Monthly Archives: July 2011

July 22nd, 2011
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Quail’s Eggs Wonders

Baby prefers quail’s eggs over chicken eggs. She calls them baby eggs and is intrigued that the eggs are so tiny and cute. I feed her with eggs everyday so that this petite girl is pumped up with enough protein. This girl’s waist is so tiny that most of her pants often drop off her waist and she’s wearing clothes meant for much younger girls! On some days, I give her free-range chicken eggs and on other days she gets to eat quail’s eggs. She likes her eggs with loads of butter or a dash of organic soy sauce. For me, I love quail’s eggs in tong sui or in skewers from those ‘loke loke’ vans 😀

She loves shelling the eggs too…

Food For Thought

The quail egg is prized as a dietary and healing food. It is recorded that Chinese medical practitioners have used quail eggs for thousands of years to remedy aliments such as rhinitis, asthma, hay fever, spasmodic cough along with skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. More recently the benefits are found in quail egg capsules sold online.

Quail eggs are packed with vitamins and minerals. Even with their small size, their nutritional value is three to four times greater than chicken eggs. Quail eggs contain 13 percent proteins compared to 11 percent in chicken eggs. Quail eggs also contain 140 percent of vitamin B1 compared to 50 percent in chicken eggs. In addition, quail eggs provide five times as much iron and potassium. Unlike chicken eggs, quail eggs have not been know to cause allergies or diathesis. Actually they help fight allergy symptoms due to the ovomucoid protein they contain.

Health Benefits
Regular consumption of quail eggs helps fight against many diseases. They are a natural combatant against digestive tract disorders such as stomach ulcers. Quail eggs strengthen the immune system, promote memory health, increase brain activity and stabilize the nervous system. They help with anemia by increasing the level of hemoglobin in the body while removing toxins and heavy metals. The Chinese use quail eggs to help treat tuberculosis, asthma, and even diabetes. If you are a sufferer of kidney, liver, or gallbladder stones quail eggs can help prevent and remove these types of stones.

Complementary Benefits
Children eating quail eggs are less inclined to suffer from infectious diseases than other children do. In men, quail eggs provide the prostate gland with phosphorus, proteins, and vitamins that can be a powerful stimulant for sexual potency. Women find that the egg improves skin color and strengthens hair. This is why quail eggs are in facial and in hair care products.

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Cassandra, Nutritional Information On Food
July 14th, 2011
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What On Earth Was That??

I got a major shock of my life when I saw this stuff hanging out from Baby’s anus about 2 weeks ago. After she poo pooed, she complained that her anus was itchy. I took a look and this worm-like, half-digested veggie look-alike, intestine-looking stuff made me sick to the pit of my guts. For a moment, I thought it was the watercress veggie that she ate the day before the incident. This fella chomped down quite a bit of this veggie the day before as watercress is the only leafy veggie that she truly likes. I never have to coerce her to eat watercress.    On touching the dangling stuff, it felt like a body-tissue. I also had suspicion that it was her piles. When hubs saw it, we were both pretty convinced that the part of the dangling stuff that was black in color looked like sutures and we thought that it was part of her small intestines. Baby had 2 major surgeries 2 years ago. The 2nd surgery was to un-kink the guts at the lower part of her stomach, which was a result of a complication from the 1st surgery (urinary tract surgery).

I quickly snapped pix of the stuff and emailed it to Baby’s surgeon in Penang. I also gave him an SOS call and spoke to him. He assured me that it was not a guts issue. Not body tissue issue too. Guts are not so thin, for sure.  Dr N suspected it was veggie or worm!  I was perplexed and reeling with shock and worry. The dangling stuff did not cause Baby any pain or discomfort but when I tried to touch it, she would scream and said it’s painful, which made me even more worried. I quickly fixed an appointment for Baby to see her nephrologist at a private hospital the next day.

Fast forward 2 hours later. Baby followed her grand-aunt to her unit below ours. When she came back, I brought her to her potty and washed her up.  Upon touching her down-under, I could not feel the dangling stuff anymore!  I lay Baby on the bed and inspected that part. The dangling stuff was no where to be seen anymore! Amazing! Could it have moved back inside? Whatever. As long as it’s no longer there and it’s not causing Baby any pain, discomfort or bleeding, I’ll just close the case. I shall continue to monitor her and try to keep constipation at bay from my baby.

Has anyone seen such dangling stuff or experienced such dangling issue before?

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Cassandra
July 10th, 2011
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Fried Rice

Fried rice is one of the easiest and tastiest meals to whip up in a jiffy. Plus I can dump all the left over overnight food to fry with the rice. My fried rice normally consists of chicken breast meat from the roast chicken (siu kai fan) that we take away for lunch (no one touches chicken breast meat but when they are all chopped up and fried with rice, every bit of the meat will be polished off!), sweet corn kernels (from left over sweet corn on cob that we buy from the night market), diced carrots (add sweetness to the fried rice), chopped sawi, eggs and sometimes I will fry some crispy anchovies as topping.  Oh not forgetting some chopped spring onions.  We all love spring onions and I will sprinkle loads of them into our dishes. They are nutritious and add flavor to the food.

My fried rice where ‘liu’ (ingredients) are more than the rice, yums!

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Homecooked Food
July 10th, 2011
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Frightening Bills

Our electricity bill each month can chalk up to five hundred ringgit. For the past few months, I have been very strict with the girls, in order to bring the numbers on the bill down. I will walk round the house like a disciplinarian, checking all the rooms and heater switch, reprimanding them whenever I see fans and lights switched on when no one is in the room. I am also limiting the number of hours they get to have the air conditioner turned on each night. I also try to avoid using the oven. Even with all these measures taken, the numbers on the bill are still shocking me every month. We don’t use infrared heater, dishwasher a clothes dryer. It is mind-boggling why the electricity bill is so high. I must do more to bring the numbers down!

