blog

Exercise website

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:35:50 +0100

A while back I had devised a 20minute home work-out for myself... only my good intentions did not last very long.. as I got bored pretty quickly.
Now I've discovered a whole website of workouts:

www.bodyrock.tv/

These guys have been posting workouts since 2009... so there is plenty to choose from!

... and no excuse not to get your daily exercise!

New Website for Food

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:32:47 +0100

I've started a new website for everything vegetarian

http://thevegetarian.yolasite.com/

...so I'm not going to post any more recipes on this site... check out the new site.. as there are already a heap of recipes on there.

Kangkung

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 06:15:33 +0100

Kangkung Ipomoea aquatica (or asian water spinach) is a very common vegetable throughout Asia. It is easily located in most asian grocery stores.

It is related to the morning glory flower, though to my knowledge the "morning glory" with it's beautiful blue flowers is not edible, while its relative with white flowers is edible.

It is nutritious and easy to cook, see the benefits extolled by the following website:
http://www.kangkungking.com/

It is also quite easy to grow, but requires moist soil with frequent watering. You can either order seeds from online stores such as http://www.greenharvest.com.au/seeds/VegetableLeafyGreens.html ; or you can plant some stems in the ground when you buy the leaves from a grocery store.

There are many asian recipes on the internet, but for a very simple recipe try the stir-fried edible leaves recipe under the recipes section of this blog.

Stirfried Leaves

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:46:13 +0100

This recipe can be used with a variety of different leaves. Try with sweet potato leaves, kankung (chinese water spinach), silver beet leaves.

Ingredients:
2 cups Sweet potato leaves (or other leaf), chopped to inch size
1/2 an onion (red or brown), sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 inch piece of ginger, grated or pulverised or chopped finely
one small tomato chopped to 1/2 inch cubes (don't skin! the skin is good for you)
1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
salt and red chilli flakes to taste

Method:
1. Use the olive oil in a nonstick pan to fry the onion, garlic and ginger until just browning.
2. Add the tomato and stir until softens slightly
3. Add the leaves and stir until just wilting
4. Remove from heat and add salt and chilli to taste

Serve with rice.

Edible Leaves - Sweet Potato leaves

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:54:57 +0100

Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas) is well known to most people, and easily available in most supermarkets. But did you know that the leaves are edible; and not only edible but very healthy and delicious.

I had no idea until my mum served some for lunch yesterday! The young leaves and tendrils are picked and tend to stimulate the plant to grow even more leaves.

The plant is easy to grow - just put some tubers into the ground! (or into a pot if you want to have some control over where it grows) In fact usually, when you leave a sweet potato tuber in your kitchen, sometimes it starts to grow shoots before you get around to cooking it... so just bury it in the ground. If you can get hold of the leaves and stems in an asian grocery, then take a small piece of stem and bury the end in the ground and water. This plant gives you both yams and leaves to eat!

It does require a relatively sunny position, but not much watering. It grows very quickly, providing both leaves and tubers to eat. The tubers have a low glycaemic index compared to normal potatoes, have vitamin A, fibre and complex carbohydrates, the leaves are high in protein and fibre and other vitamins and minerals.

For more information see these websites:
http://www.fao.org/WAIRdocs/x5425e/x5425e0d.htm
http://marcsala.blogspot.com/2006/06/unusual-greens-part-3.html
http://www.happycow.net/blog/?p=52

The roots I think most people would be familiar with. The leaves taste much like Kangkung (a.k.a. asian water spinach), which is another member of the "morning glory" family. All the members of this family have very similar "morning glory" like flowers.

Try the stir-fried leaves recipe for sweet potato leaves courtesy of my mum, posted in this blog under recipes.

Sari

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 02:44:15 +0100

Speaking of new Saris...
This is where I purchased my new sari from:
www.cbazaar.com/

I doubt there are many people who don't know what a sari (or saree) is. It is the traditional dress of most of the subcontinent (India/Sri Lanka/Pakistan/Bangladesh).

