What a laid-back weekend! We were out only for a couple of hours yesterday to go on a hamburger binge. We’ve been so hamburger-deprived all last week, you wouldn’t believe! No fast food during the school week because I cook at home.

Since Skye has extra classes after school and I need to drop off her lunchbox, I prefer her to eat a wholesome homemade lunch. She says her classmates’ moms bring them McDonald’s and KFC every day and I’ve only brought her McDonald’s once.

Steev has his lunch at college and I’m constantly on his back to eat more veggies at dinner. My poor baby seems to have lost weight since he started college. But he insists he is eating the same amount except maybe less carb.

Since there’s only Raine and me eating lunch at home most days, I usually whip up something simple like sandwiches, pasta, pies or grilled chicken and potatoes or something. We’re not big fans of rice and Chinese dishes anyways, so I don’t bother cooking up a storm.

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During the 2-hour wait for dinner to be served, I had time to remind the kids about our family’s eating-with-strangers policy. When the food comes, take what you want and do NOT go back for seconds, no matter how good the food tastes.

The common practice of everyone diving in with their chopsticks is pretty horrifying. At weddings, the table is mostly made up of complete strangers, people we don’t know from Adam (or Eve) which makes this whole business of saliva-mixing all the more disgusting.

There’s a common spoon which everyone is supposed to use but no one does. It’s faster to just dive in with your chopsticks. God forbid the people who like to lick or suck their chopsticks before plunging them back into the common plate again and again! YUCK!

When the kids were younger, it was even more stressful for me as I had to fill their plates and my own before everyone else dives in for seconds .

Well, we don’t end up eating a lot. Which is okay we’re there to celebrate someone’s wedding, not to stuff our faces like we’ve never eaten good food before and certainly not to embarrass ourselves.

I’ve been cooking up a storm all week. All in an effect to cut cost now that everything’s so expensive. Thankfully my kids didn’t complain. They even said this has been the best week in lunches.

I made chicken pot pie on Monday. The kids loved it so much that they did an encore. So on Tuesday, I was at it again making chicken pie for the second day in a row.

On Wednesday, I made two types of pasta like I usually do. Steev and I prefer spaghetti olio but the girls like spaghetti bolognaise. So I always make both types.

I had some leftover pie filling from Tuesday so that was perfect for another small batch of chicken pies. I also made a tuna pasta for my big eaters.

Today I made pan-fried fish fillet with buttered rice. I’ve never made buttered rice before. It just hit me like a stroke of lightning so I decided to go with it.

What’s on next week’s lunch menu? I don’t know yet . We’ll see.

On the weekend, the kids and I sometimes like to look for new places to eat. So happens Bubba Gump, a restaurant themed after the movie Forrest Gump, opened at the Curve.

We were curious. We were drawn to its unusual decor. We heard they have free iced lemon tea refills. That was enough to make us want to check it out.

We like to try everything once even though we’re not big on shrimp which is their main feature. The ambiance was kinda nice but I can’t say the same for the food or the prices they charge though.

But now that we’ve tried it, we won’t be itching to go in there again whenever we pass by the restaurant. I doubt we’ll be going back there any time soon.

I’ve gone from doing my groceries on the weekend to doing it on Friday instead. I work from home which gives me all the flexibility in the world to shop whenever I want.

So there’s no need to compete with the working folks on weekends. It drives me nuts to stand in checkout lines that don’t seem to move. I really don’t have the time or the patience.

Having said that, I seem to notice more promotions on the weekends to cater to the crowds. They have kiosks set up for you to sample food before you buy. There’s lots more markdowns and choices.

Well, sometimes you have your cake and eat it too, I guess. So I’m going to send the kids off to school tomorrow morning, go to the gym, then try to get my groceries done.

My eyes are getting tired. My eyelids are growing heavy. I’m starting to feel sleepy. No, I’m not under hypnosis. I’ve been up since 5 this morning. I’ve been running around all day, and it’s beginning to show.

On days like this, I wish I could just wish myself away from the rush hour traffic and the incredible heat and humidity.

What I need right now is a steaming cup of coffee the strength of kava root. Such an exotic name for a herbal supplement that grows in the volcanic regions of Hawaii. It’s guaranteed to revitalize me instantly because it’s so potent.

I’m so glad that McDonald’s has this chicken porridge for days when I just couldn’t bear to look at another hamburger!

Granted it’s not the best jook (porridge) in the world, but I can’t complain ‘cos I don’t have to cook it myself, hehe.

Just sit down and eat. No need to cut up anything, wash anything or cook anything. Heaven.

I’ve never made sushi at home before. But since DH brought home stacks of nori (seaweed) sheets, I have no choice but to find a way to use them. They’re big sheets, not the little ones you can crunch as a snack.

So I decided the quickest way to consume them would be to make California rolls and sushi. I’ve done California rolls before. But I don’t have a sushi mat. So I figured I’d be sushi-challenged because of that.

To be honest, I prefer to buy ready-made sushi than bother rolling them myself since we don’t eat it very often anyways. So I really didn’t want to go out and buy a mat that I’ll probably use only once or twice.

So I went ahead and rolled my sushi without a mat. It’s not that difficult and it didn’t come undone as I’d expected. I just pressed it a little harder and it kept its shape very well. I didn’t cut it into smaller pieces but left it the length of the nori sheet.

The kids found this long roll to be quite a novel idea and came back asking for “another sushi cigar please”. Haha, sushi cigar mommy, that’s moi. Happy Tuesday tooting, y’all!

Just a while back, I was totally dry on lunch ideas. I was basically cooking the same things over and over, and although the kids didn’t really complain in so many words except for “again??”, I knew it was time to get creative.

I have to do some quickie homemade lunches and this is what I’ve got going so far:

• Yesterday - hamburgers with onions and tomato
• Today - store-bought curry puffs and tuna (leftover) sandwiches
• Tomorrow - fried rice with ham
• Thursday - pan-fried fish fillet with pasta
• Friday - ham and cheese toasties

See, I’m not doing too badly, am I?

I was rummaging around in my kitchen yesterday looking for some inspiration for lunch ideas. Skye stays back in school several days a week and she prefers me to bring her lunch.

I have some seaweed sheets, or nori, that DH bought from a recent trip to Japan. I was thinking of making my own sushi at home but then I’d have to buy a sushi mat just for that. I don’t want to do that so I might just make California rolls instead.