Ginger-amazing natural food

Yesterday I read through a blog from Swanson.com, and I saw a very interesting article is about Ginger. As all Chinese people usually know, ginger is very good for the digestive system, reduce bloating and good for flu as well. Usually what we will do is we will peel the ginger, slice it, then we'll cook it with tea and sugar to make it kind of like dessert type of drinks. But then, what I saw in the blog open my eyes. I realize the function of ginger not only for digestive system, it is very good for arthritis/ joint pain, muscle pain, motion sickness, cramp, fever, heartburn, liver, blood circulation and etc. It is really an amazing natural product.

Then I learn some of the recipe from the blog as well. How to make ginger syrup so that you no need to cook it every time.  So here is the recipe that all of us can try, convenient and taste very nice.

Ingredients:
2 cups of unpeeled, washed fresh ginger, roughly chopped
2 cups of sugar
6 cups of water

The ratio is actually 1:1:3

Directions:
Chop the ginger by using food processor or blender. If you have none of these, you can always chop it finely with a knife. Add the chopped ginger to stock pot.
Add sugar and water to the pot and stir.
Bring it to a boil then reduce to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook for about 1 hour until a rich syrup is created.
Strain the syrup twice through cheese cloth/ fine sieve into a jar or bottle.
Refrigerate it for later used.

This ginger syrup can be used to mix all kinds of drinks or you can always use it to make a dessert.
Ginger syrup can mix with hot tea = ginger tea
Ginger syrup mix with soda and lime

Otherwise you can soak the chopped ginger with the oil, massage to the joint to relieve joint pain. And it can help to burn fat as well!

Hope you like it..

Recepi: Milk + Egg White Pudding

In the past Tuesday, it was a public holiday in Malaysia and I was so free. So I search some of the dessert recipes through the internet so that I can give it a try during the day. Then I saw an extremely easy recipe on this milk & egg pudding. Here are the ingredients you will need:

2 egg white

Full cream/ Low fat milk   250ml

Condensed milk or sugar   1-2 tablespoon ( depends on your preference)

Preparing: 5 mins

Cooking time: 10-15 mins

Serving: 2

By using these 3 simple ingredients where most of us will have it in the fridge, you can make a delicious dessert.

1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl ( bowl that can be used to steam)

2. Steam it for 10-15 mins

3. Eat it all!!!

It was so delicious until I forgot to take pictures. I will update it next time. 

Enjoy XD

Jakarta 4 days trip- day 4: Mangga Dua

Finally the last day of the trip. Where would we go? Of course is the last stop, Mangga Dua. It is the shopping paradise for the people who did business or the people who wants to buy cheap things in bulk. It is located at the Jakarta Town, and just bare in mind, it will be terrible traffic jam of course. So you need to depart 1 hour earlier if you want to reach there by 10am. Then you will be crazy shopping at the mall, and sometimes you will even forget you will be going back later. Haha....

After crazy shopping, we go back to the hotel and pick our things up. Then again we need to sit in the taksi for about 2 hours in order for us to go to the airport, all because of the traffic. So if you are the type who like to sit in the car, please come here for a longer time. Don't just come few days. For people like me, i will become crazy if i keep on stuck in this kind of traffic jam.

Car and car will become so near when you are in Jakarta, and this is one of the local transport which stick with the angkut. 

Jakarta 4 days trip-day 3

Day 3

This morning we spend our beautiful morning continue shopping at the outlets shop since yesterday there was not enough time for us to shop. We shopped until noon and we went for the lunch at Kampung Daun. A lot of people recomended this place, so we decided to go for it.

It looks very nice and very Indonesian style. If you want to experience the environment, then please do come to the Kampung Daun.

There you go the menu, the price are quite high, but we were not sure how's the quality and the taste. 

Yes! Our foods finally came. Very nice plate display but too bad, the food was not nice. Or maybe it can't fit our taste bud. We were enjoying the environment rather than the food. But so far so good la....

