Gosh, life had been pretty busy and I decided to pause writing for awhile. There were some tasks in the span of two weeks to be done: some plumbing jobs needed to be looked into at home to fix all the leakings in view of saving water bills in the long run; various gathering and going out; decluttering of clothes at home as well as cleaning all the fans and cobwebs; and the in-between housechores; hospital appointments. However, I still managed to squeezed in time to visit my Aunt! I told myself, no matter how tired I was, I must go see her.
She told me two weeks ago that she suddenly recalled a meal she frequently cooked for the family of expatriates. They super loved it. When she found out we had not tried before, she was determined to cook for us. It was pork chop with apple sauce!
It sounded weird to me, because it didn't ring a bell in my chinese-cuisine-cooking-style brain which we usually used garlic, onions, oyster sauce and soy sauce. But this?! Apple sauce, the main seasoning! Sounded super interesting to me.
Initially, she wanted to use pork chop but when she arrived at pork shop, the pork chops were sold out. So she bought minced pork, and shaped it into pork chop way, adding some finely diced garlic and onions, seasoned with salt and pepper, coated with flour and bread crumbs and pan fried! The pork chop itself was delicious on its own.
This one she cooked for two hours. I couldn't believe it. Sounded so simple but so time-consuming. After peeling the skin, diced the apples, and on a pot with half cup of water, slowly simmered the apples on low heat until it all soften and mashed up. Then, some rock sugar would be added. She skipped the lemon juicier and cinnamon powder. Supposedly the next step was blending them, but she said the apple sauce with some leftover cubes would be nice to, at least something to bite. I agreed!
How to eat this dish? We supposed to spread a generous amount of applesauce on top of the pork chop, meaning every mouthful of pork chop had applesauce. I tell you, it was mind-blowing, awesomely delicious. The combination of the pork and applesauce was unbelievable. Never would I thought a sweet sauce would pair so well with salty type of pork dish. Brilliant!
She wondered would we get used to the pork chop and applesauce dish, so she cooked another Chinese food. Basic stewed chicken with oyster sauce and soy sauce, she added in mushrooms and peas too. Very duper yummy!
I gradually grew to love her rice cooked with cinnamon sticks. So healthy fragrant. The boys didn't like it, though, but will still eat. She still cooked rice the old way, using stove top.
She also baked for us a lot of cookies. Previously, she baked oats cookies and the boys loved it so much. So she did another baking, this time with chocolate chips, both dark and white ones. So crunchy and delicious. Wayyyy better than those bought at stores. She also packed for us some white chocolate chips to munch for snacks and a pack of Hershey's chocolate chips.
We really had meaningful time —eating together and chit chatting about various topics — and we were glad we took time to visit her. I also used some time to help her fill up her blood pressure measurements for her next clinic visit, going to bank to help her withdraw her cash, as well as reading some letters in her mailbox. We were indeed blessed to have Aunt like her, yes, I can say this million times.😂
