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Month: April 2014

Homemade Almond Milk

Homemade Almond Milk

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Hmm… I seem to be doing a lot of posts on food lately. Trying to be more domesticated for the sake of the children.

The food stuff I do aren’t too adventurous… pretty idiot proof on the whole. Well, considering my less than illustrious track record in home economics, they are usually very simple to prepare. I should list out my home economics exploits one day…

I have been ordering almond milk (original and unsweetened) from Iherb. 2 liter bottles and believe or not, the children finish them within 2-3 days!! Ok I do drink some of it (figured that since I pay so much for it, I should benefit from the high calcium and low fat properties too!)

However, the supply has been erratic because Iherb decides every other day to discontinue it!!! Gah!

I had to turn to a more expensive local source – silk almond milk from cold storage or market place. And even that source isn’t too reliable either. We buy up all the available stock (just 5 packets) at any branch whenever we see it!

I googled on the almond milk recipe and decided that it’s within my idiot proof skills to make it. So I started stocking up on organic almonds, for rainy days….

It doesn’t come any cheaper than the store bought ones (not factoring the p$ per hour of my time that I used to make it) but it’s awfully tedious!!! And messy… Maybe it’s just me… ?

Anyway, here goes …

2 packets of 213g of almonds yielded just about 2-3 liters. Only….

Soak the almonds in water, just enough to cover them for 1-2 days to remove the phytate. By removing the phytate, the body is able to absorb more of the goodness in the almonds. Basically, the longer the almonds are soaked, the more water they absorb, thus yielding a higher quantity of creamier almond milk.

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My fat almonds – after being soaked for almost 2 days…

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Add the almonds into the blender. For every cup of almonds, I use 2 cups of water. If you don’t like the original unsweetened taste of almond milk, you can add maple syrup / honey / other sweeteners to taste. Or you can even add pandan juice to make pandan almond milk!

Anyway it’s for the children, so no sweetener was added.

Then… Blend… Pretty no brainer right??? Hehe.

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I pour the blender almond milk into a soup cloth to strain the almond bits out.

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Looks yummy eh?? Why is it in a plastic container… I wasn’t quite prepared for it. No glass bottles at that point of time. So I just “hum tummed” any empty container I could turn out in my cupboard!!! Made a mental note to pick up proper glass bottles from Ikea. And a funnel too. I used to have one, but don’t know where it disappeared to. Sigh…

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It’ll probably last 2-3 days.

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I air fried the leftover almond bits at 160°C for 15 minutes. Quite crunchy and fragrant after that. 宝贝 has been eating it during snack time. Healthy snacks! I’ve been adding it to my breakfast cereal. Probably it can be added to cooking and even baking! So no wastage!

But damn! It was hard work!!! I drank a big cup of it to reward myself!

Boliao Things We Say

Boliao Things We Say

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In the study room.

Me : ok! I’m done! (Switched off my Mac and leaving the room)

As I was closing the sliding door from outside the room…

Hub : waaa! I just saw a huge mosquito! It must be your pet mosquito that sits on your shoulder.

(He has this warped theory that a mosquito sits on my shoulder and feeds on me all the time. I’m usually the first one to get bitten by mos and hv the most bites. He’s convinced that it’s actually the same one and calls it my pet mosquito. Lame arh?! But that’s part of his charm wahahaha)

Hub : hey! What are you doing to the door??

Me : oh making sure that there’s no gap for it to escape.

Hub : you are locking me in the room with the monster mosquito?!?!?

Me : ya! Make sure you kill it before you leave the room!

Meanwhile, I go back to my room to see who emerges as the victor from the bloodbath.

Ok… End of bo Liao story….

小小宝贝’s Milestone – First Haircut

小小宝贝’s Milestone – First Haircut

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I intended to hold off his first hair cut as long as possible (cheapskate – to save money lar… I don’t see why I should pay someone to snip off his fringe??!!) and trim his fringe (so that he can see without having a curtain of wispy hair obscuring his sight) myself.

 

It seemed that it was no longer possible when…

 

for the last few mornings, when he sent 宝贝 Jie Jie off to school, the schoolbus auntie started greeting him, “Morning Mei Mei!” and “Bye Bye Mei Mei!” That bad meh?! Did he look like a girl??!! Granted that on some days, he was dressed in 宝贝’s hand-me-down pyjamas which were, erm, a little on the red side.  (OK OK.. fine! Sometimes a tinge of pink…)

 

His Daddy thought that he might turn into a sissy and really treat himself as a girl after continuous brainwashing… So I brought him to the same hairdresser who cuts 宝贝’s hair as she needed a haircut too.

 

But when I walked in with him, the 2 hairdressers exclaimed, “Aiyo! Mei Mei is here to cut hair too??” WTH?! Mei Mei?? This time he wasn’t dressed in pink, in fact, I dressed him in the most manly attire I could find in his wardrobe – Blue romper and jeans. Which Mei Mei wears blue and blue?!

 

“Erm.. He’s a Di Di.”

“Ohhh… Di Di! He’s got yu xiu features (delicate features) like a Mei Mei! See! Big round eyes, long eyelashes and fair skin!”

Hmm… so it’s not his clothes…

 

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There he is… All wrapped up and sitting quietly in the chair, in anticipation for the next… adventure?! Just a sidenote : Does he look like a girl?!?!?

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And so.. it began.. Like the sheep shearing I saw in Australia and New Zealand.. Lambs up on the block! :p

He felt a strange sensation and heard the weird humming sound of the shaver and so what did he do?!

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He turned around to look for the source of the strange sound.

