Craving Kue Cubit

I'm craving Kue Cubit.
Kue means cake, Cubit means pinch
dunno why it's called pinch cake
but hey..........if it's good, it's good


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kue_cubit.jpg

I know....
it's refined flour, refined sugar, cheap vanilla crystals, etc etc
but I'm just craving it
and I haven't been able to have one....for over a week
so the craving's multiplying
it's soft and fluffy and just the right amount of sweetness
the taste never change........never disappoint
ohhhh I so want one right now !!!


http://bogordailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/03/kue-ape-again.html

going on a hunt tomorrow !!! :)

Banana + Coconut + Pancake + Ice cream + Ginger

I had this for breakfast !!!

Fresh Coconut + Banana slices
so naturally sweetttt :)
and ginger tea (boiled ginger basically)

and I had this for supper :)

Pancake (booo) + Banana slices + Ice cream
Ice cream is allegedly vegan.
it contains coconut, durian and black glutinous rice, what's not to like about dat ;p
and the ginger tea

all was sooo goooodddddddd
yuummmoooooooooo !! :)

an Update

Wow... I haven't updated my blog in quite a while....
I just want to say...
I'm no longer a vegan now, I think I mentioned it before :)

and I'm kinda slipping back to the unhealthy junk food girl
I think I've gained 1 kg, not significant, but hey ;p
I feel "heavier" after each meal
and I think it's a signal to get me back to my healthy food again :)
altho I can't deny that it's been easy
I can eat whereever I'm at, friends and families can ask me out where ever and not have to wonder whether or not I can eat at that restaurant.
I don't have to prepare food or cook or wash veggies,
it was convenient, it was easy
and eating the food was great, I'm an eater, I love eating, so the eating part is good.
The after eating is the not so good part, the I feel "too full" part is not good.
So...I'm going to try to start eating healthy again
and I'm just gonna be realistic this time and not go straight to a clean healthy diet.
but slowly eating more and more of the healthy stuff.

I still have lots of pics of my Vegan food in my computers and I'll post them up again soon :)

Kacang Bogor - Bogor Peanuts

I bought some of these the other day.....
Kacang Bogor (Bogor Peanuts)
Vigna subterranea (L) Verdc.

Bogor is a city about 1 hour outside Jakarta
and for some reason it rains a lot there, thus the name "The Rainy City"

These Bogor peanuts are sold in supermarkets rarely, they're mostly sold by street vendors in carts like this

pic by Gagah from
http://bogordailyphoto.blogspot.com/2008/03/closer-look-at-kacang-bogor.html


They're round in shape
usually boiled or steamed
& they break open easily.........


revealing the purple-candy-like nuts
aren't they just gorgeous ???


mmmmmm :)

they taste kinda like peanuts....
but they're just perfect on your plate, right ? :)

Food Glorious food

A friend of mine invited me for a food test at her Restaurant.
It's got everything.... prawns, fish, vegetables, noodle, chicken, meat etc
Cooked in different traditional recipe, some are spicy, some are sweet and sour, some are soy-saucy, some are fried, some are stir-fried, some are steamed.



What do I eat ?
I eat a little bit of everything
but I fill my plates with more of the vegetables
So when I feel full, it'd be mostly vegetables (I have mostly shredded carrots, broccoli, spinach)
and I tasted a little bit of everything... it was good
:)

Our good ol' housekeeper

I don't know what's up with the housekeeper
I think she's starting to be forgetful or she's just messing with my head ;p

My whole family is omnivore and since I was a vegan before and now I don't eat a lot of meat, seafood, etc.
the housekeeper would make fried tempeh tofu stir-fry for me, or she'd buy me tofu and I'd make a plain boiled tofu.
It was good in the beginning, I loved them...
but I recently got boreddd of eating tempe and tofu so I asked her not to cook them anymore.
For some reason, I guess she forgot ?
She makes fried tempe everyday now.
and it's like dejavu every 2 days where I remind her that I'm not eating tempe because I'm bored of them.
After 2 days.... there they are again, freshly made fried tempe on the table.
so I have to remind her all over again.
I mean.... if she loves tempe so much, go ahead and cook for yourself, but don't prepare them for me....it's a waste at the end of the day because no one else eats them.

