The Household COO

Welcome to my blog. These are the memoirs of an undomestic goddess who went from a high flying corporate career to stay-at-home-Mum. Join me as I learn about Chinese culture, how to cook and decorate a home. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I saw an entry on John Chow’s blog recently about a lovely house he was looking at in Whitby Estates and it reminded me that I haven’t been doing my homework for our own house that has just been completed.  To be honest, I was actually spurred by the picture of the kitchen that he posted.  Although it is the sort of kitchen layout I would love in our home, I would still opt for a more modern cabinet design – the type where you can’t see the handles, like the ones pictured below from Trendir:

I want soft close cabinets so that when you swing the door shut, it doesn’t slam.  I also prefer the lacquer finish rather than wooden cabinets, although for a while there I was thinking about wood.  As much as I love the all-white finish, I realise the impracticalities of having white kitchen cabinets, especially when you’re planning a home with young children.  A better bet would be to go for off-white:

I’m kind of fond of black, too, but I’m worried that too many dark colours in the house attract mozzies.  Then again, this kitchen design taken from Freshome looks great, don’t you think?

In fact, this design looks like it would fit our house plan pretty nicely.  We have space for an island and a single wall for the cabinets to be lined against because the room design is an open concept with the kitchen connecting to the living and dining.  I also think it is more practical to have floor to ceiling cabinets so you don’t have to worry about cleaning above the cabinets where dust collects.

We purify our water before drinking it and sometimes even our air.  Now there’s a device to purify our food before we eat it.  The Okamizu Food Detoxifier claims to be 99% effective in removing pesticides, antibiotics, carcinogens, preservations, colouring, chemicals, bacteria and other harmful substances that cling to the foods we eat on a daily basis.

They have been running demonstrations in places like Home Fix and it caught my interest because of the claim on being able to remove pesticides.  Since we started juicing our fruits with the skin on, one of my concerns has been the increased consumption of pesticides.  Although I thoroughly wash my fruits and veggies before blending them, sometimes even with fruit and veggie cleaners (it’s said that if you wash your fruits with a bit of soap, you can usually get rid of most of the pesticides on the skin), fruits like blueberries, raspberries, grapes and strawberries are a little harder to clean.  Plus, having more surface area, they probably contain a much higher level of pesticides.  Then again, the benefits of eating these fruits and vegetables are supposed to outweigh the disadvantages of these contaminants…

The Okamizu is supposed to be the solution to this dilemma.  Approved by the FDA, they claim to have several studies conducted by various laboratories, Universities and the manufacturer proving its efficacy, however, I’ve only seen one paper.  It uses ozone to clean.  All you need is the device and a bowl of water. Fruits and veggies take 15 minutes to clean, meat takes 30 minutes to clean.  After cleaning, the food is supposed to taste sweeter, fresher, crunchier, etc.  They also claim that the food shelf life is increased after cleaning.

Although it looks like an interesting device with some pretty attractive claims, I’m not sure I am convinced to part with RM1.7k to buy this device.

The firstime I ever saw a Dragon Fruit was when I was shopping in the supermarket shortly after returning to Malaysia to work.  It looked interesting so I bought some to try.  The taste was rather reminiscent to the kiwi fruit in terms of texture and the little black seeds, although without the tang.  They come in different colours – white, red and yellow, but I’ve only ever seen the red and white ones.

Here is some interesting information on this fruit that I received through email:

Also known as the Dragon Fruit, the Pitaya is a beautiful fruit with an intense colour and shape, magnificent flowers and a delicious taste. The fruit has a high water content and is rich in vitamins and minerals. With a lightly sweet taste, it is good for the liver, acts as a laxative by supplementing fiber and is a very suitable fruit for dieters.

Dragon fruit is also recommended for people with high blood pressure.  There is a belief that the regular consumption of dragon fruit can help a person reduce weight naturally with many beneficial effects upon his/her health.  Eating this fruit is also believed to reduce diabetes, making it a popular fruit especially among Asians.

