Dates Season is HERE!!!

Hari Raya Puasa is coming, you will see lots and lots of dates in Supermaket for sales. Hmm, I loves dates, it is sweet and very nutrition even in the desert people can survive for long period of time on diet of little else but dates and camel milk. I used them for smoothie, making cookies and snacks. During NDP, NTUC Fairprice had promotion for dates, a pack only $26. Woah, regret that I did not buy more....

Now stocking up boxes of Dates for the next few months as during non season, dates are hard to find and they are expensive.

For this period, I have the chance to try this new cookie (COCONUT CAROB COOKIES) and they taste great. Ingredients : pitted dates, banana, carob powder and fresh coconut meat

Coconut is another great food, it is very nutritious too. People used it as a drip during war time for treating patient. The best oil to use for cooking is coconut oil, it has a higher smoke point which means it can take higher temperatures better. For your information, heating oils (almost all oils) actually starts to turn the oil into a partially hydrogenated oil.

Guess which one is the COCONUT CAROB COOKIES in the picture?

Actually it is the dark round one, appearance not so appealing until you taste it. What about the one with white and green spots??? It is also another new tried cracker. It has another type of taste, it is salty but very crisy. It is made of sprouted quinoa, flaxseeds, liquid amino, olive oil and wakame flakes. Crunchy Quinoa Cracker!!! If you cook Quinoa in the rice cooker, it turns out to be a bit transparent with spiral curl. It feels like the fish egg you eat at jap restaurant when you bit them. It is a complete protein, and one of the few grains that is not glutinous in its cooked form. From here, I have learnt sprouting and I LOVE it! It is FUN and will share more in my next blog....

Collect your Dates now!

Running after TIME

Hello Everybody, meeting people and changing of life schedule makes me learn and experience things. I had been working for 13 years, stopping and having new identity makes me have a different thinking and experience in life. A lot of things I have around me had been blinded by my busy schedule in work and tasks at home. I never see them and took for granted.... Until I stopped and looked around me and cherished, to be aware and next is to take action!

Please don't ignore what is there for you and when one day, it is gone, regret is of no use....

I had a wonderful 1 Aug 10 at Siok Khoon's house attending a gathering with lots of mummies

and kids and of course friends who are same minded, wanted to have a better life. There are lots of good sharing, I love best is our friend, LINDA, who is so amazing. So brave and make the best for her newborn son! She actually went through home birth without any drugs!!!! I don't think I can. And friends who went through 21 days of fasting, that is a great perservance, well done! The food are simply GREAT! I can eat wholeheartedly without any guilt or restraint, I just love Siok Khoon's mum's food preparation. Healthy and finger licking GOOD. Hurray for Hsiao Kee who makes this happen, yeah!

Through this meeting, I have heard from mums that they have no time to prepare their lunch. They would love to have good meal but despite of our busy schedule and precious time for resting, they would simply grab any fast food to fill our tummy. This I truly understand. But without a good food, it will affect our milk supply quality and in long term ---> HEALTH. For breastfeed mum, what we eat will goes to the baby, they will eat what we are eating. I heard that my friend is eating instant noodles for her meal, or just grab some fruits for lunch. From this, I would like to share how I prepare and take my meal with the minimum time everyday. We have to be healthy and filled with energy before we can take care of our children. If we are down, our children and family members suffers.

Breakfast

For breakfast, I mouth juice 3 oranges, save time, no need to juice and wash machine.

I just started making carrot juice for my son, I used SONA centrifugal juicer. Although not as recommended as masticating juicer but to save time, this is the best. I only have 4 parts to wash and it took me 5 mins to wash my juicer and the juicer costed me $29 only.

Mid morning, I will take smoothie with my son, the blending and washing only takes me 5 mins.

Lunchtime

I took salad(corn, turnip, cucumber, purple cabbage, tomato, alfafa sprouts, lettuce)

+ cooked food (whatever my son is eating).

Questions : When, where, what, how?

SALAD--->

I prepare the salad at night after my son sleeps, I have attached a video, showing the process of preparing my salad. It only took me 10mins for everything.

When you want to eat during noon time, just add liquid amino, agave nectar, nutritional yeast and basil. Mix them up and munch munch...

