Bentos # 192 & 193

Bento #193

Breakfast bento - A bunny (?) bun with some champagne (tiny sized) grapes and cereal.

But then realized I forgot to add in the endamame, so a quick change of skins and voila....

So fickle ya? Hm, just realized my 'boy-ish' bear transformed into a 'girly' one - Lolz.

Bento #192

Dinner bento - Sausage maki rolls faces (inspired by Kaerenmama) with some stir fried vegetables, extra sausage and cucumber bites and pan fried fish.

Flourless Dark Chocolate & Pear Cake

After checking out a few bakeries, decided to warm up the oven, wipe the dust off and bake something for DH.

Decided on a pear cake since DH enjoyed a friend’s chocolate pear cake served at a dinner gathering some time ago.

Unfortunately couldn't locate the recipe given so had to search for another recipe instead.



Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food.

Ingredients

85g non-salted butter, room temperature
60g caster sugar (can go up to 85g if have sweeter tooth)
85g dark chocolate, melted
1/2 tbsp instant coffee mixed with 1 tbsp water (alternatively, can use 1 tbsp brandy, coffee liquer or rum)
3 large eggs, separated
85g ground almond (alternatively, can use ground hazelnut)
1 tin of pear in syrup, drained (used only 4 half pear pieces or more if you like)


Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 170C degrees.


2. Grease 8 inch cake tin together with a parchment paper at the bottom of cake tin. Swirl and coat 1 level tbsp of soft brown sugar inside cake tin and shake off any excess.


3. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter and set aside.


4. Whisk egg yolk with half the sugar until pale in colour and thick. Fold in chocolate, coffee and ground almond.


5. Whisk egg white with remaining sugar until slightly stiff peaks form. Note that if the egg whites are too stiff, it may not blend easily with the chocolate mixture.


6. Fold and mix in chocolate mixture with the egg white.


7. Pour into prepared cake tin. Add sliced pears on top of cake or alternatively (if you prefer a smoother cake top) can chop pears up into smaller but slightly chunky pieces and fold them into the cake mixture.




8. Bake for at least 40 min or until skewer in cake comes out clean.




9. Once cooled, dust with some icing sugar if desired.

The cake was lovely - light and chocolaty. Nice pairing with the pears!! For a more sinful but delightful bite - serve it with a scoop (or two) of vanilla ice-cream together with a drizzle of melted chocolate.

Bench notes - Whole pear halves sunk to the bottom of the cake tin. Suggest using a 9 inch cake tin next time so that pear halves can sit and slightly peer on top of the cake.

Bentos # 188-191

Bento #191

Breakfast bento – Another ‘assembled’ bento (great if out of seaweed). Bear sandwich face with some kiwi fruits and cereal. To assemble the face, 2 slices of hard boiled egg, some olives and cucumber.

Bento #190

Breakfast bento – Star bread with jam and honey (using a cookie cutter for the shape), some grapes and cereal.

Bento #189

Breakfast bento – Bak-wa (aka Chinese pork jerky) Totoro with some grapes and cereal.
Tried peeling the skins of these grapes but they refuse to cooperate and only managed to get some off at the top!

Bento #188

Dinner bento – Fried rice with some string beans and leftover stewed chicken. Fried an omelet and tried to wrap the rice inside. The extra-large size frying pan used for one egg wasn’t a good idea, so I ended with a piece of odd shaped egg. Tried my best to tuck in the rice, not as easy or neat as I thought it could be!! Ha ha

Hanazen @ Jaya One

Celebrated DH's birthday dinner at Hanazen Japanese Restaurant.

This is our second visit.

MP wanted cold soba noodles because he saw someone eating this.

Since MP also wanted unagi, I ordered this set to share.

DH wanted something soupy since he was still recovering and ordered a seafood udon noodles.

[opps...sorry, bad yellow lighting!]

Verdict?
Cold soba noodles - OK.
Salmon sashimi - Didn't like the fish cut given and also sliced too thickly (quite a mouthful if you know what I mean)!
Udon noodles - DH says 'DON'T EVER order this' because soup contains too much msg and also only given one miserable type of seafood each!

In our 1st visit,

Tempura Udon noodles - OK

Spider sushi roll with soft shell crab - OK

Curry Katsu - OK

Unagi bento - DH wasn't too impressed because he said the eel wasn't grilled long enough (skin not crispy) and sauce was too sweet.

So why did we come again after out 1st visit? I suppose its the variety offered and nicer & newer ambiance but I personally still prefer the food served at Hokano.

KLKK

If you are familiar with Hokkien, you might know the idiom/espression "KLKK" - kai lai kai ke (direct translation means 'walk here walk there').

Sunday morning started with a walk, breakfast and then a quick browse on any news on the new Daiso opening at ioi pUchong?

