Solo cooking

Tan Hsueh Yun wrote an article on cooking in the Sunday papers and this article makes her a woman after my own heart. I do a lot of cooking whenever my parents are out of town and the washing up does seem daunting. However, I strive to wash the dishes as I go along, so that when I've finished cooking, a smaller pile of dirty dishes is waiting for me.

I cook for my friends and thank goodness they have not fallen ill from my food since some dishes are made for the first time! It gives me a warm feeling whenever I get positive comments about my food. I fared badly in Home Economics as a student, having scored the lowest grade among my fellow classmates in our Secondary 4 year. These reviews boost my confidence too. I enjoy cooking for those I love and it is a way of showing my love.

I cook for myself too and the advantage is that I can control the amount of seasonings in the process. Less salt is high on my agenda. I do make simple dishes so that there is less work to be done and when I don't know what to cook with the ingredients I have, I refer to the Internet for recipes or borrow cookery books from the library for some ideas. Sometimes when I'm lazy to use the stove yet again, I use the toaster. Of course, fatigue is not a dominant reason for me as compared to Hsueh Yun, since my job has flexible hours.

I put my food on pretty plates and despite the solitary company, I feel as if I'm sitting daintily in a restaurant, savouring the whole ambience of eating. It's the psychological effect of the plates.

She mentioned making a tomato-based pasta sauce from scratch. I'm a user of convenience food and my sauce is usually the bottled type. I'm not sure if I can spend 45 minutes stirring chopped tomatoes in a saucepan. I usually just add fresh ingredients to the bottled sauce. Still, a tomato-based sauce sounds easier to make than a cream-based sauce.