Food Waste Friday: Moldy Stuff and A Rescue Mission

Posted on September 30, 2011 by The Giddy Tigress

Today (and hopefully every Friday), I’m joining The Frugal Girl and other bloggers out there in posting my food waste photos within the past week, calling it Food Waste Friday.  It is hoped that by sharing pictures of the food I have wasted, it would motivate me to reduce wastage as much as possible.  I will try my very best to participate each week, and hopefully there will be weeks where I will be able to happily report that there was 0% wastage! 🙂

fwf-Sept30-2011

I checked my larder and my fridge today, and found I had to toss these two things out.

One, a half-eaten piece of mee-koo, which is a type of bun made from rice flour.  Sometimes I forget that I have this in the house and that’s why we see a party of mold there.  Ewww.

Two, a pack off sweet basil leaves which had gone all soggy.  This bummed me out big time because I love basil. I’d forgotten about it because it was placed in a separate compartment in my fridge.  I only took it out on Friday when I wanted to make a quick omelette.  Well, because I love basil so, I decided to try to salvage it as best I could.  I picked out the leaves which were still quite all right, and some which were slightly soggy.  Then I put these handful of leaves in one of my trusty Pyrex glass storage bowls, added some water and chilled it in the fridge.  After a few hours, the basil leaves didn’t look too bad! 🙂

fwf-Sept30-2011-01

In fact, I think I might have just enough to make another sweet basil omelette! 😀

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Right Now, I Am…

Posted on September 28, 2011 by The Giddy Tigress

pizza

…still thinking about the Chicken Perfection Pizza from Domino’s we had for dinner.  It was a takeout night tonight because the *chef* had to rest her hands due to eczema.  The pizza was a special one made from chicken breast, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and a special Pesto Passion sauce.  Cost to feed the four of us was RM28.50 for the pizza and included cinnastix and onion rings.  Pizza tasted like aglio olio…and everyone loved it.  Maybe it was really delicious, or maybe it was because we hadn’t ordered takeout in the longest time.

…wondering what time I will be able to call it a night tonight.

…anxious to find out when my eczema would completely be cured.

…thinking about what to cook tomorrow…or if I should rest for one more day.

…always hoping I had more than 24 hours in a day.

…afraid yet excited of the impending changes to come…

…dreaming of our not-too-distant future…

…pondering on whether I ought to change my blog’s theme.  It might take a few hours to get things right, though.  I wonder if I have the time to spare.

…excited about the upcoming school holidays…oh wait, that’s not till December… haha…

…mentally reminding myself to get the kids’ shampoo and body lotion the next time we go grocery shopping.

…happy that I’ve grown my hydrangeas well enough to transplant part of the plant into another pot.

…worried if I’ve done it properly and if it will grow well.

…thankful that I have two beautiful faces to look at day in and day out (oh, three, if I count my husband LOL).  And although these faces sometimes get into naughty and cheeky antics, I love them to bits.

…grateful that I am showered with hugs and kisses every day.

…hoping that I will do as great a job as I possibly can as a mother.

…having fun with this post and wondering if anyone wants to follow suit..but

…really tired now and so…

…calling it a night..

(I got this superb “Right Now, I Am…” post idea from The Frugal Girl, who, in turn got the idea from Soule Mama)

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Food Waste Friday: Boo boo boo…

Posted on September 23, 2011 by The Giddy Tigress

Today (and hopefully every Friday), I’m joining The Frugal Girl and other bloggers out there in posting my food waste photos within the past week, calling it Food Waste Friday.  It is hoped that by sharing pictures of the food I have wasted, it would motivate me to reduce wastage as much as possible.  I will try my very best to participate each week, and hopefully there will be weeks where I will be able to happily report that there was 0% wastage! 🙂

fwf-Sept23-2011

This week, I tossed out the following food items:

  • 1 huge bowl of chicken and sweet potato porridge.  I cooked this on Monday, just in case my girl wouldn’t eat dinner and she would have this as a backup.  But it turned out that she ate her rice, so I kept this in the fridge.  I took it out on Wednesday and decided to toss it away even though it didn’t look bad, because I didn’t want to serve my family porridge that had been kept for so many days.  Boo.
  • 2 wholemeal sweet potato buns, which had some moss growing on them, as you can see from the picture.  Forgot to put them in the fridge after 2 days to *preserve* their lifespan.  Double Boo.
  • 1 red-dyed hard-boiled egg, which was part of the party pack from my son’s classmate who had a birthday celebration a week ago.  I forgot to use it the day after the celebration…in a salad or just on its own.  Triple Boo.

On the flipside, I did manage to cook up a variety of dishes this week, veering slightly away from the norm.  And for that, I am pleased.

How did you do this week?

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I Made “Masak Titek”!

Posted on September 22, 2011 by The Giddy Tigress

masaktitek

I was checking my vegetable inventory in my fridge 2 days ago, and realized that I had overbought the vegetables.  I had a whole packet of sweet potato leaves, which I didn’t know what to cook.  And while I like to eat sambal belacan stir-fried with sweet potato leaves, I was wary that it might leave my kitchen all oily afterward.  Oh yeah, been there, done that moment right there.

So then I remembered I wanted to try cooking a popular nyonya dish called “Masak Titek”.  I don’t know why it’s called as such, but it’s one of those dishes I really love.

I made a quick stop at Tesco to get some ingredients and proceeded to try my hand at cooking this dish.  I managed to get the sweet potato in a lovely orange shade, and at a discount too!

Well…the dish was a success! …According to *my* standards anyway… My hubby is not really a fan of this dish, so since there was some leftover, I chilled it in the fridge and ate it again the next day!  Yummsss!!!

Have you tried cooking or eaten this dish before?  My recipe is a very simple one and I’d have to admit, might have been modified from the original, but I like its simplicity anyhow.

“Masak Titek” (or Masak Lemak) Ingredients

  • Sweet potato leaves
  • 1 medium sweet potato, skinned and sliced into cubes
  • 12-15 medium-sized shrimps, shelled if you like
  • 200g dried shrimps (if you have a pestle, pound it.  I didn’t, so I took the easy way out)
  • 200ml coconut milk
  • 1 tsp sambal belacan
  • 2 bowls water
  • Salt to taste

Directions

  1. Put the sweet potato, shrimps, dried shrimps and sambal belacan into the water and bring to boil.
  2. Simmer until sweet potato is soft.
  3. Add in coconut milk and sweet potato leaves and simmer for a few more minutes.
  4. Add some salt to taste if necessary.
  5. Serve hot with steamed rice!
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Me-Time Luxuries: Chocolate is Not Just for Eating!

Posted on September 20, 2011 by The Giddy Tigress

chocmask1

I tried making another facial mask today.  Chocolate lovers would be happy to read that I used chocolate this time.  Yep.  The dark kind.  Supposedly dark chocolate contains a whole lot more antioxidants than does regular milk chocolate.  As a side note, this dark chocolate facial mask is suitable on DRY SKIN.

Referring to this homemade chocolate face mask recipe and video, I made the mask, applied it and surfed the net for about 15 minutes while I let the mask do its job.

Continue reading →

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