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July 10th, 2011
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Spoilt Girls

My girls are spoilt rotten by their daddy. They can have whatever their hearts desire, unlike me who had to work hard to get what I yearned for when I was their age. My girls get almost everything that they wish for most of the time without having to earn them. Blame it on those who spoil them! I am the baddie in the house as I am seen restricting and controlling over what they can buy and ask from their daddy. But if their daddy buys them expensive graduation presents, I will be all for that. I can’t wait for the day to come for my girls to graduate from university.

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July 10th, 2011
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My Late Grandma

My late maternal grandma was very conservative and superstitious. When I was a child, I was not allowed to do many things. Some of them include no wearing of hair accessories that were white in color (she said only those mourning would wear white), getting white roses or any white flowers from friends was considered a taboo, no sticking of chopsticks on our bowl of rice (as this resembled burning of joss sticks to the dead) , no wearing of black or white throughout CNY, among others. But she was a very good grandma – very thrifty, creative, innovative, very strict but loving and a very good cook. I miss her a lot.

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July 2nd, 2011
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Grilled Portobello Mushrooms With Garlic And Olive Oil

I am a big fan of mushrooms, all kinds that is. I love fresh mushrooms, Portobello mushrooms in particular. There are countless number of ways of preparing a mushroom dish.  You can stew them, stir fry them, add them into salads, used as an ingredient in other dishes like in bak kut teh, vegetarian dish, roast them, bbq them and grill them.  Some species of mushrooms are even used as supplements.

One very easy, tasty and healthy way of preparing a fresh Portobello mushroom dish is to grill the mushrooms in the oven. My favorite way is to grill the mushrooms with chopped garlic, drizzle of olive oil, ground black pepper and cheese.  You can even sprinkle some chopped spring onions on the mushroom caps after they are out from the oven.  I normally grill the mushrooms for about 15-20 minutes or until the garlic and olive oil sizzle. Do try out this very easy and wholesome dish for your family.  Mushrooms are bursting with anti-oxidants too.

My grilled Protobello mushrooms with garlic, olive oil, black pepper and cheese.

Food For Thought

One cup of sliced portobello mushrooms, approximately 121 g, makes up a single serving and has only 42 calories. There is 1 g of fat and 5 g of protein in a cup of sliced portobello mushrooms. The total carbohydrate content of a serving of portobello mushrooms is 6 g, of which 3 g is fiber. Water makes up 108 g of the total weight of a 1-cup serving. There are only 12 mg of sodium in a cup of portobello mushrooms, so it is considered a low-sodium food.

A 1-cup serving of portobello mushrooms supplies 31 percent of the daily recommended intake of selenium, or 21.4 mcg. It also contains 30 percent of the recommendation for copper and 18 percent of the requirement for both phosphorus and potassium. Other minerals in portabello mushrooms include iron, magnesium, manganese, calcium and zinc. In a serving of portobello mushrooms, there is 7.2 mg of the vitamin niacin, or 36 percent of the daily recommended intake, and 0.6 mg of riboflavin, or 34 percent of the recommendation for that vitamin. Portabello mushrooms also contain the vitamins pantothenic acid, folate, choline, vitamin B6 and thiamin, also known as vitamin B1. The nutrient betaine is also found in portabello mushrooms

Phytochemicals
Portobello mushrooms are a source of phytochemicals, food components that are not considered vitamins or minerals. Mushrooms, including portobello mushrooms, are one of the best sources of L-ergothioneine, a powerful antioxidant. Other antioxidant phytochemicals in portobello mushrooms includes a group called polyphenols. These compounds give portobello mushrooms an extremely high ORAC rating, a measurement of the antioxidant capability of a food.

Normal Physiological Effects
The selenium in portobello mushrooms operates in DNA repair in the body and also helps the body produce its own antioxidants. The iron and copper in portobello mushrooms aid in hemoglobin synthesis, which is needed for the transportation of oxygen through the blood. The high level of riboflavin in portobello mushrooms contributes to cellular energy production, and the pantothenic acid provided by these mushrooms aids adrenal gland function. Zinc, also found at high levels in portobello mushrooms, plays a role in immune function, wound healing and cell division. The consumption of niacin, found in high amounts in portobello mushrooms, has been linked to a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, explains World’s Healthiest Foods.

Considerations
More antioxidant activity is found in the caps of mushrooms than in the stems. Unlike many other foods, most of the antioxidant level in mushrooms is not destroyed by cooking. Mushrooms also contain compounds called purines, which may cause health problems in individuals with gout. People with this condition may want to avoid eating portobello mushrooms.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/279766-portobello-mushroom-nutritional-value/#ixzz1QwBMj75c

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Nutritional Information On Food
July 2nd, 2011
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I Wonder

On some mornings, I will jog into a nearby area up on a hill in my neighborhood to enjoy the scenery of the city. This road houses less than a hundred units of luxury bungalows up a hill. Each bungalow is uniquely designed. Some of the units have nicely designed Address Plaque hanging on the pillar of the gate. Many of the units also have a guardhouse outside the house. Just at the entrance of the road leading to the luxury bungalows is another guardhouse. The guards there man the road barrier. It’s awe-inspiring to see those luxury bungalows that are so tastefully designed and I think each unit cost at least 5-6 million bucks. I often wonder how some people could earn so much to be able to afford such luxury.

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