life with soapnuts

Months ago, I've tried making my own shampoo.. well, not really my own.. but a DIY shampoo.
I ordered my self a bottle of castile liquid, brewed some rosemary and wah lah...
my own diy shampoo...

After using it alternative days for 2 weeks. I didn't feel that the texture of my hair has change instead it became drier. So to counter that with rinsing it off with 1 part vinegar and 2 part brew rosemary...
I was hoping that it would help with me scalp condition, but it didn't. So i gave up after 2 weeks of trial.


Then came my discovery of soapnuts.
I realize I have not pen down my experience with soapnuts ever since I started using it.
I LOVE it.!!
I've used it for laundry wash and the cloths came out soft and clean and did i mention soft...? I mean ... really soft comparing with washing our cloths with the normal detergent. Yes, normal detergent does give the nice fragrance but after drying it under the sun, the cloths are all stiff and hard. You know what I mean?

I don't like to use softener cos I feel like, I'm adding too many chemical just to wash my cloths and it does more harm then good. On top of that, the cloths would not last long as well.
What I do is, I would add some of my fruit enzyme and sodium bicarbonate. The enzyme is for extra cleaning and the sodium bicarbonate is for stains. I can do away with the softener.


I've even tried cleaning my old jewelry and coin collections. I reuse the soapnuts from my laundry wash, soaked it for about 2 days and everything was bright and shinny. It looks like brand new.., clean! Well if you ignore the scratches and all.


Since my diy castile shampoo did not do so well with my scalp problem... I'm trying soapnuts this time around.

Will see what happen....

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handmade

I've been storing my 500pcs of muslin bags for ages now... and this year around it has finally been leaving me bit by bit.

My first successful buyer makes handmade accessories and cards. Looking at her paper crafts brings me back to me high school times when I use to be quite 'active' in handycraft stuffs. :)
I remember making my own recycle papers.... making my own notebook with nice little detailed hard cover to go with it... ahh... those were the days...

Anyways,..
I looked thru her site and saw something that I like. A nice looking necklace to add on to my collection. The price was reasonable, so I made the purchase.
Joey was nice enough to throw in a discount price and a little cute pin.
so niceeeeeee :D

The necklace came with the muslin bag. Love it.

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simple weekend lunch

Made dried noodles with stir fried beef on the weekend. On top of that, I couldn't help myself to make another round of herbal chicken since I have a quarter of chicken before I restock some fresh meat for the coming week.

This dried noodles recipe is really easy. Normally the 'mr' would whip this meal up when we're lazy to head out for lunch. Cook the noodles, chop some fresh shallots, add some pepper, cook garlic oil, a spoon full of oyster sauce and mix it all up.

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

This time around I made a stir fried beef to go with it.

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

Mix it up and you have a yummy fast lunch.

photo by melmok

Plus my mouth watering herbal chicken that would keep me alert for the day.

photo by melmok

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stir fried pea shoots

Made stir fried pea shoots with garlic, prawns, wolfberries and dried oysters last week.
The wolfberries and dried oysters was an additional ingredients... I soaked both ingredients thinking that I was going to make soup.... my brain was not working well that evening.

So instead of wasting it, I added it to the pea shoots dish. :)

photo by melmok

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brandy 'thedog'

I've been keeping track on how Brandy 'thedog' has progress/change since we got her by taking snap shots of her every week (well mostly every week).
I was looking through her pictures and notice how time has pass so quickly. I remember the day we saw her and the day she came into our life. Mischievous innocent looking little puppy…

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

We had the intention to bring her to dog training classes, as usual we delayed it and it's been 2 years now. She does know the basic commands.

photo by melmok

I didn't realize her 'maturity' until we bought her some new toys recently.
We were expecting her to destroy the toy within 24hrs. But to our surprise, her toy is still in full intact.
She still can't get enough of food even after feeding her, she would still follow us around hoping that we will give her more food.

