It’s the same with stews. You just gotta add the ingredients in one at a time and let it slowly simmer to coax out the flavours.

And so I took it slow today, content to have my Sunday coast mundanely by before the hustle and bustle of the working week swings by again. An unhurried brunch with alilfatmonkey, strolling through the supermart for groceries, watching cartoons… and yes, making stew.

1. Slice up several strips of bacon and lightly fry them in a pot (yes, a pot).

2. Remove bacon from pot and set aside.

3. Add a couple of onions (quartered) into the pot, and briefly fry them in the bacon oil to bring out the fragrance.

4. Throw in chunks of potato and a whole bulb of garlic.

5. Fill the pot about halfway up with water.

6. Bring to boil then let it simmer.

7. While that simmers, chop up carrots and add them to the pot.

8. Go play a few rounds of facebook games.

9. Chop up white carrot and throw that into the pot.

10. Add water, if necessary. Sprinkle in salt, pepper and herbs.

11. Let it simmer (time for a cuppa).

12. And simmer (a few more games on facebook).

13. Tear up a chinese cabbage and throw that in.

14. Simmer some more (maybe cook the rice in the meanwhile).

15. When the cabbage has softened enough, carefully stir the pot to mix everything. Be gentle – you don’t want to end up with mashed potato/carrot/cabbage porridge.

16. Throw bacon on top and continue to let it simmer covered. Go have a shower.

17. When you’re done with the shower, go check on the stew. Taste the broth and add more salt/pepper/herbs/spices/maybe even soy sauce if that’s how you like it.

18. Turn off the fire (finally) and serve it hot with bread or rice or simply on its own.

There. A little long-winded, perhaps, but it’s good to have something warm, hearty and comforting.

So up I got, showered and laundered and got to work in the kitchen. Ripped stems off mushrooms, slathered butter onto the caps and laid them in rows, gills up, on a baking tray. Chopped the stems, chopped an onion, chopped a few cloves of garlic. Diced some franks. Fried them all with oil and a dollop of butter.

Dished out half the fried stuff and coated them with some of the sauce I had made from canned pumpkin soup, coconut cream and chicken stock (and a dollop of butter). Spooned the mix onto the mushrooms and in they went into the oven (about 15 minutes @ 180°C).

The rest of the fried stuff got fried with sliced leeks, then mixed with the rest of the sauce. And my potluck piece was done. It looked like this when I plated it for photography purposes:

Baked mushroom with leek in pumpkin coconut cream

Obviously looked nothing like that by the time it got to the potluck table.

Thanks to Cubitt for the soup and drinks and jelly, to Snowie for the lovely brownmoussies, to Spot for the roast pork and for the unrivalled star at the table – roast potatoes. Yes, roast potatoes. Obviously must be good as they were lathered in goose fat flown all the way from London (the fat, not the geese). Thanks to Will, of course, without whom we would not have had a dining table, plates or cutlery. Or fat.

Roast pork with crispy skin and potatoes roasted in goose fat

My gratitudes as well to Ed, who politely forced one mushroom down his throat, and to Kit, who politely said he did.

All in all, a very fun, fulfilling and most filling time with fine friends. Another Sunday, downed and digested, but the mammaries are bound to last.

With a brunch, of course.

Brunch is like the most wonderful meal invented. Ever! By skipping breakfast, you get to lounge in bed, and watch cartoons while the laundry is spinning in the machine. By pre-empting lunch, you kinda bypass the after-lunch stupor. Brunch is like an indulgent breakfast that you get to eat like a full lunch. It’s a leisurely and informal meal, perfect for a leisurely and informal day.

Brunch, to me is also about company. Whether it’s catching up on the latest gossip over dim sum, or sitting down for wantan mee with a friend you haven’t met in a decade, brunch certainly allows you to take your time meeting and eating with family and friends.

One great way to have brunch is to have a simple meal at a friend’s place, like I did last Sunday. Spot and Snowie were kind enough to call me over to have jaffles. Now I’m a not a big fan of bread myself, but damn, toast it with copious amounts of butter and I’m sold! Of course, Spot’s jaffles were superb. Can’t go wrong by stuffing them with sausages. And mushrooms. And homemade caramelised/vinegared onions (gotta ask her what that’s called). And Snowie made mushroom soup as well. And pancakes! And, lifesavers as they were, they had coffee (I can’t function without it, really).

Spot and Snowie's beautiful brunch

The great thing about brunching at home is that you can really take your own sweet time, chatting and chewing and swallowing and chatting some more; you’re free to pass all sorts of remarks whether it’s about dead persons getting an unholy amount of TV time, or about blonde, busty actresses who really really really want to shoot a Playboy cover (for the second time); you can get comfortably vertical if you want (and don’t we all want). And before you know it, the breakfast that was also lunch has drawn out into tea. We call it “brunt” – breakfast, lunch and tea, adding up to make the forceful weight of a Sunday that had been nibbled away.

Yeah, you could say I don’t have much of a life. “Not happening”, as the locals would say it. But really, that’s the whole point of Sundays, isn’t it?