“Big School” and Getting Back in the Kitchen

With the arrival of September this year, Scotch and I entered a new chapter of our lives – life as parents of a school kid!

Wee Scotched embarked on the great adventure of “big school” (it’s the term he uses to distinguish his new school from his old nursery/day-care). He is adapting marvelously to his new school and routine although we do occasionally get reports from his teacher that he needs to work on his listening skills (no surprise there).

Scotch is adjusting to having a toddler in the house again. His quiet, leisurely, single life of the past 2 months has now been replaced with noisy and very early morning wake-ups by a rambunctious, energy-filled nearly-four-year-old that never seems to cease asking questions about anything and everything in the world and is just overly-ecstatic to be with “DaDa” again.

As for me, I battled jet lag and third trimester fatigue – sleeping too much during the day and getting out of bed at 5am after tossing and turning for hours.

The upside of resting so much is that I finally have energy to make dinner. So since my first trimester, we are now eating five home-cooked meals a week  instead of five take-out meals.

But since I’m still struggling with having an appetite for food or being motivated to cook – I don’t have morning sickness or anything – I just don’t find food appealing these days due to my pregnancy – I’ve been preparing quick and simple meals that don’t require much prep work in the kitchen. For example, the past week’s home-cooked meals included:

• Simple lamb roast smothered in minced garlic, rosemary, EVOO, salt and pepper; ready-to-microwave baby potatoes; and pre-cut vegetables that gets boiled in minutes.
• Roast chicken that I glazed with apricot marmelade whisked with soy sauce.
• Pre-washed baby mesclun salad with stir-fried ribeye shabu shabu (a fancy name for thinly sliced ribeye steak?).

Of course I wish I could have taken and posted mouth-watering photos of the food but I still haven’t picked up nor have any desire to pick-up a camera (other than my iPhone) since June.

But at least I’m making an effort to get back in the kitchen!