The Soup Queen

After like a few weeks of not going to the market, I decided to go today. I have a love-hate relationship with market days. On one hand I know I am stocking up on fresh food and vegetables. On the other I know I need to clean out the fridge when I get back coz I need to make space for the new stuff that I bought. Anyway.  Today I bought pork bones to make a soup called Ming Mu Tang or literal translation, Bright Eye Soup. We Chinese aren't so subtle. If the soup makes our eyes bright/sparkling/clear, then name it such. No point beating around the bush. Pragmatic us indeed. As always, I start with blanching the pork bones in boiling water over the stove. This gets rid of the scummy stuff that floats up on your soup.  Next, I soak the herbs - they're pre-packed dried herbs from my herbalist in town. Dried herbs from China are getting more expensive these days. Damn the ringgit and damn the GST. I usually use a colander and a plastic basin...

Remember how I was wailing about my hair falling like mad each time I washed my hair? Well, I told a friend, Then, who runs a hair salon and whom I go to each month for my henna hair colouring treatment (yes, these pesky white hairs keep popping up so when I get tired of plucking them by the roots, I go and henna them all). She's Indian so she asked me if my diet changed. I was eating less rice at that time because I didn't want to get too flabby around my waist. She told me that she personally experienced hair loss too when she reduced her rice intake. She advised me to get back to my normal rice intake and see if it helped. I decided to also get a bottle of hair loss shampoo from her. It was more to satisfy my own desire to do all I could to help my hair loss from getting worse. The girl who worked for Then did tell me that her boss did eat a lot of fruits and yogurt. Yogurt is cooling for the body. That was in January. I started reading more online because I did...

Sorry folks! I have been terribly missing from my blog. My sisters, niece and I at Fo Guang Shan Dong Zen temple in Jenjarom (near Banting) on the first day of CNY. In between working on 2 books (yes!), working on planning our web design business, planning this year's marketing master class . taking care of my women entrepreneur association as president, engaged in meetings and interviews, and taking care of my family (their holidays included), I have been neglecting this blog a whole lot. I haven't been making soups as much as I want to BUT I did buy a slow cooker or crockpot (that's how Americans call it) and that helped a lot. In the past, I used to boil my soups on the stove but the downside of this is that I have to be at home and watch the stove. With a slow cooker, I don't have to worry. I can put all my soup ingredients (herbs and chicken or meat) into the cooker with enough water and I can put it on Auto to simmer the whole day (6 hours or so) and...

Yes, I drink coconut oil by the spoonfuls. Actually 2 tablespoons each day, usually after a meal like breakfast or lunch. Let me just say this - in our tropical climate, coconut oil is liquid. It's a clear oil with a lovely coconut aroma. Reminds me of the coconut log sweets wrapped in red, green or blue cellophane that I ate when I was growing up. Some people still make these hard coconut candies but they're quite a rare breed. Maybe the sweet making involves lots of stirring or something. Anyway, I need to say this because some of you live in non-tropical climes. And your coconut oil is more like coconut butter! I discovered this in Hong Kong many years ago. I carried with me a bottle of coconut oil - as a quick facial moisturiser, as a lip balm treatment at night before sleeping. It was my go-to oil for dry areas of my skin. I wanted to show my friend, SP, this bottle of amazing multipurpose skincare oil only to realise the oil had hardened! It was March in Hong...

Remember my joy at re-discovering mugwort or Ai Ye atop a hill in Balik Pulau?  Well, guess what? I am growing them in my garden now.  The recent rainy weather has helped. The plants are flourishing.  And mugwort is a plant that keeps on propagating too. Each time I pluck off the leaves, I stick its stem back into the earth or pot of soil and the stem soon starts growing!  I love making omelette with mugwort leaves. There's something about the distinct fragrance of this plant that I crave.  I also am a big believer that if I crave something, my body is telling me I need the nutrients in that particular type of food. So I go ahead and indulge myself.  Still I find that my own mugwort leaves aren't as pungent as the ones my mom-in-law grows in her garden in Kuching. It must be the weather!  Ai Ye or mugwort plants happily growing in my garden Anyway, when my mugwort plants start to grow all over, I start pl...

