Shopping, Shopping

I think we are almost done with shopping for wedding essentials. I've gotten my dress, +3's gotten his suit, and we both bought shoes today. All I have left to do is buy a push-up bra hahaha.

It feels good to know that things are moving along. Counting down!

Beef Stew - Cooked in Pressure Cooker

One of the best beef stews I've cooked. Really love the pressure cooker as it makes the beef so tender.

Ingredients:
Beef, cut into cubes
2 beef stock cubes
2 carrots
1 onions
5 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
12 baby potatoes
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
butter
water
salt
pepper
3 bay leaves

Method:
Marinate beef with salt and pepper. Melt butter and saute onions, garlic and beef. Mix the beef stock cubes in a cup of hot water and add to pot. Add tomato paste and stir. Add chopped carrots, potatoes, cherry tomatoes and bay leaves and enough water to cover. Cover pressure cooker and cook for 20 minutes once the pressure is up.

Have Bed, Can Sleep

And we've ticked off one more item on our wedding to-do list, which is to buy a new marital bed. +3 had initially thought of looking for one closer to the wedding date, but since we were in town we decided to have a look and see what the price range for beds are.

We were lucky that Tangs was having a sale, and we managed to snag a bed (plus frame and four free pillows) for a pretty good deal. Yippie!

Now that one more major item is done, it's a load off our shoulders. Onwards, we march!

Pressure Cookin'

Put my birthday present to use these couple of days and used the pressure cooker to cook a few meals. I was initially hesitant to use one (tales of explosions in my mind) but now I'm a fan!

The first meal I made was ayam pop, a fairly simple dish which cooked oh-so-quickly (5 minutes!). I let the cooker de-pressurise naturally and had such a tender, fall-off-the-bone chicken dish. Happiness!

The second dish I tried making today was porridge. I wasn't too sure the rice to water ratio (winged it with a 1:4 ratio of rice to liquid - I mixed stock and water) and read somewhere online that you have to pressurise and de-pressurise a couple of times. I'm not sure what the logic was though.

So I did just that. Turned off the heat after 5 minutes and was too anxious to wait for the pressure to go down naturally, so turned the knob like how the lady at the shop showed to de-pressurise. And that was a mistake.

I had let go of too much pressure too quickly, and rice water was gushing out of the vents. GAH. +3 came to the rescue to help me move the pressure cooker to the sink, so that the induction cooker wouldn't get too wet.

Long story short, we had a huge mess to clean up, I finally figured out the proper way to de-pressurise, and we had an idea of how much stock/water to use. But porridge that came out had the right texture, so I have to say it was a success. Yay!

It really cooks everything that much faster, and I have to say I'm glad we bought it. Yippie!

And The Shopping Begins

Oh dear. Apparently I need to have at least 2 dresses for my wedding- one for the tea ceremony and one for my solemnization. Tried to see if I could get away with just one dress but everyone says no.

Sigh.

See, if I enjoyed shopping this wouldn't be such a big deal. But I'm not a shopper (unless I'm looking for kitchen appliances) and the mere thought of shopping for clothes just makes me want to curl up in bed and sleep.

Thankfully I have girlfriends who enjoy shopping, so I can delegate this duty to them hehe. I'm sure there will be other things I need to buy too (shoes?).

Anyway counting down! Got to get these things settled soon. Taskforce meeting this week. Oh yeh!

Family Meet Complete

We just got back from a weekend in Jakarta and now we've both met all the siblings on both sides of the family. Yippie!

It was a fun weekend, and fun weekends always just fly by in a flash. Didn't really do all that much except eat, go to a couple of malls, hang out at home, walk around the neighbourhood and play monopoly.

Managed to buy some sweet potato and a large block of tempeh, so I'm quite pleased with our haul. Guess meals for the next couple of days are set! Hehe.

Being Disconnected

This is something +3 and I are trying out and I think we will continue to do. In an effort to be less connected to our phones, we have decided to not bring our phones out when we go for walks or keep our phones in our bags when we have meals together.

It's a small gesture but really makes you realise how easily distracted one gets when the phone is within arms reach. This also allows us to pay full attention to each other and our surroundings. Hehe.