COOKED FOOD--->

1) Wash a potato and throw in the oven to cook for 30 mins and BINGO, nice, soft, steaming potato is on the way. You can mix with wakame flakes for taste and nutrition. I feed my son with this and some of my raw corn. Or cut the potato into wedges and bake them.

2) Or you can boiled a pot of water, add liquid amino and throw in some broccoli or califlower. It took me 10 mins. My son loves broccoli.

3) Or bake some sweet potato, only took me 1 min to wash and 30 mins to bake without supervision.

Dinner

Slow cooker is my friend for dinner. My husband will be home for dinner and he would prefer hot food. So I will cut some vegetables and throw in the pot 3 hours in advance. It only took me 15mins to wash and cut the vegetables and just leave the cooker on. Add some mee fen or noodle and seasoning in the pot when the dinner is about to start, it only took about 10~15mins to soften the noodle. If porridge is prefered, brown rice can be added with the vegetables.

I don't have to supervise the fire with the slow cooker, oven or rice cooker. Thermo pot is another good equipment, it is energy saving according to my friend's feedback. Too bad, I have too many equipments at home and no space for more.

The END, Phew.... Wait... I need comments, if you have any good and simple recipes to share with me, please drop me a comment or any thing you want to add in. Thanks in advance.

Maitri's favourite ice cream and cookie

Determined to make my cookie looks better, I bought some cookie making mould. It turns out to look better, agreed? My son does not care about the looks, at least not at his age, he will eat anything when he is hungry even LIME. Eeee, sour! You can see the look at his face but he still wants it. Funny... Kat, is Chase eating the heart shape banana cookie? I guess not, I only saw him eating the flaxseed cracker.

For this round I added Carob to my banana cookie and it taste better, yummy! With the same recipes I also make it into ice cream, oh... it taste like chocolate ice cream... in lighter version. My son will point point to the cookie box whenever he saw it. I control the amount he eats. It is a good snack for him especially when I bring him out for a trip, it can quiet him down for a moment. He has a habit of depriving himself from food when he gets to play at his granny's house. But he cannot resist the ice cream and he will share it with his cousin...

RECEIPE : 50% Presoaked Cashew Nuts + 50% Banana + Agave Nectar + Carob Powder ---> blend them up and dehydrate or freeze it

Never known that it is Sooo GOOD!

Have been busy for the past 2 weeks, adjusting to Housewife and part timer life. It is tough tough tough but it is fun to be able to control your own time. It feels good to have the freedom to plan your own schedule, do your tasks anytime you want. Most importantly is that I get to SUN at 9am and 5pm as long as I want to. I don't have to sneak out of the cold office to get sun or fresh air!!!!

My son is finally napping and I get to have some time to kapo in Facebook. Actually, I don't really keen in making dehydrated zucchini until I saw Siok Khoon's comments on the Facebook. REALLY so good meh??? It is really GOOD!!! According to Kat Wood's recipes, I brush some sesame oil and chinese five spices on the thin zucchini slices and throw in the dehydrator for 8 hours. It is very crisy and taste just like chips. Woah... Chase, you like potato chips, right? I think you will like this too.

Breakfast of the Day

Have you taken your breakfast? What do you have? I used to love KAYA with toasted BREAD and a cup of nice fragrance Milk TEA.... I still love them now but only have them once in a blue moon after noon time. Why after noon time? Do you know that from 4am to 12 noon is the elimination period for our body? It is best not to have heavy breakfast which will take your body hours to digest. Because the energy supposed to used for elimination will be used for digestion instead. If you are not allowed to dispose most of your rubbish from your house, will your house stink after stacking all your rubbish in your kitchen for days? It's the same logic.... So it is best to have juices and fruits in the morning. Juices does not need to be digest, it will be readily be absorbed by your body. For fruits, it will take about 1/2 to 1 hour to digest, depends on what fruits you eat.

My breakfast for today is Orange Juice, freshly squeezed from TSL Kitchen. After one hour, I have my Favourite SMOOTHIE. Having fruits is good but having smoothie is like giving the **SPARK** to your meal. I like the surprise everytime I make my smoothie, the taste can be different and interesting.