Recently, the vet said she's fat and looks like a piglet….. hahaha...

photo by melmok

she still hates her bathing session.

photo by melmok

As she gets older, she destroy less things now...

For example....
footwear :
We have lost numbers of slippers and shoes when she was younger. As time goes by, with some scolding and training she doesn't bite off our footwear anymore.
We can safely leave our footwear at the porch area and it will still be intact the next morning.

plants:
Our plants are safer now cos she used to bite off the leaves of any plants at the porch. In the end, we had to place 'playpans', protecting the plants at the corner of the porch. Recently, I've tried leaving the 'ungated' plant area open to see if she would bite the leaves off. Nothing happened.. she sniffed around and left the plants alone….  *happy me…*

Just when I thought I could take the 'playpans' away, I discovered something.

Brandy 'thedog', has a very interesting hobby.
She likes to bark at lizards, hunt them, play with them, and then kill them. Cockroaches wasn't spare as well. hahahaha....


One afternoon, (the 'ungated' plant area was open) she spotted a lizard on the wall behind the pot plants, then she bark and scratch her way to get the lizard and the plants fell to the ground. From then onwards, it wasn't the bitting of plants anymore, it was her hobby of catching 2,4 or 6 legged creatures. With the 'playpans' around, she would just bark at the lizards, but without the 'playpans', she would just go full charge attacking the poor little lizard.

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

The thing that I notice now is that she barks more often then last time. Anyone who comes by or anyone who walk pass our house or even kids playing outside our house, she would bark and bark and bark…. Most of these people are 'regular' by passer. She practically sees them everyday, but yet she still barks at them. My 'mr' said that most likely the kids likes to tease her. But then my neighbor who goes in and out of the house, and sees her everyday would also gets her barking. The funny thing is that, she only barks when she knows that we are watching her or when we are watching tv at the living room. She would bark, then turn around to look at us to make sure that we are looking and continue with her barking.

why…why does she do that?… 
hmmmm...

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seeds,pots,bags

While searching for places to buy pots, herbs and nursery I finally found a few places that sells vegetable seeds in a bundle.
If only I've found these places 4 years ago.. my mini muslin bags would not have gone to waste and I would have been able execute my wedding gifts. bleehh...

how things have change just in a span of 4 years...

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curry

Made Thai Curry dish during the weekend.
I had all the basic ingredients, and I wanted to use up the coconut milk that I bought weeks ago.
I was contemplating either Thai Curry or our normal Curry with coconut milk.

At the end, I decided to make Thai Curry.
I skipped a few ingredients and it turned out pretty ok. Well, at least the 'mr' said it was good.
I didn't have any tomato ketchup but I substitute it with a whole tomato. Same with the ground coriander, I replace it with fresh ones.
I wasn't too sure if the thai chili paste is the same as the thai chili sauce at that point of time. At the end, i found out it's different. LOL...

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

I was having trouble with the blender, at the end I didn't manage to blend the whole lot to a paste.
My patiences ran out, so I just fried the whole lot and added my veggies and fish in the end before serving.

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

Here's the recipe from thaifood.about.com


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chickpeas

I've bought a can of chickpeas ages ago after the India trip. I wanted to recreate the chickpea salad that we had in India, but I couldn't find the recipe in the internet.

So I left it in the cabinet and totally forgotten about it until recently.
Since the 'mr' is still in the state of phobia with the Indian taste, I made the refreshing chickpea cold salad without the Indian spices.


Yummy...

chinese radish with pork bone soup

I've been browsing thru a lot of recipes and most of the recipes that look and sounds delicious
takes up 1-2 hrs of cooking time.

You see, I waste a lot time on the road. By the time I reach back home, it would be between 7.20pm (earliest) - 7.55pm (latest). I would be in a hungry mode by then and I don't want to waste another
1-2 hrs to braise or stew anything.

