#WeekendCooking - Home-cooked Shabu-Shabu Dinner

All photos featured are from my collection. Dinner is served.

When I was younger, I wasn't very handy around the house. I suppose that's because my mom was a working mom, and we grew up with household help. A lot has changed over the years, especially now that I'm running the household. I guess I have outgrown my dislike for most household chores. However, I do keep a tight schedule on a daily basis. I have and am still learning the art of managing my time. That is why I could only do my cooking experiments during the weekend.

This is an electric cooking pan that my daughter received as a gift two Christmases ago. We have yet to use it. I decided to clean it up and use it for my home-cooked shabu-shabu dinner.

Before I try cooking a new dish, I would usually do my research online for ideal recipes and watch videos on how to go about the process. Then I would check whatever ingredients we have on hand. I always start from what is available then come up with my own recipe.

Some of the ingredients I used for this meal were noodles, mushrooms, fishballs, vegetables (Taiwan pechay), pork cube seasoning, onions, and garlic. For this cooking experiment, Mom did help me with slicing the onion and garlic. I actually prefer them minced, but hey, who am I to complain since I did get some extra help, right? LOL!

It was my first time to use the electric pan. It was also the first time that I would be making home-cooked shabu-shabu. I had to play it by ear in terms of the length of cooking time and the average heat from this pan. With this type of pan, the water doesn't really boil, but it does get hot. The onion and garlic were the first to be added. I waited around two minutes or so before adding the fishballs. I wanted them to be cooked thoroughly, so I added them first.

Some five minutes later, I added the mushrooms. These mushrooms are the canned variety. I bought them for my experimental salad but forgot, so I used them for this meal instead.

I added the ingredients one by one, allotting a few minutes in between for cooking. The noodles were added next and cooked first before adding the veggies for the final touch.

I covered the pan and waited some five to ten minutes before turning the electric pan off. The thing with this type of pan is, you can simply bring it on the table for serving. The outcome of the dish is the photo on the cover. It was a success! Not bad for a first try. I will surely be working on improving the recipe for next time. I'm happy that we all enjoyed our weekend dinner.

Happy weekend to all! ^_