Review: Jakarta 4 days trip- day 2: Kopi Luwak

OK, whenever you go to Indonesia, for sure people will go and try the very special coffee: Kopi Luwak. It was made by the stool of musang (a type of fox), where the musang only eats the coffee beans as their foods. The coffee was fruity and it was not bitter like the others coffee. 

All the coffee products

This is the musang/fox

Coffee beans

Since we pass by the kopi luwak shop, so we just stay there and take a rest before we continued our journey and prepare to stuck in the terrible traffic jam.

After spending half of the day at the Kawah Putih, we went back to Chihampalas and shop at the outlets there. There are plenty of outlets near the Chihampalas such as Polo, Mr. Bean and etc. We spend another half of the day busy shopping at the outlets. 

Review: Jakarta 4 days trip- day 2 Kawah Putih

It was a nice Monday morning, we woke up early in the morning and we were prepared to go to Kawah Putih. A very nice scenery place which was once the volcano. We have our breakfast at the hotel and we have ordered the driver for us today. We book a car with driver for IDR 600k for 12 hour trip. It was very cheap and the driver is a very nice man. So we straight away head to Kawah Putih and we started to realize the terrible traffic at Indonesia. It was so jam, and the car was hardly moving at all. It took us about 3 hours to get to Kawah Putih and we still need to pay IDR 150k for the entrance fee. The weather there is very nice, cold and windy. Even though the sun was so shiny, it was not hot at all, the temperature has been just nice. You can see a lot of plantation going on along the way when you go up to the hill. 

Very nice scenery and the lake is so blue. Don't put your hand inside or don't you jump inside the lake and swim OK? It is full with sulphur, it is not pure water. So don't do this dangerous action.

Review: Jakarta 4 days trip-day 1

Jakarta trip, the first time I went to Indonesia. I was so excited and I wanted to reach there as fast as possible. We take the flight in the morning 9 am and we reach there at 10 am (local time). Then only I realize Jakarta time is 1 hour later than Malaysia. So the flight took around 2 hours. We bought the Air Asia flight ticket, the flight is smooth and I can say consider comfortable. This is because I got motion sickness if the car, train, or plane is not stable. But in this flight, everything was fine and I can still chit chat with my family. 

Getting excited on the plane

When we reach the Jakarta airport, the first thing we need to do, for sure is finding a transport. Our plan is we stay in Bandung for the first 2 days and Jakarta the following days. So we quickly go to the bus station and ask for the price. If you are going in about 6-7 people, you can go for Avanza or Innova. The first driver we ask, he asks for IDR 900,000. We are not familiar with the price, we get so shock 900k! We feel so expensive, so we rejected the driver. Then we go to the other counter and ask for the price. This one is better price, for Avanza was IDR 750k, Innova IDR 850k and for bus IDR 90k per person. So since the bus is the cheapest 1, we take the bus and go. But this is the worst decision to make, we took the wrong bus. The bus goes to the other side of Bandung which is far away from our hotel. Then we need to take a taksi to go back to the hotel. It took is about 3 hours from the airport to our hotel. We get so exhausted by the time we reached the hotel. We take the Amaris Hotel, it is a quite new and nice hotel. The hotel seems newly renovated and the rooms are clean. 

After we checked in the hotel rooms, it was about 7pm and we are starving. So we went to the CHIWALK- at Chihampalas near the hotel. We saw a lot of stalls besides the road but it was all small snack like ice cream and so on. All we wanted is a proper meal, like rice or noodle. Then we saw a big sign like this: 

We feel very happy to find something that we wanted and they look very familiar. We straight away walked inside and we saw a shop which looks like it will serve a typical Indonesian food. That was what we are looking for. It looks very decent and it is just like some fine dining restaurant. We knew it would be expensive but never mind, all we need was food now.  There you go the menu:

Well, since all of it is in Indonesian language and we don't know much about it, we ask the waiter to recommend what are the best food in the menu. So we end up ordering a kangkung, chicken, taufu and fish. 

The chili chicken is so so nice if you like spicy. If you can't accept spicy, then don't you ever try to order this.

This is the best among all....Superb

Avocado juice, nice and thick.

