0 (Waiting to be) discharged

Last few moments in the hospital ward. Document procedures sure take long! Just had my last meal, again from the Western selection. "Cream of green pea soup; Slow braised minced chicken caccitore and vegetable." A wee salty overall and had the "canned" taste, from the tomato sauce to the pea soup. But lately salty food has been appealing to me (usually not the case). - baaad. The oatmeal this morning was slightly thicker, an improvement from the watery version I had a few days ago. Their "peach compote" ended up as half a canned peach, and the lemon ricotta was non-existent. But I can do without cheese in my oatmeal, thank you.

Anyhow, my latest weight is 33.3 kg, meaning I gained ~2.5 kg over 6 days, which averages 0.4-0.5 kg a day. Is that too fast a rate? But I'm happy and feel better. No more bak chang feet though now the swelling has decided to hit my abdomen - BIG TIME. I'm like an underaged 4 month pregnant woman. Hope this issue reverts back to normal soon and is not a symptom of another condition!

Happy to be outta here!

0 Wah[hhh] Lok

Despite my love for all things Mediterranean, I suppose one cannot ignore one's roots. Mum chose to mark her big 55 at Wah Lok, a Cantonese restaurant at Carlton Hotel. It was a good choice; a classic comforting Cantonese dinner that pleased with every dish. 'Cuse the pun in the post title ;)

Christmas deco at the lobby. Not quite sure of what to make of their weird-shaped bauble lighting

Apparently the restaurant has just been renovated, and the new decor and furnishings are really stunning. For example, walking through the entrance itself already makes for a dramatic experience, with the arched frames, dark wood glossy marble flooring and backlit lighting giving an ethereal feel.

Equally stunning were the dishes. As with the Cantonese tradition, we started off with a soul-comforting soup - abalone and chicken/pork and wolfberries. The abalone was slightly tough and chewy, but I nevertheless ate it knowing its price value. Luckily though, it didn't have any of that fishy taste. On the other hand, the soup itself was very moreish; a great way to whet the appetite.

Then came the Peking duck which I didn't have.

After a hideously long wait, the tofu, spinach, sea cucumber and chicken feet casserole finally arrived. The ingredients were coated in a brown sauce that didn't fall prey to being too starchy or gloopy, as with many places do. The tofu could have been slightly softer, and the sea cucumber, for some unknown reason, was mushy instead of springy like it was a vegetarian mock sea cucumber. After all these nitpicking though, the casserole overall was still rather enjoyable.

But of course, the highlight of the meal, and possibly in my gastronomic experience - a whooping humongous 2.4 kg Alaskan king crab, lightly steamed in a clear egg white broth. I'd never seen such huge pincers and legs before. The shell was soft and obediently yielded to force, unlike those crabs at zi char places. For example, I didn't even require tools to open the pincers! The meat came out in chunks and was sweet and succulent and so very umami. It was a highly memorable experience.

By this time we were all groaning with pleasure but we still had to tackle the last dish - vermicelli with bean sprouts and meat. The brown sauce nicely coated the strands of vermicelli and bean sprouts added a nice crunch.

Service was great; the recommendations by the waiter was spot on and personally, he came across rather comical and entertaining too. The only complaint is that the food came out rather slowly so there was lots of waiting time in between. But maybe that's what you need to trade for top-notch food. The bill was beyond our expectations, largely attributed to the king crab. I'm looking forward to try the more affordable dim sum range in the future.

0 Dysregulation

I think am self-destructive, or at least immune to stress, or maybe, have a damaged amygdala. Knowing very well that I have an assignment which deadline is imminent, exam in two freakin' weeks time, and untouched revision, yet I still am surfing the web like it's the holidays. Why can't I regulate my behaviour properly???

