The Road to 40 Day 243/365: Foodie Wednesday

I know I should be exercising, but I was in the mood to eat this day.

I’ve been cutting down on food as much as I can. My weight is currently on the brink of hitting 90kgs, and I want to get it down to at least 80kgs. It’s mainly for health, of course, but another main reason is that I want to wear clothes that I want to wear without looking like a damn pillow.

Usually, I would have either breakfast or lunch, then eat at dinner. I’ve been told that calorie counting works, but I don’t know how to do that accurately with the variety of food that I want to eat. Hence, I choose to stay within reasonable portions instead of stuffing myself in order not to waste food.

Vino’s lunch was basically adobo from last night, but I added the broccoli banchan on the side. Che usually doesn’t have breakfast, so I prepared coffee for her. It was a pretty easy prep in the morning.

After I took Vino to school, I walked over to the hawker near our house to find something to eat. I usually get prata and curry when I’m in a hawker run, but this time around, I was hoping for some fishball noodles or laksa.

I found a stall that has a bit of a queue, and it was the only one that sold laksa. I got my soya milk and proceeded to join the line. It was manned by an elderly couple, with the uncle cooking and the auntie taking the orders. I learned then that the queue was long because of how they operated.

The laksa was fine, but not revolutionary. The cockles are always something that’s a hit or miss for me. On one side, I feel that it’s an essential part of laksa, but on the other, it tastes too seafood-y to me. I daresay it’s like liver from the sea.

Soy milk is something I never thought I’d enjoy drinking. There was just that one day when Kuya Sherwin, Issa’s big brother, treated me to one after we played basketball. Since then, I’ve enjoyed it as a filling drink when I don’t eat anything.

When I got home, I planned to start prepping galbi-jjim. I was able to buy short ribs from the wet market before we left for the PH, and I had planned on doing another version of the Korean dish. The first time was fine, but the short ribs cost me about 60SGD, which I wasn’t going to do this time around. I think the ones I got from the wet market set me back about 15SGD, which isn’t exactly cheap, but it’s not crazy expensive. I wanted to know if I could replicate what I did with the expensive beef.

Luckily, Chard and Tin gifted us with a cast-iron pot. Che and I thought about getting one from Bangkok, but opted not to buy it because the price wasn’t far off from SG, and it was kinda heavy. I wanted to use it as a slow-cooker for this version of galbi-jjim.

I put spring onions, chestnuts, a cinnamon stick, and preserved jujubes in the spice bag. As per recipes I read, I wasn’t going to keep those in the final dish. I think jujubes should be a part of the dish, but since these are preserved ones, I didn’t think I should put them in as I would do for fresh ones.

Cooking in a cast-iron pot was new for me. I think it was cooking well enough, but I felt that the meat wasn’t getting soft, and the radish wasn’t soaking up the sauce as much as I wanted to. I was supposed to let it cook for about 40 minutes or as much as an hour and 15 minutes. My impatience got the better of me as I brought the heat up.

I was watching the time, but I was falling asleep a bit on the sofa. I suddenly remembered I was cooking something as I smelled something burning. I opened the pot to see all the sauce has evaporated. It wasn’t all burned, but some meats and chestnuts had charred a bit.

Che had some errands, so Vino and I ate dinner already. Since there wasn’t a lot of sauce left, I got my gojuchang for my rice and put some furikake and sesame oil on it. I still had some broccoli, so I had that for my side.

Overall, I’m happy with the result. I learned that one cinnamon stick is too much already. I could maybe tone down a bit on the sugar since there were some components that gave it a natural sweetness. The meat got reasonably soft, though, and Vino was able to eat it properly. I think I can still make improvements for the next version of this dish, which I could try in a couple of weeks.

I cleaned up and got ready for bed while waiting for Che. During this time, I decided to fold some laundry as well to make our waiting time more productive.

We ended the day watching an episode of Taxi Driver, but I was drifting on and off, so I’ll probably have to catch up tomorrow. Or not. It’s a tomorrow me problem.