After the  very nice dinner, which cost us around IDR 350k, we go and have a walk at the CHIWALK. They have all shirt, shoe and souvenir which are selling at a very reasonable/ cheap price. The CHIWALK will have all types of seller coming on Saturday and Sunday only. So if you want to get cheap and nice stuff, just go during weekend. But remember to bring a huge luggage with you! For instance, i can get a pair of slipper with RM 4.00! Where can you get this price at Malaysia? It it impossible right? But at Indonesia, you can get it so cheap. We happily shop for around 2 hours, but the shops and stalls started to close already. When we ask the local people, the operation hour at Jakarta and Bandung is about 9pm. After that, no shops will be open. So we carry all the stuffs that we bought and went back to the hotel. All we did is take a good shower, and sleep so that we will have energy and prepare for tomorrow's trip. 

Review: Groupon Modello Salon

Well, remember my Groupon for Modello Hair which I bought together with the Gladys Facial? I've utilized the facial part, so now i go and use the hair session. It was Saturday afternoon and I have made a reservation for the hair treatment session. So I reached there around 1pm.

This is a nice salon and it is clean. The hair stylist start with cutting my hair, as my package is Cut, Wash, Blow, Scalp & Hair treatment. The hair stylist really puts a lot of time and they cut my hair patiently. After that they start to sell items, like the scalp scrub for RM 30 to remove dead cells on the scalp, change to a better treatment package, etc. I don't want to add anything so i stick to the original thing that they promise in the Groupon voucher.

They wash my hair in the way I feel very casually or simply. It is not same like the normal hair wash that I've done at other salon. I feel not so clean even after they wash my hair. Then straight away, while i'm still lying on the chair, he already did the treatment. NO machine was used, they just did the scalp and hair treatment at the same time. They did it just like putting the conditioner, not like treatment at all. I'm not sure whether it
is effective or not, because after that they apply some serum on the hair, so my hair feels smooth.

Overall, the service was good, with explanation on your hair condition and suggestion for you. The hair treatment is totally different to what I imagine, and the result is not so obvious. So overall, Im satisfy with the service.

Couscous recipe (10 min meal)

Before this, I never knew there was a food call couscous, I learn it from a TV show hosted by Jamie Oliver. Couscous (/ˈkʊskʊs/ or /ˈkuːskuːs/) is a traditional North African dish of semolina (granules of durum wheat) which is cooked by steaming. [1] It is actually something like rice as a staple food, you can serve with meat or vegetables. I am surprised by how fast it can be cooked. So I decided to give it a try. It is really easy and fast. So now I share it here with everybody, hope you will like it too.

Ingredient 

Couscous (I found it at Aeon big, I'm not sure other places carry this item or not)

Vegetable (Any vegetables, I use my left over vegetables.)

OR

Meat (Any meat, you can use any leftover stew, or you can make a new one)

Garlic 2 cloves

Lemon juice

Salt and Pepper

How easy is it?

1. Take the couscous, measure it according to the chart below:

1/2 cup          -serve 2 persons

1 cup             -serve 4 persons

The measurement is always correct. Pour the couscous into a bowl, add in the twice amount of the hot water into the couscous. eg: 1 cup of hot water into 1/2 cup of couscous. Add in 1 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper. Cover it up with a cover/lid or plate. Wait for 10 min.

2. Meanwhile, add the hot water into the rice cooker and put your leftover to steam. Well, since I don't have any leftover, so I make a new one. I steam the green beans with garlic, oyster sauce and a little bit of the soy sauce. 

3. Fluff the couscous with a fork after 10 minutes. Then serve with any dishes that you like.

There you go, my dinner for today. Opps! i add in 1 egg too when i steam the green bean. Yummy!

Rice cooker recipe

Since I'm not currently staying at my house, and all I got in this temporary house kitchen is a rice cooker. So I'm gonna use it to cook my dinner. Today I'm going to cook is a all in one pot dinner. Using only the rice cooker, simple ingredient, and you will have a complete balance meal. You will get the balance food pyramid in your dinner (Protein, greens and carbohydrate).