Emily wrote a short blurb but haiya...want more pictures and details leh. He he :)

Wasn't too keen to go all the way to ioi m@ll but since I wanted to get something from JJ and remembered that was also one in ioi, so why not kill my curiosity with one stone. So off I went. Wasn't too sure of the way and place since I don't normally shop here. New wing much better than old one but not all shops open yet.

Even at 10am I was early. Haiseh, was told need to wait until 10.30am first - 2nd day gitters I suppose?

Half an hour, not enough time for me to walk to JJ (other end of the mall and get back in time).

To pass the time, I click here and here (literally, so if you noticed a professional photographer (ahem!!), it was probably me!! Lolz).

Daiso store located on the 2nd floor of new ioi wing.

mUch LarGer than the branch at The Curve.

Quite a lot of things to see and browse. But in terms of bento accessories, not much - either that or all kena sapu (aka gone) on 1st day opening!

Flowers - Part 2

What's with the flowers? Click here.

Flowers - Part 1

For more, click here.

Between 20:30 and 21:30

At 8.30pm Earth Hour, WHAT WERE YOU DOING?

With candles lit and a song, we celebrated DH’s birthday.

Eating cake in the silhouette darkness was kind-na fun, cosy and romantic!! I was glad for the darkness as I had kept decorations 'simple', taking the minimalist approach. Lolz

I'll post the recipe later, if anyone is interested.

Here is what the cake looked like with the lights turned 'ON'.

Earlier in the afternoon we even had a dress rehearsal when a raging lightning and thunderstorm took out the power and left us in darkness for a couple of hours. Not to mention smoking DH’s computer speakers in the process. *There is some truth in unplugging your electricals during a severe thunderstorm!!* Despite the lack of electricity, thankfully it was breezy and kept us ‘cool’. Great to vegetate or have a go at a short nap, well that is if you could ignore the flashes of lightning and rumbling thunder outside! Ha ha

Bentos # 184-187

Bento #187

DH's breakfast bento - Rolled ham and cheese sandwich (inspired by kaerenmama) with some slice papaya.

Made this bear faces first before putting on top of the bread and wrapping them with some cling wrap.

Bento #186

MP's breakfast bento - Its 'bunny' day. Bunny sandwich with a ham flower, rabbit shaped egg, strawberry and some soya sauce in the sauce container.

Bento #185

Snack bento - Jam filled sandwich (using all the extra bread) with some seaweed and cereal. Packed the cereal in a separate container so as to ensure that it stays crunchy.

Btw, after taking the picture, I just cling wrap the bunny bread so that its easier for MP to eat it at school during recess.

Bento #184

Dinner bento - Pair of onigri mixed with some chopped chinese sausage (yum). The box also contains some stir fried vegetables, fish and stewed chicken.

Used a pair of scissors to cut the ultraman shapped seaweed. Sigh...things we have to do. Wish they sold those cute pre-cuts here, would be so much easier. MP was very happy muching on the seaweed off-cuts though.

Warehouse crazy sale & parents

Things we (parents) do for our kids, nephew and/or nieces.

All I can say is that if you have grown up kids or single or have no kids at all – count yourself lucky that you didn't have to jostle, push, squabble, grab (yes it can be that fierce sometimes) with the crowd (other parents) and then wait for almost 2 hours in a hot crawling queue just to pay and leave the place! *siow or not?* How I wished they set up a cash only line for people with less than 10 items!!

Oh yes, there were lots of hoarding. There were more boxes full of ‘chup’ (aka booked) purchases than people actually!!

This is the loot I managed to get - a lot of the 'good' ones like Uno deck or the Super spinner Hot Wheels set were all gone by the time I got there. But they open and distribute the toys in stages just to ensure there's something for people to buy over the 4 day sale, so who knows, you may get lucky if you rock up at the right time!

Yes I know there are a lot of ‘pink’ stuff – for my niece actually who will be visiting next month. Couldn't resist grabbing a few sets of changing clothes as they were only 10 cents each. But wait there’s a catch, you must buy 10 (all for $1 and there are only 3 styles). Fortunately for me, I managed to share with a few mothers and still got my 3 styles!! This is what you do when forced to queue for almost 2 hours, need to find ways to occupy yourself by making friends with the people around you, start swapping toys and asking for opinion like which looks better, etc.

At the end of the day, I think we (parents) are just the bigger and older version of little kids buying things that we think our child may like. Of course cost wise, its much cheaper. The Fisher-price toys were VERY POPULAR as they were very reasonable. Great for parents with young kids. But they were also the hardest to get and basically had to wait until the sales persons were ready to open the boxes and throw them to the greedy grabbing hands. For my lot, it cost me RM16o – most of it will probably be given away as birthday presents or maybe even Xmas presents.

