Misty loves the homemade cat food and prefers it to her dry kibble. The upside is her fur has grown thicker and with more lustre, and she has put on some weight! It's unbelievable! Initially we had given hope on her thinning fur and thought it was due to old age, she is nearly 11 years old, and just fed her kibble plus cooked chicken when we could. Now, just after a few weeks of solely homemade cat food, she is growing younger and fluffier by day...it's a miracle. Don't add liver to the chicken mix though, we found out that Misty just wouldn't eat it. Keep it simple with just the chicken, steamed carrots, celery and ground eggshells. Just wished that Treacle were alive to share this moment...we miss you, Treacle.
This is the 4th recipe from the Cakes cookbook that I have attempted. The recipe called for almonds in the crumble topping but I substituted with sunflower seeds instead and they turned out crunchy as well. The cake is named Banana Crunch Cake and it has to be cooled in the tin as the crumble would be impossible to flip over, unless using a springform. The bananas I used were the Berangan variety which didn't impart as nice a fragrance as the Doles', so it has to be the latter next time I bake anything with bananas. The cake was amply moist and fragrant with the addition of orange zest, and the raisins inside gave it a surprising tang in each bite. But the best was the crumble topping, it's crunchy and delicious! Will repeat this recipe with better ingredients next time.
Was looking for a recipe to bake and came across a lemon muffin recipe, so I tried it out! The muffins turned out nice aesthetically but because there was no butter in the ingredients, they seem to lack that smooth, salty edge. There are olive oil, buttermilk, eggs, lemon juice and zest, flour, baking powder, salt, honey and sugar in the muffins. Minh liked them regardless but I don't think I shall repeat them.
On another note, I found products that I love recently and would like to share them with you. First is the Irritated Skin Balm by Moogoo, which works very well on Minh's eczema and it's safe, natural and non-toxic. Moogoo's deodorant, aptly named Fresh Cream Deodorant, is the only deodorant that WORKS and does not contain aluminium or harmful chemicals. I have tried most of the organic brands(which gave me redness and itching), and settled for mineral salt crystals but they don't last long and lose their effectiveness in an hour or so. Now I am also using Moogoo's facial cleanser and moisturiser, which I will blog about soon whether they are good or not. Do go to their website for a look. www.moogoo.my And I bought these products on my own, with no sponsorship whatsoever. Another wonderful find is the biodegradable and flushable kitty litter by www.avideco.com.my called Magic Litter. Misty does not use litter as she was trained to use the toilet but for cat owners in condos, this is a super product! My neighbour who is an animal rescuer and cat boarder has 7 cats with her now, and we live in a condo. She has been using this Magic Litter for a week now and I have visited her often to know that the litter does not smell! Usually when I am there, I could smell the pungent odour from the litter boxes, no matter how many times she had cleaned them. Now, the unit is odour-free and the probiotics in the Magic Litter has worked their magic! What a surprise! I strongly recommend this to cat owners as you will be doing the environment a lot of good...Magic Litter is made from recycled wood chips! Isn't that cool?! Update about Magic Litter...my neighbour said that the litter is better for homes with not-too-many cats as the urine does react with the probiotics and generate a sickly sour odour after a week or so. And she wished that the wood chips could be finer as the bigger shards are dangerous for soft kitten paws.
After reading about how much better it is to make your own cat food, I decided to give it a try and it was proven a success! All thanks to the benevolent Dr Chan of www.myanimalcare.org who shared her experiences and recipes.
We bought an antibiotic-free chicken from Jusco, steamed it for half an hour, strip the meat off and blended it with steamed carrot and celery. The vegetable portion should be 5 % of the meat portion, so for a whole chicken, I used one carrot and one rib of celery. I left out the skin and hard bones. I also added the jus from the steaming when blending and some ground eggshells for calcium. My handheld blender proved essential and effective for this job and the texture came out looking like commercial canned cat food.
Most importantly, Misty loves it and looks forward to her mealtimes! We mix the wet food with her kibble so that she still gets her teeth cleaned.
Update on homemade catfood: Misty loves it and won't eat her dry kibble anymore and the best part is, I was combing her fur yesterday and found out her fur has thickened by quite a few degrees! And this has just been about a week of cooked catfood! Please consider cooking for your pet, and you can add vitamins into the cooked food as desired. Taurine, fish oil and calcium pills (if you don't fancy making your own eggshell powder) are some you can consider, just make sure they are pet-grade supplements.
