Cook, woman... COOK!

Recently, I have been having too many things on my plate (Unfortunately, not of the edible kind) to exercise as much as I used to.

The only thing that I have the time (and energy) for would be Yoga. All you need is a yoga mat and peace and quiet (Not a difficult thing to get if you go home at 5 am in the morning).

In all honesty, I miss gym. I miss the huffing and swearing puffing on the stepper and treadmill, the awesome flex of your biceps, triceps and glutes during weight training.

Not to mention checking out every buff bod possible gay men in the gym sweating their orifices out (Oh dear... that's not quite attractive innit?)

But at the moment, until all of my projects are running and not in the middle of constructing, I will have to limit my gym time to once a week on Sundays. *Sigh*

Anyhoo... when it comes to sustaining my level of energy for both work and Yoga, I have added another rice day to my usual once a week rice intake.

It has tremendously improved my energy level. I don't feel as tired anymore.

Of course, everything is proportioned. I cook no more than 2 handful of Herbaponni rice (Which contained considerably lower fat and starch content, and taste just DIVINE).

Due to my uber busy schedule (actually, when you work at night, your time to indulge in 'real' cooking with 'real' ingredients prep time are essentially, virtual) I purchased canned goods like mackerel in tomato sauce and for this week, for the sake of reliving my childhood memories, cuttlefish in soy sauce.

For week 1, I cooked the canned mackerels in soy sauce. If I am to follow my Mum's recipe, the fish is not supposed to be fried. Growing up, I have always hated the fishy taste of the canned mackerels. So I decided to fry the fish first in shallow pool of olive oil (not extra virgin. Extra virgin is ideal for drizzling, but not for cooking) before saute-ing the onions, garlic and red chili. pour in about 1  or 1 and a half table spoon of salty soy sauce and voila!

Ideal to be eaten with rice/ bread.

The second week, I went for classic beef stew. Now, stews are always more divine with dry red wine or a drizzle of dry sherry. Being a health freak, I draw the line when it comes to compromising my beef stew. I go for the classic recipe of lean beef, potatoes, mixed peas and carrots, dry, wonderful red wine and stock.

Not exactly the healthiest of choices, but I believe in staying true to the recipe as far as beef stews are concerned.

I purchased a canned cuttlefish last couple of weeks. The reason why I bought the canned version instead of the fresh variety, aside from trying to evoke my childhood memories, was because I don't personally like to keep fresh meat too long in the fridge. Plus, I wouldn't know when I would actually want to eat the frikkin' thing.

I cooked the canned cuttlefish the only way I know how, braised in a mixture of tamarind and soy sauce.

I threw the soy sauce the cuttlefish came in as it was sweet and is a far cry from what soy sauce is supposed to look like.

 I crushed the garlic and saute it together with the onions and red chili before adding in the cuttlefish. mix the ingredients with the cuttlefish and then after about 2 mins, add in the tamarind juice and drizzle some soy sauce (To your taste) and wait for the gravy to reduce.

Add salt if needed.

Of course, I don't actually cook often. Usually I will settle for some oatmeal porridge and two slices of bread with peanut butter as that was the fastest most convenient power packed breakfast+lunch, which I take at my screwed up time of 7 pm - 9 pm with hot tea.

So whenever I do, I will make sure that I treat myself with the best. ;)