Ripe berries or fruits from my 9 foot curry leaf tree.  This is a photo of the ripe fruits from my 9 foot curry leaf tree or known scientifically as  Murraya koenigii   . Yes, most curry leaf plants are about human height.  Mine is a bit special because when it was still a young sapling, I used a lot of my own homemade compost . It had so much of nutrients that it started growing taller and taller.  Right now, it is shading the compost pots!  Which means I am cooler when I stand under this tree to do my daily composting. You see how wonderful it all works out to be?  Because these berries attract the Asian koel (black birds with fiery red eyes which make the annoying loud "ku-yo, ku-yo" sounds), the curry leaf seeds get propagated everywhere.  Yet some drop right under the tree and start growing. I have a curry leaf sapling attack haha. I keep pulling the saplings up as there's just too many.  Besides throwing ...

I know.  It isn't the sexiest cough cure around.  It's not even exotic. It's just a plain vegetable. But today I shall praises of the humble watercress because it is a well-known cure for the sort of incurable, annoying and keep-you-awake-at-night coughing sessions. So what's in the watercress?  In the West, it is commonly eaten fresh and raw in a salad or sandwich.  Here in Malaysia, I've always eaten this cooked in soups. Never raw.  So what's so fascinating about watercress?  Watercress' botanical name is Nasturtium officinale.  It is a fast grower in aquatic or semi-aquatic environments. It usually grows in ditches rapidly.  It is one of the oldest known leaf vegetables eaten by humans. The plant is native to Europe and Asia.  It has a peppery flavour and is related to the cabbage and mustard family.  The town of Alresford, near Winchester, UK holds a Watercress Festival that brings in more th...

Remember I mentioned about he shou wu , a herb that helps hair growth? It's also called Fleeceflower Root or Polygonum Multiflorum. (My hair shenanigans were a big deal to me. You can read about Shou Wu Chih or my hair darkening tea posts.) I bought some - actually RM5 worth of it - and boiled it a couple of times. Each time I also added some dried black dates too. Initially I'd simmer the herb over the stove but later decided to use my slow cooker. When i couldn't finish drinking it all I'd store it in an old-fashioned thermos flask. Two weeks ago I was in town buying dried scallops and Chinese sausages for my mother in law when I decided to ask the shop assistant if they had he show wu. Mind you, this was a Chinese medical store cum grocery store.  So below was what they recommended to me. It was RM16.50 for a 200gm pack. When I opened it, the slices were thicker and darker. It wasn't sliced thinly - in fact it was hard and knobbly lik...

Happy New Year everyone! That's me with that funny Xmas hair band and in a beige dress with Nic, my husband. This photo was taken at our Christmas party with our website clients - Kester (in green) and Wei Min (in red) are from KesterMusic.com I am actually blogging this on New Year's Day because it's a holiday and I just got home after a lovely lunch of pork porridge at the famous Hon Kei cafe in Jalan Kampung Malabar, off Penang Road. This pork porridge seller used to be just a simple stall on the same road, nearer Ho Ping Cafe, a corner coffeeshop. My late grandmother used to love eating this pork porridge because it wasn't just minced pork - it has all the pig innards, pig brain, liver, kidney etc. It does sound gross but you just have to love pork and the old style porridge to enjoy this. Hon Kei has upgraded itself into a two shop lot business - it's literally buzzing with customers all day. Of course besides pork porridge, you can also have lor...