Best Juice I know

The best juice that is recommended by Ray and Siok Khoon is to have CARROT+BEET ROOT+CELERY in the morning, but I don't have the leisury in making my own juice after becoming a MUMMY. So I just cut the orange and mouth juice. Or I can have watermelon or coconut.

Smoothie for the Day

As you can see from the above pictures, my smoothie for the day is BANANA+BLACKBERRY+STRAWBERRY+DATES+RICE MILK. This smoothie taste great, I love the berries and blackberry gives a unique taste. Dates are very nutritious, I will try to take it almost everyday for IRON. The people of the Middle East consumed dates, as a part of their staple diet, because of its high nutritional value. It is rich in natural fibers and contains a lot of other nutrients, like oil, calcium, sulfur, iron, potassium, phosphorous, manganese, copper, magnesium, etc.

Personal Sharing with Maitri

What do I eat during my pregnancy time?

1 year before my pregnancy, I started having juices and fruits for my breakfast and salad+carbo as my lunch. This gives me a drastic changes in my body, it improves internally and externally. I used to poo poo once in 3 days, now I can do it twice in a day, this is my internal changes. External changes? It remove my tummy tire and my skin is smooth. No more make up or facial cream for washing. Now I use Dr Bonner Soap to wash my body and face. The rest of the time, I only use water to clean my face. No pimples at all and no acnes. So amazing! I saved a lot on my monthly facial and make up product. $$$$

I stopped my meat in take after I know I am pregnant. In my 1st trimester, I can't eat most of the food, I vomitted most of the time. This is due to my high level of toxic in my body which the body tries to cleanse it for my baby to grow. Ray and Siok Khoon helped me through some short fasting during that period and this helps me to have some appetite for food. I lost 3 kg and I hold on till my 2nd trimister then I started to take proper meal. I still takes the same meal as before my preganacy, juice and fruits in the morning and salad+carbo for lunch. Dinner? I took brown rice and cooked vegetables. This continues till I gave birth and during my confinement, I also take the same meal. Of course, there is a lot of nagging and arguement. I am in a better position than most of my friends who take this path. At least my mother and mother in law did not enforce it on me. They only pursue... I have heard of one case that my friend got beaten by her mother for not sending her daughter to the hospital. I also have a friend whose mother must have her grandson to have fish during his meal and checked up on her every now and then.

Exercise

It is very important during pergnancy, it helps you to have an easier birth.

The best is to do swimming. I started in my 2nd trimester and I swam once a

week and also suntan at the same time. From the time I admitted to the hospital until I gave birth, it is only 4 hours. With addition that the doctor gave me drips and burst my water bag during the process.

Sunlight

It is very very very very very important things to do everyday for EVERYONE. Vitamin D! I tried to get out in the sun as much as I can and exposed my tummy to let my baby get the sun too.

***This is only my sharing on my experience. Please do some consultation if you want to have any changes in your diet. ***

My Favourite Dip

Someone told me that it taste like one of the French dip and again another friend told me that it taste like Sour Cream Pringle!!! YEah, it is CASHEW CREAM CHeese, they call it. I will always want to have this when I happen to buy some good bread from Cedele, maybe I should say better? Whatever... Now MOH is promoting Wholegrain Bread instead of plain white bread. I used to love bread + kaya + butter or even peanut butter... SINFUL STUFF! But now I am trying to cut down on them if I could zip my mouth.

This is my Favvvvvvvvvourite DIP, yummy... Get your 120g cashew nuts presoaked for 4 hours, juice of 1 lemon (put less or more according to your taste), 1 tsp miso, 1/4 onion, BLEND THEM UP! ***Take note, add some water before blending, add more water if your blade is not moving or help to stir up a bit*** Leave it in the fridge and it will thicken abit. Keep it in the fridge for freshness. I usually eat up within 3 days but I think to keep 1 week in the fridge should be fine.

Remember DO NOT OVEREAT and EAT WITH MODERATION. Good food does not means eat all you can or eat as much as you can. There should be a balance in life beside pure food, we also need sunlight, love, good relationships, exercise, calm mind, spiritual, emotional health..... and Everyday is a GOOD day! :) Enjoy.

Recipe reference : Raw Living, Kate Wood