The Mike Lok Blog

It’s been a long and emotional week. Work at the moment is like being buggered by Satan sporting a strap on and home life has been just as hectic but perhaps not as horrific.

One of those things really, you need to rise above the daily grind and politics, be the best you can be. Some days it’s exhilarating but other it requires sheer determination to get you though the day without wanting to shoot yourself in the face.

The bloody BMW has been in and out of the garage too, the ABS and ASC (traction control) unit has failed, so God know how much money I’m going to have to shell out, going back in the shop tomorrow morning. Need to get it fixed so I can sell the damn thing.

At least the week ended with a lovely weekend. Taer had gymnastic on Saturday morning as usual, we chilled in the afternoon and went to a party at a Chinese restaurant in Bromley, it was our nephew and niece birthday party. The food was pretty good and everyone had fun. Got home about 9.30, shoved the kids in bed and cracked open a bottle of vino and kicked back on the coach with the missus, Peepshow style apparently.

Sunday, Leeann took the kids and one of Taer’s friends to Kid Space, indoor play park, and I did the thing that no one ever wants to do on a Sunday, recycling and a Ikea run, with a hangover, it was pretty bad. Bought some shelves for our new office and bits and bobs for the house. We spent most of the afternoon rearranging the house, while simultaneously prepped a slow cooked stew, in the oven.

Beef with pomegranate and dried cranberries

Was in Tesco yesterday, saw these lovely pomegranates, 2 for £1.50, I hate shopping at Tesco but they really are the cheapest and have the most choice by far. Anyway, decided to cook some sort of stew with the beef I bought from the butchers last week and use the lovely fresh pomegranates.

This is what I did.

What

• Stewing beef
• Onion and garlic
• Fresh pomegranate seeds and dried cranberries
• Glass of pomegranate juice, glass of red wine
• Tin of chopped tomato
• Garlic, bay, caraway seeds, paprika
• Seasoning
• Dash of Worcestershire sauce
• Honey
• Potatoes

How

Fry off the beef with salt and pepper, until brown. Throw into a casserole pot, then add the rest of the ingredients (not potatoes or pomegranate seeds), season and mix, cook on a low heat in the oven for three hours. Add the potatoes for the last hour with a drizzling of honey.

Serve up and sprinkle over the fresh pomegranate seeds, we served it with steamed broccoli, sprouts and cauliflower. It was awesome, kids scoffed the lot and it was a brilliant end to the weekend.

PS: I wanted to use dumplings, @FoodStories on Twitter game me an easy recipe but the pot of baking powder in the larder was empty, so settled for potatoes instead. Maybe next time.

Yesterday

Lola: Dad, I kissed my boyfriend Anthony today

Mike: Really, what, on the cheek?

Lola: No, on the lips!

Mike: Really?! That sound’s a bit serious

Lola: It’s ok dad, I’m gonna break up with him tomorrow

Mike: (Laugh) Why is that then?

Lola: Well, I don’t think he’s my type.

Mike: (Laugh even more)

This Evening

Mike: So, Lola, how are you

Lola: Fine

Mike: So, how’s things with Anthony?

Lola: Fine Dad, we’re just friends now

Mike: (Relieved)

Christ, that’s harsh! She’s gonna break some hearts when she grows up…

Taer had one of her baby molars pulled out yesterday, she was initially referred to a hospital to be put under but the waiting list was so long, we decided to have it done at the dentist with a local instead.

She's been worried about it all week, combination of needles and pliers is never a good one but she did very well. They apply this gum numbing gel before the injection and the tooth came out in a few minutes apparently. By the time I got home, she was right as rain.

She wrote a lovely letter to the tooth fairy asking her not to take the tooth as she wanted to take it to school this morning to show her classmates. How innocent. I told her that due to Unite Union ballot, tooth fairies' are on strike.

Chinese New Year next weekend, here is an extract from my free cookbook, The Boy Who Would Be Chef on Chinese at home, or try Chinese Steamboat.

I thought long and hard about how much Chinese cooking I would include in this book. I didn't think I could do the cuisine justice by just skimming over it but, on the other hand, I’ve been cooking Chinese for as long as I can remember. Not restaurant style Chinese, but honest Chinese home cooking.