It's been quite some time since I have posted about living green...but we have never stopped and are still going strong. If you are living or working in Malaysia, please these guys a look and call them, they are super! Visit http://www.recycleandreward.my/ They accept most recyclable goods such as paper, cardboard, glass, LIGHT BULBS, metals, plastics, batteries, used computer, etc.
And the best part is, the more you recycle, the more points you collect and exchange for stuff. Yeah, more stuff but I guess it's human nature to want something back...just make sure that you clean and rinse bottles and cans before handing to Recycle and Reward's personnel, they are recycled item collectors, not garbage collectors. Even your garbage has to be properly tied up and lined with newspaper, so that the bags don't leak and make it unpleasant for the workers to handle.
If you have never recycled your everyday refuse or trash, you would never know how much resources and garbage we generate every single day. From the start of your day till the time you hit the hay, there are lots of trash that happened in between.
You wake up, tear that sachet of instant coffee open, reach for your morning cereal or nasi lemak, use a new bar of soap or tube of toothpaste, the parking ticket from the dispensing machine, the clock in card, that big pile of unsigned papers on your desk, the sandwich you bought for lunch, scrunched up paper at the photocopier, kitchen towel you wipe the spilled coffee, the rice you eat for dinner and all the water your consumed or used in between. Everything , I mean everything single item comes with packaging and these packaging suck up resources from our planet.
It's not possible to do away with packaging or even recycle every bit of it, the best thing to do is to recycle what you can and use as little packaging as possible. Tiffin carriers, reusable plastic containers and water bottles, washable cloth napkins and wipes, microfibre mops and washcloths are the must-haves in our lives. And please refuse plastic shopping bags when you and use a fashionable washable shopping bag instead.
Perhaps you don't think it will affect you but please think of your children, family, pets, and all other creatures on this Earth...it's the only one we have and there are no escape routes.
I have been bitten by the baking bug lately and have been scouring the web for cake and cookie recipes. I baked an orange cake with orange buttercream frosting two weeks ago and it was really nice to eat chilled. Sadly, the buttercream melts too quickly at room temperature, which means I have to search for a better recipe. The cake and frosting had quite a bit of grated orange zest in them and every bite is like a burst of fresh orange! There were these cookies not unlike Anzac cookies, but with a hint of sesame seeds inside...they went pretty fast too. I wish I could remember which blog they came from. Also a new favourite is the Banana Choc Chip Bread, which is mainly banana bread with dark chocolate chips inside. Moist, fragrant and totally delicious. Got the recipe from Joy of Baking, one of the best places to find great, tested recipes. And who can resist Ina Garten's chocolate coffee cake? It is simply superb! It's a two step cake and contains a whole cup of brewed coffee inside, so don't eat it at night or you'll be hooting with the owls. On the healthy side, we made okara muffins with the leftover pulp from soyabean drink making. Okara is packed with fibre and vitamins. So that's what I have been up to and will probably continue...much to the ruination of my already ruined figure. Sigh.
A quiet Christmas passed by and it's 2012 already. Time does fly this year, as Chinese New Year is just around the corner and you can sense the urgency of retailers and traders trying their best to keep up! The joyful Christmas decor in all major departmental stores have transitioned to a burst of red everywhere, the official Chinese New Year colour. Boutiques and clothing lines are featuring red and its related shades in their selections...soon the firecrackers will start firing. For Christmas, Jon bought me L'Occitane hand cream which I love and need (no thanks to washing dishes and constant mopping of floors), and Coralyn made all of us ADORABLE hand-sewn owls from felt! They were the best! Coralyn's pressies were books by Alice Sebold and a miniature set that she had to assemble herself. Minh got his new Maisy book and miniature cars, and Jon didn't really get anything as we didn't have a chance to shop for pressies at all...so I gave him my precious Lemongrass soap so he wouldn't feel left out. But he didn't mind at all. Jools gave us really cute Belgium chocolates, such a treat! We took pictures of them before eating the Santa and reindeer...:) I poached a chicken and steamed some bok choy for lunch, which we ate with steamed rice. That was our Christmas lunch and it was good. The rest of the day was spent resting at home and doing nothing, something we never had time for. To usher the new year, Jon bought asian style roast chicken, braised vegetables, indian spiced fried chicken for Minh which we ate with plain rice and call it a feast. We never go out on new year's eve as traffic is crazy and the crowds have a tendency to be unruly. So we spent the entire evening watching television and waiting for the fireworks to start. Minh was awake when the fireworks started, so Jon and Coralyn took him to the 14th floor of our condo to get a better view. I sat in the dark bedroom, watching the fireworks and singing Auld Land Syne to myself...that was good for the soul. I also prayed for peace and serenity. I hope that wars will stop and human beings will start to be kind to each other...happy 2012. Wishing never hurts anyone!