But I haven't been that relaxed and happy in such a long while. After church (7.30 AM service - a convert to early bird :)) I headed to Cold Storage at Takashimaya for grocery shopping. Unfortunately at just past 9 the shops were still closed. What [bad] luck. As such, it called for a detour to United Square's branch instead. But it proved a blessing in disguise because I scored a few discounted items and exotic buys. Like:

• Kashi cinnamon harvest (blame it on Amanda's influence! In fact I still have an unopened box of Dr. Oz's buckwheat flakes)
• 71% Ecuador dark chocolate block (Montezuma)
• Swiss farmer rolls (Swiss Bake) - 1/2 price!
• Pacific Almond milk (unsweetened) [couldn't bring myself to splurge on Silk's almond milk]
• Flavour Fall pluots - 1/2 price and in rather good condition still!
• Wild sockeye salmon [omegas yum!]

I think what put in a such a good mood was really today's breakfast: (last of) rolled oats (Binda Valley) cooked in unsweetened soy milk (Natura), sweetened with 1/2 mashed nana and raisins, upped with protein powder (Lifetime Life's Basic protein - the most neutral flavour thus far, compared to Sunwarrior and Vega Health Optimizer) and protein blend (real good food), spiced with cinnamon and chocolate chili and dressed with chocolate hazelnut butter (Justin's). A double whammy of chocolate would be bound to deliver a double whammy of endorphins and it sure did!

And then it was home sweet home. Managed to be a good girl and squeeze in a bit of work before spending ~2 hours (!) cooking and eating lunch, which was a ooey gooey curry & cumin bean stew (BRM whole grains and beans soup mix) with torned tortilla pieces, avocado, sardines (Boiromar), curly lettuce, cucumber, tomato, honey goat's cheese (Delamere) and beetroot relish.

A Jaffa sweetie (pomelo x grapefuruit) to end the meal. Guess what was found on Pubmed:

All applied methods showed that sweeties had higher antioxidative activity than grapefruit. Experiments on laboratory animals show that diets supplemented with sweeties, and to a lesser extent with grapefruit, increased the plasma antioxidative potential and improved the lipid metabolism, especially in the rats fed with added cholesterol.

Apparently a sweetie has more antioxidants than a grapefruit!

Lately people's been asking what I plan to do after I graduate. My PI is persuading me to consider PhD at TLL. For once, I really don't know what should my next step in life; so far it's been pretty straightforward: pri > sec > jc > uni, with the choice of school's quite [re-determined too. Pray for God's guidance in this.

0 Lovely Sunday

Sunday Dinner Menu [for 1]

Soup: Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix (green split peas, yellow split peas, barley, lentils and vegetable pasta)and baby carrots simmered in water for 40 mins, blended in soy milk and topped with roasted garlic and roasted red peppers.

Salad: Curly lettuce, iceberg lettuce, red cabbage, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and avocado massaged in a apple cider vinegar and hazelnut oil dressing.

Toast: SwissBake Abendbrot (evening bread) topped with avocado, canned tuna and the remainder of roasted red peppers.

-

It's been a while since I posted. Basically my life is on repeat mode right now: sleep, wake, eat, lab, home. Every night I reach home so dead tired I don't feel like doing anything else. Not the most healthy of lifestyles, but when time and results are of the essence, what can I do? Fortunately, I've completed the time-point experiments so now the timing of heat shocks and dissections are more flexible. But unfortunately also, school resumes tomorrow. Is it really the final year 4 already?

Apart from lab, which is dominating 90% of my life right now, this week also saw some other memorable events. Unlike mainstream Singaporeans who chose to celebrate NDP with the televised show (or at Marina Bay for those lucky ticket holders) the fam (except daddy who is in Malaysia) had a lovely vegetarian dinner at Original Sin at Chip Bee Gardens on National Day. I think they revamped their menu since the last time I went there for my 20th birthday two years ago. Nevertheless, their food remains wholesomely Mediterranean. I loved my order of Capsicum Quinoa - roasted capsicums stuffed with crunchy quinoa and topped with a delightfully refreshing mint tzatziki. It also came with antipasti (cherry tomatoes, grapes and olives in a zesty vingerish dressing) and salad. However I think the portion of quinoa was rather small for a main course. The chef's special of the day, potato gnocchi, sounded interesting, but I didn't feel very carbish that ngiht. No cameras that day so I can only rely on visual memory.