“Wise man never ate sweet and sour”

Cooking Chinese at home is totally different from what you would be served in a Chinatown restaurant. While there are crossovers, at home Chinese is all about brilliant ingredients and simple flavours. No MSG, fancy sauces, garnishes and sweet and sour. That’s strictly for the Gwai Lo's that pop in for dinner.

My dad was the head chef in a Chinese, but popped his clogs long before I got interested in cooking. So most of my learning was done watching my brother-in-law, Wo Fat, and experimenting myself. I recall cooking a chicken with black bean sauce and then adding pineapple. What was I thinking! It was for some friends from church (oh yes, I used to be a happy clappy Christian), it was awful - and the dish tasted disgusting too. But I got better, and here is my selection for a fantastic communal meal. All the dishes should be in the centre of the table, then serve everyone a bowl of rice, and tuck in.

Try

• Steamed fish
• Prawns or shellfish
• Salt and pepper ribs
• Greens with oyster sauce
• Drunken chicken
• Chicken and dried tofu hot pot
• Beef with black bean and green peppers
• Chinese roast duck (just go and buy it)

Tip: try buying salted ducks eggs and preserved Chinese pork sausage. In a pan, boil the eggs and, above them, steam the chopped sausage. It’s a nice little dish and makes for a bit of true authenticity.

Extract from my cookbook, with all the above ideas: Download “The Boy Who Would Be Chef” for FREE!

Not feeling too great today, got about 4 hours sleep last night, tossing and turning in bed, really hot, think I’m coming down with something. Lolly burst into our room at 7am, just as I nodded off too.

Been a productive day though, our mother in law moved out this morning, she’s got her own place down in Tunbridge Wells, she’s been staying with us for a few months, been up and down but we made our peace before she left, so we both are looking ahead to the future now.

She vacated the master bedroom, to that end, we decided to move our eldest daughter Taer into that bedroom which has an en-suite, we did think it was a bit spoilt giving a nine year old her own bathroom but that meant Lolly can move out of her box room, and into Taer’s old room.

Lola was so excited, she’s the real beneficiary, now she has a big room with all her toy to hand and space to play. Taer’s new room is about the same size. While Lola’s old room is now our perfectly sized office.

Moving three rooms is quite an undertaking, took us about 6 hours in total, but it was worth it as both kids are dead happy and all the room seem right for their purpose, can’t believe the amount of junk the kids horde.

Cooked a quick slap-up Chinese this evening, roast duck and greens, it was quick, easy and tasty. Got the kids to bed and decided to crack open my new whole leg of Serrano ham that I got from www.orceserranohams.com, last time I got a foreleg, this time a proper hind leg of ham, it tastes awesome! Sweet, fragrant, honey like, soft, moist and tender, just perfect.

Didn’t eat too much of it as I’m feeling under the weather, need to get better to really savour the flavour but even with a snuffy nose, it tasted brilliant.

Right, bedtime, need to sleep this off…

Back in the groove this morning, Taer is training at gymnastics and Lolly and I shopping at our local greengrocers, butchers and supermarket. I love going to the butchers in particular, the quality and service is just so nice. Look at that cured bacon, beautiful slices of back bacon, griddled with none of that white ooze from supermarket fast curing. It was lovely, Lola ate one herself!

Bought some lamb cutlets, sausages, bacon, stewing steak, rib chops and a bag of pork scratching all for £25 and top draw quality, obviously most of it is for the freezer. Supermarkets are fine for convenience but try your local shops every now and then, they sell amazing produce and need our support.

One thing I have learned during my twenties and frankly, the hard way is never live beyond your means. In this debt ridden society of ours, it's so easy to borrow to the hilt, with a worry about it tomorrow attitude. It took me well into my thirties to clear all my debts, put money away and get the house and life that I wanted, through thrift and hard graft.

Few years back, I got a pretty decent bonus, first time ever that I came across that kinda cash. At the time the car I was driving was a East End minicab Nissan Primera, there was nothing wrong with it, two years old, fully loaded, perfect family car. I felt nothing towards it apart from it got the job done.

However, with the fresh smelling wad of cash in my back pocket, we rocked up to our local BMW garage and bought a new model 5 Series, it was over £25k (18 months old). Not quite sure what I was thinking, it wasn't that we couldn't afford it, it was, why the hell would you dump that sort of cash into a lump of metal that takes you from A to B?