Here's the thing - remember that 3 days ago I wrote about trying out this strange folksy remedy with a steamed orange to help with my incessant coughing? I tried my first steamed orange on Friday afternoon. I overdid the salt so I ended up with a saltier orange "juice" - the water that pools under the orange after steaming. I don't know what that's called but I call it juice since it is the water plus orange juice plus salt. I ate the orange pulp and drank up the salty juice. It was so salty my eyes were tightly shut as I drank it up! Busy Saturday, Peppermint & Carrot  On Saturday I was out and about starting from 9am. I was in a 3 hour workshop in an air-conditioned room and boy was it bad for my cough! My cough was definitely affected by extreme cold. I had to drink copious amounts of hot water to still my itchy throat. This was one of those coughing fits which was so bad that I teared up and my nose turned red. I had some relief by applying my Yo...

Steamed orange with salt - a natural remedy touted for coughs.  I don't know why I started coughing a week back. But I also heard some of my friends have been having lingering coughs too. Weather? Maybe. It has been raining at night but blisteringly warm in the day. Change of temperature perhaps. I have horrid experiences with coughing and it goes way back to my childhood days. Weak lungs maybe. Cold gets to me so I don't even wear bare back tops because my lungs might catch a cold! So travelling to cold countries is a bit of a love-hate relationship for me. I like that I don't sweat but I also know too much of cold and I get all wonky inside. So yeah. From my past experience I only either get Wind Heat cough or Wind Cold cough. Both are terrible.  Both are hacking, phlegmy and wrecks sleep especially at night.  For the past week I have tried a lot of remedies.  From drinking water steeped with Indian borage (plucked fresh from my garden)...

Hey there everyone. Hoped you are having a good week.  I had a bunch of appointments planned for this week but had to cancel them as Nic also known at The Husband came down with of all things, chicken pox! It was one of the most surprising things ever.  Firstly, he said he already had chicken pox. When he was 5 years old it seems. He remembered wearing a pink cardigan/sweater? My memory is pretty selective. It doesn't go back THAT far. I just recall bits and pieces of my very young life but there you go. Some people have deep memories.  I had chicken pox when I was 20. I remember it well because it was my first week on campus - the actual first week of classes after orientation week - and I got the damn pox. I missed 2 weeks of classes and I recuperated at my late Grandma's house.  She took care of me - forbidding me to eat anything that was made with beans or any seafood. Pork was allowed. But I had pretty bland food. A lot of soupy rice n...

In my last post I wrote about dried Shou Wu slices which I bought from my regular herbalist. In this post I am going to let you in about a more convenient method of imbibing this herb especially if you find it tedious to boil your own brew.  I read about Shou Wu Chih or Shou Wu Essence and went to a Chinese medical hall (not my usual herbalist, mind you) and asked about Shou Wu. The owner, a man in his 60s, recommended that I try this product.  Here's what the Shou Wu Chih contains:  It is more than just Shou Wu extract. It also contains ginseng, dang gui, chuan xiong and other herbs.  The liquid is dark coloured and thick, a bit like cough syrup.  The medical hall owner told me that this Shou Wu Chih can be taken nightly, using that given "cup" (which measures about 30 ml).  Between me and the husband, we took about 7 days to finish the entire bottle of 300ml. We each took a 30 ml dose each night just before we went...

I don't know if I mentioned this but the past few months I have been experiencing some hair issues. Granted, I have never had long hair - my hair is always above the shoulders. The only time I remember having really long hair was in my campus days. I had hair past my shoulder. After that, I have always worn my hair short and fuss-free (yes, if you read this blog long enough, you know I like things to be practical and easy).  It could be stress or it could be hormonal. After all I am 40 this year. I think things change inside a woman's body when she hits the big 40. On top of that, I have been stressed with a lot of things - some fun, some not so! I was the head planner/tourist guide for my parents and sis when we went to Hong Kong for a week (and I was so majorly stressed that I started having nose bleeds in HK which scared the life out of me. I never have nose bleeds). I blamed it on the crazy hot summer weather of Hong Kong. And then when I got back, I was ...