Soup Menu For This Weekend

1. Burdock Soup with Black Bean (For Saturday, dinner time)
Dogs can't consume mushrooms right? So they get the Burdock Soup with Black Bean. Burdock prevents constipation by improving peristalsis (action of the intestines that squeezes food along). It also helps in removing body waste (detox) & prevents colorectal cancer. Black beans "bu xue" (tonifies blood), helps in diuresis (passing urine) & detox. Best of all, the recipe includes chicken, which the dogs will love.

2. Mushroom Soup with Pumpkin (For Sat, lunch time)

Everyone in the family likes this soup a lot. The pumpkin gives the soup a sweet taste. Unfortunately, it contains mushrooms too. I'll probably steam the remaining pumpkin for the dogs.

3. 8 Treasures Soup (For Sunday, lunch)

As the name suggests, it contains 8 ingredients. But as dogs can't take mushrooms which is a kind of fungi, they'll have to give this a miss coz it consists of mushroom & white fungus (xue er).

4. Lotus Seed Soup with Solomonseal Rhizome (For Sun, dinner)

This soup strengthens the spleen & heart & helps for people with palpitation (heart beating very fast). Chose this soup for Bobby. Wooo... Bobby & Ton Ton are going to get their beards dirty. :\

Review of Organic Soaps

I love the smell! It's like aromatherapy. The fragrance stays on human skin much more than on the dogs. I don't smell anything at all after blowing them dry. The conditioner I made for them smells great too. I even poured some into their drinking bowl. Unfortunately, my mom thought the dogs peed in it & changed it to plain water.

I can't feel much difference on Wang Wang becoz of his smooth short fur. Ton Ton leh, his fur feels dry & is more difficult to brush/comb through. He's still as fluffy coz his fur is quite long already. But it'll be another few washes before I'll see any difference bah.

There's a leaflet that came with the Liquorice Soap. It says that it may take up to 2 months of regular usage to see the actual effect/benefits of the soap. It has some sort of a detox property & helps to remove the chemicals from the scalp/skin from years of exposure. I don't know if it really works but it's worth a try.

Anyway, it's late & I need to go shower & sleep. Woo... can't wait to shower with the soaps. The scent is very refreshing & lifts my mood. I've uploaded my Taipei/HK trip photos on Face Book & probably will post some of the boys soon.

Going Through The Herbal & Organic Craze

Going organic is a slow transition. The cost is a huge factor coz you know it can easily cost twice as much as their non organic counter parts. Even now, I'm not near 50% there. The organic stuff I buy are mostly supplements & never fresh food items. Sad to say, organic food is still not readily available in Singapore probably becoz of the poor market here. Majority of the people still believe in costs & quantity instead of quality.

Herbal wise, I'm using it mainly for making soups & liang teh. Right now, I can only do it over the weekend coz it takes a few hours before the soup is ready. I get home around 6.30 pm on weekdays & I can't possibly do it coz I sleep early (around 10 pm). The average cooking time is 3 to 4 hours. The water takes about 2 hours to bring to a boil in the slow cooker on high heat. I usually let it boil a while more before switching to low heat for another 30 mins. Finally, I turn it to warm & it's ready to serve.

I remember trying to hunt down bigger organic shops. I went to the warehouse for Top's & also to an organic shop in an ulu part of Orchard. This was a few months back, before we even moved. It was around the same time that I discovered the organic soaps. It ain't cheap & I wasn't working so I didn't make the investment. Subsequently, I started working at this new job & forgot all about it coz I didn't go back to the organic shop I patronise in Yishun. That is, until I read about it from Iris's blog.

I bought 4 bars of the soap, 1 packet of lavender & 1 packet of chamomile. It set me back some $66 after 10% discount. Unfortunately, they do not sell rosemary so I had to get it from NTUC. After doing some reading on the net, I made my own conditioner for the dogs which I'm going to try in a short while. I think it'll make their fur drier than using commercial shampoo & conditioner. If that happens, I'll probably make oatmeal conditioner for them followed by the final rinse of the rosemary conditioner the next time round. Hopefully it helps in Ton Ton's brown spots outbreak.

My own mixture of organic supplement, to replace the dogs' commercial ones. It looks like soil from the picture but it's not. I take it everyday with my oatmeal for lunch.

In the picture, from left to right:

1. Liquorice Hair Soap - Inhibits bacteria growth & inflammation, fights seborrhea & dandruff & useful in reversing the process of balding. For Jeff coz he's dropping a scary amount of hair & his scalp is fast becoming more & more visible.

2. Eucalyptus Soap - Good for skin, athelete's foot, insect bites, rashes & clogged pores. Relieve stress & interrupted sleep. For Jeff as well to help in his allergic rhinitis aka sensitive nose or sinus.

3. Cypress Soap - For acne, nappy rash, bed sores, erythema, sebaceous secretions, skin inflammation & allergic skin. Kills bacteria, stops itching, heals wounds. For the dogs.

4. Lemon Soap (below the Liquorice & Eucalyptus soap) - Removes old skin cells & oily skin, lightens pigmentation & tightens pores, giving a beautiful shine to the complexion. For my terrible skin.

