Pre-Chinese New Year Disaster

Hello there. Sorry for the silence. The Chinese New Year spring cleaning frenzy kicked in for me on Friday. Gosh, there was so much to do! And dust was everywhere! I didn't know where to start. And to get me in the mood, I put on my CD. Not just any CD mind you. This one.

Muahahahaha! Anyway, that got me cleaning and dusting with gusto. While cleaning my CD rack, I also got reacquainted with some of my old favorites. As I was wiping off the dust on my main door, I felt so peaceful and at that moment I was just happy to be me. Little did I know what was in store for me later in the day.

I had a lot on my plate yesterday - cleaning, cooking and baking. That evening I baked a butter cake. After cooling the cake, I tried to remove it from the pan by turning it out onto a plate. Guess what? The cake pan slipped and out came my cake and it dropped on the dining table. Arrrrgghhh!!!!!

The famous Mrs SK Ng Butter Cake in smithereens.

And it broke to pieces. I was so angry with myself. I was baking a batch of cookies at the time and I had to bake another butter cake. It was so frustrating. But it is what it is. So I took out another block of butter. Thankfully that cake turned out well.

When it was time to clean up, this had to happen.

My kitchen tap broke. Water was gushing out and I had to close the valve. Which meant the other taps in the kitchen also went dry. I was so depressed. How was I going to host the reunion dinner with no water?

I snapped the above pic and whatsapp my partner. When he got back, he took a look and told me he could fix it. But that would have to wait till the next day as it was already too late in the evening to buy a new one. I was depressed the whole evening and my partner kept reassuring me that he will solve the problem. And he did the next morning. Thank you, my darling! My kitchen is up and running again.

Anyway, here's a sneak peak into the process of cooking one of the dishes I will be serving tomorrow evening.

Frying lots of onions.

Fried onions. I pinched some. They are yummy.

Beef, seared in the hot onion oil.

Into the slow cooker.

I poured this liquid into the pot and turned on the cooker.

End result.

I cooked the curry earlier in the day, way before disaster struck. I wasn't sure if my reunion dinner could happen, so I stashed this lot into the freezer.

Fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!