Star Wars Mania......

Since the Star Wars mania has hit every single continent on this planet, here's a toast to Star Wars! ;P

*taken from HERE

Medical ID on the iPhone

The Great Big Move

Little Red finally found a cosy, little garage which it could call home. It's not that Little Red did not have a home. But Little Red's current garage had gotten far too big for it. With never ending chores and maintenance, Little Red was exhausted most of the time.

A typical day goes like this:

Little Red wakes up.
Goes about preparing its special oil that it drinks. (That alone takes up a lot of time!)
Tidies up the garage, washes it, tidies it again.
Goes for a short spin in order to keep its engine up and running.
Comes home and discovers that the place that it tidied up was now somehow not so tidy. Didn't it just tidy up the place awhile ago? Or was Little Red losing its mind?!
Never mind, Little Red tidies it again and goes on in preparing another round of that special oil drink.
Little Red then realises that it had forgotten to finish up some job that was required of it.
It also realised that it had forgotten 101 other things!
Tries to hurry to finish a quarter of the 101 things that it had forgotten.
By then it's night time and time for rest.
'Tomorrow!' Little Red tells itself.

And so the cycle begins again tomorrow.

It has been a Ferris Wheel day in and day out. Round and round. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.

There were so many more things that Little Red wanted to do. So many things that Little Red had lost over the period of seven years. Times where it had spent in the garage trying to repair its leak over and over and over again. Trying to be well enough to even go for a very short spin.

Little Red saw that others were expanding their garages. The Lamborghini. The Ferrari, the Porsche, the Audi, the Mercedes and even the Kancil. The wheels inside Little Red's head had been turning for awhile now. What is the meaning of Life to these people? A bigger garage? A bigger engine? Two exhaust pipes? To what point? To the point of exhaustion? Then what would Life be?

Little Red had decided that it must downsize. A smaller place would mean less things to clean and maintain. Less expenditure. Less clutter. Less work. More Life.

Little Red could not wait for the Great Big Move.

Thermomix Steamed Rice

Ingredients:

1. 350gm rice (I've tried Basmathi and Sushi rice with this method and it cooks very well.)
2. 900gm water
3. *Sea-salt (optional)
4. *Grapeseed oil (optional)

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1. Place the 350gm rice into the Thermomix basket. Then place the basket in a large washing bowl to soak the rice. (I soak the rice so that the phytic acid is removed. I usually soak for an hour.)

2. Once the one hour is over, rinse the rice under clean running water.

3. Place the 900gm water into the Thermomix jug. (If your want to have tastier rice, you can add the sea-salt and oil into the jug.)

4. Then place the Thermomix basket into the jug.

5. Set 20minutes/Varoma/Speed4.

6. Once it is done, use the spatula to remove the basket from the jug. (Be careful of the steam!)

7. I've been told that by cooking the rice in the Thermomix, the starch is removed from the rice by the turning of the blades. The water left behind is apparently starchy water. One of the women who attended the Thermomix demo told me that her stomach does not bloat anymore as her rice is now boiled in the Thermomix. But if she eats rice cooked in other ways, her stomach will bloat!

The starchy water. 

A friend of mine told me that she uses this water as her SK-II! You can try it out. (Of course if you add the sea-salt and oil, you can't use the water on your face!)

8. Serve the rice hot.


Bon appétit!

Thermomix Pandan Extract (Pure Home-Made Green Colouring)

Ingredients:

1. 40 pandan leaves (washed and dried)

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1. Take 20 leaves and place into the TMX jug through the hole in the lid.

2. Make sure you wear a glove(s) when holding the leaves. If not, the leaves will cut your hands when it spins as it is being shredded.

2a. Alternatively, you can tie the pandan leaves in a bunch and place it in the TMX jug.

3. Set 5seconds/Speed 10.

4. Place the shredded leaves inside a sieve. Place the sieve onto a cup. Using a spoon, press the leaves against the sieve until the juice comes out. Press until all the juice is expressed from the leaves.

5. Repeat step 1 to 4 for the next 20 leaves.

The 20gm of extract from 40 pandan leaves. 

6. You can use the extract immediately or place it in an ice-cube tray to be frozen for future use.

This was from more than one hundred pandan leaves. I have many potted pandan plants in my garden. 