It was the BMW badge on the bonnet. Don't get me wrong, the car was fraking amazing, leather (beige with kids, big mistake) and fully loaded. 0 to 60 in 6.5 seconds, it shaved literally minutes on the school run and best of all, as the advert says, "it's how it makes you feel" and it made us feel bloody brilliant.

However that wore off very quickly, love of the brand quickly turned to resentment that we owned a lump of metal, sitting on our drive, losing money by the day that we used mainly for shopping at Tesco and the school run, at 20 MPG. We sold the car a year later.

I learnt two valuable lessons with that incident, one: never make a big purchase on a whim, I think it took me literally an hour from test drive to decision. Second, the most valuable lesson, never take money for granted and it's extremely hard to downgrade your lifestyle.

We currently own a 10 year old BMW Touring that we've owned for 3 years, it needs replacing and its frankly worthless. However, we've spent the last few weeks going round and round in circles trying to decide on what car to buy. We both want another BMW, the X5, but we've considered Audi, Lexus And Mercedes, all the top ends brands.

Yes, we could probably afford it, borrow a little, use a bit of our savings, cash in some investment but one thing we never did was considered a normal brand, Honda, Nissan or Ford. But we have, and through a sheer bit of luck and asking, will be getting a Ford Kuga 4x4 from my brother in law who works at Ford, at a fantastic price, a considerably less amount of wonga.

Funny thing is, I never considered asking him about prices or buying a Ford, the Kuga is actually a great family car and will be perfect for us. But once your bar is set at a certain level, you can't see below it, even though it's sensible, financially smart and frankly a no brainer to do so.

I'm doing ok with money, career, debts etc but it don't mean I should blow every penny I have and stretch to brands for the sake of owning the brand. Remember a few weeks back, I spoke about chasing quality of life not quality of living? Think this was a smart move towards that goal.

Had a mixed weekend, bit moody on Saturday, not sure why, the kids were arguing quite a lot and Leeann was at work until 2pm. Saturday mornings can be quite challenging, its kinda like my first day off from work, but since Leeann works, I have it with the kids. I really should look forward to spending some father daughter time with them, mostly I do, but when I’ve had a crap week or they start to argue and bicker or both, its a bad start to the weekend, as it were.

Think I need to plan my time with them better and do different activities. Taer’s been ill for ages so she's missed gymnastics, once that routine is back on track, I want to plan some quality trips and activities with them, everything’s a bit up and down at the moment.

Today was a lot better, woke up to discover some breaking entertainment news, so had to get online and do bit of work, ended up taking up most of the morning. Still, lunchtime was great, we headed out to see Leeann’s sister for her birthday, went to this really nice pub somewhere near Bromley, not sure what it was called but the carvery was good enough, it was so large it had to be the only meal of the day.

Washed the remainder of the day down with copious amounts of Guinness and got home around 6pm and got the kids ready for bed. Ran a bath and soaked up the suds before switching on Sky One for the new series of 24! Brilliant start to the series but by episode 2, things started to get silly, we’ll see how far fetched it gets.

Anyway, it’s gone midnight, finally getting tired, going to stop rambling.

Been planning our holidays for 2010, we had two planned this year. Corfu in June to visit a friend as well as to soak up some sun and South Africa in October to attend Leeann sister’s wedding, see her father as well as visiting the mighty Cape Town.

However, both holiday are during school holiday and the prices are astronomical! We didn't really think it through but Corfu all in would have been circa £2700k and Cape Town, flights alone is £3K, we would be staying with Leeann's father but with car hire, spending money, wedding dresses, we're talking £6K for a decent 10 days.

That's a lot of dosh to shell out right now. I almost booked Corfu at the weekend, so glad I didn't as after doing the sums and discussing it with Leeann, we decided to just go to South Africa and concentrate our funds and efforts on one brilliant holiday for the year, especially since it’s visiting family and a wedding.

I’m getting more sensible in my old age and making the right monetary decisions, few years back, I would have just whacked it on a credit card. Think, I’m finally starting to grow up.

Really getting excited about Cape Town, it’s suppose to be brilliant.