Liver Detox

I am doing a liver detox. It involves drinking a concoction of half cup of warm water with organic lemon juice, organic olive oil, organic molasses and organic cayenne pepper! Sounds like something that will send you straight to the throne.

It didn't taste as bad -the lemon juice helped and the molasses took the sting from the juice's acidity. I am supposed to take this first thing in the morning for 10 days and it will help me cleanse, detoxify and strengthen it, allowing my internal system to perform at optimum level, or so the brochure says.

I was advised to do a step by step detox starting with a kidney stone flush, followed by a gall bladder flush and then only with the liver detox but I am a bit gung ho and am going straight for the kill! My liver detox may not be so effective without the gall bladder flush but I am willing to risk it.

This DIY remedy is the formula of Jack Schwartz. I can't seem to find anything on google about this Schwartz guy but I think I can trust the brochure which is published by justlife. I really like the whole justlife concept to natural living.

Going organic or switching to natural living is costly but I know that the end result is it preserves the environment for the next generation.

For those brave enough to try this:-

1/2 cup warm water
2 tbsp organic lemon juice
1 tbsp organic molasses
1tsp organic olive oil
1 pinch cayenne pepper

Drink this mixture first thing in the morning for 10 days continously.

Happy Detoxing!

Keropok Lekor

Keropok lekor is a Malaysian specialty. More specifically, a Terengganu specialty. We had some good lekor at the local golf club the other night. It was very fresh and very crispy on the outside and soft on the inside - just the way we like it. I like lekor with the sweet spicy chili sauce.

Click on the blog title to the Terengganu tourism site to get more details and the recipe.

It doesn't look appetizing but don't let the
looks put you off. Rather fishy if you are not
used to it but we loved it.

Pizza Uno

Pizza Uno has sentimental value to David and I. We had our first date there!

After all these years, it is still a restaurant we head to for great Italian food. The value for money factor has somewhat diminished over the years and we see the prices steadily increasing but I guess this is a general effect of the Malaysian economy. The food has remained consistent which is an important draw of any restaurant.

We are partial to the branch located in Taipan USJ - there are familiar faces there and in our humble opinion, has the better chefs! We have eaten at the Centrepoint branch but wasn't very impressed with the quality.

Now if you are looking for atmosphere, Pizza Uno is not the place to be. It is crowded with small tables and quite noisy when all the tables are occupied but it has its own charm. The people who frequent the restaurant know what to expect and that is good food.

We have our favorites and tend to stick to them! We are always reluctant to try something else especially when we have a craving for a certain dish. At one time David and I were crazy about the pasta with boscaiola sauce which is made with loads of fresh mushrooms. Then we switched to the ravioli. Actually I was stuck on the ravioli for the longest time. And I love the tiramisu - the authentic type and not the cake version.

On our recent visit, with Micah in tow, we had a quick lunch and enjoyed ourselves very much.

David ordered the ravioli which is stuffed
with chicken and mushroom in a very delicious
creamy tomato sauce and sundried tomatoes.

I decided to go for the spaghetti vongole which
was served with so many fresh clams.
I chose the light white wine sauce over the tomato base sauce.

Aah! Tiramisu....
I can only take this in the afternoons
since the sponge base is soaked with what I
would describe as strong coffee and having it at night
would keep me up. Good thing, it was lunch!

David had pancakes....what else!

Rakuzen

Japanese! Again?

I just love Japanese food and since it was my cousin's treat it was hard to refuse. I've eaten a few times at Rakuzen but discovered 2 new dishes ordered by my cousins. One is the salad which was really sinful. Drowned in a very rich creamy sauce, the salad is made with fresh lettuce, cabbage, crab meat, fish roe and also a few slices of salmon sashimi. It not only appetizing but was a sight to behold.

Then there was natto. How could we eat Japanese without an order of something natto. June ordered natto with lotus root. Crunchy lotus root with lots of natto and some seaweed and mint leaves. A very interesting combination. I found the lotus root a bit salty from the soy sauce but love the combo of soft natto beans with the textured root.

For mains, I always go for chirashi sushi which is sushi rice topped with a selection of raw fish and seafood with tamago - I think this is probably the most reasonably priced dish in any Japanese restaurant if you are a fan of vinegared sushi rice and raw fish. Ordering sashimi always sets you back a lot but with chirashi sushi you get the best of everything for a lot less.