As usual here are the ingredients:

Rice
Spinach
Bean sprout
Pea shoots
Chicken fillet
2 eggs
Deep fried bean curd or we call Tou Fu Pok

Seasoning
Oyster sauce
Soy sauce
Salt
Pepper
Peanut oil or sesame oil


1. Marinate the chicken fillet with a little bit of oil, oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper. No measurement needed, just follow your instinct.

2. Pour 4-5 cups of water in the rice cooker, add in some salt & oil then bring it to boil. We need to cook the vegetable one by one, so any sequence will do. I boil the bean sprout, following by the pea shoot, last i put the spinach. When all the vegetable is ready, put it aside for later used.

3. Steam the chicken with the deep fried bean curd. I add in a little bit of water to make sure the bean curd has enough of the liquid to absorb. Steam it for about 10-15 minutes or as the chicken cooked.

4. Wash your pot, then is time to cook the rice. Depends on how much rice you want to eat, so you cook what ever quantity that you want. Just about 5 minutes before the rice cooked, put it all the vegetables and the chicken around the pot. Leave a space in the middle of the pot. Crack in 1 or 2 eggs in the middle, put the lid on and wait for the rice to be cooked. After the mode change to keep warm, let it set for awhile just to make sure the eggs are cooked. There you go a complete dinner for 2 or 3 persons. I prefer to eat the chicken separately so I didn't add them in.

Brown Sugar Body Scrub

It is time to pamper your skin with the scrub to exfoliate all the dead cells and encourage the new cell production. Usually the scrub in the market is quite expensive and it is not so natural. So what I do, i made myself a natural scrub. The ingredient is easy, and all you need to do is just mix it up. So here we go, the brown sugar body scrub.

Ingredient
1/2 cup of brown sugar (I don't have a measuring cup, so I use 8 tablespoons.)
3 tablespoons of oil (you can use any oil: olive, almond, coconut, baby oil etc.)
2 tablespoons of honey
A bit of the lemon zest or lemon juice.

I don't actually have a grater in my kitchen, so i go for the traditional way- chopped. Chop the lemon zest until you think it is small enough. I'm not using lemon juice as I don't want my scrub to be watery and my baby oil is with lavender scent. So i think lemon zest will be good enough. 

Next, all you need to do is mixing all the ingredients together, then your natural body scrub is ready to be used!

Then you keep the scrub in a proper container, with cap of course. It can be stored for 1 week, or if you keep it in the fridge it can actually last you longer. 

雨天

雨天

很多人告诉我他不喜欢雨天， 觉得雨天很麻烦， 要撑伞， 衣服都不能晒干，身上的衣服鞋子全都被雨水弄得湿湿的。尤其是穿着高跟鞋迷你裙的女生， 双脚都被雨水弄脏了，高跟鞋都湿透了， 好 狼狈啊！而我， 却对雨天有一种特别的感觉。 我觉得雨天让我感觉好舒服， 凉风习习， 雨声也特别的好听。

我特别喜欢在雨天的时候， 走到屋檐下， 看着天上的 云朵。 雨天的天空虽然不是彩色的， 而是灰灰白白的， 可是灰白也很配不是吗？天上的云，随着风， 慢慢的飘着， 随风摇摆着， 多么美的景色啊！云是一种大自然现象， 有地面上的水， 蒸发到天上， 然后它们团结一起形成了云，到最后云也变回了雨， 重新回到这片土地上。 云给我的感觉就和人类一样。 大地孕育了人类， 让人类生存在这片土地上， 让人类有机会学习，生存，成长， 成家立业， 到最后变老了， 死了， 也是一样回到大地的怀抱。这就是大自然啊！

望着天上的云朵，看着雨水慢慢的滴落到地面， 滋润着大地，好美丽的一幅画啊！ 习习的凉风会把你的坏心情， 忧虑和压力全部都吹走。 随着而来的， 是青草的味道， 香香的清新的， 大自然的味道。那是多么的纯洁， 一点杂质都没有。 城市里肮脏的空气， 顿时变得很清新， 很干净了。

雨天对我来说就是一个好天气， 它给我动力， 它给我灵感， 它让我不再感觉烦恼。
期待着下一个雨天。。。

Rainy day
There are a lot of people telling me that they don’t like rainy day. Rainy day is so troublesome, all the laundry couldn’t dry, they need to take umbrella if they want to go out, shoes will become wet if they walk on the street and etc. Especially for the office or young lady who wear high heel shoe and mini skirt, their shoes will become all wet and it is very difficult for them to walk in the middle of the rain. For me, I think rainy day gives me a special feeling. I like a rainy day, it can make me feel relaxed and comfortable. Especially with the wind and the raining sound, it is the best orchestra in the world.