Our balcony faces a secondary jungle which hosts a lot of insects and small creatures and it's not surprise to see amazing moths often. I don't know their names but am always intrigued by their beautiful patterns and colours. My wish is to get a better camera so that I can take clearer pictures for my blogs...one day soon. Coralyn designed and made her own jewelry from recycled copper wire! She used snub-nosed pliers to twist the wire into a necklace, bracelet and ring in a funky modern design, pretty cool! If she still has the interest after her high school education, we may have to think about sending her to learn proper jewelry design and making at a trade school. I'm happy that she is good with her hands, as I am a klutz when it comes to handicraft!  | This online album has 19 photos on SkyDrive. |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | .jpg?psid=1&type=1&Bpub=SDX.Photos&Bsrc=Photomail&parid=76694C596325D658%21416) |  |  |  |  |  |  |
The culinary journey continues and we have been cooking and baking quite a bit. I have to admit, I find myself leaning towards more baking than cooking nowadays, and I don't know why. I think it's a maternal thing to want to bake, as most people tell me baking is like having a baby! Perhaps it's the images that have been projected over the years that good mommies bake for their kids, no thanks to vintage movies and magazines. Although I don't mind looking like those pin-up moms in the 50s with their tiny waists and beautiful coiffed hairdos! Wishful thinking, Lynn...
Made a batch of roasted tomato and garlic pasta sauce, which we added mussels to it and ate it with pasta. Then there was the beautiful Orange Butter Cake with Choc Chips and Raisins, that was good! Jon had us drooling at breakfast one day, when he cooked roasted cubes of potatoes, topped with pan-fried bacon and an egg with runny yolk. I could have that everyday if I weren't watching my weight!
I found a good recipe for banana cake and did my version of Banana Cake with Cream Cheese frosting. It's our new favourite! Megaa, my cat rescuer neighbour, also loved it. Of course, the reliable and constant Roast Chicken, this time marinaded with Jon's sage and rosemary rub and basted with butter while roasting. The next one was breakfast again, with roasted potatoes, pork sausage and a lovely fried egg. We love a hearty breakfast and this was luxury for us, most mornings are toast and butter really. And last but not least, I baked two versions of muffins on the same day, one was Carrot Marmalade and the other was Buttermilk Coconut.
Will continue when I can! Enjoy the pics!
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End of the year again! We are all enjoying Coralyn's school hols and are glad of not having to rush like mad cows in the mornings. After our Fraser's Hill trip, we decided not to go anywhere too far this hols for a few reasons. First, it's too expensive and too much of a hassle to look for cat boarding for Misty; there will be a lot of things to prepare and take along with Minh's needs, the weather has been very unpredictable and severe with massive floods in many states; the condo needs a lot of minor repairs done...the list goes on. And it's more carbon friendly to vacation somewhere close, like Port Dickson or Morib for a day.
The shopping malls have started to deck their event halls with extravagant Christmas decor and I manage to take a few pics of them. One Utama will feature an underwater fairyland, while Midvalley Megamall is a Christmas Maze with a gazebo. For us, it's just another day and hopefully a peaceful and serene one...we are not people who relish parties and boisterous celebrations. For me, all festive seasons should be peaceful and spent with loved ones or unfortunate kids/senior citizens. All the 'presents' that people make a mad dash for during Christmas will inevitable end up in the rubbish dump sooner or later, so to me, the best pressie for Christmas is a good chocolate bar, preferably with recyclable packaging. But that is just me...:P
I wish everyone a peaceful and compassionate Christmas, may it be a day with kind thoughts and good deeds, and no warring or fighting. For the children, I wish them good health and joy, and may they be loved wherever they are.
Merry Christmas to all.
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