But I spotted Inaniwa noodles from the menu and not a lot of Japanese restaurant serve this. I like this better than soba noodles and I like it served cold dipped into shoyu with wasabi, some finely grated radish and seaweed. A really refreshing choice.

We also ordered grilled mackerel. They did it very well - grilled to perfection. Crispy skin and succulent, juicy meat on the inside. Squeeze some lemon on it before digging in - excellent. I kept going hmmm...yum....hmmm...yum....hmmm...

It was a great meal with even better company.

A wholesome salad with a rich dressing

Cold inaniwa udon

Lotus root with natto beans

Grilled saba (mackerel) fish

Chirashi sushi

Natto sushi

Nyonya Rice Dumplings

I like anything with glutinous rice except when it is teamed with coconut. By itself, the rice is very fragrant and full of flavor and seem to soak up all the tastes of any ingredient it is cooked with.

Mom bought some glutinous rice dumplings the other day. Nyonya rice dumplings to be precise. It's filling is sweet minced pork with mushrooms and doesn't have the traditional ingredients of the zong zi like salted duck egg yolk, chestnuts or mung beans.

I have no idea why the one she bought has a tinge of blue but I think it's the same bunga telang coloring used for nasi kerabu. It doesn't really add to the taste. I guess it's just for decoration? Not all Nyonya rice dumplings are so colored.

I'm still not quite sick of the zong zi yet although I've had it for lunch for the past 2 days! The only not so nice thing about eating too much glutinous rice is that it is bad for my digestion :(

Cafe on the Tenth

It was an all girls' night out to celebrate my cousin's birthday. Mom was nice enough to babysit and for the first time I was out for a record time of 5 hours.

It was a buffet and what a spread there was. I am really into the cold cuts, salads and the raw stuff. Oysters and salmon galore. I must say that they kept the oyster supply coming the whole night. They were fresh and with an extra dash of tabasco sauce, tastes divine.

I never liked fresh oysters until I discovered how well it goes with tabasco and a squeeze of lemon. I think between all the ladies and I, we probably ate several dozens. Some of us started with oysters and ended the meal with oysters!

The dessert spread was pretty good. I have to confess I had 2 servings of caramel custard, mango and bread butter pudding plus a selection of cakes as well :)

There were mini cream puffs as well! Made with fresh cream - my favorite. The other ladies preferred custard filling but not me. Alas, the choux puffs were a bit disappointing - a tad dry. Still I managed to stuff some down!

While I was chowing down, Micah was apparently fretting at home, not wanting to sleep at all. Oh dear! Somehow, Mom got him to sleep by the time I got home which was not late - not even Cinderella late, so all was well.

Fresh seafood

Oysters!

Salmon sashimi

Semolina Cake

This has got to be my favorite cake. Not only has it got sentimental value - this was my wedding cake, it is also because I love that it is very moist, grainy and has a very buttery taste.

I've baked it too many times and on this occasion when my sister wanted to bake a butter cake, I requested for semolina instead. I was also eager to try taking some pictures with the camera to see how it would turn out.

It was easy work since my sister helped measure out all the ingredients and set up the Kenwood cake mixer which by the way is probably as old as I am! My dad fixed it up a few times over the years and it still works. The only problem is that we can only set it at one speed! No matter - we just had to be careful when sifting in the flours!

Semolina

Testing out the camera

Our very ancient cake mixer which
cost my Mom her whole month's salary back in the '70s

Ta dah!
Cake broke into half despite all efforts to keep it
whole when transferring.
It was good! We polished it off within a day.

Ingredients
250g butter
250g castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
50g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
175g semolina
100g almonds, chopped finely
5 eggs (separate yolk from white)

Method
Line and grease a 21cm square baking tin. Preheat oven to 180ºC. Cream butter, sugar and essence until fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift in flours and stir in semolina gradually. Beat egg whites until just stiff and stir into creamed butter mixture. Finally, add the chopped almonds.Bake for 45-55 minutes or until cake is cooked when tested with a wooden skewer. Place cake on wire rack to cool.

Preserved Vegetable with Pork Belly

My favorite Hakka dish is braised preserved vegetables with pork belly. Mom used to make a huge pot of it and we could eat it for days. It tastes the best on the last day when the vegetable has soaked up all the flavor of the sauce.

Get the recipe from Lily's Wai Sek Hong. It's where I find great traditional Chinese dishes.