I like to go under the eaves, watching the beautiful color of the sky. Many people think that the sky during rainy day is just grey and white, but don’t you think that they actually match very well? The cloud is such a nice nature process, from the water on the earth, evaporates into the sky, gather together to become the clouds and then fall back to the earth again. It is just like human beings, the earth breeds the human; let us have the chance to live, to learn. Then we get old and we die, but eventually we go back to the earth at last. That is the nature of everything.

Looking to the sky, watching the rain drop slowly and moisturize the land, it is such a beautiful picture. The wind is so nice to blow all you bad mood, stress and anxious feeling, and then it will bring the smell of nature, the greenish smell of the plant, a very clear environment. All those dirty air in the city will be all gone, the air become so clean and clear.

For me, rainy day brings energy to me, it inspired me and it makes me feel relax.
I am waiting for the next rainy day to come… 

Unbake Cheese Cake Making

Today I'm trying to make an unbake cup cheese cake which I saw from Facebook. It is a non-baker, no measurement required recipe, and it ends up really great!

Here are the ingredients:

1. Tataru Cream Cheese (You can use any cream cheese)
2. Sweeten condensed milk about half of a tin (depends on how sweet you would like it to be)
3. Biscuit (it can be chipsmore, oreo, Marie etc.)

Steps:

1. Crush the biscuit to small pieces. If you like to have some crunchy biscuit when you eat it, you can leave some in the big chuck. Then set aside.
2. Cream cheese puts it at room temperature until soften. Mix with the Sweeten condensed milk until smooth. (For me, I don't have the mixer to mix it, so I use the fork instead. That's why it was not so smooth.)
3. Then you just have to put 1 layer of cheese, 1 layer of biscuit until your bowl full.
4. Put in the fridge for at least 6 hours for the cheese to set. 

* You can actually add in a lot of things that you like. For me, I just add a little bit of the Nestum oat on top of the cake because I like it. You can add in lemon juice, chocolate powder or other thing as your preference.

There you go, my tasty Cheese Cake.

Review: MRM CLA 1250

After I read so much about the benefits of CLA, I decided to buy some and try it out. Since the Malaysia's CLA is so expensive for me, so I google online to search for another alternative. Then I found this website Bodybuilding from US. The product is quite cheap, and guess what? The CLA were on promotion!! Buy 2 Free 1 for only USD 44 = RM 143 exclude postage. So without delay, I quickly bought the CLA with this promotion. They are sending the product by USPS and the delivering estimated to reach Malaysia in 1 months time. What is surprising me is that they actually took less than 1 month to reach Malaysia, they reached in about 2 weeks time. Nice and Fast!



The CLA is in the softgel capsule, quite big in size. For the people who can hardly swallow big capsule, will have difficulty to swallow these huge capsules. So what to do? I bought it and I squeeze the oil out without swallowing the capsules. Although some people might think that it is a waste because some of the oil will still stick on the capsule, I'm not going to swallow the empty capsule.


As usual, supplement needs to take time for you to feel the effects. So I've been taking the CLA for 3 months from now. I took 4 capsules a day half an hour before food. For people who don't know what is the function of CLA, here are some of the major functions:

• Suppress appetite
• Break-down stubborn fat
• Good oil for skin

It actually do help me to suppress appetite. I don't feel hungry in the afternoon and night time, so eventually I ate lesser. In breakdown stubborn fat wise, I do feel my thigh & hip become smaller. I really can see the effect as my pants become loose now. Without exercise, I lost around 2kg in 3 months, I eat like usual, not dieting. Too bad that I didn't measure my thigh & hip before I started to take CLA. I am very happy with the results. I will definitely continue to take the CLA until I reach my targeted weight.

