When you have to make breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner for 3-4 persons daily, it can be rather tiresome and you run out of ideas. I remember when I was a child, both lunch and dinner used to be rice with around 2-3 dishes. I can’t manage it. So I resort to one dish meals for lunch because I’m cooking for just me and the kids. I find that it reduces my workload a little.

So we have Fried Rice as our One Dish Meal on Monday.

On Tuesday, we have the one dish Yee Mee Noodle Soup.

One Wednesday, it is Sandwiches.

On Thursday I cook our one pot Chicken Rice. It is very easy to cook. I will share my secret lazy cook’s Chicken Rice soon.

On Friday, we have Pasta.

The kitchen is close for the weekend, soon its Monday again and we have porridge. We can have fish porridge, meat porridge or any kind of porridge. Our favorite is salmon porridge.

On Tuesday, we have Pan Mee Dry Noodle with meat balls.

On Wednesday, we have spaghetti.

On Thursday we have dry wantan mee noodles with minced beef.

On Friday we have Yam Rice.

Soon its Monday again and we have Fried Yellow Noodles with Fish Cake.

And the list goes on. We have all sorts and manners of one dish meals or one pot meals in the form of rice, porridge, noodles dry or soupy, mee hoon, vermicelli,mee etc etc. So many combinations. We can have a different one dish meal each day for a month but usually we stick to a few staple favourites.

The best part is, the kids still get to eat home cooked meals and my job as a SAHM is made easier.

The termites that destroyed the parquet floor in my house have made themselves real comfy and moved upstairs. So, we called in the pest control fellows and asked them for an evaluation. According to the men, there are two ways to destroy the termites. The first way to kill the termites is to pump termite poison in the vicinity. Since we live in a terrace house, that will mean drilling about 100 holes along both sides of our walls from front to back. Yikes!

The next method is to set up termite baits. This is considered a more passive approach. After setting up the termite bait, you wait for the termites to take the bait back to the queen and in that manner you will get to kill the queen and therefore the whole colony. However, this will take a lot of time and monitoring by the pest control company.

So, we decided to set up our own termite baiting system. Hopefully the termite takes the bait. A diy termite baiting system can easily be bought online at a fraction of the cost but what is more important to us is, it is less intrusive. We hate the thought of the number of appointments and visits we would have to deal with to monitor the termite baits if we used professional help.

Of course we are no experts, so it may not work. Here are the steps on how we set up our own diy termite baits.

1. We found termite tracks!

2. We bought our own DIY termite baits online. It arrived the next day.

3. Here’s how the termite bait looks like from inside the cardboard box. You are supposed to add about 5ml of water. I used the kid’s medicine cup to measure the water.

4. The box comes with self adhesive tapes. Here is one which we stuck on the inside of my kitchen cabinet. 

5. Here is the termite baiting box we set up on the ceiling. We added extra tape to make sure it does not fall off.

6. After a few days, termite tracks can be seen outside the termite baiting box. I hope that means the termites are taking the bait.

7. We added another box to give more bait to the termites.

We are supposed to check on the baits after 3 weeks. I really hope it works. I checked the one in the kitchen cabinet after a week and it is empty of termites. That means the termites are not taking the bait there. This is probably because I had sprayed so much termite poison in there previously. It managed to kill the termites there but they merely moved on to another part of my house. I hope the termite bait will kill off the colony this time. I can’t wait to check on the baits.

The other day someone gave me a Maggi Magic Meals. I was rather sceptical about cooking my meal in a bag but since it had been given to me, I didn’t want to waste it, so I tried it out. Let’s have a look at it.

This was what I received. A Maggi Magic Meal Pack. A meal that cooks in a bag within the rice cooker. I must say, I feel funny cooking that way, by putting a whole plastic bag of chicken into my rice cooker and allowing it to cook together with my rice.

Let’s open up the Magic Meals packet and have a look at what’s inside. I got the Maggi Magic Meal Fragrant Soy Sauce Chicken Variant. This type of cooking in a bag by Maggi is supposed to be the first in Malaysia.

There are two packets inside. The plastic bag and the sauce ingredients. At first I thought the plastic bag was the bigger bag so when I tore it rather carelessly, some of the powder fell out. The plastic bag is actually the smaller pack. It comes with a lock to seal up the bag. I made a mistake at first and sealed it up with that little red tape you see that seals up the folded plastic bag!

Here are my ingredients or what I am supposed to put in my Maggi Magic Meal. They are chicken cut into bite sized pieces and big red onions. That is it. I do not have to add oil, nor do I have to season the chicken with salt or anything else.

The chicken goes into the bag with the sauce powder and some water and right into the rice cooker where  you cook your rice as you usually do. You massage the bag a little bit to mix the chicken with the sauce a little bit before placing it in the rice cooker.

I am supposed to cook the chicken for 45 minutes. I also received this little Maggi Magic Meals Timer from my friend. (no, not the sponsors) This post is not sponsored. My rice usually cooks in 20-25 minutes so I am supposed to leave the chicken in there in “keep warm” position till at least 45 minutes to ensure the chicken is fully cooked.

Forty Five minutes later, my rice and my Maggi Magic Meal chicken is cooked.

I cut the plastic and pour the chicken onto a plate to serve.

I served my Maggi Magic Meal Chicken with an omelette and plain fried celery with garlic. That makes a complete meal.

At the back of the packet, I learned that there are other Maggi Magic Meals variants. They are aromatic Chicken Curry and Savoury Tomato Chicken.

According to the packet the plastic bag is safe to cook in. No matter how safe, I still feel strange cooking in a plastic bag. Cooking was extremely convenient, no oils, no spills, no cleaning up, no extra plates and cooking ware to wash up afterwards. The taste was also good and I didn’t have the thirsty aftertaste that usually comes with too much MSG in convenient meals.

I suppose this would be useful for busy mothers, novice cooks, students etc.

I might still be tempted to try the other variants because of the convenience and time saving factors but still, cooking in a plastic bag!…… I don’t know….. What about you?

The rainy season is here. Most days it rains in the late evening, sometimes we have thunderstorms and lots of trees are being uprooted.

I like the rain but the problem is I think the termites that share my house likes it too! Oh well, I hope the termite bait that I have set up will work. I have taken some pictures of how we put up our own DIY termite bait but just haven’t got the time to post it up yet.

With the rain also comes leaks. The roof leaks seem to be always on the move. Sometimes it moves to the front of the house, sometimes the back etc. Sigh. Roof leaks is one of the worse problems to resolve next to termites.

Then there are the telephone wires. When the rain hits my wires, it gets them wet somehow and then my phone starts to beep non-stop.

Termites, Roof Leaks and Phone Beeps. I have enough work to do around the house. I certainly don’t need you.

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