Anyway, last week, I did put up a post on the foods I ate in Bangkok but unfortunately, due to some virus in the server, it was ‘eaten alive’. So, ended up I will probably have to redo the post and put it up again soon.

I’ve been pretty busy and tired since I got back from Bangkok, that’s why this blog has been sorta neglected. I just did not have the energy after work every day or even during the weekends to put up posts in this blog. I just have this bone-tired fatigue that won’t go away. Hopefully, I will be able to get better and be energised to start blogging regularly in earnest again. Let’s just say I am taking sick leave from this blog for awhile until I am feeling better.

So, today, I came across a very touching video on world hunger and I felt the need to share it with everyone. I hope you watch this and think twice the next time you want to throw out your leftovers.

No diet is ever worth wasting food when there are so many starving people in this world.

It was all those insidous ‘marketing’ by people I know. Every once in a while, I’d hear someone rave on and on about how great the food at Miss Saigon is. So, in the end, we gave in and went there to try for ourselves.

The ambience is good enough, considering it is one of a row of restaurants at E-Gate.

I ordered tea and I like it that they serve it in a mini tea pot and in a thin heart-shaped china cup. Cute.

We took the lazy way out and ordered one of the huge sets for four which practically contained everything from fish to chicken to egg to vegetables to spring rolls. I’ll have to say one thing though, the waiters aren’t local and their English aren’t very good either SO there is plenty of room for misunderstanding. We specifically said we don’t eat beef (due to religious reasons) and told them to replace the beef on this set with something else. Well, it came without the beef although I had suspiciously sniffed at every dark-coloured meat just to be sure.

BUT.

We also ordered a bowl of rice noodles soup.

It came with beef in it. That is despite our repeated reminders that we don’t eat beef! Fortunately, the waiter was kind enough to change it for us after we explained it to him for several painful minutes of gestures and broken English mixed with Bahasa.

We also ordered a plate of rice with grilled chicken for Mr Picky:

Well, I have to say, Vietnamese food is not as strange as I thought it would be although it too has quite a number of beef dishes. Surprisingly, I liked the food there and though not exceptionally good, it passed muster. However, I’d prefer that their waiters learn more English.

Not exactly cheap, mind you, but still, quite reasonably priced.

Rating: 6/10

Price: $$$

Miss Saigon Restaurant

E-Gate

Tel: 04-3776083

Far from being boring, it is so flavourful that the remaining sauces from the boiled chicken is pure neat chicken stock. Talk about a two in one dish! And yes, this dish is pretty healthy as it involved loads of vegetables and no deep frying to be seen!

Chicken Recipes: Five Spice Boiled Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

1/2 chicken, chopped into small pieces

2 tbsp five spice powder

2 tsp salt

2 carrots, cut into chunks

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 large tomato, cubed

4 fresh shiitake mushrooms, cubed

2 pods garlic

2 cups water

Instructions

1. Season the chicken with the five spice powder and 1 tsp of salt for at least an hour.

2. Heat up the pot of water and then dump all the ingredients in and the rest of the salt.

3. Lower the heat and let it simmer partially covered for up to an hour. By then, you’d get a very thick sort of ‘gravy’ and you can dish out the chicken and vegetables.

If you noticed, I didn’t remove the chicken skin. I felt that by not removing the skin, it gave even more flavors to the chicken stock. Although a bit oily, I’m quite fine with it.

If you have a crock pot / slow cooker, it is even easier. Just dump everything in, set it at low and leave it on overnight and you’ll get tender chicken with absolutely wonderful gravy and chicken stock.

Just remember to set aside some of the gravy as chicken stock to be used in your cooking.

See? Boiled chicken aren’t all that bland after all and it even produced a great by-product of chicken stock!

Today, I’m going to give the low-down on flax seeds and its health benefits. Why do we need this oily looking seeds and why is it so good for us? Well, read on to find out more.

Health Benefits of Flax Seed

These tiny golden seeds (or brown) do pack a lot of health benefits, much more than sesame seeds although they both look alike, in a way. Flax seeds are a bit bigger than sesame seeds and looks oilier. Well, no wonder, because flax seed is high fat. Before the alarm bells ring in your head due to the words ‘high fat’, let me explain further.

