home-cooked food ideas needed!

these days, cooking dinners has become more and more challenging. i don't have any more ideas about what i can cook! haha... 

since early this year, i have started cooking dinners. it started after mum was was hospitalised frequently and the doctors said we needed to control her salt intake. and not long after that, the doctors also found that she had diabetes and advised that we should monitor her sugar intake too. in short, we have to manage her food intake as a whole. and for a start, we had to reduce taking outside food including food from hawker centres where we frequent for our dinners.

initially, i tasked the domestic help to do the cooking but mum's paranoia became an issue as she consistently suspected the food was poisoned by the domestic help. so in the end, i ended up as the "chief maid" whereas my domestic help became the "assistant maid". i would come home from work, do all the food preparation, the cooking, and setting the table while the domestic help would do the washing after dinner. and that was how grocery shopping, dinner planning, etc became a part of my weekend morning routines.

it had been about half a year. initially, we started off with me cooking daily and controlling the salt intake so much that things tasted bland. but that was necessary in view of the mum's state of health then. it was not easy too cos I had to learn through trial and error mum's tolerance to salt. things have improved. i now know how much seasoning to add to ensure the food taste ok yet without causing mum's body to go off-balance. and i have also reached a balance whereby we eat out no more than twice a week for dinners. but the challenge these days is this - and i remember mum complaining about it all the time when i was young - i am constantly at the lost of ideas as to what to cook! 

lol! i have done all sorts of permutations for seasonings, vegetables, meats, etc... and short of cooking anything too elaborate, which the limited time i have after work makes it quite impossible anyway, i only have the options of heading out for dinners! argghhh... 

darned, i am really turning into a housewife!