The Soup Queen

I hope you can help me. I am completely stumped. My friend gave me a bunch of this and calls it spinach. It grows wild in her garden. She said she planted it after a lady in a vegetarian restaurant gave it to her. Apparently it is good for health. So my friend gives this to me and tells me that it can be used like spinach. I made a soup out of the leaves, boiling it with some ikan bilis. It tasted lovely. Now that problem is, I don't know what it is or what it's called. Do leave a comment if you know what it is.

I am a big fan of the Buddhist Tzu-Chi Merit Society in Penang. I think they do a fantastic job of serving the community (especially helping underprivileged dialysis patients who can't afford to visit regular hospitals for dialysis treatments, the elderly and such). In my taman, I love the fact that they're just around the corner with their recycling centre. I drop off my recyclables every week or so and I know that the money they get from selling paper, plastic and tins go toward funding the dialysis centres that they operate in Penang. The only thing which I don't quite understand is that they recycle books. If you sent them a bunch of books, they would never sell the books as reading materials. They would tear the books up and sell the paper for recycling. Once I volunteered with them in my taman. They asked me to sort out the different types of paper - among them were old but readable books. I saw a book that I wanted and I even asked if I could pay for the boo...

Remember my last post on the herb I found while visiting Balik Pulau? Well, here's more about the herb! (For more details, read this. Mugwort is terribly useful! ) A week ago, my neighbour gave me a plastic bag full of Ai Ye or Mugwort. Yes, the very same neighbour who saw me planting the Ai Ye herb in my garden. The very same one who told me the herb grows wild and aplenty in her mom-in-law's garden in Gelugur (why is it that moms-in-law often grow this herb in their garden?) So here's how the herb looks like. It may look like a lot but once you fry it up with eggs, it shrinks. I just plucked off the leaves. The stems I stuck them into a pot and they seem to be growing. As my husband says, these are fast-growing weeds and they grow everywhere. (Update: Maybe it's the weather but my Ai Ye leaves aren't growing as fast as it should be! I just plucked off some and fried them up with eggs only once but the plant is still growing too slowly for my liking. ...