Turning To Herbs

It's really hard to find books on Traditional Chinese Herbs. You need to get 1 that's bilingual or at least, contains the herbs' names in Chinese. That's becoz you can't possibly go to a TCM shop & ask for Solomonseal Rhizome or Panax Notoginseng (which, by the way are 2 common Chinese herbs) & expect the person to know what you want. Also, there're tons of herbs around so you'll just end up getting confused if it's a book meant for the physicians.

I recently bought a soup book from Popular & I really enjoy it. A pity that it's a bit too simple & covers only the most basic herbs & food items. I prepared a simple soup of burdock, corn & hairy gourd (without herbs) last weekend using my newly bought slow cooker. Everyone in the family got a bowl of the tasteless soup (coz I didn't add salt), including the dogs. The dogs got a few small pieces of the burdock & hairy gourd along with a small scoop of soup. Ton Ton drank the soup but left the rest. Every other dog finished up whatver was given to them.

I plan on making Panax Notoginseng (Tian Qi) soup over the weekend. Hehe. There're many other soups which I can't make. Either I can't find the ingredients or the ingredients are too ex. There're many TCM shops around & some herbs you can even get from NTUC (Fairprice brand). I got majority of mine from Eu Yang Seng. Jeff encouraged me to get from them although it's "branded" & significantly more ex. He always like to say, "The price will never lie.".

I hope I have time to pay a visit to the organic shop tomorrow. I lost my packet of organic wolfberry during the move & I'll like to top up on that, as well as shop around for other herbs that I can get. I can't seem to find my membership card & I'm going to look for it now. :(

That Damn Pug

You know, I was taking a shower & thinking about Puggy. It's no secret he makes the most noise whenever he sees the food bowl. But if I'm the 1 feeding him, I always put the bowl in front of him & make him sit stay for a while before allowing him his meal.

After the fiasco this morning, which I find very funny thinking back now, another incident reminds me that the problem lies a lot on my parents. Btw, it was funny coz Jeff was in the toilet in our bedroom when I was woken up by Puggy's non stop barking & whining. I stomped into the kitchen & you know what happened next. But his account was that, there was a lot of noise from Puggy 1 second, & a loud sound (which would be the gate & me falling over) the next & dead silence following immediately. I can just imagine him in the toilet scratching his head & wondering what the hell happened. Hahahaha!

Anyway, later in the afternoon, he did the same thing again, barking & whining. What triggered it off? My dad getting bread to eat. Dog owners will know why. Becoz, they must have been feeding him whenever he makes noise. Dogs are very smart. You do it once & they remember it forever. I make noise when I see you eat & I get a share too. Jeff is the good guy & he talked to my parents nicely many times before about this problem. I'm the bad guy who creates a din about it. Does it help? Apparently not.

Ya, I know the saying "There're no bad dogs, just bad owners.". But it just takes 1 member to break up whatever I've taught them, not to say 2 which is 50% of the human in this household. Anyway, the shock collar is low in batt (it triggers the sound but not the electric shock) which reminds me to replace the batt so I went into the balcony this time to hit him (can't risk the gate falling again).

I did an experiment. I ate bread in front of him too. But he didn't make any noise. So it goes to prove that I'm right. Also becoz he's scared of me lah. I really don't know how to love a dog like him. He'll want to mouth/bite my hand when I want to stroke him. I did everything from pushing my whole hand into his mouth & poking my finger deep down his throat which makes him gag but he still does it. Then, he scratches the hell out of me when I want to carry him to sayang him. All these are from young actually & even after more than a year, he's still like this. What can I do to this stupid dog? He's cute when he's scared. I give him that. But is that the way it's gonna be for the rest of his life? That the only time I find him lovable is when he's scared?

Unlucky Day It Is

1st, some updates. Jeff's trip to Myanmar was cancelled by MOH. So he didn't get to go in the end. Chey... I came to terms that he was leaving & even went to pray for his safety.

Been stressed at work. Everyone just have such high expections of me becoz I have experience. But it's not true. 1st, I left OT almost 3 years ago. Then this is a completely different discipline all together. Everything they taught me is so different from what I learnt. The instruments are different, the way of passing is different. I also need time to learn isn't it? So why are they expecting me to perform after 1 day of teaching? Well, actually, not really "they". It's more like my preceptor.

Anyway, I had a nasty fall this morning. :( Puggy was barking for no reason & nobody bothered to go shut him up. So I went to the kitchen & tried to grab him from behind the baby gate. Ya, so you can guess what happens next bah. The baby gate fell inwards towards the service balcony. As I was leaning on it, I fell together with it. I think I laid there for a few mins coz the pain was so bad.

The only pain I could feel was the 1 coming from my left 2nd toe when in fact, I banged both my knees & my left big toe as well. It was only when the pain finally subsided a bit after 2 hours that I felt the pain from my big toe & there's a cut on the big toe as well. I can't bend both the toes on my left foot. Palpating around, I also found a painful spot on my sole, just below the 2nd toe. Needless to say, my 2nd toe is swollen & bruised.

I can't walk properly & now I'm walking on my left heel. It sucks. When Jeff went out to put the gate back in place (I was writhing in pain in bed by then), my dad said to him, "Aiya, don't know what this Sihui is doing!". Jeff retorted, "She had a fall.". It shut him up for a few seconds before he changed topic. Then later, I overheard him talking to the dogs, "You better ask her to bathe you all. So smelly & dirty!". F*ck him lah! It was my intention to bathe them ok? I just didn't count on the gate falling over & having my toes caught in between the grills as it fell! Idiot!