Red Dot Mum

Takeaway: Set a theme to manage festive gift giving How does one know one is buying the right gift for someone? This is specially made much harder when the occasion calls for the exchange of gifts at office parties and one has no idea who is going to receive one’s gift. At other times, it may also mean giving gifts to someone whom you don’t know so well. I’m a money-saving mum🙂. And a time-crunched family carer. I like to be able to cope with gifting, especially during festive seasons. Such times coincide with school holidays and with my children being home all day really draws upon any remaining energy reserves I have after returning home from work. I have errands to run and dinner to cook. I may not have the luxury of time, nor energy, to shop for a considered gift. With Christmas a month away, I checked the Internet for ideas- and the search threw up some useful links of which started me thinking of how I wanted to approach gifting. I agree that Empathetic gifting will guide one’s ...

I am proposing preparing this soup stock as a base for several instant meals. But… you would have to set aside three-quarters of a day, once a month,  to prepare the soup stock, in advance! Yes, I mean freezing it, packs and packs of this flavourful soup! I have made a couple of tweaks here and there for this recipe. I did not make the noodles from scratch as I lacked the patience.. and confidence (for now) to knead my own dough and make my very own soft chewable noodles (soon…very soon.. I will attempt this!) I did prepare the zucchini the first time I attempted the recipe but the family complained they did not much care for ‘wet cucumber’ in their soup hence I replaced it with green leafy vegetables whenever I used this stock as a soup for cooking noodles. By the way, the name of the noodles I bought from the supermarket is mentioned below under ‘Ingredients and their Costs’. I usually prepare this soup stock using a slow cooker. I assemble the ingredients (garlic, onion and chic...