So I've been stir frying or sautéing veggies and meat.
(I intend to stew a dish or 2 during the weekend and keep it in the freezer for our weekday meals)

photo by melmok

Being chinese, soup is a part of our daily food intake.
To cook a good soup, you need at least 3-4 hrs of cooking time. (which i do not have)
So I went to the oldest trick that I've known since young, cook it in the slow cooker.
What I did was, I dumped all the ingredients to the slow cooker before heading off to work.

Lucky me, I get off work a little bit early on Wednesdays and the 'Mr.", he gets off work super early on Fridays. Yay!!... warm yummy soup with 1 or 2 stir fried dishes depending on the time that we have and our level of 'hungry mode'.


Made our first soup with slow cooker....
White Chinese Radish with Pork Bone and Dried Oyster.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

2 1/2 big bowl of water
1 large white chinese radish (cut to chucks)
5-6 dry oyster
1 large pork bone


I should blanch the pork bone before dumping it in the slow cooker to get a clearer soup, but because of the 'lack of time'. I skipped that process.
Because of that,.... the top layer was covers with pork fat and dark lumps of 'stuffs'
(which is the blood from what I found out).
Anyway, I don't think it's a big deal. All I had to do was just skimmed the top part away.

By the time I reach home, only 1-2 inch of the water level has evaporated. I was expecting the level of water to be reduce to half!...

So ever since the first successful attempt, I've been using the same amount of water for the other soup.

more soup to come...

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lala

I love clams... I love mussels.... I love sea shells..

If only the hypermarkets around my area sells fresh clams.... I would buy and eat it everyday... (well..almost everyday)...

spicyness

I'm craving for something spicy!! Darn this cough and I can't stop thinking bout the Tom Yam noodles....

The last time I had my Tom Yam fix was a month ago and I loved it. A huge improvement from the previous batch.

dumplings + lost holiday

I hate being sick, especially during a long holiday.
chills, body ache, headache, fever, sore throat, cough... the whole package.

Just when I think I'm feeling better, I feel 'sickly' again...

Anyway during the long holiday, I was sick of feeling 'sickly'.
So I tried to mentally psycho myself by making some dumplings.
I can't remember where I got the recipe from, but most of the dumpling recipe is more or less the same.
After looking throu, I remembered that I got the recipe from Jennifer Yu. Love the way she writes and her photos are really inspiring.

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

I particularly enjoyed making the dumpling wrapper/skin in the beginning but as I was half way filling it up with the meat, my mental psycho power ran out and I was feeling all 'sickly' again.

At that point in time, I just wanted to finish wrapping it so I could eat my lunch and get back to bed to rest....

photo by melmok

After boiling it.

photo by melmok

It's been more then week now, and i'm still having the whole sick package.
It still doesn't want to go awayyyy...!!
Well, the bright side is that I haven't been coughing green phlegm since yesterday, it's just dry cough now..
*cough * cough * cough *

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cny

The chinese new year celebration is almost half way through.
The past few weeks has been tiring. The accumulation of activities from weeks before till the 2nd day of CNY was a very good physical exercise.

Was suppose to join my parents and uncle for the chinese new year reunion dinner at a local restaurant in town. After some thoughts, I decided to cook at home.
Pass some invitations out and only my parents excepted it. less men more share then....

Started my food preparation 3 days before!!...
LOL..... Only for the sea cucumber.
Had to soak the dried sea cucumber days before it can be cook.
This little sea creatures double it's size from 2.5 inch to a 4.5 inch long spongy weird looking creature.

Before

a photo by melmok

After

a photo by melmok

I don't like how it looks but i love eating them, especially since I found out that sea cucumber help with thyroid cases as well.




All the dishes came out good. It wasn't perfect, but good.

a photo by melmok

• braised mushroom with sea cucumber, fish maw, abalone and gingko
• steam pomfret fish
• stir fried veg
• steam prawns with dong quai and wolf berries
• lotus pork bone soup

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cost has risen

What a bummer...
I just found out that my fav cleanser from Suki skincare has increase its price. *sigh...*

Lucky me, I still have 8-9 months of supply. :D

another year end?

I've meant to blog since ages ago but I was too distracted with other activities around me. 