Warehouse toy sale carrying various established brands like Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-price, Barney, etc. @ Atria. Ends tomorrow 28 March.

Bring a friend to help you queue unless you don’t mind the wait!!

Re-look at the Gallstones Flush

Posted earlier about this here and here.

For further readings if interested, please refer to the article below. Hope you can read otherwise leave a comment and I'll see what can be done.



The above article is being distributed by Cheryl Pharmacy.


NOTE – NOT affiliated nor endorsing in anyway the article or Cheryl Pharmacy. All opinions and views expressed in this blog are personal.

The article refers to floating green stones huh? Hm, maybe a re-test on this??? Ha ha…don’t worry, will spare readers and not be posting any ‘hard evidence’ here?

Marked for a mug?

This morning, I was in the kitchen busy preparing breakfast when I heard a loud familiar voice shouting ‘OI’.

Wondering what was all the commotion about I peeked out and enquired whether DH was alright. He replied that there was a ‘snatch thief’ incident just outside our house. Apparently, a single rider on a motorbike had marked a potential victim and threatened her with a knife. She was robbed of her mobile phone and got away but didn't manage to take her handbag because of DH's shout. Fortunately, the girl was not hurt by this incident.

I really hate all these petty crimes and thefts (especially when the spineless pray on the old, weak, defenseless, poor, young or handicap); it makes one feel so vulnerable, violated and insecure that we are forced to literally become prisoners of our own home! (Even then I am still not sure it is safe.) In less fortunate circumstances, people are harmed or seriously injured. This is no way to live life right? Even though there is a police station just a stone throw away highly doubt their patrol of the area is effective. Another white elephant ya? Sigh *shake heads*. Its no wonder why we seem a little paranoid when we go overseas and gawk in amazement when our friends leave their gate and doors so wide and invitingly open! ha ha

DH cautioned us over breakfast that the robber had turned around to see DH’s face and perhaps the house. Probably not satisfied (em-kum yun, Cantonese) that his heist was interrupted and didn’t manage to get the girls handbag, thus may come back to cause us trouble!!! I’ve heard of stories of robbers that double back to their victims as if the first time wasn’t traumatising enough: (i) first incident – robber double back to slap and abuse victim because the ‘gold’ jewellery taken were fake, (ii) second incident – robbers physically abused a jogger because all he didn’t carry with him any money. This is only a tip of the iceberg as I am sure that a lot more go unreported too.

Aiyoh, GREAT…thanks a lot DH (not)!! But DH defended what should he have done then, remain quiet, look the other way and mind his own business?? Should he not have helped the lady?

I think some of our reactions at a particular moment or point of time is probably more instinct or responsive than anything. I doubt in such dire situation, there would be time to think or contemplate.

So I would like to ask:

Q1 – What would you have done?

Q2 – How differently would you have responded or acted if the consequences of your actions may lead to harm to yourself or your family?

Bentos # 180-183

Bento #183

Snack bento - A rectangular Totoro jam sandwich (inspired from Annathered) with some endamame, raisins and seaweed.

Bento #182

Breakfast bento - I know its not Xmas time but wanted to use my new bone food pick so I made this. Intent was a reindeer but Master Prince had other ideas....he thought it was a Digimon (not sure which one though!). Ha ha, as long as he is happy, I'm not complaining!!

In the box is a sausage roll with some endamame and strawberries.

Bento #181

This penguin h'orderves bento was made to share with some GFs. They are made of olives, cheese and carrots. Real easy, got the idea from here.

They were very yummy especially with a cool glass of white wine!! he he

Bento #180

Dinner bento - Rolled sausage maki with a little furikake sprinkles for colour. Also in the box are some sliced cucumber, tulip apple and a jelly dessert.

All Master Prince's favourite food, no wonder he polished them in record time!!

I'm terrible at rolling sushi. Next time must use the 'gadget' recommended by Peony for making perfect maki rolls. Ha ha...another thing to get from Daiso/100yen shop.

Bentos # 177-179

Bento #179

Breakfast bento - Some nutella sandwiches with endamame, papaya and half a boiled egg with soya sauce in the pig container. The 'mouth' of this sauce container is larger than the normal soya sauce container so I told Master Price to be a careful and not squeeze too much otherwise, too salty if not messy!

Bento #178

Dinner bento - Brown rice with BBQ pork, tofu squares, broccoli and cauliflower.

As you can see, it was overflowing with new picks - just love them!

The 'bees' were made of cheese using a heart cutter.

Bento #177

Lunch bento - Fried noodles with some leftover stir fried vegetables, broccoli and fried bean curd. Can't decide if its a 'ninja' or 'mummy' slice of egg! Actually wanted to do a face but ended up with this instead!! ha ha

Royal flush?