* You can also use a muslin cloth to squeeze the juice out from the shredded leaves. I had also used my potato masher to squeeze the juice out.

Just For Laughs (11)

*Picture taken from this LINK

Thermomix Gluten-Free Pancakes

NOTE: You will still need a frying pan to make this!

Ingredients:

1. 100gm butter

2. 600gm water OR milk

3. 4 eggs (I used 5 as I bought kampung eggs. They're really small eggs.)

4. 250gm white rice flour (Click on Thermomix Ground Rice Flour on how to make your own home ground rice flour.)

5. 150gm sorghum flour

6. 1/2 tablespoon of sea-salt

7. Sunflower oil
8. 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

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1. Place butter into TMX jug. Melt at 2min/75C/Speed 1.

2. Add the milk/water, eggs, flour, baking powder, sea-salt and sunflower oil. Mix at 20seconds/Speed 4.

3. You can spread some oil in a frying pan on medium heat.

4. Pour a ladle of batter and cook 1 to 2 minutes or until slightly browned. Flip it over and continue cooking.

5. Finish all the batter.

6. Serve it warm.

Bon appétit!

Sun, Rain & Flash Floods

It is as thought the gods are crying their eyes out. It has been raining EVERY single day.

But the haze is GONE! And that is really awesome. 

Such blue skies!

Awesome, awesome skies.

Armageddon on the horizon.

Flash flood.

Thermomix Ground Rice Flour

Ingredients:

1 cup of white rice (which is approximately 175gm)

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1. Set 55seconds/Speed 10.

2. Repeat until desired amount is achieved.

Thermomix Stir-Fried Bitter Gourd Chicken

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 garlic clove
2. 2 chicken breasts (cut into strips and seasoned with sea-salt)
3. 1/2 bitter gourd (cut into thin slices)
4. Sunflower oil
5. Sea-salt

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1. Place garlic into TMX jug.

2. Set to 5seconds/Reverse/Speed 5. Remove all the garlic skin.

3. Scrape the wall with the spatula.

4. Add some oil.

5. Set 5minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Spoon. Remove MC.

6. Add the chicken and bitter gourd.

7. Set 10minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Spoon. Replace MC. (Add a dash of sea-salt to the dish halfway through the hole in the lid. Remember to replace the MC.)

8. Serve hot with steaming rice.

Bon appétit!

Thermomix Mung Bean Soup

Ingredients:

1. 200gm mung beans (soaked overnight)
2. 4 screwpine leaves (pandan leaves)
3. 2liter water
4. Sago

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1. Soak the beans overnight. Wash them thoroughly before cooking.

2. Place beans and sago into TMX jug.

3. Add 2 liter of water.

4. Place the simmering basket inside jug with the tied up pandan leaves.

5. Place cover.

6. Set 20minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Spoon.

7. Once it is done, remove the simmering basket and pour the drink into serving bowls and serve hot. (If you like it sweet, you may add brown sugar or honey).

Bon appétit!

Thermomix Turmeric & Garlic Chicken Pieces

Ingredients:

1. 2 stubs of turmeric (also known as yellow ginger) (outer layer removed)
2. 1/2 clove of garlic
3. 2 chicken breasts (cut into strips)
4. Sea-salt
5. Sunflower oil

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1. Place garlic into the TMX jug. Cover with lid.

2. Set 5 seconds/Reverse/Speed 5. Remove the garlic skin.

3. Add the turmeric into the jug.

4. Blend the turmeric and garlic at 30seconds/Speed 6.

5. Scrape everything down with the spatula.

6. Add oil and set 5 minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Spoon. Remove the MC.

7. Once it is done, add the chicken.

8. Set to 10 minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Spoon. Use the MC.

9. Check whether the chicken has been thoroughly cooked. You can add a few more minutes if it's not. But to me, 10 minutes is more than enough.

10. Serve hot with rice.

Bon appétit!

Thermomix Mixed Juice

Ingredients:

1. 2 Red Delicious apples (skin removed)
2. 2 medium sized carrots (peeled)
3. 4 sticks of celery (peeled and cut into half)
4. 1 litre of filtered water

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1. Place all ingredients into the Thermomix jug and set to 30 seconds/speed 10. (If it is still too thick, you may add a bit more water and then set 10 seconds/speed 10 again.

