Tag Archives: diet

: : Bento 4 ~ Smiley Face with Dino Eggs : :

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Making faces with food. Does that count as playing with food?

See the things I do to keep myself occupied away from playing an online game?

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I was ready to stop when one of the quail eggs I did kind of cracked a bit when I started doing the dino eggs. But didn’t look too bad so moved ahead. See the nest of dino eggs amidst the jungle foliage (broccoli) against a starry night?

OK, I’m cracked up. 🙁

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Was trying to do a checkered board but it’s harder than I thought it would be. Haha! The terrine from the other day wasn’t browned enough to give the effect. Anyway, hid it with some of the carrots where I stuff the egg yolk circles in. Waste not, want not, even if it’s itty bitty little scraps of food.

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Mackerel poached with 1/2 teaspoon of tomyam paste and water and some garlic. Then made the smiley face. The moustache was leftover chai sim in the fridge.

The fish is sitting on a bed of cucumbers. I need to beef up my intake of vegetables and I still got the feeling it wasn’t quite enough.

Haven’t quite mastered the way of the artist but I can’t do much atm since I’m going to be away soon. So can’t stock up on any food else Granny nags me for buying too much and poor her has to eat it. Hee hee!

: : Bento #3 ~ Getting slightly easier but harder too : :

3rd bento box is done but some technical problems has arisen.

-Wilthering seaweed.
-Yolk in quail’s egg has settled on the bottom. Haha!
-Wasn’t easy to cut out the shapes in the quail. Haha!
-Make sure that nori sheets are oil free!
-Use something to completely level the noodles! It’s not flat enough
-Get some cherry tomatoes or something that is red to give it the red color.
-Don’t be lazy to cut cucumbers to fill in.
-Get a smaller food container.
-DON’T USE TOO MUCH HAM!!

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Red rice noodles stir-fried with long beans, yellow capsicum and onions. Seasoned with 2 teaspoon of Mirin and 1 teaspoon of Lea & Perrin’s Worcester sauce. Surprisingly, the veggies didn’t mix too well, or the noodles were perhaps a bit too long. Anyway, separated out the veggie into a smaller corner where I covered them with some cut-out shapes of ham and carrots.

The quail eggs were interesting to cut. The danger was that too much pressure and the egg may just burst. Also, I found that the egg yolk have all sunk to the bottom because the eggs were propped upright.

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This was neat to do. I cut the stars in the egg and stuffed in some star-shaped carrots. Used the same mould so it stuck together well. Haha! The idea came from this Japanese Bento Blogger. She’s amazing.

I also wrapped around sheets of nori seaweed around the eggs since these were leftovers from the flower cutting. It left a very nice color combination. Better than I thought.

Didn’t fill up the entire container because I thought it might have been too much eggs by then.

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The stir-fried veggie is underneath. Yes, ham. Ham. HAM!!! Very very salty and fatty. 🙁

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A garden full of flowers. Tried to make the green lawn but there’s more to bento making then what I had expected. Need to find a way to make the noodles more flat. It was too uneven so the flowers weren’t completely flat. Probably better to use rice.

Ok, now all I need to do in the future is think how to avoid the usage of ham. Also, to cook fish or meat for lunchbox. Been lazy the past few weeks so it’s either egg or beans for the protein source. Else, I’ll eat only a small protein portion during dinner and put the other half into my lunchbox.

: : Bento Beginner : :

Bento #1 - box 1

Bento #1 - Box 2

 Sloppy work but what the hey. First time beginner. 🙂 Egg filling between 2 honey wholemeal bread. All vegetables except for the cherry tomatoes had been steamed.

Postnote : My 2nd cousin Davin has made this interesting commentary about the 2nd picture.

Is that someone sitting on the balcony of the longhouse looking over the Mountains (broccoli) on the left and Clouds (cauliflower) on the right?

: : Bento Boxes : :

I think I may have found a better solution to portion control than I realised. Because it looks like the Japanese have already come up with that solution. Apparently, all one needs to know is 3 parts carbo, 1 part protein, 2 parts vegetables and select the container based on the volume.

Guide to Choosing the Right Size Bento Box
Translation of how to Select Bento Boxes from Yellow Studio, Japan

So, it looks like the Tupperware lunchbox that I’ve been carrying around is the 900 ml one and what I really should be eating is a 600 ml container.

Anyway, there are lot of inspirations online. Some links are here :
Bento Challenge
Video Games Characters come alive!

Well, have ordered some bento sets from ebay Malaysia. Now all I have to do is wait for them to come but in the mean time, just use what I currently have at hand.

: : Oxidative Stress relating to Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Diseases & Other Chronic Modernday Diseases : :

Another article that I wrote on the Health and Fitness Section of the Lowyat.net forums. The original discussion is here.

Introduction

Some of you may know that I’ve been spending the past week with parents and doing a bit of research on diabetes. Somehow along the way, I stumbled across something interesting that touches upon cancer and other diseases / illnesses as well as the impact of exercising regularly. Thinking of parking this post under some of the other posts such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, didn’t quite seem to fit because it also covers the impact of exercises and other illnesses.

 It started out coincidently by a book called “”What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You” by Dr. Ray Strand at a local bookstore. Surprisingly, it didn’t turn out to be a boring read but an interesting one, especially from a medical doctor who can explain in layman terms about modern day illnesses and issues. Plus, the approach is different where he admitted that he had been wrong about nutrition supplements and that it took his wife’s disease and cure to finally convince him.

Oxidative Stress

He gave an explaination about a bodily process known as Oxidative Stress which is currently link to modern day diseases. Click here for an explaination about it : http://www.nutritional-medicine.net/oxidative-stress.asp . The fire-place analogy is a good explaination of the process that is hapenning in our bodies. If you Google “oxidative stress”, you will find more info but it’s written in medical terms that it takes quite awhile to digest.

This includes cancer, diabetes, heart problems, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lung disease, eye problems, arthritis, osteoporosis, neurodegenerative disease (Alzeheimers, Parkinson although his remedy is only to slow down the disease and not eliminate it like the others). What he says is gleaned from medical research evidence and through google searches, there’s a lot of talk about Oxidative Stress impacting people and that doctors are now looking to see how to get the body to react better to such stresses. And that’s where antioxidants come in.

Continue reading : : Oxidative Stress relating to Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Diseases & Other Chronic Modernday Diseases : :