Flax seed is:

1. High in Omega-3 fatty acids – this means it is high in the good type of fatty acids that help to reduce heart disease, bad cholesterol and all that stuff. These are not exactly fattening fatty acids but good fatty acids your body need. Much like when you eat fish with high Omega-3 fatty acids, like cod fish.

2. High in lignans – this is another good thing that is good for the heart and also is an anti-cancer compound that have been known to help a bit when consumed by people with breast and prostrate cancers.

3. High in dietary fibre – when it comes to flax seed, eating too much can be quite bad because it can cause diarrhea due to its high fibre content. But if you need a laxative, nothing is more natural than flax seed. However, consuming small amounts will not produce much effect except that you will find it easier to..err…flush out your system the next day. This means it is extremely great for those with constipation problem.

4. High in Magnesium

5. High in Phosphorus

6. High in Iron

7. High in Calcium

8. High in Vitamin B

Due to its high concentration of minerals, overall, flax seed is indeed a great addition to your diet for general health well-being. So, how do you eat it?

Easy. Put it in a blender and grind it into a powder, like this:

Okay, so I didn’t really grind it into a powder but it is as grounded as I could possibly do it with my blender. It is good enough. All you need to do is to add a tablespoon to your daily breakfast drink, either it’s a glass of milk, a protein shake or a fruit shake. You can even sprinkle some on top of your cereal. It doesn’t have any weird taste or smell so you actually won’t notice it at all.

Remember these health benefits of flax seeds the next time you go shopping and get yourself a packet.

Egg tarts have to be one of my favourite non-chocolate desserts or snacks or whatever category you wanna place them in. To me, egg tarts are probably the best pastry ever made…well, except for pineapple rolls. And cheesecake. And…err…never mind. Let’s just say, I absolutely love egg tarts and have been hankering to try making them myself.

So, I did a search and found the Hong Kong Style Egg Tarts recipe from allrecipes.com. Please don’t laugh at my not-so-perfect pastries. It is my first time after all. This is going to be a rather long post so I won’t rattle on so. Here’s the recipe:

Egg Tarts Recipe

Ingredients

For the pastry:

1 cup icing sugar

1 cup butter

3 cups flour

1 egg, beaten

a dash of vanilla essence

For the custard:

2/3 cup white sugar

1 1/2 cups water

9 eggs beaten

dash of vanilla essence

1 cup fresh milk

Equipment

12 egg tart moulds

Instructions

1. Grease your egg tart moulds very, very lightly.But you don’t have to if you don’t want to because these moulds are non-stick (or so I was told when I bought it from the baking supply shop).

2. Sift the icing sugar and the flour into a mixing bowl.

3. Add the butter and rub it into the mixture until you get crumbs.

4. In a bowl, lightly beat the egg and then add it to the mixture and start kneading till you get soft, pliable dough.

5. You can start forming small balls and then place them on the moulds and start forming the base using your fingers to push the dough into the mould.

Egg Tart Recipe: Making the custard

6. Pour the water into a pan and heat it up and add the sugar. Bring to a boil and let the sugar dissolve. Then remove from heat and cool completely. (So that you don’t cook the eggs when you add this to the egg.

7. Place all the eggs in a bowl and beat lightly. Sieve it into another bowl. Add in the milk and vanilla. Stir and mix well.Add into sugar and water mixture. Stir till well combined.

8. You will need to pass it through a sieve again or like me, use a smaller sieve and pour it into the prepared dough.

9. Preheat the oven to 160C. Then you bake the tarts for about 30 minutes or until the egg custard is cooked and not watery anymore.

Did I mention that I simply love egg tarts? Especially when it’s hot from the oven. Yum.

After putting it in soup and then in an omelette, now it is just cabbage cooked the usual Chinese way, stir fried and yes, you get it, healthy. No, I am not obsessed with healthy food. Whatever made you think that?

Now, cabbage can be eaten raw but where’s the fun in that when you can dress it up and stir fry it with minimal oil and loads of other vegetables too. Like this…

Cabbage Recipe: Easy Stir fried Cabbage

Ingredientss

What’s left of your wilted cabbage…errr…figuratively speaking of course…I meant about 1 cup of cabbage

or 10 leaves of cabbage, roughly chopped

1 large carrot, sliced thinly

1 large tomato, sliced

2 tbsp dried shrimps, soaked, rinsed and drained

4 button mushrooms, sliced thinly

2 tbsp light soy sauce

2 pods of garlic

Instructions

1. Heat up some cooking oil (about a tablespoon) and then sautee the garlic (whole) till it is browned. Then add the dried shrimps.