2. Pour into mugs and serve immediately.

Bon appétit!

Pain & Physiotherapy

The pain returned and for sure it wasn't the kidneys that were causing it.

The bladder has been functioning well with the prostate medication.

But the pain at the kidney area wouldn't let up. The pain then travelled down to the legs. Numbness, weakness and tingling sensations soon became frequent episodes. Bad backaches and abdominal pains became an everyday routine.

I went for an X-ray and MRI yesterday and the results confirmed what the orthopedic suspected. I have a disc prolapse. I also have multiple Tarlov's cysts in the sacral spinal canal. These cysts most likely have been the cause of my bladder problems and severe abdominal pain during the last few months. On top of that, I have extremely weak back muscle.

Click on Tarlov's Cyst to read more about it.
You can also click HERE to read.

Tomorrow will be my first physiotherapy session. They will be teaching me on how to exercise my back to strengthen it. The orthopedic has also given me specific nerve vitamin (Methycobal) to strengthen the nerves.

On a brighter note, the rest of my spinal discs are healthy. Our discs are actually composed of 80% water. In order for the discs to function properly, it must be well hydrated. He said my discs look like a 20-year-old person's discs. That made me very happy. It's only that one particular disc that has prolapsed. Plus, the cysts.

May the pain be gone as physiotherapy and lots of back exercises begin tomorrow!

P.S: I feel like taking this report and slap those doctors in their faces who said that I was imagining the pain, I wanted attention or that I was stressed out (thus the pain)! Haha!!!

BLUE SKIES! FINALLY!

Thermomix Chicken Stew

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 chicken cut into about 12 pieces (you can choose to leave the skin on)
2. 5 garlic bulbs
3. 5 medium sized potatoes (cut into roughly the size of the chicken pieces)
4. 1 teaspoon of cornstarch
5. Sea-salt
6. Tamari sauce
7. Sunflower oil
8. *Pepper (optional)
9. 200ml of water (OR chicken broth)

----------------------------------------------------

1. Place the garlic with skin into the TMX jug.

2. Set 5 seconds/Reverse/Speed 5.

3. Collect all the skins and throw away.

4. Pour in some sunflower oil.

5. Set 5 minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Spoon. Remove the MC (mixing cup).

6. While the garlic is being stir-fried by the TMX, prepare the sauce in a small bowl. Add the cornstarch, sea-salt, tamari sauce, pepper and water in to the bowl and mix well.

7. Once the garlic is done, add the chicken chunks and potatoes.

8. Pour in the sauce mixture.

9. Set to 16 minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Spoon. Cover with the MC (mixing cup).

10. If it's not cooked, you can add another 5 minutes or until it is throughly cooked. Pour into serving dish once it is done. Serve hot.

Bon appétit!

You Don't Want Your Life?

I am one who was not a daily user on Facebook. I'm now a daily user as the lady who sold me the Thermomix created a 'After-Sales-Service-Support-Group' to help us with all sorts of questions, tips and also ways to cook and eat healthily. And all of us who bought from her, post of our accomplishments and share whatever tips we've discovered. 

So here I am waiting for my car to be serviced when I saw in another group, a post, which states of a woman feeling suicidal because she suspects her husband is having an affair. 

To that woman, your husband is not worth it. Is your life is so worthless that you want to throw it away because he is no longer faithful? 

Of course it is easy to say the following: Be strong. Life is precious. Think of the kids. He doesn't deserve you. Blah blah blah and blah.

You might ask, 'What is life?'

Let me tell you what life is.

Life is when you wake up, feeling your heart beating strongly and steadily in your chest. Life is having the ability to breathe in and out the air that surrounds you. Life is the ability to shit and pee everyday with ease.

Life is having the ability to feel pain, joy, laughter, tears, disappointment, anger, frustration and every feeling that we can think of. Life is banging into walls which sometime cause nosebleeds or broken noses. Sometimes you even lose your good looks. The story of the Ugly Duckling turns into The Prince Frog. 

Life is when out of the 3999 friends you have on Facebook, only 5 called to ask how you are. Count your blessings as at least you have five. Some have none. Life is having your parents whack the shit out of you for no apparent reason and them loving your siblings to death. 

Life is also waking up one day and losing your once-upon-I-can-do-anything-and-eat-and-smell-anything. Life has become a Hunchback of Notre Dame attempting to manually straighten his spine. 

