Covid-19 MCO : Day #15 (Big Breakfast!)

I miss big breakfast. So I decided to give myself a treat at the start of the Enhanced Movement Control Order today which everyone is hoping (but might not be getting) to end 14-04-2020.

Actually someone made me crave for bacon and that made me think of big breakfast, something that I have not had for a long time.

So I defrosted the sausages and bacon overnight and there was a big fry up in my kitchen late morning. The smell of bacon is mmmmm....outstanding!!

I wished that I had button mushrooms and substituted with flash fried cherry tomatoes. That was a satisfying brunch.

Today I cooked soup using bone broth, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, cabbage and meat which I salvaged from the bones used to make bone broth.

Ah! Let me introduce you to my best friend when it comes to making soup - the Empress Magic Cooker or also known as a Thermal Insulated Cooking Pot.

I bought this pot years ago from Cosway and used it only once or twice after which it went into hibernation.

What is so magic about this pot? It consists of a stainless steel inner pot and an insulated outer pot.

You basically boil up your soup/stew/curry on the stove and then transfer the inner pot into the insulated pot and cover. 

Your soup/stew/curry will then continue to cook on residual heat thus saving gas.

Just let it stand for a couple of hours while you go about doing your other things. Haiz....why didn't I use this pot more often?

I saved the vegetable scraps from peeling the potatoes, carrots and garlic. Oh ya, I love putting garlic cloves in soups.

All the vegetable peel/scrap go into my compost bin which is actually an empty flower pot. I have loads of flower pots. Besides pantry items, I also hoard flower pots hah...hah....

Throw the scraps in and cover with some soil.

This soil here is depleted soil i.e. whatever plant that grew in this pot had died or had outgrown the pot and I recycle this soil when making compost.

Just keep layering with the next batch of vegetable scraps followed by soil and so forth. 

After a while, due to exposure to sun and rain and with the help of bacteria and other little critters, the organic material breaks down/decomposes and with any luck you will find a gardener's best friend - earthworms! Can you see it?

There, let me give you a better look. I used to be very squeamish but these days I can touch earthworms because I love them hee..hee... 

Every week or so, using a shovel or whatever is practicable, give your compost a stir to mix it around. This aerates the compost to aid further breakdown. You can also add used tea leaves or coffee ground to your compost. My partner used to save used coffee bags from his office for me.

When your compost is ready, it is black in color and you can start to put some into your pots to nourish your plants. You  will notice renewed vigor in your plants within a few days after application of compost.

My daun sup (Chinese celery) is starting to produce new shoots. See how green it is. I am trying to plant greens like this so that I can just harvest from my garden anytime I need it. 

This one is celery. New shoots coming out and hopefully if not attacked by snails it will grow sucessfully.

Another pot of celery.

Chives (kuchai) which thrives on neglect or else it would have died years ago.

Curry leaves. Very useful when cooking curry or kam heong dishes.

This is turmeric (daun kunyit) which is a heavy feeder. It requires frequent feeding to do well. Well, mine is not doing too good as you can see the leaves are yellowish. The leaves are essential for cooking rendang and other dishes like masak lemak cili padi.

A solitary bunga telang. There will be more in the future.

Yesterday evening I had overnight oats for dinner. Sad to say at around 9pm I was hungry again. So....

I had one container of pasta salad topped with baked beans and chili sauce (what a weird combo) but it was so good hah..hah....

This fatty bom bom was very rebellious last night. She wanted to go out.

Her "boyfriend" visited her late afternoon.

This is what she does when she insists on going out. She climbs all over the place while yowling very loudly. MEEE...YEOW..OOOOOO....MEOW..YEOW...OOOOO.... Nope! Mommy said cannot!

So she kwai kwai stay in the house while sulking away. It's very hard to be a parent even to a cat. Haiz...