0 A field of mushrooms

Mum returned from the land Down Under with two bags full of huge-ass portobello shrooms. Though slightly dried out from the journey to Singapore, it's the thought that counts. The easiest, fastest and most convenient way to use up a generous amount of shrooms before they turn bad is to churn it into soup (again!). A dried porcini stock further intensifies the heady mushroom aroma and taste. In contrast to my previous vegan version, I chose to use the classic (real) ingredients this time round: butter and milk, and the result was much tastier and satisfying.

Portobello & Porcini Soup (adapted from Noob Cook)
Serves 3 to 4

Ingredients

• 12g butter
• 1/2 medium white onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 400ml mushroom stock (made from rehydrated 1/4 cup dried porcini)
• 150g portobello mushrooms, chopped into chunks
• 3-4 sage leaves, chopped
• 80ml dry vermouth
• 80ml milk
• salt & black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Melt butter over medium heat in a large saucepan. Saute onion and garlic until soft but not browned, about 4 minutes.
2. Add stock, and bring to boil.
3. Add in chopped portobellos and rehydrated porcini. Let simmer for 15-20 min until softened.
4. Stir in sage.
5. Remove a portion of mushrooms and chopped into chunks of desired size. Using an immersion or conventional blender, blend the remaining mixture until smooth.
6. Add vermouth, milk and chopped mushrooms. Heat until just below boiling point.
7. Serve warm and with a side of crusty bread for mopping up those shroom goodness!

Was too hungry and the soup too good to pause for a photo. It reminded me of the Pate Moi spread I bought from Borough Market in London. So heady and good! Another bag of portobello shrooms to conquer. I'm thinking of some simple but (hopefully still juicy) olive oil portobello steaks to sandwich between bread!

0 Pumpkin rosemary soup

When life throws you pumpkins, do you (i) turn it into pumpkin pie, (ii) make a mediterranean vegetable roast, or (iii) churn it into velvety pumpkin soup? Having bought a quarter of Australian Blue pumpkin today, I decided on the latter. Some recipes for pumpkin soup call for canned pumpkin which, of course, is more convenient, saving the hassle of chopping, roasting, blending and washing up. I'm not sure if there's much of a difference in taste, but at least using fresh allays concerns of BPA ingestion. This soup is best paired with some toasty bread and a side salad.

Pumpkin rosemary soup
Makes 1 large serve or 2 small

Ingredients

• 200g pumpkin, skins on and diced into half-moons
• 1/4 medium red onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
• 150 ml water, divided into 100 ml and 50 ml
• 60 ml fresh milk
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• salt & pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Roast pumpkin with olive oil, garlic and rosemary for 15 min or until slightly soft. Remove skins from pumpkin and cut into cubes.
3. In a sauce pan, heat olive oil over medium heat and saute onion for 2 min. Add roasted pumpkin, garlic and rosemary and saute for another 2-3 min.
4. Pour 100 ml water and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 8-10 min. Turn off the flame and let cool.
5. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with fresh rosemary. Serve warm.

I loved the pairing of sweet pumpkin with the tea-like, slightly bitter rosemary. By far the best pumpkin soup in my recipe books! A juicy salmon sandwich accompanied the luscious soup. I wished I could say I baked the beautiful bread (below) myself, but the credit goes to Swissbake. Their Fitness Brot is a rye and wheat based bread packed generously with carrots, oats, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds. Although not stated in the ingredient list, I spotted flax seeds too. The variety of ingredients gives it a nice chewy and crunchy texture. I scored a great deal, having bought it at 50% off at $5, just because it was packed yesterday (14 July) compared to the fresh loaves on the shelf (packed 15 July). What a difference one day makes!

0 Cream of portobello soup (vegan)

Cashews is the "cream" to this soup, but does not distract from the earthy intense poortobello flavours.