It is not easy to find a nice sari when you don't live on the subcontinent, but this website is awesome. They do tend to overdo the decorations from my perspective, I'm sure most people wouldn't mind though. The best things about this company are that:
1. they have a huge range
2. they manage to make well-fitting and very well-made blouses without a "fitting". You simply to do the measurements at home according to the instructions they provide via a pdf file, and submit them when you make your order.
3. they are reasonably priced for anyone who lives in Australia/U.S.A./Canada/U.K.

This is the sari which I purchased (obviously with a model wearing it). So you can see why I chose the blue and gold for the bracelet.

Next project... necklace... still haven't progressed very far with that.

Lapis lazuli bead and wire bracelet

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:56:11 +0100

This is my first attempt at wire jewellery.
Plunging in head first without some sort of instructions is probably not the best method... but I guess I mainly wanted to attempt to make something reasonably pretty to go with a new sari i'd just bought.

The flower is two flower shaped charms bound together with the upper charm crimped and the lower one flat so that it looks like a double petal type flower. Gold wire is passed through the centre of the charms five times to look like stamen.

Search for "wire jewelry" on google images and you will find so many absolutely beautiful pieces! I wish I could make something like that!
The back of the bracelet does not look too good at all! Mainly because my method of keeping the beads in place is to wire them in line and then tie them onto my wrist quite tightly so that they can't swivel around.

Next... to try to make a matching necklace/choker.

The lapis lazuli beads and gold beading wire came from mybeads.com.au

Mallum (Mallung)

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:05:38 +0100

This recipe is a delicious way to optimise your intake of green leafy vegetables. My favourite version is with silver-beet leaves, but it works very well with Kai-Lan (aka chinese broccoli), Kali, brussel-sprouts, broccoli, gotu-kola, cabbage... in short any type of leaf.

Ingredients:
1-2 tsp of oil
1/2 onion -sliced finely
2cups -Leafy vegetable - chopped finely
1 handful -Shredded coconut
1-2 tsp Red chilli
Salt to taste
+/- black mustard seeds
+/- curry leaves

If using brussel-sprouts or cabbage also add a couple of teaspoons of black mustard seeds with the onion.

Make sure the leafy vegetable is chopped very finely. The easiest way is to arrange all the leaves into a sheaf and slice through the sheaf of leaves.

Use a large frying pan or wok. Make sure the pan is big or else the finished dish will be very watery. If you have a non-stick pan you can use very little oil. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion(+/-mustard and curry leaves) until starting to brown, then add the coconut followed by the leafy vegetable and chilli.

Stir the leaves-coconut mixture until the leaves are wilting, add salt, and move to a serving dish before the become over done. The tricky part is to judge when the leaves are cooked, but not to overcook them or else they will lose their colour. The Aim is to have an end-product which is even greener in colour than the fresh vegetable. Taste test and add more salt if necessary.

Enjoy with rice.
:-)

New Dress

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:49:22 +0100

So this dress has taken me about 9months to finish!! And in the process I've also learned to use an overlocker properly..or more properly than before anyway.

This is how i imagined the dress... as a halterneck. The original pattern that I edited into a dress is NewLook pattern 6606. The pattern is a top that flows to hip length and not a halterneck ... so quite a bit of editing was done.

Because I made the tieback straps so long... this meant I could wear it a few different ways too.

Still not sure which variation I like the best!
:-)

Katherine Gorge

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:49:07 +0100

Katherine Gorge in the Northern Territory of Australia.

I've wanted to see this place since I was ten... and finally saw it a few months ago.
The pictures hardly do it justice... there are places that tear you in two... and this is one of them. On the one hand you want to just sit and absorb... but on the other you want to climb up the rocks and see what's on the other side.

You can go kayaking here as well... there are small fresh water crocodiles but no big scary saltwater crocodiles. Next time will have to go kayaking... there will definitely have to be a next time.