To some, life is restricted to a long list of 'Do's and Don't's'. Some stay alive with needles and medications and a long list of pills which look like they came out of the M&Ms factory. And there are some whose life is just fighting to stay alive in a cocoon.

And there are some whose life have a fast and furious approaching deadline. 

Of course there are some who equate life to 'having-a-Starbucks-in-the-morning-saved -my-life'. Or 'my-manicure-makes-me-happy/#life-is-awesome/#i-love-my-manicurist'. Also there are those who 'love-my-alcohol.'

So in the end what is life, you ask?

Life is 365 shades of grey, red, blue, yellow and every colour which does not exist in our world. There are many variants to it. We should emulate the chameleon. We must learn and adapt to whatever the situation requires us. 

At times, life is also when we are the dumpster truck where we seem to be collecting everyone's shit and smelling like hell as a result of it. 

Life is also having a rainbow with only black and white. 

That is what life is. (That's how I see it.)

I suggest you buy a blender (or a Thermomix - guaranteed to work) and grind his manly parts and give it to his girlfriend. That is way better than you killing yourself. 

14th Anniversary Dinner

Clockwise from top: Baked sea-salt fish, stir-fried choy sum, gluten & sugar-free love-shaped pancakes, scrambled big onion eggs and chicken/bone broth.

We had this dinner two nights ago. It was yummy!

Did You Know....

... That your belly button is dominated by six types of bacteria?

To read more about these rulers of the belly button world, click on LINK.

The Sickening, God-Awful Haze

It came back and schools have been closed for two days.

I'm down with a viral fever and have been knocked out flat since Friday night.

It's really depressing at this moment right now. Sick and no fresh air available.

The Garlic Peeler, Chopper and Fryer

Isn't it amazing that I no longer need to manually remove garlic from its skin anymore?????

Isn't it awesome that I no longer need to hunch over my kitchen counter-top to meticulously chop my garlic into fine pieces??????

Isn't it wonderful that I no longer need to watch while I fry the garlic pieces in oil (to make sure they don't burn!)???????

The Thermomix can do all the above!

I am one happy person!

1. First, just slice the tip of the bottom part of the garlic.

2. Put the garlic into the Thermomix jug and 5seconds and reverse/speed 5.

(See all skin are removed! No magic needed. Just the Thermomix.)

3. If you want the garlic to be more fine, set time 5 seconds and speed 4.

4. Using the spatula, scrape all the garlic from the top of the jug to the bottom.

5. Add some oil. (The quantity of oil is entirely up to you.)

6. Set 5 minutes/Varoma/Spoon/Reverse. (If the garlic isn't browned enough to your liking, repeat step 6 until you're satisfied.)

Happy Thermomix-ing and bon appetit!

Thermomix Steamed Fish

I am very fortunate to have bought the Thermomix from an agent who is very particular with after-sales-service. She and her team had gone dish-hunting for dishes that fit perfectly into the Varoma. Thus, the dish in the picture above is one of the two which I had bought from her.

Ingredients:

1. Approximately 500gm of fish (I used one whole pomfret fish)
2. Sea-salt
3. Tamari sauce
4. 2 garlic bulbs (finely chopped)
5. 1 stalk of chives (spring onion) (finely chopped)
6. Sunflower oil
7. 1/4 cup of plain chicken broth
8. 750gm of water

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1. Place the water in the mixing bowl. (As the Thermomix is a weighing machine, you can weigh the amount of water needed in the mixing bowl.)

2. Place the fish on the steaming dish. Season the fish with a dash of sea-salt, a teaspoon of Tamari sauce, some sunflower oil and 1/4 cup of plain chicken broth.

3. Place the steaming dish into the Varoma dish.

4. Garnish the fish with the chopped ginger and spring onions.

5. Close the lid and steam for 35min/Varoma/speed 1.

6. Once it is done, check whether the fish is throughly cooked. If it is not, add some time and continue to steam until throughly cooked.

7. Serve with hot rice once it is done.

Bon appétit!

The Awesome New Kitchen Helper!

If you're in Malaysia and you are keen in having a look at the new Thermomix, TM5, write me an email and I'll connect you to the lady whom I bought it from.

And no, I am not an agent.