This whole 2011 has been filled with ups and downs....

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I finally got myself a compact camera to replace my old, dying faithful camera Canon A95.

My dear old camera has served me well for the last 6-7 years...  Yes! It was that long. 
My very first camera and I've fully utilized it. It finally said goodbye at the beginning of this year. 

Got myself a Canon S95 with some sponsor from KY. I was eyeing on the new S100 but at the end, 
my emotional (impulsive buying + lack of patiences) got control of my brain. 
I got persuaded by the sales guy and my patiences of waiting for the launch of S100 was running low. 

My enthusiasm of using my own DSLR is extremely low this year. I think I'm hook to my department's DSLR. Who can blame me huh?

own = Canon 350D 

office = Canon EOS 5D Mark2

like .... *duhhh*

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Been cooking more this year. Been trying to bake with the small toaster over as well. 
Can't wait to get my hands on an oven or a convection oven. 
Guess with the lack of space and $$, I would be getting a convection oven. 

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This year, I got to experience cheap snow, green white mountains, hills and survive the COLDNESS at Manali, Himachal Pradesh. See the magnificent Taj Mahal, Agra and experience diarrhea at Delhi all in India. The whole journey was immortalize in a book.

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Went au naturel in a pool. IT WAS NICE!. As usual I couldn't stand the cold and the weather was cold... 
The sun did not come out as it should have!

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After talking about it for years and delaying it due to timing and worrying about the effect on her after the operation. We finally brought Brandy (the dog) to spay. It's been 2 weeks now, and she's back to her old self. 
In fact, she was back to own self on the 3rd day after the operation. 

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I've discovered natural ways to clean and scrub the house and myself. :)

I've been using all natural skin care product for a year now and I'm feeling good about it! 

Even tried DIY my own shampoo.

Once a while, I would use the off the rack sheet mask. 

That's when I realize that I would have break outs here and there the next day.

*need to pass the unopen sheet mask to friends*

The whole year has been filled with turmoil of emotions... good..... bad..... happy..... sad..... 

There are times when my 'chill pill' works and there are times when it doesn't.

Am grateful for all the things that I have now and like people always say, there is always HOPE.

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crackers

Made another round of cheese cracker with a proper oven during my stay at Subang.  It came out perfect at the beginning...  Then me and my itchy fingers, left it 'slightly' longer in the oven.  So some turned out a bit over burned.  I think I didn't leave it to chill in the fridge long enough. This round, the crackers was oiler then before.  The "mister" said that he prefers the new batch.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

After finishing with the baking of the cheese cracker, I did the rosemary cracker.
It smells wonderful, and I love it too! Didn't add the sesame seed and the dried onions flakes. But I'll definitely add it in the next round.  I'm going cracker crazy.....


I can't wait to try out the rest of Ellie's cracker recipe!
While I was hunting for some cracker recipes, I stumble to her Cheese Cracker recipe.
Then I got excited with her Rosemary Cracker cos i loovveee..... rosemary...

note to self: need to cut my crackers nicer and evenly.

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cheese cracker

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Made some cheese crackers with the little toaster oven. It's a real challenge, trying to bake with the little toaster oven. The crackers was suppose to puff up but as you can see from the picture, it's either over bake or really flat. Of all the crackers, only '2' puffed up....

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Homemade chicken pot pie

** Oh my... I just realise that I still have this post with me in my phone.

I was suppose to post this up last weekend but I was over excited with pot pie and the "un appealing" image taken with my phone. **

Attempt #1 : chicken pot pie with a few strings of spaghetti.

crispy bacon

Last weekend, I stumble upon Lisa's blog and I couldn't help by trying out some of her recipes. Since I have a bag of bacon chips in the freezer, I did a trial batch of Spicy Brown Sugar Bacon (without the spice).

I added more sugar before I placed it in the toaster oven.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Made more with the idea of storing it for snacks but in the end.....

hubby and I finish it less then an hour. It was addictive...!!

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