2. Add in the carrots and mushrooms and stir fry till fragrant.

3. Add the cabbage and tomato and soy sauce. Also about 4 tbsp water. Stir fry till cooked. That should take a few minutes over medium heat. At most 5 minutes. Just don’t overcook it. Soft mushy cabbage are just, urrghh…but if you like soft, mushy cabbage….be my guest.

4. Serve it hot from the stove!

So, why did I add the tomato? Well, it gave the quite, quite bland dish a unique twist of flavours. Tomatoes are just so flavourful. They are salty, sweet and sour all at the same time. So, it really jazz up this dish from plain stir fried cabbage into something really tasty and even palatable for those who hates cooked cabbage.

Okay, if you really hate cabbage that much, you don’t have to suffer through this recipe. Or the next one, for that matter. I promise, after tomorrow, I won’t be posting anymore cabbage recipe. Not that I don’t blame you for hating cabbage, after several days of thinking of how to cook ‘em and having to eat cabbage, I could well understand your hate for cabbage. Even I don’t want to have anything to do with cabbage for at least a year. Or two. For the cabbage lovers or those who suddenly found themselves stuck with a huge head of cabbage -figuratively speaking, that is- here’s another simple cabbage recipe:

Cabbage Omelette

Ingredients

4 large leaves of cabbage, sliced thinly

two eggs, beaten

dash of sea salt

2 tbsp flour

1tbsp corn flour

Instructions

1. Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl. Add the salt, the flour and the corn flour. Mix well. Then add the cabbage to the mixture.

2. Heat up some oil in the wok or pan. Then pour a ladleful of the mixture in.

3. Lower the heat to medium low. Turn over the omelette when its cooked and then let it cook for a while more. Once it is done, you can remove and serve hot.

You really need to serve it hot or else when cold, it does get a bit sticky and unpalatable. Or maybe it’s just me. Whatever it is, this is a vegetable omelette so it is sorta healthy too.

Tomorrow, I’ll share with you my final way of ridding my fridge of cooking cabbage.

First, I used some of it, raw, with my pita dinner with baked chicken breast meat. Then I cooked it in three other ways.

Here’s one of it:

Easy Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

5 large leaves of cabbage, roughly chopped

1.3 ltr water

2 large carrots, cut into chunks

2 pods garlic

2 tomatoes, sliced

half cube chicken stock

7 peppercorn

dash of salt

5 pc bite-size chicken strips, seasoned with salt

Instructions

1. Get your ingredients ready and heat up the water in a pot

2. Then you just dump everything into the pot of boiling water.

3. Lower the heat and let the soup simmer for about 30 minutes over low heat.

That’s it. It’s as simple and easy as it could get. Then you get a bowl of simple cabbage soup. Best of all, it is pretty healthy too.

Yeah, I am sure everyone has heard of the cabbage soup diet and all but really, as healthy as this is I can’t envision myself drinking this cabbage soup day in day out. That’s just darn weird. So, this soup took care of some of the cabbage.

Tomorrow, I’ll post up another way of disposing of the cabbage…errr…I mean cook the cabbage.

Now, before I start, I’d like to tell you readers that after today, I’d be away for a short holiday in Bangkok so my posts will all be time-stamped posts until next month. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a close up look at what we ate (including any creepy crawlies) in Bangkok once I get back.

Okay, now, let’s move on to the spicy taste of Mexican food. I’ve always loved mexican food because of all the spices! I remember when we went to LA, we particularly tried out some of the mexican fast foods there too and though, those probably can’t compare to the real thing, I love them no less.

When Traders Hotel invited me over for some Mexican food, I jumped at it. What can I say? Who could resist burritos, fajitas and chili the mexican style? I can only hope that they won’t have too many beef dishes…

Although it’s supposed to be a Mexican buffet dinner, The Islander is known to have some international dishes so the starters, appetizers and desserts are quite varied:

They have sushi…

They have salads…

A bed of shrimps, crabs and oysters on ice.

Of course, they have a mexican style soup: Pinto Bean Soup

If you like pinto beans, you will like this. Furthermore it is creamy and quite, quite rich. I’m not a pinto bean fan so I gave this a miss while The Food Critic finished it. Mr Picky didn’t want to even touch it but that’s just him being typically picky. To him, soups are all supposed to be clear soup.

