore the skin and fat must go.

Now, I no longer cook as I do not like to cook. After 4 years of cooking, I have had enough. Perhaps one day, I may discover the joy of cooking. When that happens, I will of course blog about it here but I do not think that day will come.