I’m finally getting myself down to document my cooking/baking adventures as well. Seems like this months is the starter for many ‘firsts’, eh? New year, sixteen, new traditions.
As mom was out yesterday, the cooking duties fell to me (and I quite willingly took charge of it). A simple meatloaf and the usual bread and salad and cheese was on the menu for the night, so I got about to making it.
Meatloafs are delicious and wonderfully simple to make.
I followed a recipe from allrecipes.com, but I don’t really adhere to recipes when it comes to cooking. All I do is roughly throw things together, add a few of my own ingredients, and voila! The recipe did say ‘add salt and pepper to taste’, which is absolutely ridiculous because no one in the right mind would eat raw mince meat. Not the ones bought from the market in Singapore, at the very least.
Just follow your intuition.
I added a sprinkle of herbs (rosemary, sage, and basil) because I simply cannot cook without herbs. They’re such wonderful additions to any meal and add a little bit of color- they never fail to spruce up a dish that lacks a little of that oomph. My mom and sister went to the plant nursery the other day and brought back some pots of herbs- so now I have my own free, constantly multiplying supply of herbs!
The feeling of going out to the garden and picking your own organic herbs, then sauntering back into the kitchen to throw into your lightly simmering pan is indescribably satisfying. It’s strangely humbling in its simplicity- no rushed trips to the grocery store where everything just lines the shelves in packages ready for you to consume. It’s just you, nature, and your cooking.
Sometimes I do wonder if I should retire to some rural countryside and farm my own vegetables to do my own wholesome cooking. Forget about all the nonsensical complexities of everyday life.
But perhaps things aren’t always as idyllic as they seem. The grass is always greener on the other side. Perhaps prolonged immersion in such simplistic life will prove to be mundane.
So I suppose I’ll remain content with these small snippets of bliss and escape.
The end product:
Tastes much better than it looks, honestly.
Meatloaves make for splendid leftovers, too. The whole family went out today (Routine Saturdays: Sister goes for singing while parents go for pilates for virtually the whole late morning/ afternoon) so I was left to have lunch and mind my own business. So I took out that little box of leftovers from the fridge, threw some macaroni into a pot of boiling water, and it all came together for a lovely, simple, delicious pasta.
And of course I had to add in a sprig of rosemary from the garden. The plants are blooming beautifully.
Delightful day. It’s so enticingly sunny right now, going to finish my post on Those Barren Leaves.
Ruru 