Another thing is with organic vegetables I buy from the supermarket.
Okay... they're prepacked in plastic so everytime I buy loads of vegs from the supermarket, it's plastic plastic plastic
I guess they think since organic vegetables are more expensive, they have to be beautifully and individually wrapped in fancy plastics so people would buy them.
I just don't agree with the overuse of plastic.
Ohh man.... I need to call that guy that delivers organic vegs with no individual plastic wraps.
He was running out of vegs last time so I stopped ordering from him.
Okay... back to the housekeeper.
I buy organic vegs and put them in the fridge.
She buys normal vegs and put them in her fridge.
Guess what ?
She almost never cooks my vegs.
She uses her vegs first and use mine later on when all my vegs have wilted.
I told her over and over againnnn... use mine.... use the organic vegs.
and she says "I thought you wanted to cook them yourself"
and for the hundred times, I say "nooo... I bought the vegs for the whole house to eat, not just for me, you can cook them"
and she goes "okayy"
but then.... she keeps buying vegs and keep cooking her non organic vegs instead of my organic vegs.
why why whyyyy ??
arrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhh
and sometimes when she get good deals at the market, she buys vegs in large quantities
and she thinks everything stays fresh in the fridge forever,
so after the 5th day or so, we eat wilted vegs, "fresh" from the fridge ;p
but they still taste good because she's a great cook.

She's like our family, she's been here forever and the house can't function without her.
but Oh myyyy...........
dear missy housekeeper mam....
why do you keep doing that ?
Oh well... I guess I'll have to keep reminding her.
patience..... patienceeee.......

Yummy Aloe Vera Smoothie

This may look a bit pale, but it's bursting with flavors........
yummmyyyyyyy....... I could drink this everyday....



So I have a cantaloupe that's a bit too ripe... I know... I forgot about it
but it was soooooo very sweetttt.....

Okay....
I use :
- a very sweet Cantaloupe - around 1 cup ? I never measure anything ;p
- 2 passionfruit
- freshly squeezed lemon juice from half a lemon
- a big aloe vera

mix the cantaloupe, 2 passiofruits and half a lemon juice in a blender
add the aloe vera later

done !!!
easy....
It's sweet and sour with a crunch... perfect
those oreo like black dots are actually passion fruit seeds.... *crunch crunch*
If you prefer a smooth smoothie, you may want to strain the passionfruit seeds first.

How do you eat your pomegranate ?

I eat them my way ;p
the messy way that is :D

look at those ruby-like capsules bursting with sweet and sour goodness
not to mention, super healthy :)

but first....
I don't buy pomegranates often, because....
1. they're not always available
2. they're quite expensive !!!
1 pomegranate (0.4 kg) cost the same as 1 kg of apples
Sometimes I get the cheaper pomegranates imported from China orIndia, but they're not bright red like this one, they're pale pink-white, more transparent clear actually. But they taste just as nice.

So... there are a lot of ways on how to cut a pomegranates,
cutting it sideways and batting it with a wooden spoon
cutting it into wedges and soaking them in water
etc etc

but I just got them up in half, save the other half in a container, stash in the fridge for later.


After that I just pick them one by one and I use my front teeth and my index finger to manouver each one and kinda try to remove the white hard seed and eat the rest ;p

huu yeahh.... it's a wonderful mess.

and yes... patience is needed, but I enjoy every tiny explosive burst of super flavors.
I don't eat the seeds, I wonder why some people can eat the seeds ;p

and I love looking at pomegranates seed sprinkled all over the salad, but I just don't know how to eat them... I mean do you eat the salad and spit out the hard seed every now and them ?
or do you force yourself to chew and swallow the hard seed ?
wait a second,
the red capsule-like thingy inside the pomegranate fruit is called the pomegranate seeds.
and the hard white seeds inside the red capsule-like thingy is also called seeds ?

anyhuuuuuuu............

yum yum.......


Isn't it amazing that those tiny red dots supply all the nutritious juice and color to each ruby capsule ? :)

Water Kefir Grain

After reading about the benefits of Kefir from other blogs, I decided to try them for myself.
I chose Water Kefir / Sugary Kefir instead of Milk Kefir because I'm not drinking milk at the moment.

