Beauty Haul

Finally went shopping... hippeee...

I got the Cle De Peau eye essence as my current eye essence is running low and at the same time, I can't resist and bought their concealer as I've heard such good reviews about it. It's quite a good deal. In Singapore, we can only get Cle De Peau's products at Takashimaya DS. For an initial purchase of SGD150, you can register as a member. The perks of a member is quite good, you get 3 free facials at Cle De Peau per year. That's great, no? I get to save some money to purchase more stuff (hahahaha). For every purchase amount to SGD250, you are entitled to a facial that inclues a mask service. Now, I've got 4 free facials to go to. The only down side is that you need to accumulate SGD1,000 in purchases every year to remain as a member.

Brought some eye masks from Face shop as well. Regretted not getting more in Korea. It costs so much more here. But I was sweet talk to top-up my purchases to SGD120 to get some nifty free gifts (I'm such a sucker for GWP).

I also bought the can-make lip concealer (to create a nuke look) and a Japn drugstore brand lip gloss - Makemaia Curvy Lip Silicon in Mellow Beige that is purported to make your lips look so plump and Angelina Jolie-like. The canmake lip concealer is very pigmented and it works will to create the nuke look that I want.

These are the swatches of the two lippies.


The applicator of the Japan brand lip gloss is quite strange, unlike other lip glosses.


My purchases...

My free gifts...

Life span of a cattle

An excerpt from The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

"In my grandfather's time, cows were four or five years old at slaughter," Rich explained. "In the fifities, when my father was ranching, it was two or three years old. Now we get there at fourteen or sixteen months." Fast food, indeed. What gets a steer from 80 to 1,100 pounds in fourteen months is tremendous quantities of corn (not their natural diet, they grazed on grass), protein and fat supplements (used to from remains from slaughtered cows but is banned due to mad cow disease), and an arsenal of new drugs.

Isn't this crazy? Are humans trying to play God here? I know this is a way of feeding the whole population but do we want an unhealthy one? It doesn't bear to know how detrimental is it to our health to eat something "mutant" (I view a cow at 14-16 months the size of a full grown adult cow as a mutant. :P)

Do we have to stop eating beef? Personally, I would not eat beef now but it's a personal choice. Thus, I feel that it may be wise to find other source of beef - grass-fed beef that is less detrimental to our health.

A recent study in The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that the meat of grass-fed livestock not only had substantially less fat than grain-fed meat but the type of fats found in grass-fed meat were much healthier. Grass-fed meat has more omega 3 fatty acids and fewer omega 6, which is believed to promote heart disease. It also contains betacarotine and CLA, another ”good” fat.

Also, note that grass is cow's natural diet so you would not get too wrong there. Unless, the ranchers and breeders had also injected them with growth hormones.

Any thoughts on this?

Chocolate Cookies

Another attempt in trying something from 101cookbooks and its Itsy Bitsy Chocolate Chip Cookie caught my eyes (and my tummy :P).

As I wasn't able to get all the ingredients from my local organic foodstore, I made some substitutes (and little tweaks to the composition).

• 135g Lindt Dark Chocolates (70%) for 5 ounces good-quality semi-sweet chocolate bar (Scharffen Berger 62%)
• unbleached baking flour (organic) for whole wheat pastry flour
• normal sugar for natural cane sugar (or brown sugar)
• natural grain sugar (it's the largest grain sugar at the store =P) for large-grain sugar

Instead of whisking together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, oats, walnuts, and shaved chocolate, I merely mixed them up with a spoon.

The dark chocolates give a slight bitter taste, which is balanced out by the sugar sprinkles (and the other sugar ingredients), to the cookies.

I was too lazy to measure and flatten out the dough, I just plonked small heaps on dough onto the baking tray thus I had to adjust the baking time. :)


The final product. Hurray!!

What's for dinner tonight

Decided to try my hands in making Chunky Celery Soup (from 101cookbooks) for dinner tonight. And it's the first time that I'm using wild rice as an ingredient. So excited.

I'm quite happy with the outcome. The wild rice added texture to the soup which tastes great with each spoonful. Yum.

I've cooked the wild rice in an electric rich cooker and I was worried would not work. I was relieve when t gave off a very nice nutty aroma that fills the whole house beautifully.

I made some baked-fried chicken to satisfy the carnivorous mister at home. I seasoned them with Shao Xing wine, soy sauce, rosemary and a dash of sesame seed oil the night before. I baked them for about 10 minutes on each side in a 180 degrees oven. It turned beautifully golden brown.
These 2 dishes go great with steamed brown cum white rice.

Hope you enjoy my post today. :)

My Quick Simple Meatless Lunch

I made some soba noodles with napa cabbages, tofu, wakame and chinese parsley. Only the soba noodles are organic. The noodles store well and make a quick meal.

I've used Kallo Yeast Free Vegetable Stock Cubes for my soup base. I've used only a quarter cube to about 300ml of water. The cubes does not contain salt that I like as I can adjust the saltiness according to my liking. I just switched to using sea salt in my cooking after reading lots of report and articles regarding regular table salt. Also, I'm trying to cut down on consuming processed food due to my condition (GIST - gastro-intestinal stroma tumor).

I've bought these cubes at Meidi-Ya Supermarket at Liang Court at their organic food section. I can't recall the exact amount I've paid for it but it should be in the region of SGD8-10.


I love shopping at Meidi-Ya and its adjacent drug store as it carries lots of Japan imported beauty products. :)

To the soup base, I added napa cabbage (about 3 "leaves"), Tung-I tofu (made from non-GMO soy beans) for protein, enoki mushroom (love them), chinese parsley (for the fragrance and crunch) and sliced chilli padi (for the spiciness and color).

I do not cook my chinese parsley directly in the soup base, I just chopped them up and placed them in my bowl, I'll then ladle the noodles and broth directly onto them.


It takes less than 10 minutes for my lunch to be ready and it provides me with all the necessary nutrients - carbohydrates (soba noodles), protein (tofu) and fibre (vegetables).

Organic Store Haul

Finally, I dragged my lazy butt to the organic store to replenish on the brown rice that I'm running low. In the end, I brought so much more as the prices at the organic store is quite reasonable. I bought 8 organic apples for $3.50 which is similar to 5 regular apples going for $2.50 at the supermaket. The benefit (and the sweentness and juicies) from the organic apples certainly outweigh the slightly difference you have to pay.



The Lindt chocolates are not organic too. I've bought it to make some chocolate cookies. The baking will have to be postponed I could not get any vanilla essence.