One-day Cooking 101

I'm so excited because this shall be my first-ever housekeeping entry (I think). It's like posting this confirms the fact that I'm a legit wife now and that the wedding which was almost a month ago actually happened for realsss! 

OK so without further ado, let me present to you One-day Cooking 101. As a wife, a working one at that, one of the challenges I immediately faced and is still facing is time management. People who know me well would understand that I'm not the type to be busy cleaning the room, organizing closets, fixing the bed, doing the laundry, nor attending to dusty curtains and discolored bed sheets. I'm the type to watch endless DVDs, get lost in a book, play games on the phone, cut my hair, or DIY mani & pedi. You can imagine the kind of adjustment I had to go through to shift from that little girl who grew up couch potato-ing to a wife who's very busy and always mobile in the kitchen, the bathroom, and everywhere in the house (naks, as if ang laki ng bahay!) By the grace of God, it's been more than three weeks now since I changed from the lazy boarder at my parents' house to the responsible domestic goddess of our little nest. 3 weeks! And to think I wasn't able to do it a single day before! (Sorry Maaa!)

Anyway, going back to Time Management, it's been really hard you know. The rants on how my sleeping hours had to give way to my wife duties will be saved for another entry but today, I'll be sharing a brilliant technique I learned from an office boss. 

Since Ralph & I are both working and barely have the time to cook (and obviously we don't have anyone at home to do it for us), we either end up buying takeouts or going to the market almost everyday which eventually leads to daily cooking. We noticed that the first two weeks we did this, we ended up having only enough time to take a shower before collapsing to sleep and REM-ing in no time due to exhaustion. So much for the honeymoon stage, right? I hope I'm kidding but this was how our nights had been since we started managing our own home. Of course we don't just cook. We are also in the process of completing the stuff we have to purchase and arrange to make our house look like a home. Remember when hubby surprised me with a romantic dinner by the tiled floor? Haha. We got us a table now. What say you?

Last weekend, Saturday morning to be specific, Ralph and I talked about the food we'd like to eat for the whole of this week and came out with a list of our chosen viands and the corresponding ingredients which we later on bought from the market.

Don't judge. We are not aiming for balanced meal/diet just yet (that will be prioritized soon). And this is just the first week so I think we can cook and eat what we feel like to. So we ended up with the following:

(Below are photos of the food taken straight from the freezer so they don't look freshly cooked anymore. Tumigas na nga ang mamantikang sabaw. Haha!)

Chicken Curry

I didn't really know how to cook this until I tried that day (with the help of my saute-ing skills and a little of instinct) and it turned out fine. When I tasted it though, it wasn't as savory. After much contemplation on where I have gone wrong, I realized I forgot to put coconut milk (gata) to somehow contrast the curry flavor and to thicken the sauce. Oh well, next time..

Chicken & Pork Adobo

We included this in the list mainly because it doesn't get spoiled easily. In fact, it's known for its enhanced taste after several re-cooking. I just hope this lasts for more than two meals so we can still make Adobo Flakes out of it.

Beef Caldereta

Just so we have beef in the menu. This took me 45 minutes to tenderize because I left the pressure cooker at the folks' house. And I might have added too much liver spread so..

Pinakbet

Vegetable dish, finally! This is Ralph's favorite so it has to be here. I just hope the veggies don't get overcooked after re-heating. Oh, hello there frozen oil!

Chicken in Honey-mustard Marinade

Lastly, grilled chicken. I used Clara Ole Honey-Mustard marinade. I just added a generous amount of ground black pepper for a little oomph. We cooked this the day after and as we speak, it might have already been travelling the sewage pipe. OK sorry that's gross.

So basically, aside from rice, we have already prepped all these viands for a week of cook-less nights. The idea is to store them in the freezer only to bring them out a day (or 12hrs) before breakfast or dinner (since we'll be at work during lunch time). We don't have a microwave oven yet but that's the least we could worry about since we have the best Provider in the world and beyond. For now, we're good with heating them the old school way.


























There you go, folks. Isn't this a genius way of conserving time? By the way, I started cooking around 9:30 in the morning and finished just in time for lunch. So that's less time for cooking and more time for "bonding" (hint, hint.) haha! Let me know what you think. I'm such a noob in this area so any advice from housewives out there would be very much welcome.

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