Cooking in Finland Part 1

This was the official first week of January in Finland where I started cooking. Back in Singapore, I don't really cook. If yall know me or my mom personally, you will understand what I mean haha My mom thought that I can't cook and was worried that I will not be able to survive in Finland oopss 🙊

So here, I will try to prove her wrong by showing how I survived my first week in Finland cooking every single meal XD I am really thrifty there in Finland coz everything I see feels expensive. Little did I know some things were actually considered cheap but it is just coz I did not buy groceries by myself before when I was Singapore (is it I pampered in SG?🤭)

This was the first few meals (coz I didn't take pic of every single meal haha) whereby I cooked instant noodles HAHAHA I guess this is what most of us do best at 🙊but sth different is I did not use the msg in instant noodles package. I bought the plain eggless instant noodle from supermarket and attempted to season it from scratch and added Tom Yam iirc and it tasted not bad XD

The following meal I did keep record of was this: My Pomodoro Spaghetti which I did share about on this blog before. Let's talk about the history of this dish.

The first time I cooked this dish was in Sec 1 or 2 during Home Econs (when I was the Home Econs Rep hehe xiao proud of myself) and my cher was very nice to partner me with a vegetarian and I will always bring the veggies and mock meats to match to her lesson plan for her classes. Thus, we will always cook the vegetarian version of whatever she's teaching and she is always excited to taste our product haha

Story aside, this was our examination question. To cook a spaghetti during the exam! I still remember how I always failed in estimating the amount to cook. So it is either I cook too much sauce or too much noodles. I still remember how I cooked too much sauce and secretly dabao and put in my bag during the exam to show cher that my estimation still not bad oopsss

From then on, when I have to cook spaghetti, I will always cook this hahaa so the only 2 dishes I mastered was spaghetti and instant noodles 🙈As such, I was able to cook this nice dish there in Finland XD

Sometimes, I will have to cook lunch to bring to school as the vegan/vegetarian food in school often has alliums which I cannot eat. Sometimes, I will prepare 2 types of food together in one lunch box so that I will not get hungry easily. So here is my favourite spaghetti + potato salad.

The potato salad has a story for it too and I am really grateful for it. So before I came to Finland, my temple had some event and they need some Kitchen Helpers. Needless to say, I volunteered to help out. And the breakfast for that day was either some potato salad else, it was a potato spread on the bread. I was allocated to help out with that section and thus during the helping out, I managed to remember how it was done and hence managed to re-create it successfully in Finland and it was Good!!! Thus, I am really grateful for that experience XD

The dish here was something I invented in Finland. Did I mention I love noodles a lot? Yup, so I tried to boil water and soak the instant noodles. Meanwhile, I stir-fried ham and mushrooms. Then, I added in the noodles and season it with soy sauce, a bit of Ketchup and the chilli paste I brought over from SG! Then topped it with veg ikan bilis and veg meat floss. It turned out nubbad though its an entirely new invention haha XD

This was the plated version! Perhaps it doesn't look very appealing but it was legit nubbad hahahaa

This on the other hand, was my dinner for one of the days! So I stir-fried cabbage with carrots, mushroom and the veg oyster sauce I brought over from SG XD

one problem I faced when cooking this was I dk how much oyster sauce to add and have to keep testing haha.

Then I decided to challenge myself with tomato potato soup too and my friend said it was nubbad. So another achievement unlocked!!!

The last dish for the week was this hotdog bun set! The hotdog was bought from the supermarket as I chanced upon it and realised its Vegan! So I fried the hotdog and put it in the bun and paired it with the potato salad which I made again haha

YAY so I survived the 1st week of cooking and it started me thinking if I will get sick of cooking and run out of ideas ><

Stay Tune for the upcoming recaps of my trip to find out XD See you soon!