Review: Groupon Gladys Skin Solution Kepong

Last month I bought a voucher from Groupon.com.my  for the hair & scalp treatment + hydrating facial + cut + wash + blow for only RM 48. Since there are 4 days Raya holidays, so I made my reservation and I'm going to do this on Friday, 2nd day of Raya. Unfortunately, for this great deal, a lot of people bought the voucher and made the reservation earlier than me, so I only able to made the reservation for facial. The person in changed say that I can claim it separately. So i had to go twice for my facial and hair treatment.

I went to this Gladys Skin Solution on Friday morning 11.30am, as I understand they will only be open by 11am. So I assumed that I'm the first customer. Well the decoration and the environment are quite good I can say. There is a very nice information table, with all the information or brochures just beside the entrance.

Then when you sit down on the sofa, the staff/ beautician will make you the flower tea (chrysanthemum with dates) for you to relax and calm down before you start the facial treatment. Very delicate glass and pot doesn't it? While you are enjoying your tea, you will need to fill in a form, just a simple one for their reference. They will be also asking you about your lifestyle and your concern. So for me, my main concern is my stubborn blackheads. Hopefully she can help me to get rid of it. 

 The facial room is quite big, with air con, and all the product will be setting up beside the bed. So the beautician will ask you to change the clothes 1st, they will provide you the robe to change.

After all set, the beautician will start the facial treatment and she will explain step by steps what she is going to do. That's the part I like the most as I like a knowledgeable beautician to explain to me all the things they are doing. The whole process last for about 1 hour but i top up RM 50 to do a full facial which includes the hyaluronic acid serum and a complete cleansing for blackheads. So the facial last for 2 hours including neck and shoulder massage. The massage is really nice as they used essence oil with the aroma of YlangYlang and rose I think. 

For my blackheads, I don't think it is a complete blackhead removal. The beautician told me that 80% of the blackheads are gone, left 20% which are very stubborn and difficult to remove. But from what I see, 20 % are gone while 80% is still there. I didn't satisfy with the result of this blackhead removal. Since I already told her that I main concern is the blackheads, doesn't she suppose to really clean it out for me?

Pros

Nice service

Friendly staff

Relax environment

Cons

Not focusing on my concern (blackheads)

Normal Price expensive

Review: Johnson Body Care Oxygen Fresh Gel Lotion

Today I saw a post on Freebiesland.com.my regarding "Guardian: Free Johnson’s Body Care Discount Voucher Giveaway!!". 

The guardian is giving out RM 3 discount voucher for the Johnson's Body Care range product. All you need to do is to like Johnson's Facebook page. Then you can print out the voucher and redeem it at any Guardian outlet. 

So I print out the voucher and redeem it at the nearest Guardian stores. The choices you can choose are:

• Johnson’s Body Care Oxygen Fresh Gel Lotion
• Johnson’s Body Care 24 Hours Lasting Moisture Lotion
• Johnson’s Body Care Naturally White Lotion
• Johnson’s Body Care Melt Away Stress Lotion

The others I've tried before, so this time I'm gonna try the new Oxygen Fresh Gel Lotion. So there is my 100ml Oxygen Fresh Gel Lotion with original price RM 7.20, after discount RM 3 become RM 4.20.

The packaging seems very nice, with light blue color (which is my favorite) and cute small bottle. It states there that it contains ocean minerals, coralline extracts & aqua essences, I think that's why they are using a blue color bottle. When I pour it out, it is a bit watery and milky texture I can say.  It really looks like the facial serum texture i apply on my face....

The smell is really nice, as it says ocean smells. You can feel the aqua smells. Normally, when we apply lotion, it will be oily at first. But for this Oxygen Fresh, you won't feel oily at all!! It will be absorbed once you apply it and then you will feel your hand is so smooth and moisturized. I really like this lotion, smells good,  absorb faster, not oily, you can straight away start your work without waiting. Good product for everyone to try especially office lady.