I ordered from the Kefir Lady because it was the cheapest that I could find.
For US$10, I get 8 grams (less than a tablespoon) of dehydrated Water Kefir Grain sent by mail, along with 3 sheets of paper containing :
- 1 page instruction to re-activate the sugary/water kefir grains
- 1 page of oil-pulling method taken from http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/oil_pulling.html
- 1 page of product list and price list



Long story short, the grains didn't grow and they kept on disintegrating and I had less and less grain and it smelled bad/off so I threw them out after batch # 19.
So they're not really "guaranteed to grow"
I thought they can live on just sugar and water, but they need quite a lot of supplements.
not all at once, but here are some of the stuff : sodium bicarbonate, coral calcium or eggshells, unsulphured raisins, unsulphured dried cherries, rapadura, etc etc
of course there are those who say that they only feed their water kefir grains sugar and water and they grow just fine, but then again, I don't know.

I made around 19 batch of 2 days duration each.
I tried
sugar + water (bottled spring water)
sugar + water + sodium bicarb + raisins + ginger slice + eggshell
sugar + water + sodium bicarb + raisins
and other combinations using the above ingredients.

Sometimes the water kefir grains would plump up a bit and I thought they'd grow but the next day it stays the same or sometime they'd shrink.
I kept the temperature below 85F/30C and it never gets cold here
Marilyn said "They didn't like your water for some reason or their environment or your sugar. There could be many reasons. They don't always prosper in every home even though everyone may use the same recipe. Water has a different energy wherever you go."
yup... I kinda figured out if it wasn't the water, it was the sugar, or it was the environment, it could be any of those things, I know that.

I didn't drink the first few batches because I didn't know whether or not I should drink the first ones.
Marilyn said "try it". I didn't dare because Kefir is new to me and at that point I didn't dare drinking a foreign liquid ;p
I drank the water kefir once only, I think at batch # 5, it was good, it tasted like a mild soda.
but it just wouldn't grow and as I made another batch and another batch, they started to smell bad, it's not the fermented smell, it just smelled off, like it's gone bad, so I didn't dare drink it.
Marilyn (Kefir Lady) said that it was probably contaminated.
But I just didn't know where I went wrong, I mean, I washed the jar thoroughly every 2 days, I didn't stick my finger to taste the kefir, although I was tempted ;p

Here's a photo of the grains, probably on batch #15
You see how the grains are tiny.


There're less and less grains below.


I felt like I've wasted 10 bucks and time and effort to get the Kefir to grow.
I read in a forum that the same grain might act differently in different houses, meaning in house A they'd grow really well and in house B they just wouldn't grow.
some also suspect the grains might become damaged when sent via post/mail because they got radiated in the process.

I don't know where I went wrong, maybe I did something I'm not supposed to by accident that I'm not aware of, maybe the Kefir grains just didn't like the water/sugar/environment. I'm just lost.
I'll probably try again next time and I might buy them from Dom
http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html
His grains are more expensive, US$35 and I don't know how many grams of dehydrated water kefir grain is included in that price.
But his website is the most complete and thorough ones I could find.
Even Marilyn (Kefir Lady) referred to Dom's website for more kefir instructions.

So... If you'd like to know more about Kefir,
go and read it at Dom's website (milk kefir and water kefir)
http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html
another one on water kefir
http://www.weim.net/homeovet/Docs/water%20kefir.pdf

or read the forums here :
Kefir Lady's forum
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Good_Kefir_Grains/

Dom's Kefir forum
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Real_Kefir_Making/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kefir_making/

actually, I first found out about Kefir from reading this 2 blogs and the blog owners also sells Kefir grains, check them out :)
http://rawmodelcom.blogspot.com/
http://happyhealthybalance.blogspot.com/
http://happyhealthybalance.blogspot.com/2009/07/get-your-kefir-on-water-kefir-grains.html

As for me,
I can't say anything about the benefits of Kefir because well... they die on me ;p
so I can't recommend it to anyone.
but anyhow.... a lot of people are saying that Kefir is good, so.....I'm just posting my brief experience with Kefir and I'm not promoting their products, I'm just linking to resources that might be useful for you.