So called chronicles of my life

I have long read the health benefits of quinoa and eventhough i’ve seen them on supermarkets here in JB, i’ve never been interested to try them out. Until last week. I was wasting time browsing the imported goods isle and spotted them and thought… why not? If you’re interested to know more about quinoa, you can google it yourself but i am extra nice today so here’s the link, GO.

The package came with instructions on how to cook them and so far from the endless research i did on the net it’s basically the same method

But i thought of my disastrous attempt at cooking couscous, and thought i would tweaked it a bit. So, instead of cooking it with plain water, i spiked it with ½ of a chicken soup bouillon. Whaddya ya know… tasted… not bad….

I was thinking of making a salad with it, being  health food and all…. so i started to chopped some spring onions, a tomato, a few pcs of dried apricot and one avocado.

I was afraid that my avocados would trun brown,so i spiked it with the juice of half a lemon, then i combine everything and season to taste (which i did not.. taste i mean..). I also sprinkle a bit of tabasco sauce, thinking it might made it taste better…..

Doesn’t it look nice? One of my best masterpiece, even if i say so myself (masuk bakul, angkat sendiri. Masalah nya ada ke bakul yang boleh memuatkan akuuuuuu) and you know……. I AM ALWAYS RIGHT!

Sigh….. looks good isn’t it? Just like a nice, hot, super spicy plate of nasi goreng. Here’s the truth (or the made-up truth, you just never know with me…), the quinoa, on it’s own, after being cooked in chicken broth, tasted not bad, i can even give *** stars. It doesn’t taste like rice, it’s crunchy or al-dente and it’s got a nutty taste. The ingredients i used for the salad however, made it taste like a sourish, icky grainy lemony thingy. Yup… i couldn’t finish the salad because of the wrong combination. I finish the quinoa, avocados and dried apricots but i find the spring onions taste too strong for my liking and next time i need to less the lemon juice and no need to waste my perfect tomato…. There’s a million of other things i could do with quinoa and since i still have a bagfull, i think i will experiment, doing the sweet stuffs…(alasan…memang dah tentu suka makan desserts.. heh heh..). I wish the camera is with me all the time so i can document my failure or TRIUMPH!

See ya!

There’s an aloe vera plant at my house, lidah buaya (crocodiles tongue) in malay. I wonder how these ancestors of mine came up with the name, did they know what a crocodile’s tongue look like? Anyway, this plant of ours was originally a gift from en. laki’s friend. When he gave us the plant,  it was this scrawny pity looking thing and now…. it’s big and fat and have actually sprouted offsprings… unlike the owner.  Aloe vera it seems is a plant with many health attributes, i’m not gonna type them here because i’m lazy but you can google it if you want too. I’ve actually had this idea for quite some time but seeing that i am not the most rajin person, it just gets pushed aside. SO… a few days ago, i took some of the aloe leaves and made some type of drink with it… The following pictures shows how i tackle these thorny ‘devils’…….

See those tiny, seemingly harmless thorns? They’re actually little devil’s horn disguising themselves as thorns, i tell ya! It looks small and vulnerable but pack quite a sting. So first thing, we gotta do is take the damn thorns off because …. it hurts ok..

Then we’ve got to take off the green outer layer, leaving only the clear, gel like stuff underneath all those green stuff. CAREFULL! It’s a slippery , slimy little sucka…

Once you’ve got your gel like thingy, soak them in water while you finish tackling the rest of the tiny devils….. This i read will help to get rid some of the slime. I also read somewhere comments from people who TRIED to consume these wonderful healthy devils thorns, that their throats get ithcy after trying to eat it. Not only that, the slimy juice that was on my hands when i cut them up, also made my skin itch. That was not enough to deter me though, i think the reason why those people got the itch is because they didn’t cleaned it properly. You have to get rid of every inch of the green outer covering.

Gel like thingy soaking in water before i got rough with them and clean those green bits off. After that boil some water in a pot and once it boils put these things inside and wait for it to boil again. Then take them out and place them in a bowl of ice water. Then you can cut to your desired shapes and sizes and put them in your favourite drinks. The recipe that i read puts them in a dried longan juice but i just threw away my batch of dried longan. So i made some lemonade and dumped my cubed aloe vera bits and  it tastes great!

If you have some these devils thorn growing in your garden, why not gave it a try?! It’s healthy, organic and won’t cost you a thing!

I love avacados but because they’re usually so expensive around here, i never bought them.  A few weeks ago, while i was browsing in the supermarket i happened to spy some avacados in the discount bin. Closer inspection revealed that they were still ok albeit a little soft and it was selling for RM2+ for 2 pcs compared to the usual price of RM5+, i grabbed them. I was dying to drink avocado juice, you know, the kind you get from the indonesian restaurants but cost a bomb?

I made these using low fat milk, a little ice and a few spoon fulls of evaporated milk and 2 avocados ~ blended. Then i melted some chocolate to ‘dress’ the glass. The taste was extremely satisfying.

I am so not happy with the way the pictures turn out, since the computer was murdered, all my pictures and file were destroyed. I took these using en. laki’s camera but it’s just not the same anymore because i can’t edit the pictures the way i want and i had to take it hurriedly and adjust to his timetable… it sucks when you have to borrow other people’s stuff!

Bought these beauties a few weeks ago. When i went into the tea shop, the proprietor, a chinese man (i think from China) smile and started to offer me samples of black tea which was really delicious. I didn’t buy the black tea as one disk cost RM88/- and well, these were really what i’m after….

I first saw these beautiful flower tea years ago when i was blog hopping and was wondering what it would taste like. I also saw it on the menu of  ‘lavender’ cafe but never got around ordering it as there were other beverages which took my fancy like their lavender soda ~nyum! Well, anyway when i saw this tea shop had them, i just can’t let the opportunity slip me by, right? I bought them at RM10 for 3 flower tea balls. I don’t know whether it’s a steal and i didn’t really care as long as i got them in my claws… Soothing to the eyes and to the soul, just what the doctor ordered to get my stress level down…

Semalam gigih mencari resipi padthai..

Aku cuba resipi from this site. Bila masak sendiri, using fresh ingredients, baru lah terasa keaslian masakan ni. Some of the ingredients aku tak pakai sebab tak de (mana nak cari jantung pisang malam2 wey?). Ye lah, kelmarin masak pakai rempah express dan rasa dia macam hampeh and dengan express nya jugak aku masukkan dalam cik tong.I find that padthai ni sebenarnya yang membezakan dia dengan kuay teow lain yang aku aku biasa makan ialah sos yang digunakan semasa memasak tu. So kat bawah ni aku list kan bahan sos yang aku try semalam, the rest of the ingredients tu, macam masak kuayteow goreng biasa jek:

Padthai ingredients :

• ½ lime (i think they meant juice from half a lime, i used 2 shrinking calamansi lime because that’s all i have)
• 4 tsps fishsauce
• 2 tbsps tamarind juice
• 2 tbsp sugar ( i used about a quarter of a medium disk of gula nira)
• 3 cloves garlic – minced
• ½ tsp chilli pepper flakes (i don’t have so instead i used 3 birdseye chillies – sliced. i wished  had used more because i like it HOT!)
• 1 shallot – sliced thinly
• a handful of beansprouts
• a handful of chives
• 1 small bowl of chicken thigh – cut into bitesize
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp of preserved radish or chai poh
• dried padthai noodles which looks a lot like slimmed down fresh kuayteow

The ones in bold, are the sauce ingredients.

You were right KOG, it did taste better than the express one but i’m not making this anytime soon as it is too bland for my taste. Good if you’re in a rush though, as it cooks fast and doesn’t require tedious preparation.