Benefits of eating the Dragon Fruit:

1. Enhance the body’s metabolism (Protein)
2. Improve digestion (Fiber)
3. Reduce Fat (Fiber)
4. Improve memory (Carotene)
5. Maintain the health of the eyes (Carotene)
6. Strengthen bones and teeth development (Calcium)
7. Tissue development (Phosphorus)
8. Help to metabolise carbohydrates and produce energy (Vitamin B1)
9. Improve appetite (Vitamin B2)
10. Moisturise and smoothen skin and decrease bad cholestrol level (Vitamin B3)
11. Improves the immune system and promotes healing of cuts and bruises (Vitamin C)

USEFUL TIPS:

How to Select and Store

They should be full-colored and free of moldy spots. Dragon Fruit should be refrigerated, unwashed, for up to 5 days. Serve chilled.

Dragon Fruit Pizza Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 package of ready to use pre-made sugar cookie dough
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 3 dragon fruit, peeled and sliced
• 3 kiwi, peeled and sliced
• 1 cup strawberries, hulled and cut in half
• 1/4 cup apricot glaze

Method:

1. Roll out cookie dough into a 12 inch round.
2. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.
3. Allow to cool completely.
4. Meanwhile, prepare fruit by washing and slicing it into 1/4 inch slices.
5. Cream together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon jucie.
6. When the crust is cool, top with the cream cheese mixture.
7. Lay fruit in a circle on top of the cream cheese mixture.
8. Spread apricot glaze over fruit.
9. Chill until ready to serve.

I used to blend my avocados with a bit of milk, a banana and some oats (and maybe a little honey).  Beyond that I never really got too adventurous with my smoothies when I was adding avocados to the mix.  So recently I decided to be a little more daring and made this:

• one montel banana
• 4 Tbsp oats
• 1 cup milk
• 4 Tbsp Ski Divine Strawberry yoghurt
• 4 strawberries
• a handful of frozen blueberries
• 1 plum
• 6 frozen cherries
• 10 red globe grapes
• 1 avocado

I’ve made this recipe before but without the avocado.  It tastes pretty much the same except you can taste the hint of avocado with an extra creaminess.  Nice!

Just a few more discoveries: 

Cold Storage in Great Eastern Mall sells the cheapest frozen blueberries at about RM18+ – surprise, surprise (I always thought Cold Storage was over-priced in everything). 

Mercato in Pavillion no longer sells frozen raspberries – dang!  Sometimes you can get pretty cheap Montel bananas (price comparable to the markets).

Jusco Supermarket recently had some really cheap and nice strawberries from NZ going at RM7.90 for a small punnet (normal price is RM8.90) – I bought 4 punnets and froze them.

When I was a kid, I hated having to wear glasses because I thought they were so uncool.  I was already a nerd so I didn’t need any additional eyewear announcing further geekiness.  Besides, back then a lot of the frames aren’t as hip or funky as the ones you see these days.  So when I got to Uni, I managed to talk my parents into letting me get a pair of contact lenses.  Somewhere in the middle of my five year course at Uni, I discovered I wasn’t really against the idea of wearing glasses.  What I didn’t like was not being able to see if I lost my glasses.

A few more years after that, I started to get lazy with the contact lenses and would only put them on if I was doing sports.  Since I was quite active in sports, it meant wearing them quite often.  Now that I hardly ever do any sports, I only wear contacts on special occasions when I want to be vain.  In fact, I quite enjoy wearing glasses now – especially having different pairs of funky coloured frames so I can alter my “look” whenever I feel like it.

It used to be really expensive to get a pair of prescription glasses so I only ever had one set – the one I was wearing.  My backup would be the old set I had before my prescription had changed.  Nowadays, you can get some really affordable prescription eyewear online.  How affordable?  Try $8.  Yes, there’s no typo there – you can get a pair of prescription eyewear (lens included) for as little as $8.  And if you want to add anti-reflective and anti-radiation coating to your lenses, it is an additional $4.95 – what a bargain!  Sunglass tint is another $4.95.  I seriously don’t think it gets any cheaper than this.

So where can you get them from?  Zenni Optical.

Maybe it’s time I try for a new look and get myself a pair of Holiday frames?  What do you think of these:

or these:

I’ve got blue frames, red frames and rimless frames, so I thought perhaps it might be time for a pair of green frames.