Cream of portobello soup (vegan)

Yield: serves 4-6

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 medium red onion, chopped

1/2 lb (I used 200 g) portobello mushrooms, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

2 1/2 cups water or vegetable stock

1/2 tsp dried Italian herbs (use fresh herbs if available)

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup raw cashews (for 'cashew cream')

Directions
1. In a large heavy pot over medium-high heat, saute onion in olive oil till soft (3-5 min).
2. Add garlic, carrot and mushrooms. Cook, stirring often until mushrooms are slightly browned (3 min).
3. Add water/stock, herbs and salt. Stir well. Bring to boil, then simmer for 25-30 min.
4. Meanwhile, soak cashews in water.
5. According to how fine/chunky you like your soup to be, remove a portion of the mushroom mixture into a tall container. Add in soaked cashews (chopped). Use a hand-held blender and blend till smooth. Alternatively, this can be done in a conventional blender.
6. Return puree to pot with the remaining carrots/mushrooms.
7. Simmer another 5-10 min. Serve hot.

0 Soup tales

Lotus root peanut soup - my very first attempt at cooking Chinese soup! Usually I like to make Western style soups like tomato/roasted bell pepper soup but I do believe Chinese soups have certain "healing" properties when Chinese herbs like danggui and red dates are added. At the very least, all the nutrients from the ingredients would leach into the soup and thus it provides an easily digested storm of nutrients for the body.

Lotus has its roots in traditional Chinese culture (nice pun eh?), which endorse the belief that the lotus roots has 'yin' or cooling properties. Hence it is recommended for providing relief for "heaty" sickness, such as "heaty" liver and "heaty" lungs, symptoms often which include headaches, irritability and flushed cheeks. It is also believed to purify blood and stimulate appetite and nourish qi (vital energy).

I leave it up to you to decide if you believe all the above. But I know this makes one mean tasty bowl of soup! Usually pork bones/ribs are used as the stock base, but I did it with a fish stock as there wasn't any pork bones on hand. It went juuuust fine :)

Lotus Root Peanut Soup

Yield: ~ 6 servings

Ingredients

• 250g fish bones
• Knob of ginger, sliced
• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 large lotus root or 2 small (~ 350-400g), sliced into 1cm thick slices
• 1 carrot (optional, for added sweetness)
• 10 red dates
• 2 handfuls raw peanuts  (30g or ~1/3 cup; I didn't have raw ones on hand and used roasted peanuts. Nothing went wrong)
• 2 L water (16 cups)

Directions

1. Soak red dates in water for at least 30 mins to soften. 
2. Soak (raw) peanuts in water for about 1 h.
3. Bring 2 L of water to boil in a large pot.
4. Meanwhile, pan fry fish bones with the ginger slices for 2-3 minutes each side with oil. This is to firm up the flesh to reduce disintegration (and the resulting icky floating bits) later on.
5. Add the seared fish and ginger to the hot water a let boil for 20 min.
6. Strain soup to remove icky bits of loose fish meat. 
7. Transfer intact fish bones into a slow cooker (or another pot). Add the sliced lotus root, peanuts, red dates and carrot (if using) into the slow cooker. Pour in fish stock.
8. Simmer for 6-8 h.
9. Salt to taste before serving.

0 To the test

Bowl and plate I bought from Anthropologie yesterday:

Fleur de lys soup bowl

Chameleon turquoise plate

I havent touched the plate yet, but the bowl has taken me from breakfast to dinner.

Breakfast: steel cutters/oat bran mix (3:1 is the perfect chewy/creamy ratio) w chocolate spirutein hidden right at the bottom for a nice surprise, tahini and raspberries.

Dinner: 10 bean and savoy soup with sweet yellow peppers and baked pepper cod, seasoned with cornish brie cheese and mushroom pate from Pate Moi..

At least now I dont procrastinate about washing up cos I want my pretty bowls clean.