The last time I had a burrito was years and years ago so I had to give it a try. A note to all: don’t take too long photographing the burritos or else it will become sorta limp and chewy instead of when it is freshly made. The burritos are pretty simple creations, it is tortilla wraps stuffed with vegetables and chicken and loaded up with sauces, although I’d prefer they use salsa.

The other thing, the ones that look like karipaps, I don’t know what they are called but they tasted like a mexican version of our local currypuffs. It is stuffed with meat, beans and vegetables.

Mexican food is not complete without chili con carne which they have a plenty. Again, we have to give this a miss since it is ground beef with chili and beans. Sigh. And it does look so inviting.

So, we went for the lamb which is tender and cooked just nice.

One thing though, this buffet is great for fish lovers because they have at least three different types of fish. Grilled fish, fish tamales and lime fish. Above is the fish tamales, which is the mexican style fish curry. No bones for you to pick through too because they use fish fillets. How very convenient.

They have a big huge grilled fish topped with a tomato-chili type of paste, so you have to cut out a small piece for yourself to try:

Other than that, they have chili roast duck, picante de mariscos (mixed seafood in chili tomato sauce), roast chicken, chili stir fried beef, coriander rice, cheesy vegetables, mashed potatoes and a load of different international dishes. So, it may be a Mexican theme buffet but I’d say it is more international than anything with quite a variety to choose from.

Here are some of the things we ate:

As you can see, we have sushi and sashimi, steamed shrimps, roast duck, the different types of fish, lamb and rice. The roast duck is a must-try. It has crispy skin and damn delicious.

Next, the desserts…

They have an array of ice cream, cakes, local kuih and this weird UFO-lookalike. I don’t know what it’s called and don’t know what’s inside so I took one out of curiosity.

It’s some mango paste inside. The pastry is saltish and inside is sweet mango. Not bad.

All in, the Taste of Mexico is worth a try if you want to try out mexican food (without needing to book a flight to Mexico). The best part about buffet dinners in The Islander is that if you go in a group and someone in your group is not that into mexican food, they can still go for the other international-style fare while you tuck into the chili dishes, burritos and such. I also understand that they change the menu every Sunday so when you go, some of the dishes may be different.

Taste of Mexico

The Islander, Traders Hotel

Price: RM66nett (adult) RM33nett (children below 12 and senior citizens)

Promotion period: March & April 2009

For reservations: 04- 2622622

Actually, I found this Weight Watchers’ recipe from Cajun Chef Ryan’s blog, so do check out his post of this recipe here. That’s how I knew it was low fat. And the best part, you don’t even need flour for this recipe. It is a flourless muffin recipe! How cool is that, eh? And err…I did add some extra ingredients so the calorie count may be higher than stated in Ryan’s blog.

Mini Low Fat Fudgy Chocolate Muffins Recipe

Ingredients A

1 1/4 cups sifted icing sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

a dash of salt

2 large egg whites

1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Ingredients B

4 cherries, chopped into tiny bits

1/4 cup walnuts, broken into tiny pieces

1/4 cup powdered peanut

2 tbsp dried cranberries

1/2 cup decorative hearts (optional, purely for decoration purposes)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 300F / 150C.

2. Combine all the ingredients A and beat till well combined. Use a hand mixer or stand mixer or your strong arm power to beat it for another two minutes to add loads of air to it.

3. Get your ingredients B ready…

4. Add it into the mixed up ingredients A and stir till well combined.

5. You then scoop small spoonfuls and pour it into the greased mini muffin pan. The batter makes about 20 mini muffins so I had two batches. I left the first batch undecorated and liberally added the colorful hearts for the second batch.

6. Bake the muffins at 300F / 150C for about 15 minutes. Then let it cool in the pan before removing it.

I think I like the decorated ones better, makes the muffins look so much more cheerful and colorful. Just look at those without the hearts…

It is incredibly fudgy though, because of the icing sugar.

And the best part is that it is also chewy because of the walnuts, cherries and cranberries. Nice. Those with the hearts sure do look way better, don’t you think so?

Ahhh..now we are talking. Just look at these babies….

Mini Low Fat Fudgy Chocolate Muffins