making changes

My husband was told by the doctor that he has pre-hypertension. He was given one month to lower his blood pressure otherwise, he'd be prescribed medication. That was a rude awakening for us. Over the years, the doctor has told him time and time again that his blood pressure needs to be reduced. But we never quite heeded any advise and continued living (and eating) a rather unhealthy lifestyle.

When he was given one month to get his act together, we decided to really do something about it. This time, we are going to get it right. One of the most important things to reduce was salt. We never paid attention to how much salt we actually consume everyday and after we educated ourselves on healthy daily values and understanding nutritional labels, we were rather shocked at the junk we used to take for granted.

We threw out a whole bunch of stuff from our pantry and replaced them with healthier snacks, more greens and better food choices. We started following the philosophies of the DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) diet and began to eat and live a better quality of life. In fact, he had ordered a book on the DASH diet months ago but never read it!

Since Saturday, I have been cooking at home and preparing lunches (usually sandwiches) for work. I am doing this mostly to lose weight and to eat better. I am also doing this for my husband because I'd rather make this a life-time commitment than have him on life-time meds. Even though it's been barely a week, we are already seeing some results. His blood pressure has reduced and I actually lost a pound or two. This is pretty amazing and we now wonder why we didn't think about doing this before.

I made ginger chicken with spring onions for dinner and did not follow any particular recipe. We had this with a side dish of simple stir-fry bitter gourd and ate them with brown rice. The chicken was surprisingly good and very fragrant. I used less than half the soy sauce and sesame oil than what I normally add in my cooking. Actually, "soy sauce" is not an accurate term. My sister in-law recommended Bragg's Liquid Aminos a year ago and we have been using this in our home since. It tastes very similar to soy sauce and has a much lower sodium content.

Of course, we can still eat out and indulge every once a while. We just need to substitute our greasy, fatty favourites with healthier, leaner alternatives. I don't think it's a huge sacrifice especially when I know that it will help us lead a more wholesome life.

Anyway, we will find out in a few weeks' whether the changes we made really helped. I just hope to hear good news from our doctor :-)

re-discovered the joys of cooking

It’s not fun feeling woozy, sniffly and sneezy. The good thing is, I didn’t develop any fever so I am pretty certain it’s just a common cold and nothing too serious. Or maybe it’s just allergies. Or it could be the weather change as well. It was nice and rainy just last weekend and then it got really, really hot and dry again. The weather in Malaysia has gone nuts. And I blame global warming.

So, what do you normally want to eat when you’re unwell? I tend to have a craving for soupy noodles. I didn’t go through any particular recipe and thought I could just throw in a hodgepodge of ingredients and everything will turn out spectacular.

Well, things don’t normally turn out that way and I should know better. I shouldn’t have been so ambitious about throwing in an entire can of crab in brine because the whole bowl according to le hubby was “interesting and a bit weird but tasty”. I have to agree with him. I should have just stuck to vegetables alone. But I was delirious when I came across several cans of crab in brine at the supermarket that I couldn’t wait to use it in my cooking. This stuff has eluded me for years! Admittedly, I stopped looking for a while because I kind of gave up cooking at one point. That’s right, I gave up cooking. Other than using the stove for instant noodles or canned soup, I barely used my stupidly expensive pots and pans for anything else.

During my cooking hiatus, I left it to le hubby to cook at home. When left to his own devices, the man will only cook out of convenience. So, we had steamed food. Not even with fresh ingredients except for vegetables, but mostly canned or pre-packed food. Everything that can be steamed, will be steamed. Good thing we have a rather handy electric three-tier steamer.

Le hubby is only too happy that I re-discovered the “joys of cooking”. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had home cooked Three Cups Chicken. I have already tried out Rasa Malaysia’s version before and thought I would use Noob Cook’s recipe the next time around.

Boy, was it good! Except for adding spring onions, I followed the recipe quite thoroughly. I am really liking this Three Cups Chicken stuff, it reminds me of a more fragrant kicap chicken.

I also stir-fried some spicy bitter gourd, a recipe I got off My Feasts. Bitter gourd or bitter melon is an acquired taste. True to its name, it is bitter. Le hubby and I love this though. When cooked well, it is a really tasty dish.
Just thinking about what to cook next makes me feel a bit better. Now, excuse me while I go grab some tissues and Clarinase.

a fragrant herb

I have been on a basil binge lately. It all started with needing a handful for the Three Cups Chicken dish. Then I thought, why stop with just one bunch?

The variety I found at the supermarket was sweet basil. It is such a fragrant herb and perfumes the crisper section of my fridge so nicely. I also think this variety is more commonly used in Italian dishes, so besides using it in an Asian chicken recipe, I decided to make bruschetta too.

Fresh and zesty flavours seem to burst with each bite!

I also added a roughly chopped bunch to a plate of butter shitake mushrooms, a wonderful recipe from Noob Cook, of whom I am now a huge fan. My colleague suggested that this will work well as tapas and I am sure she’s right.

I will definitely have try out more recipes with this gorgeous culinary herb!

rat-a-tat-touille

I have never tasted ratatouille until I tried out Gordon Ramsay’s Basic Ratatouille recipe two years ago. Of course that little Pixar mouse had an influence on me too. I have read about this lovely French Provencal dish before but never thought about cooking it until the movie. That goes to show what can sometimes compel me to do something in the kitchen.



Ratatouille is my go-to comfort food. There is something about the fusion of simple vegetables in a semi-stew like form that is very satisfying to the palate as well as warming to the tummy.

I could not find any proper courgettes at the market and had to leave it out of the recipe. They all came pre-packed along with the yellow courgette and I did not want to buy both just for the sake of having one green one.

Another reason why I like ratatouille so much is that it is fairly easy to cook. I did not make the layered version because I do not have a mandolin and did not want to risk having un-uniformed slices due to my lack of knife skills :-)

I made a mistake of not letting the pot simmer without the lid because my version turned out a bit more liquidy than the usual. It still tasted good and this time I added a single bay leaf for taste. Being Chinese, le hubby and I ate this with a small portion of rice, served alongside with other dishes.

I would one day have this on French bread with some warm, hearty soup. Thinking about this combination now makes me feel whipping up another batch of ratatouille! In fact, I have adequate ingredients sitting in the fridge… hmmm…