And he turned and he turned and he turned… It was quite amusing to watch him turn left right left right, trying to find the shaver only to always not find it.  Hahaha. Mean mom here.

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Much easier to look at himself in the mirror.. Ah… starting to look like a boy now!

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Final dusting…

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Final Product : I’m a BOY!!! (He’s in BLUE ok!!)

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He behaved beautifully during the cut.  Of course, the hairdresser Jie Jie cut at lightning speed.  The only thing he did was just to turn his head left and right during the cut to find the shaver.  I would have cut his ear or something, and that’s precisely why I’m not a hairdresser… :P

 

Back to being a boy again!!

Sequel to the LG Refrigerator Saga

Sequel to the LG Refrigerator Saga

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The maddening call to the LG customer hotline on Saturday morning left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

I vented it out on social media and felt much much better. No need to practise yoga. Bitching on social media is also a form of destressing….

I stuck the photo of the burnt hole on the LG Singapore Facebook page and on Monday I received a follow up message in my Facebook mailbox and then a phone call from them.

Ok folks, ditch the hotline number. The service center is useless!!! Just go to the Facebook page!! Thank you Mark! For making a difference to our lives by starting Facebook!

They sent a Korean specialist to my home today to check out the Fridge foc. According to my Mom who was present (I was at work) the Korean was very “gan jiong” about the condition of the fridge and swore that it’s the first time it’s ever happened in the LG history. Gee! I must really go and buy 4d for this. So lucky ya!

He called me up and apologised profusely and offered to loan us an LG fridge until my new one arrives on Thursday. According to him, they were bringing the fridge back and were arranging for a team of specialists to fly in from Korea to investigate this.

What a vast difference in the attitudes! Compared to the laissez faire self righteous attitude of the LG customer hotline staff (backed by the various parties he consulted) this was indeed a 180° change.

He promised to let me know the results of their investigation.

The replacement fridge arrived in 2 hours. Pretty impressive turnaround time.

Meanwhile they should look into their hotline staff’s attitude. A lot can be done to it. And yes, the hotline personnel pissed me off. Big time!!

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Adding On to 小小宝贝’s Purée Repertoire – Asparagus Purée

Adding On to 小小宝贝’s Purée Repertoire – Asparagus Purée

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小小宝贝 has finally sprouted 2 tiny teeth, after 12 months. He’s a late “teether” just like his sister, for his Mama (yours truly) was an even later “teether”. According to my parents, my first tooth sprouted when I was 2 years old. They were going to make dentures for me as they suspected that I would be going through life without teeth!!

The good thing with having a late “teether”, especially when I’m breastfeeding him, I don’t get bitten. And the teeth start deteriorating later.

So I’m still putting him on purée diet although I’m now making his purée more chunky. And some soft fruits and vegetables like bananas, strawberries, pumpkins etc, he’s started to take bites out of them instead of being purée fed.

And I’m expanding his food repertoire so that he gets to taste a wide variety of food in their natural form without mixing them together.

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Asparagus is low in calories and is very low in sodium. It is a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc, and a very good source of dietary fibre, protein, beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, rutin, niacin, folic acid, iron, phosphorus, potassium, copper, manganese and selenium, as well as chromium, a trace mineral that enhances the ability of insulin to transport glucose from the bloodstream into cells. The amino acid asparagine gets its name from asparagus, as the asparagus plant is relatively rich in this compound.

I chopped them up in small pieces. Steam them for 15 mins then blend.

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All yummy and ready for consumption!

Food diary summary…

LG – Where’s Your Sense of Social Responsibilty?

LG – Where’s Your Sense of Social Responsibilty?

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Check this out. Would you freak out if this appeared in your refrigerator?

I did. My LG refrigerator showed an error message on the display. I called up the LG service center and gave them the error code. They advised me to switch off the refrigerator, let it de froze for 4 hours and clean it.

Fine. Being an obedient customer, I did it. While cleaning it, to my horror, I found a burnt hole, 10cm long in the freezer compartment, near the bottom part of the wall. Something obviously caught fire and burnt the plastic wall! I could even see the blackened metal parts behind it!!!

I was so lucky!!! It could have caught fire and burnt the house down!! Worse, burn the house and all of us in it while we sleep!!!

So I called up the LG customer service and alerted them to this problem.

Their reply : since my warranty was over, I’ll need to pay for a technician to go down and investigate.

My point is : I’m going to buy a new refrigerator. (It gives me the shivers that it may catch fire even after it’s repaired assuming that it can be repaired.) so why should I fork out extra money for them to investigate this matter??

This is obviously a product fault. Even if the warranty is over does it mean the fridge can be allowed to start a fire?? They should at least send someone down to investigate, in case there’s a severe problem with this particular model of refrigerator. I mean I’m lucky. But someone else who’s using the same model may not be as lucky as I am!!

LG where’s your social responsibility???

They didn’t even ask me to email them the photo. They just brushed me off as a complaint call. Because to them, it’s my fridge, my problem. In fact the customer service officer even consulted various departments, including his superiors to arrive at the same conclusion – if I don’t pay for the technician to come and investigate, it’s not their problem.

Imagine how many of such cases have been swept under the carpet?! Fwah!!

I fear for your consumers! Perhaps there’s been calls on my fridge model and I wasn’t alerted because LG refused to investigate.

This is the last time I’m going to buy LG products because I’m not going to introduce time bombs of fire hazard to my home where my loved ones are.

I’m totally disappointed with LG’s lack of social responsibility.


If you are using refrigerator model GR-B208BVQ, good luck to you!

If you are using other LG product, all the best to you!