Oh yes, just when I finally decided to do my laundry, I made a terrible mistake and put the coins into the wrong dryer slot. I wanna my 1 pound refund!!

0 Anthro spells Desire.

What a day! My day officially started after lunch (leftover Whole Foods salad) with the sojourn down to Southbank. I wanted to check out the Xmas fair and World Press Photo Exhibition. Incidentally, this weekend was also the Tea & Coffee market fair. The air was thick from the aroma of coffee beans. Too bad I'm not drawn to coffee or tea, but for those who are, I guess it was heaven for them. The World Press Photo Exhibition (free at Southbank Centre) was an eye-opener - a tragic one. It showcases news photos by photojournalists and most of the photos had to do with either one of the following: war, death, natural disaster, man-made disaster, poverty or crime. Very typical themes. The xmas fair, held along the river walkway, was thronging with people. I was kind of disappointed though. If not for the christmassy decorations and outlook of the stalls, you could have mistaken it for another typical street market; most stalls were hawking regular items and not christmas-related goods.

Southbank Christmas fair from the Hungerford Bridge. *First time crossing this bridge too!*

By luck, the sun had decided to set beautifully that day, albeit at 3.30 pm only. Days are getting shorter and gloomier.

And then it was off to Anthropologie! Last night I made a list of "to-dos" and "to-sees" before I leave London. With just three weeks left (!) I had better make the most out of Time. One of the "to-do" on my list is to get bowl/plate from Anthropologie. Expensive store with parisan chic stuff, but wares are their endearing! Since there's no Anthropologie in Singapore, I had better not dither on whether to buy/not to buy.

Regent street with christmas deco, on the way to Anthropologie.

By the time I got out of the store, it was dark already. I had spent an hour inside as I couldn't decide between all the intricately designed bowls and plates. Moreover I fell in love with this comical owl jar (the head being the lid) which I thought would be a perfect oatmeal bowl. The price? 32 freaking pounds = 64 dollars. My hands reluctantly put the owl back onto the shelf. Still, I'm more than happy with my two purchases - a white scalloped soup bowl from the Fleur de Lys collection and a turquoise plate with a chameleon and flowers inked on. I loved the turquoise and shape of the plate but loathed the chameleon. I mean, who would want to eat from a plate with a chameleon on it? But the pull of the former was too strong, and eventually I thought it was a rather quirky plate, and thus relented (and am happy now :D)

Back out into the dark cold. Surprisingly, the christmas lights & deco here isn't half as exciting as those in Singapore.

I stopped by Whole Foods (Soho branch), got a can of Suma pea soup, thought of having dinner at Hummus Bros, but decided not to. Back to Dover it was, where I made a simple, quick (the kitchen was occupied :( )but absolutely delicious dinner taken from the ever-so-useful 500 recipes Mediterranean cookbook - warm fish soup on a bed of toasted (garlic) bread. My version consisted of: frozen cod, chopped savoy cabbage and Warburton's seeded bread, toasted, remaining 1/2 of the roasted orange pointed pepper, and a sun-dried tomato and garlic clove. Essentially you pour the fish soup over the toasted bread, which becomes soggy and mushy but that's the beauty of it!

0 Yum yums

Second post for today. I made 10-bean & kale soup for dinner again, but this time with the special addition of roasted sweet pointed orange pepper.

The sweet peppers (5 for a pound!) and raspberries (1 pound!) I bought from Borough Market and the KCL hoodie (finally) yesterday

My daily 10-bean soup. This was actually made a couple of days back. I didn't take a picture of today's special one though, sadly. The sweet pepper made all the difference. I've never seen chili-like peppers in orange or yellow before! Although they resemble chili, they're not spicy at all. Instead, they are reminiscent of bell peppers in taste, except even sweeter! My soup was bursting with bell pepper capsaicin goodness!

More random stuff: my breakfast babies. Raw brazil nut/cacao spread slightly sweetened with agave (rawhealth.uk.com) and dark tahini (Sunita brand). Heaven on oatmeals. ;)