Remember the earlier blurb on this?

Ingredients required are:

# Apple juice x 5 litres
# Grape fruit x 1
# First cold pressed extra virgin olive oil 1/2 cup
#Epsom salt - a couple of teaspoons

Report:

1. Yes I did it.

2. Drinking 1L apple juice a day was not difficult but kept wondering about the sugar & carbs! Even though I bought the "No sugar added" type, it still contains 'natural' sugar. I chose Berri brand because it was the lowest in calories and sugar and was sold with the added promise of "No preservatives" (how true this is, I really can't confirm but felt slightly 'comforted' with the marketing representation). Drinking fresh apple juice would have been ideal but not practical for busy people.

3. If you didn't know/realise, apple juice has a mild laxative effect.

4. The last step - the concoction of grape juice and olive oil was OK as long as you mix it up well; which is hard since scientifically they do not mix well because of the different densities. I ended up with the last bit of just oil and it was a little ewww! Drinking the mixture with a straw helped.

5. The WORST experience.....would be the encounter with the epsom salt. Btw it doesn't taste salty, it felt/tasted 'syntactic' probably due to the magnesium sulphate (erm, not that I've technically tasted anything syntactic before but vaguely image it would probably taste as foul as this). After one sip, I wasn't sure whether it was edible. I even double checked with my friend on the list of ingredients and went back to the pharmacy to ask whether it was fit for human consumption. It didn't help that the information on the side of the box only recommended external uses e.g. cleaning the washing machine and foot baths (omg right?). There is a reference to 'Food Grade' at the bottom of the box and yes its 'edible' - but note that it is not your 'everday salt' for seasoning food! If anything I dread tasting again, it would be this - it was foul, dreadful and would trade it for Chinese medicine without a blink of an eye.

*Other uses of epsom salt included in post below. Note that they all refer to external use - ha ha, yes I'm still doubting its edibility!!

6. Any tummy woes? None actually which was surprising. No wrenching cramps unlike my first time drinking detox herbal tea (phew, that was one bad experience!!). Let's just say it was 'normal', smooth sailing all the way!! ha ha

Findings?

Erm, let's just say 'Its inconclusive' since I didn't look that hard or seived through anything. Lolz

I feel ok (normal). Just had more daily bowel movements but I suppose you can achieve this by drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day, eat more fruits, vegetables and generally consume food that are high in fibre.

Hm.....still have a big bottle of the epsom salt, may use it up for any of these uses:

Relaxing and sedative bath: Soak in warm water and 2 cups of epsom salt.

Face cleaner: To clean your face at night, mix a half-teaspoon of epsom salt with your regular cleansing cream. Just massage into skin and rinse with cold water.

Homemade skin mask: Apply the mask to damp skin. For normal to oily skin, mix 1 tablespoon of cognac, 1 egg, 1/4 cup of non-fat dry milk, the juice of 1 lemon, and a half-teaspoon of epsom salt. For normal to dry skin, mix 1/4 cup of grated carrot, 1 1/2 teaspoons of mayonnaise and a half-teaspoon of epsom salt.

Foot soak: Soothe aches, remove odors and soften rough skin with a foot soak. Add 1/2 cup of epsom salt to a large pan of warm water. Soak feet for as long as it feels right. Rinse and dry.

Skin exfoliator: Massage handfuls of epsom salt over your wet skin, starting with your feet and continuing up towards the face. Have a bath to rinse.

Remove excess oil from hair: Epsom salt soaks up excess oil from hair. Add 9 tablespoons of epsom salt to 1/2 cup of oily hair shampoo. Apply one tablespoon of the liquid to your hair when it is dry; rinse with cold water. Pour lemon juice or organic apple cider vinegar through the hair, leave on for 5-10 minutes, and then rinse.

Remove hairspray: Combine 1 gallon of water, 1 cup of lemon juice, and 1 cup epsom salt. Combine, cover and let set for 24 hours. The next day, pour the mixture into your dry hair and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then shampoo as normal.

Hair volumizer: Combine equal parts of deep conditioner and epsom salt. Warm in a pan. Work the warm mixture through your hair and leave on for 20 minutes. Rinse.

Soak sprains and bruises: Epsom salt will reduce the swelling of sprains and bruises. Add 2 cups epsom salt to a warm bath, and soak.

Splinter remover: Soak in epsom salt, it will draw out the splinter. (source)

For cases of constipation, here are two natural alternatives that may assist:
* Apple and Pear Juice
* Apple and Prune Juice

Prepare equal amounts of fresh apple and pear/prune juice. Drink this combination when you first wake up and one hour before bedtime.